Shik
Starship database: completed; History of Starfleet: done; website: probably never
Member # 343
posted
This is a blog entry written by a friend about Congress's killing the Net Neutrality act:
Thanks to the greedy, self-important pricks in Washington, it failed....again.
I watched some of the debate on C-SPAN last night...utterly disgusting. No matter what arguments were made, all you heard was MONEY, MONEY, MONEY from these politicians. At one point, some Republican hack was whining about VoIP being free of the Universal Service Charge crap we already see on our phone bills. Aww, too bad, a-hole, you have to do with less money?
A two-tier internet IS coming, specifically designed to limit access to certain types of information and sites containing that information. It's the American version of Chinese content control, but packaged differently enough so that our dopey-ass public won't know what's happening...that is, until they try to access their favorite alternative media news site or other "premium" bookmark and find they have to pay more to view it.
A lot of these elitist politicians HATE the fact that we are free to view information from diverse sources and discuss events online, that bloggers can freely criticize without editorial filters and catch their dirty little secrets...they want to rein it in any way they can. And they are. The plug is about to be pulled on the free-for-all nature of the internet, all because we dare to explore ideas beyond what the evening news or corporate newspaper feed us. The serfs have had it too good for far too long, and the lords want their power back.
Now, his post was the first I'd ever HEARD of "net neutrality" ANYthing....& then to top it off, I found this:
Court backs government broadband wiretap access WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court on Friday upheld the government's authority to force high-speed Internet service providers to give law enforcement authorities access for surveillance purposes.
-------------------- "The French have a saying: 'mise en place'—keep everything in its fucking place!"
Registered: Jun 2000
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posted
What did Scotty say in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock? "The more they overthink the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain."
There will always be enough free thinking hacker nerds out there to overcome anything the government tries to impose in the way of the 'internet' and online 'freedom of speech'. It is the way of the future and you can't let any greasy fat dirty corrupt morally bankrupt politician tell you otherwise.
-------------------- "Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica." - Jim Halpert. (The Office)
posted
What? The government wants to control the net for their own purposes... by implementing new systems of 'tiers' - the 'net has become it's own entity and well - no one can really control it - and if they try there will always be a subset of people who will create something similar but bypasses what ever has been put inplace to stop it. I.e. napster etc.
Why doesn't it apply?
-------------------- "Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica." - Jim Halpert. (The Office)
posted
Because you've got the situation reversed. The internet is "neutral" in the sense being used, today, only because that's how things were set up by engineers in the beginning. (And because the technologies necessary to perform the deep examination and sorting of packets have only recently come into being.) What "the" government has done here is reject codifying this de facto setup.
posted
I'll read that guys blog in a sec but - isn't anything done buy "the government" - the US government going to only apply to sites in their country - rather like the Chinese filtering content. The rest of the world wouldn't be affected as the 'net has become a global phenomena?
-------------------- "Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica." - Jim Halpert. (The Office)
Cartman
just made by the Presbyterian Church
Member # 256
posted
You don't understand. "Net neutrality" is not about the protocols and the hardware. It means there is no discrimation (filtering, censoring, ...) of the contents of IP packets being transmitted based in any way on commercial or political interests. What Congress has done by explicitly NOT formalizing this principle as law is to open the door to exactly that kind of abuse, which indirectly DOES affect the rest of the world.
(Also, "that guy" is Tim Berners-Lee. Maybe you've heard of him.)
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted
I thought it was - but I couldn't see his name on the site - it was a bit of a give-away when he said "When, seventeen years ago, I designed the Web, I did not have to ask anyone's permission."
Now I see it says timbl's blog.
-------------------- "Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica." - Jim Halpert. (The Office)
posted
I agree with Cartman, a billion plus minds adding to the worlds thought process are cut off from sites, like this one, debating politics and expressing what it means to have freedom in a democracy.
So the filtration being done on the Chinese is having an adverse affect on you already, missing out on possibly great ideas that these people may be having. Heck, the next Great Bird may be in some small village in the middle of China, but since his idea is not within Party lines he can not get it out.
Imagine what Flare would be like if someone filtered out Lee, or Liam? Well, a blessing, to be sure, but not the same Flare either.
-------------------- "You are a terrible human, Ritten." Magnus "Urgh, you are a sick sick person..." Austin Powers A leek too, pretty much a negi.....
Registered: Sep 2000
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WizArtist II
"How can you have a yellow alert in Spacedock? "
Member # 1425
posted
What's also being overlooked is the ISP devilry. The perfect example is AOL. When you sign up for AOL, they provide you with internet access but they also provide you with THEIR content. IIRC in the beginning, AOL didn't even access the true internet, it was its own separate net community. When you search on AOL, they prioritize their functions, their partner companies products first ( as does most search engines today ) and other content last. What the absence of net neutrality will allow them to do is to throttle information you receive. Say you find something you want to access on a site that hasn't paid the premium to be high on that ISP's list. Instead of opening that site and getting 300KB/s download they can downgrade you to 5KB/s simply because that site isn't on its high end "Priority" list. Your options will be to find another source for the information (an APPROVED provider) or suffer the slow loading speeds. This is a form of economic censure AND blackmail. As I mentioned above, search engines have been discriminating their data for years and making a killing, now the ISP's want to do the very same thing. And, of course, this doesn't EVEN scratch the potential abuse by governments.
-------------------- There are 10 types of people in the world...those that understand Binary and those that don't.
Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
AOL did use caching servers, I do not know if they still do though. Where I lived in the sticks though getting an AOL account and makeing a call down state, or out of state, was the only way to connect. What, only a little over a decade ago that was.
The throttling I had never heard of. Although with SBC becoming AT&T the connection service for DSL has gone from okay for DSL to really good for dial up.
I can hit the Add Reply button and it will tell me server not resolved. mmm, I am here, making the freaking post, aren't I? Of course, getting this resolved has been a walk through the minefield, but hey, it's their ear's that get the abuse.
I used to think the movies showing the one or two huge corporations running the world was far fetched, but no more.
-------------------- "You are a terrible human, Ritten." Magnus "Urgh, you are a sick sick person..." Austin Powers A leek too, pretty much a negi.....
Registered: Sep 2000
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WizArtist II
"How can you have a yellow alert in Spacedock? "
Member # 1425
posted
Welcome to Weyland/Yutani...
Press 1 for incubation initiation, press any other key for incubation initiation.
-------------------- There are 10 types of people in the world...those that understand Binary and those that don't.
Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Ritten: I agree with Cartman, a billion plus minds adding to the worlds thought process are cut off from sites, like this one, debating politics and expressing what it means to have freedom in a democracy.
See sometimes the net to me sounds like a primitive version of the Borg collective - not with the whole bad - loss of free will etc - but that you have a link of millions of minds across the globe, granted we aren't pouring into each others minds but we aren't sitting there at our computers reading stuff out aloud to people - a lot of it is straight from the mind to the net.
Registered: Mar 1999
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Da_bang80
A few sectors short of an Empire
Member # 528
posted
It's kind of scary to think that in a decade or so, we may be able to access the internet with only our minds and a computer implant. Someone might create a computer virus that fries your brain. Or uploads dirty perverted anime furry dickchick fantasies into your head. Now THAT'S scary!
-------------------- Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. The courage to change the things I cannot accept. And the wisdom to hide the bodies of all the people I had to kill today because they pissed me off.
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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