[Cialug] OT: Deep packet inspection meets 'Net neutrality, CALEA

[David Bierce]

I read it all, but I do deep Packet Inspection all day and have the  
patience ;)


On Jul 30, 2007, at 10:55 PM, Todd Walton wrote:

> Now what did I go and do that for?  Just as soon as I hit send I
> thought, "Nobody's going to read that long thing."  I know I often
> skip long posts.
>
> Release early, release often.  Or something like that.
>
> -todd
>
>
>
> On 7/30/07, Todd Walton <tdwalton at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 7/28/07, Brandon Griffis <brandongriffis at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> local/smaller stores.  Walmart comes in, undercuts everyone and  
>>> takes a loss
>>> at that store for 5-8 years.  Then when all the other businesses  
>>> go backrupt
>>> they jack up their prices and in many cases destroy the town.
>>
>> Indianola has one single general department store, and that's
>> Wal-Mart.  And yet the prices I find there are just the same as in  
>> Des
>> Moines.
>>
>> But whatever.  I've argued this a thousand other times and this is
>> probably not the place for a thousand and one.
>>
>>> Iowa is actually a great example of government doing a good job with
>>> utilities.  The state having laid quite a lot of the fiber that  
>>> is used.
>>
>> Government here *has* laid a lot of fiber.  Can't really argue  
>> with that.
>>
>>> Also I would say that the government breaking up the bell company  
>>> did quite
>>> a lot for moving tech forward.  I certainly like no longer having  
>>> to "rent"
>>> my corded telephone.
>>
>> The government was slapping a kludge onto a problem they had created
>> in the first place.
>>
>>> by "types" I mean similar functions.  I mean it as generally and  
>>> as open to
>>> interpretation as possible.
>>
>> But that's my point.  Regulations open to interpretation are no
>> regulations at all.  They are the bane of civilized society, and this
>> has been recognized in explicit form since at least the time of
>> Hammurabi.
>>
>> You can't just write laws for some vague notion of the way things
>> ought to be and then find your lawbreakers *after* the fact.   
>> There is
>> a notion of justice in this country that it should apply equally to
>> all.  You can't apply a law equally if it's only after the supposed
>> crime that you make the decision of how it applies.
>>
>> In the case of the Internet we've come from multiple protocols to The
>> Web to Rule Them All, and now we're headed back again with  
>> BitTorrent,
>> streaming video and audio, RSS feeds, and so on.  We have news sites
>> that are blogs and blogs that are news sites.  There are product  
>> sites
>> and sites about products and sites that advertise products.  There  
>> are
>> sites that stream video and sites that host files, sites that have  
>> web
>> pages of content and sites that serve that content through web
>> services.
>>
>> If our government tells ISPs they can't differentiate traffics of the
>> same "type" or "function" the world will not end.  But this is what
>> *will* happen.  ISPs will feel like they've been given a pass to
>> differentiate between non-similar "types" or "functions" and they'll
>> start doing so.  It'll become widespread and we'll have only niche
>> market ISPs that advertise that they don't do that.
>>
>> There'll be lawsuits.  Customers will charge companies with slowing
>> down their access to a site that's obviously of the same "type" as
>> another.  It'll be left to the judge to decide if they really are
>> similar "types".  In the next four or five years, maybe less, it'll
>> all be hashed out and everyone will "know" what type of traffic such
>> and such is because it will fit into a neat little pigeonhole that
>> ISPs, judges, and consumers have created.
>>
>> Any new protocol or service or site will be created to fit the  
>> market,
>> which is to say it will be pigeonholed.  You have to help consumers
>> understand what your product is and you have to have a reasonable
>> expectation of how your service or the like is going to be handled by
>> your customers' ISPs.  And so you lose some of the creativity and
>> innovation that have so far made the Internet so empowering.
>>
>> You want government to type network traffic and I think that's best
>> left to the consumers of that traffic to decide what it means to  
>> them.
>>  This isn't brain surgery.  Nobody's going to die if there are
>> casualties who get a fuzzy connection on their VoIP phone.  If people
>> are really pissed about this let them take it to the courts and hash
>> it out on a contract by contract basis.
>>
>> What you look for in an Internet provider is just perhaps not what  
>> I'm
>> looking for.
>>
>>> Contract between who?
>>
>> The customer and the provider, of course.
>>
>>> And who's to say that a contract will be acceptable to all sides?
>>
>> Those who signed on the dotted line, of course.  That's what  
>> accepting
>> a contract means.
>>
>> -todd
>>
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