Net neutrality ruling

Anyone else extremely upset about the ruling today?

Also, people in other countries that don’t have legislation such as net neutrality, how does it affect you as a programmer? I’m curious about both pros and cons. Thanks!

6 Likes

Chairman Pai had a good point that the media discussed absolutely worse case scenarios. That does not mean that the ruling today is okay, this always has and always will be an issue that in the end gets addressed by congress. Several things can change today’s ruling before it becomes harmful. I’m optimistic that the fight isn’t over. This isn’t the end of the world, at least not yet. Keep being optimistic, keep coding, and know that good people are out there fighting to minimize the damage deregulation can do.

Pros:

  • Fast lanes for certain services. Medical apps that are life critical and time sensitive would benefit from priority routing or dedicated infrastructure. You can wait an extra 100ms for Netflix to load a video if it means someone doesn’t die.

Cons:

  • ISPs could legally block or slow down content. Hopefully this will be kept to a minimum slow down i they choose to do so. For example small video streaming sites taking an extra 100ms so priority traffic can be transferred first. The bad part is they can slow it down as much as they’d like or even block entirely. It’d be a PR disaster for the companies - but people in small areas have the choice of one provider or no provider.

If you are worried I recommend calling your congressmen and congresswomen and asking for a congressional review, you can write them physical mail or email. Last but not least you can donate to FightForThe Future (https://donate.fightforthefuture.org/#page-1) so they can reach more Americans and inspire more change.

I hope my post offers some spective on this issue and happy coding :slight_smile:

6 Likes

There were already provisions under Wheeler’s net neutrality regulations that allowed for certain services, most notably remote medical systems, to be prioritized. Truth is, there are literally no pros to this recent ruling, unless you’re an executive of a large ISP :money_mouth_face::money_mouth_face::money_mouth_face:

I was mentally prepared, so “upset” isn’t quite the right word, but I’m certainly unhappy.

8 Likes

What about the privacy protections that will come back?

1 Like

I appreciate your optimism because I’m definitely on the more pessimistic side. :stuck_out_tongue: I don’t trust Pai, and I think this article https://wccftech.com/net-neutrality-abuses-timeline/ is a good indicator of what will likely happen if the ruling isn’t reversed.

I have already texted and called my congress folks and I’m going to continue.

3 Likes

Yeah, to be honest, I tried to block out the fact that it was something that was likely going to happen, and kept pretending it wouldn’t get passed, because I’m bad at dealing with things. But I feel ya.

2 Likes

… the what now? I’ve only heard the opposite - Sections 201 and 222 of the Communications Act requires ISPs to take reasonable measures to protect their user’s data, and the Open Internet act used Title II regulations to maintain transparency. These are all going away now, so ISPs can sell our personal data without permission or recourse. Are there other changes I’m not aware of?

1 Like

There exists on Android, an application that sends fake data to applications that have no business accessing that data.

I believe the solution, is a renaissance of software that fakes or hides user data, or something similar. The data then becomes useless to the ISP, just like on android.

A few ISPs may have a monopoly on the ISP business, but they do not have a monopoly on the software we put on our computers or the developers who give their time to develop them (open source).

The software would have to be easily accessible to not terminal people. How this would be done, is this even possible, I don’t know.

I know that the TOR browser is super slow so that’s not really an options. Maybe we should read up on the exact details of how our data is obtained and how it can be combated (technically combated, not legally)

2 Likes

That’s an insult to us who are running high speed relays. Tor Browser runs pretty fast for me. Once the circuits establish it runs at a consistent speed. It’s not perfect but it’s by far much faster than it was a few years ago.

1 Like

Well, as an European i don’t really care…for now. But it’s a worldwide issue and you’re maybe beta testing for us.
But you guys live in a fucked up country.
If you think a bit, there is an issue coming on with the use of bandwidth growing up at a very fast rate. More than the new bandwidth power provided.
But with this, i’m pretty sure your rulers will just kill access to certain websites and ask for more money to have exactly the same thing you have now, without INVESTING ANYTHING in the infrastructures…which is the point of all of this !
If they don’t sign anything, they are obligated by NOTHING.
It’s some thing you have to know in real life. No signature, no obligation. Why do you have to sign a contract for your job, or anything else, while your president don’t have to?
They are greedy and are only interest in money.

2 Likes

Internet freedom is right of every individual and if you pay for your service you deserve the full potential of your internet, not just a throttled connection which makes your internet browsing a pain, this is something very serious and each individual should raise there voice against FCC to make internet neutral. Also, you can fight back by using a VPN service and make your activities anonymous from ISPs and Government.

3 Likes

It’s absolutely despicable, the next time a democrat gets elected as president we better petition to get net neutrality written into the constitution. I wish Aaron Swartz was still here, he would have fought a lot harder.

3 Likes

Now the American ISP has the controller to control the internet instead of geuine consumer. So if you want to access the neutral internet in US so you need to shift your IP location to other country’s IP address through a VPN provider. What I believe in this current scenario VPNs can help bypass throttling imposed by ISPs, get one right now before they get banned too and you lose your chance to explore the internet freely

Here is the guide to bypass the unwanted throttling of internet on your Infinix mobile set and access any site without letting your ISP know.
https://techin.pk/price/brand/Infinix/

4 Likes

While it’s very unlikely because corporate America relies on VPNs for work from home, ISPs could throttle VPNs as well having the same effect.

As a brazilian I don’t really care about this, speacially because in 2014 was approved a rule that protects net netrality and other stuff such as a company (online company) can only have provide services in Brazil if they have a base in here. Some people here are worried about this rule being approved in the US but they are just noobs. So I don’t believe it will affect us anytime soon, but it’s sad to know what’s going on over there.

2 Likes

I’m Canadian so likely not as upset as our American neighbours - but it is a turn for the worse. Canada has a history of following the precedents set forth by the US so I am certainly worried that one day the same debate starts up in Canada. Currently all of our political parties seem to agree that removing net neutrality is a bad idea but we will see what the future brings.

4 Likes

I live in Australia. Our internet isn’t great. We don’t have net neutrality rules but we have quite a lot of choice when it comes to internet providers, all using the same underlying infrastructure. People tend to sign an initial contract with an ISP and either renew it after 12/24 months or just keep receiving the same service ‘month to month’, meaning that a lot of people are ‘out of contract’ and could change providers tomorrow if they weren’t happy. Everything in Australia is expensive and internet is no different, so we still get screwed but at least we have lots of choice about who’s doing it.

I get my internet from Telstra, who used to be the national telecom company and I think I get all sorts of content from them “unmetered”, but I’ve never been interested in it, tbh. I’ve seen mobile phone plans, mostly aimed at kids, that have ‘free facebook’ or similar. It wouldn’t surprise me to see broadband plans that offer ‘unmetered Netflix’ here and I think that’s the sort of thing you’re going to see there now, too. It’s not the end of the world.

From what I read, a lot of people in the USA don’t have a choice of internet provider and I think that’s a much bigger problem, and quite surprising in the home of capitalism.

2 Likes

Rolling out wire in rule areas is expensive and you won’t make a return on your investment for a long time if ever. We need the protections because ISPs could abuse people in those areas. In big cities theres more competition so ISPs are less likely to abuse/upset their customers, however if you are in a rule area you have the option of an unfair internet or of no internet.

Yeah, nah. If you’re in the US, that’s what you should be trying to get changed.

If there’s only one wire to your house, it needs to be owned or controlled by a thrid-party/regulatory body and leased by ISPs who can compete on service and price.

Doesn’t your electricity work like that? If not, how does it work? Surely you don’t have different electricity companies running their own wires to your house? I’m able to choose between a dozen or so different providers, but they all use the same wires (and power plants etc.) - all that happens differently is the billing.

What about your water companies? Do you just get one? Here, in the case of water, there’s only one company I can deal with but they are regulated to the hilt and have to set their prices in collaboration with the government. Even then, I don’t think it’s quite as well-protected as in England (I’m from there originally) where it’s basically impossible for the water company to cut off your supply for failure to pay.

If you don’t pay your cell-phone bill, can you still dial emergency numbers? I hope so.

Here, we’ll soon have the ‘national broadband network’ fully installed and it will be owned by an independent corporation who built it. If it had been built by an unregulated private company, there’s no way they would have put wires out across rural Australia, when most of us live in two cities. The network isn’t as good as we wanted it to be, because of political failings, but it exists and can’t be monopolised.

I think we all need to accept that internet is now as important as electricity to the normal functioning of our lives and surround it with appropriate protections. Unfortunately, America doesn’t seem to be too great at protecting it’s people from the ravages of ‘capitalism’.

1 Like

Matey the solution is not to government interference, but to allow more competition instead of monopolies.

As r1chard5mith stated in his post

Everything in Australia is expensive and internet is no different, so we still get screwed but at least we have lots of choice about who’s doing it.

If 1 ISP screws you, you can switch.

Some of you feel bad for us Americans but I wouldn’t get to worked up about it if I were you. You may consider a lack of government intervention as a fault, but a great many Americans consider it a virtue.

2 Likes