I believe in Net Neutrality, and I wrote a brief email to the Federal Communication Commission on why access to broadband has shaped my design career. Here’s what my email said:

Hello, my name is Lukasz Lysakowski, a designer living and working in San Francisco. I support Net Neutrality as internet access has allowed me to create a career. I am a designer of online apps, products, and websites.

I started my education as a Bachelor of Arts major in the field of media productions at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. At UNC-G I had the opportunity to take design classes in the new digital Media & Design program. Digital design and the internet were in their infancy.

Tied in with the design program was the introduction to the high-speed internet. No more dial-up services, BBS boards, and AOL, this was broadband. For me the access to a high-speed internet and web was revolutionary. I quickly learned how to build and design websites. At that point the best way to learn how to make sites was to use a browser’s “view-source” feature. “View-source” was also an original feature as it allowed any user to view and copy the underlying code of any website. I was able to take the site code without any hindrance and modify it to learn how to create my own work.

This access to a fast network and the underlying code behind any website allowed me to build the my foundation as an online designer. Of course, I was in a privileged position as I had access to a high-speed internet at an American University system.

After I graduated from UNC-G, I was able to jump into the field of web design at the start of the dot-com boom. The commercial web at that time was free-form without frameworks, rules, and systems. Designers and developers were hired to experiment and figure out the web. The internet quickly evolved, and it became accessible to the general public. Online browsing and interaction became part of the daily fabric of commerce, news, and entertainment.

For the web to be accessible for general use, it also had to standardize its form and function. Luckily, The Web Standards Project (WaSP) was a community of designers and developers that persuaded Microsoft and Netscape to upgrade their browsers to support W3C web standards. W3C standards compose the code of websites. These standards are set by a committee of companies, organizations, and individuals that promote equal web standard. WasP also demonstrated that passionate individuals can push the web to be developed to be formed on a free and open standard.

As a designer practicing for many years, I took part in the push of the web from a medium defined of static marketing static web pages to a dynamic online software platform. This same evolution of the internet also gave rise to the startup.

Technology startups accelerated the expansion of computation into all aspects of daily life and commerce by being free to experiment with new ideas. Startups have also benefited by having equal access to the internet. Startups are free to concentrate on the execution while not being worried about if they were going to be unfairly penalized by delivery.

We are still in the infancy of the web. We are just starting to see AR, VR, and mixed-reality take off. This field plus many other new technology fields will need access to even fast(er) networks and more data delivery. Incumbent technology companies plus startups will be racing with each other to develop the new ideas. Startups to challenge and progress the status quo will need the critical access to an equal and fair playing field.

In short: Net neutrality is vital to making sure that we maintain equal and fair access to all Americans to knowledge and information on the internet. Net neutrality supports America’s entrepreneurs and is vital to accelerating our economy to the next level of growth.

If you read this post and feel inspired, please email the FCC Commissioners at:

Ajit Pai, Chairman
Ajit.Pai@fcc.gov

Mignon Clyburn, Commissioner
Mignon.Clyburn@fcc.gov

Michael O’Rielly, Commissioner
Mike.O’Rielly@fcc.gov

Brendan Carr, Commissioner
Brendan.Carr@fcc.gov

Jessica Rosenworcel, Commissioner
Jessica.Rosenworcel@fcc.gov

Fight for the Future is a great starting point to learn how to champion Net Neutrality.

Fight for the Future, defending our basic rights and freedoms
_Fight for the Future is dedicated to protecting and expanding the Internet's transformative power in our lives by…_www.fightforthefuture.org

FCC Commissioner Clyburn has put together a fact sheet summarizing how Net Neutrality benefits consumers and businesses alike.

After over four months of confusion, controversy, and complete failures of Cybersecurity 101, the Federal Communication Commission’s “Restoring Internet Freedom” proposal — a set of rule-changes that could dismantle Net Neutrality and forever alter the fabric of the internet — ended up with 22,149,776 online public comments in response.

But we still don’t know how many of those were left by actual people.

In short, that’s why I began an investigation that has resulted in this lawsuit.

To tell the long story, let’s first review what happened over the last several months:

• FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai announced a proposed rule to change broadband internet regulation from Title II to Title I, along with a period for the public to leave comments that could shape the agency’s final decision.
• On the same day the “Restoring Internet Freedom” fact sheet was released, another public notice issuing guidance on how to comment on the proceeding was released, which stated “we anticipate that some may wish to submit a large number of comments from multiple individuals, each with the same or similar content” and “we anticipate that during some periods of the comment cycle, ECFS [Electronic Comment Filing System] may experience much higher volumes of traffic, and that some of this traffic may be malicious in nature.”
• John Oliver called on his viewers to comment against the proposal, only for the FCC website to crash in what may (or may not) have been a coordinated cyberattack.
• Public comments under real people’s names were found to have been posted without their knowledge.
• Multiple analyses claimed that up to millions of comments (pro- or anti-) were likely faked.
• Members of Congress demanded investigations from multiple agencies into the alleged cyberattack.
• On the last day of the extended deadline to comment, someone figured out that one part of the commenting system could be used to upload any kind of file to FCC.gov, capping off an already-fraught public feedback process with even more red flags.

This kind of public commenting period isn’t unusual for the FCC. The agency regularly announces new proceedings and is obliged to allow the public to weigh in on these, either by submitting comments online or by mail.

For this particular proposal, the agency had three online submission methods:

1. Submitting a single comment through the ECFS form on their website
2. Submitting a properly-formatted Restoring Internet Freedom ECFS Bulk Upload Template (with multiple individual names and comments) to a special submission widget created just for this ruling
3. Submitting comments straight into the FCC’s database through their Application Programming Interface (API), by use of a Data.gov-registered API key that requires a first name, last name, and valid email address

All three of these methods were easy to fake comments with. However, it’s the last two methods that allowed for the key problem with the “Restoring Internet Freedom” commenting process: anyone could submit comments in bulk.

Fortunately, these bulk comments couldn’t be sent completely anonymously. The Bulk Upload Template method also required the submission of the uploader’s email address. The API method required a valid email address to receive the necessary Data.gov API key to begin with — plus, the entire point of an API key system is to give (and track) individual user access to a given server.

Realizing this, I submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the FCC on June 4, asking for the following:

1. All public API keys, including associated registration names and e-mail addresses, that were used to submit online comments via ECFS to Proceeding 17–108, “Restoring Internet Freedom” between Apr 26, 2017 and today, and copies of all data files submitted through these API keys for the same.
2. Logs of all times and dates that said public API keys were used to submit online comments via ECFS to Proceeding 17–108, “Restoring Internet Freedom” between Apr 26, 2017 and today.
3. E-mail addresses associated with all .CSV comment uploads, along with all .CSV files uploaded in response to Proceeding 17–108, “Restoring Internet Freedom” between Apr 26, 2017 and today (including any accepted .CSV submissions that did NOT use the FCC’s “Restoring Internet Freedom ECFS Bulk Upload Template” .CSV file template).
4. Logs of all times and dates that said e-mail addresses submitted online comments via the FCC’s online .CSV submission box to Proceeding 17–108, “Restoring Internet Freedom” between Apr 26, 2017 and today.
5. All e-mail inquiries to ECFSHelp@fcc.govregarding .CSV comment submissions in response to Proceeding 17–108, “Restoring Internet Freedom” between Apr 26, 2017 and today.

Normally, FOIA requests receive responses from designated FOIA Liaisons at government agencies. Instead, I received an email on June 14 from FCC Associate CIO Kevin Baker, acknowledging my request and informing me that they were extending their legal deadline to respond to my request from July 3 to July 18.

I never heard from the FCC again.

As the agency is legally obliged to respond to my request, and as the underlying questions behind my request still haven’t been answered, I have filed a lawsuit against the FCC for their refusal to conduct a reasonably timely search for the records, and have demanded the release of these records.

Even now, over three months after my FOIA request, and even after I’ve filed a lawsuit, this request is still listed as “under agency review”.

Of course, these requested records are only through June 4, and will leave out three months worth of millions of comments. However, this sample size should be enough to determine:

1. If any suspicious uploading patterns with repeat offenders took place during the timeframe of the May 7–8 alleged cyberattack
2. If any groups of comments submitted by particular email addresses correlate with what other previous comment analyses suspect are fake comments
3. If any suspicious email address URLs (lobbyists, PR firms, .gov addresses, non-US domain names, etc.) were allowed to submit bulk comments

If there ends up being any eye-opening evidence of what the FCC itself called “malicious in nature” traffic, they will have a lot of explaining to do to American citizens, businesses, and Congressmen alike.

Regardless of your own views on how the internet ought to be regulated, there is a blatant government transparency issue at hand here.

After all, how are we supposed to trust in the integrity of the FCC’s decision-making process when they won’t divulge records showing how millions of comments that are already public were submitted to begin with, and by who?

Edit: Special thanks to Matt Topic and Josh Burday at Lovey & Loevy for taking my case. Matt previously represented me in a FOIA lawsuit against the Chicago Transit Authority in 2014.

In early 2015, the Telecom Authority of India (TRAI) was hijacked by the telecom companies that it was supposed to be regulating. It released a consultation paper on Net Neutrality for public feedback.

The question was whether services like Whatsapp and Viber should be brought under an expensive licensing regime.

TRAI put a tiny, hardly noticeable link to the paper on their official government website. They also put in place a tight deadline for public discussion. They hoped the public wouldn’t notice this proposal to fundamentally change in how the internet worked.

Whatsapp had made messaging free of cost. Before Whatsapp, we had to buy costly messaging packs to send short messages. Every international message used to cost around Rs 5 (US $0.08) — a huge source of revenue for telecoms.

Next, several of these messaging apps started offering free calls. This cut into telecom operator revenues even more. Since these messaging apps made a lot of money through advertising, these telcoms hope to take a cut of it themselves.

Indian activists set up a website, savetheinternet.in, where people could answer all the questions that TRAI’s consultation paper was asking. People could then send these answers to TRAI with just a few clicks.

This was a smart move. But still, most people where unaware of the importance of Net Neutrality — the basic rule that all internet traffic should be treated equally, regardless of where it comes from, and that the internet access should be treated like any other utility.

Net Neutrality is a complicated concept, and the typical Indian had no understanding of it, or its importance. So we needed to an effective way to communicate all this.

Thankfully, the comedy group All Indian Bakchod stepped in to help communicate this. Here’s their first video:

Indians sent a million emails to TRAI. (TRAI retaliated by “accidentally” leaking those million email addresses to public.)

Facebook and the telecom operators responded by changing their campaign to try and fool the Indian public into thinking that these corporations were actually in favor of Net Neutrality.

These corporations tried to define Net Neutrality as everyone being able to access some things on the internet. In fact, Net Neutrality is about everyone being able to access everything on the internet.

Facebook launched Internet.org with a major telecom operator, Reliance. They claimed they were providing free internet. In reality, they were providing a very limited slice of the internet with only the websites of companies who were registered with Internet.org. And Facebook had full control of which websites could register.

Of course, none of this was clearly mentioned in their innocuous-seeming promotional videos.

Facebook tried to trick the Indian public into thinking they were making these websites available as out of charity. In reality, they were very clearly violating the principle of Net Neutrality.

Next, TRAI made it more difficult to protest Facebook’s actions by moving the discussion to mygov.in. Now a citizen had to go through a long account registration process in order to make a public comment, and they only had a few days to do so.

All Indian Bakchod again moved in to cast light on these corrupt actions with a second video:

As a result, Facebook’s Internet.org effort was bashed all over the internet for violating Net Neutrality. Facebook rebranded it “Free Basics” and began an expensive marketing campaign to publicize it in every corner of the country.

Look at the normal people just going about their lives, using Facebook for free. They were designed to make people think, “How can Free Basics be a bad thing?” This even made lay-people question the activists.

What is your problem if they are giving us free internet?

Free basics was just another name for Internet.org. Though they changed their branding outside, the source code said otherwise.

Designers responded with parody ads drawing attention to the folly of Free Basics.

And All India Bakchod came back with a third video:

The corporations quietly convinced TRAI to set up yet another short deadline for public discussion. In that time, a lot of emails were sent to TRAI through savetheinternet.in.

There were protests in the street. The Indian media hosted discussion panels where they brought experts from different fields to talk about Net Neutrality.

Here’s a photo of News 9's discussion panel. The Grammy Award winner Ricky Kej stepped in to speak up for the importance of Net Neutrality.

I was also part of the same panel.

Finally, all of these efforts paid off. The public outcry forced TRAI to side with citizens, and against the corporations. They ruled in favor of preserving Net Neutrality.

We had won.

In the big scheme of things, I had hardly contributed anything. The real heroes are the people behind savetheinternet.in like Kiran Jonnalagadda, Nikhil Pahwa and Tanmay Bhat’s team from All India Bakchod, among many other activists. You can read more about them here.

Some of the corporations and their investors weren’t very happy about this. Venture Capitalist Marc Andreessen tweeted this:

After getting utterly trashed in the Indian and American media, he was forced to publicly apologize for this.

India’s story had a happy ending. But America’s may not.

America’s president is currently working to destroy Net Neutrality. The telecom companies have lobbied congress and taken over the Federal Communications Commission. All that stands between these corporations and their bigger profits is us — the public.

I hope India’s Net Neutrality heroes inspire you.

Don’t remain silent. Raise your voice. Educate yourself on the importance of Net Neutrality. Explain its importance to your friends, family, and followers about its importance.

Together we can make sure that America continues to enjoy the same open internet that India does. Let’s do this!