[PLUG-TALK] Streaming versus REAL net neutrality

Keith Lofstrom keithl at gate.kl-ic.com
Sat Feb 8 01:24:57 UTC 2014


On Wed, Feb 05, 2014 at 01:19:39PM -0800, Michael Rasmussen wrote:
> Oregon Senator Ron Wyden is asking you to sign a petition to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler 
> http://e2.ma/message/zua0e/7saxhh

That is interesting - but when you think about it, the whole
"streaming" issue is related to a copyright-controlled video delivery
system that won't let you download a whole movie to a few pennies of
drive space, however long it takes, then play it when the download is
complete.  "Throttling" and "Express Lanes" are a response to
allocation of finite routing resources, which somebody has to pay for. 
That somebody is always you the customer.  Or me the customer, if I
use my bandwidth for other reasons than high QOS video service; 
allocating dedicated streaming service means reallocating bandwidth
from bulk bit transfers;  for me, latency is acceptable as long as
total throughput is high, averaged over a minute or so.

Indeed, one of the great features of IPV6 is multireceiver broadcast.
A content provider can send the same bits to hundreds of thousands of
customers at once, assuming storage at the receive end for buffering
and timeshifting.  Our community could use that capability too, and
"subscribe" to Linux distros, for example.

The Really NASTY aspect of video streaming is that it comes with
demands by Big Content for the very opposite of net neutrality:
ISP and DNS censorship, using technical means to keep copyrighted
content "protected" from "pirates" like us.  That is, those of us
who are more than passive couch potatos, who might do something
other than stare at a screen, eat crap food, and die of diabetes.

This systematized censorship isn't theoretical.  Various versions
of this are being legislated in Europe right now, and the hardware
modified to enforce it.  Piss off Big Content by providing links
on your website to sources they do not approve of, and DNS no
longer finds your server in some parts of Europe.  Automatically,
no recourse, the behavior is wired into the chips by law, like
the region coding on your DVD player.

So yes, I am very fond of "net neutrality" - that is, Warner
Brothers and all its slave/customers have no more rights to the
internet than I do, an no ability to threaten or censor me if I
don't adhere to their business model.  I don't know how the
legislation Senator Wyden is asking for actually reads today,
but I do know that when Hollywood's lobbyists finish amending
it, I will have fewer rights than I do now.  The Washington
Machine operates pretty consistently, extracting rights from
citizens and selling them to the highest bidder, regardless
of the color of the fine print on the meatgrinder label.

I respectfully submit that if anybody (including governments)
can take over your only delivery system, you are not using
enough delivery systems.  An adequate and diverse set of
pathways (sneakernet to satellite) is not controllable by
anybody, and THAT is what we should be working for.

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          keithl at keithl.com



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