Vote for Net Neutrality

[Phil Deakins]

Well ISPs do - own their own bit of the internet. They may not own the pavements but they own the cables under the pavements

Yep. Of course internet connectivity may move on from fibre in the future. That goes without saying, and it's not part of this discussion.

The internet hardware is much more than the backbone. The backbones are a major part of it though. So, contrary to what you said, I didn't insist that the backbone is the internet.

The article doesn't say that the government created the backbone. What it does say is, "In the early days of the Internet, backbone providers exchanged their traffic at government-sponsored network access points (NAPs), until the government privatized the Internet, and transferred the NAPs to commercial providers", so the government was involved in the movement of data, not the backbone itself - until it became uninvolved, when even that involvement went into private ownership.

Edited December 10, 2017 by Phil Deakins

[ChinRey]

23 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

America is what created the Internet

...

That is open to debate.

The first of the national networks that gradually merged into the internet, was the British NPL network that opened as early as 1967. USA adopted the idea and opened their own version of it, the ARPA net, in 1969. Both these networks employed one of the three most essential technological concepts of the internet, packet switching but the second one, host servers, was introduced by the French CYCLADES network in 1973. The third essential concept, the IP protocol (the standardized "language" used today for all those computers to communicate with each other) was finalized and proposed by USA but so heavily based on CYCLADES it should probably be considered a joint US/French project

ARPA net was the first network to go international when it opened a connection to Norway in 1973 and later that year ARPA and NPL merged, connecting three countries to the same network.

There's a lot more to it that this of course and I don't really think we can credit any specific person(s) or nations for the creaion of the internet. The development was certainly powered by the USA - they had more money and more incentive than anybody else - but the development took palce all over North America, Western Europe and Eastern Asia and probably elsewhere too.

[Theresa Tennyson]

24 minutes ago, Phil Deakins said:

Well ISPs do - own their own bit of the internet. They may not own the pavements but they own the cables under the pavements

Unless they're leasing, which you conceded earlier.

Yep. Of course internet connectivity may move on from fibre in the future. That goes without saying, and it's not part of this discussion.

The internet hardware is much more than the backbone. The backbones are a major part of it though. So, contrary to what you said, I didn't insist that the backbone is the internet.

Let's go to the tapes - here's what you said earlier:

The reality of the internet is that it consists of hardware that is owned by people. Mostly it is owned by individuals like us. That's our computers. When they are connected, they are part of the internet. But what makes it a network (the internet) are cables and connection points (ISPs), and those are owned by companies that are in it for profit. The internet cannot work without them. They are what make it a network. None of us have a right to use their equipment, unless they give us that right. It is definitely not a 'human right'.

How are "cables and connections" (which make it "the internet") not the backbone?

The article doesn't say that the government created the backbone. What it does say is, "In the early days of the Internet, backbone providers exchanged their traffic at government-sponsored network access points (NAPs), until the government privatized the Internet, and transferred the NAPs to commercial providers", so the government was involved in the movement of data, not the backbone itself - until it became uninvolved, and even that involvement went into private ownership.

And I didn't say that the article did - I said it said they created the basic structure of it - how it works. Oh, and when "the government privatizes [something]", who owned it before it was privatized?

 

Edited December 10, 2017 by Theresa Tennyson

[Phil Deakins]

If you read what I wrote - that you quoted and bolded - you'll see that I said, "cables and connection points (ISPs)". Some of the cables are backbone, and some are not. The connection points are ISPs, just as I wrote. They are also not backbone.

The government privatised what it could - the Network Access Points. It didn't privatise the backbones because it didn't own the backbones. The "backbone providers" owned those. It's perfectly simple.

So now...

I see that you only want to argue just for the sake of it, and that your arguments either have nothing to with anything in this thread, or are simply wrong, or both, so I'll leave you to it. You can have the last word if you wish, but I see no benefit to anybody in continuing to respond to your argumentativeness. If you have something valid to say, then I may respond but, until then, goodbye.

Edited December 10, 2017 by Phil Deakins
typos

[Theresa Tennyson]

2 minutes ago, Phil Deakins said:

If you read what I wrote that you quoted an bolded, you'll see that I said, "cables and connection points (ISPs)". Some of the cables are backbone, and some are not. The connection points as ISPs, just as I wrote. They are also not backbone.

The government privatised what it sponsored - the Network Access Points. It didn't the backbones. The "backbone providers" owned those. It's perfectly simple.

So now...

I see that you only want to argue, and that your arguments either have nothing to with anything in this thread, and are simply wrong, so I'll leave you to it. You can have the last word if you wish, but I see no benefit to anyobody in continuing to respond to your posts in this discussion. If you have something valid to say, then I may respond but, until then, goodbye.

That's what I thought.

[Phil Deakins]

19 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

And I didn't say that the article did - I said it said they created the basic structure of it - how it works

This is what you said:-

52 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

(Oh, by the way, the article says the basic structure of the backbone - what you're insisting is the "internet" - was originally created by government entities.)

The article doesn't say that either - because they didn't.

 

Edited December 10, 2017 by Phil Deakins

[Theresa Tennyson]

5 minutes ago, Phil Deakins said:

This is what you said:-

The article doesn't say that either.

 

But the article it links to does:

The four Network Access Points (NAPs) were defined under the U.S. National Information Infrastructure (NII) document as transitional data communications facilities at which Network Service Providers (NSPs) would exchange traffic, in replacement of the publicly financed NSFNET Internet backbone.^[1]

[Phil Deakins]

Ok. They financed it. You did say that the article said it. Now you say that an article that the article links to says it. Ok.

We've come a long way from the internet merely being a concept without actually existing lol.

Edited December 10, 2017 by Phil Deakins

[Theresa Tennyson]

13 minutes ago, Phil Deakins said:

Ok. They financed it. You did say that the article said it. Now you say that an article that the article links to says it. Ok.

We've come a long way from the internet merely being a concept without actually existing lol.

True/false quiz:

1) The Internet uses the same hardware now that it did in 1995. (T/F)

2) The Internet uses the same concept now that it did in 1995 (T/F)

[Max Nova]

On 12/10/2017 at 4:17 AM, Pixieplumb Flanagan said:

pfft, it works in Norway, Finland, Denmark, Iceland.  All of which are better countries by far than the US for, oh shucks, just about everything.  Happiness, life expectancy, child care, education, healthcare, maternity care, people not getting shot by the police, people not getting shot by their neighbours, people just generally not getting shot really, better social care, better mental health support.  Those countries are cleaner, you know, just face it.  Socialism works.  The US, on the other hand, is being run into the ground by a nazi sh1t gibbon and his pals.  Sucks to be you.

I wish there was a love button for your comment. You can add Canada, Ireland, Sweden, New Zealand, Belgium and The Netherlands to that list of Socialist countries. The trouble is Americans are brainwashed to think Socialism and Communism are the same thing by the fascists who run the government and strip the American people of public parks, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, public utilities including easy and affordable access to internet especially for the purpose of education. I'm so sick of America trying to control the world, they told me "love it or leave it" and I did (leave it) in 1986 and they are still trying to regulate me and tax me! 

[Qie Niangao]

3 minutes ago, WuShin said:

You can add Canada...

I live in Canada. There's a lot to be said for the "socialism" here -- single payer health care here is fantastic, the GOP lies south of the border notwithstanding. But to the topic of this thread: "regulatory capture" could have been defined as the relationship between CRTC and our telecom companies. We have the most primitive and overpriced telecom services in the G8 (by far), and largely because our regulatory body is basically shills for Bell, Rogers, and Telus. It's an embarrassment.

That said, Ajit Pai is indeed a monster. He was a monster at Verizon (ask anybody who worked there at the time) and he's a disaster on the FCC. If you've ever heard him speak, it's totally surreal: he starts out sounding rational enough, and then drifts into this fantasy world in which telecom is a free market of competition unencumbered by all the spectrum licensing and incumbent carrier monopolies on which the whole industry depends. I've never seen him speak, but listening it's hard not to visualize him frothing at the mouth, eyes twirling, veins on his neck bulging, as he sinks into wishful-thinking madness.

[Madelaine McMasters]

6 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

I live in Canada. There's a lot to be said for the "socialism" here -- single payer health care here is fantastic, the GOP lies south of the border notwithstanding.

You Canadians like your health care system better than we in the US like ours, yet we insist that your system is a disaster. When I point people to the statistics, they say "well, that's their opinion". When I ask why their opinion of Canada's health care system counts more than the Canadians who actually live with it, I'm called argumentative. They're not wrong about me, but they're jumping to the conclusion for the wrong reason. Got room up there for me?

Regarding Pai, your characterization is approximately what I've read in my engineering rags over the years.

Edited December 11, 2017 by Madelaine McMasters

[Lada Charlton]

2 hours ago, WuShin said:

The trouble is Americans are brainwashed to think Socialism and Communism are the same thing by the fascists who run the government and strip the American people of public parks, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, public utilities including easy and affordable access to internet especially for the purpose of education. I'm so sick of America trying to control the world, they told me "love it or leave it" and I did (leave it) in 1986 and they are still trying to regulate me and tax me! 

1

Nope, mostly just former diaspora communities that faced terrible, terrible conditions and genocide under regimes outside the U.S. for most of the 20th century... but that doesn't fit the propaganda template as well as what you've described. Nice try. 

Edited December 11, 2017 by Lada Charlton

[BilliJo Aldrin]

3 hours ago, WuShin said:

I wish there was a love button for your comment. You can add Canada, Ireland, Sweden, New Zealand, Belgium and The Netherlands to that list of Socialist countries. The trouble is Americans are brainwashed to think Socialism and Communism are the same thing by the fascists who run the government and strip the American people of public parks, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, public utilities including easy and affordable access to internet especially for the purpose of education. I'm so sick of America trying to control the world, they told me "love it or leave it" and I did (leave it) in 1986 and they are still trying to regulate me and tax me! 

Yes its true, the west is slowly sinking into a socialist cesspool 

And socialists are just communists that are too scared, or too crafty, to admit they are communists.

Your hero Karl Marx said it so clearly: socialism is just a way station on the road to communism.

 

[Max Nova]

44 minutes ago, BilliJo Aldrin said:

Yes its true, the west is slowly sinking into a socialist cesspool 

And socialists are just communists that are too scared, or too crafty, to admit they are communists.

Your hero Karl Marx said it so clearly: socialism is just a way station on the road to communism.

 

What you fail to realise (as most Americans do) is that Socialism is an economic system and communism is a political system they do not usually go hand in hand and in most countries that are socialist they have pretty liberal democracies. Examples of socialism are Social Security, public libraries, public schools, public parks etc, etc, etc. 

The top 8 countries in the world are socialist. America is not a democracy it is a republic and it is run by plutocrats. I'm just giving you the facts, it's not my opinion.  

[Max Nova]

1 hour ago, Lada Charlton said:

Nope, mostly just former diaspora communities that faced terrible, terrible conditions and genocide under regimes outside the U.S. for most of the 20th century... but that doesn't fit the propaganda template as well as what you've described. Nice try. 

Socialism is an economic system while communism is both an economic and political system. Socialists can own personal properties while communists can not. Socialism allows capitalism to exist in its midst while communism seeks to get rid of capitalism. Not the same thing at all. The happiest most peaceful and well off countries are socialist and ranked the best countries in the world to live in.

[ChinRey]

2 hours ago, BilliJo Aldrin said:

Yes its true, the west is slowly sinking into a socialist cesspool 

And socialists are just communists that are too scared, or too crafty, to admit they are communists.

Your hero Karl Marx said it so clearly: socialism is just a way station on the road to communism.

 

Ummm.... how about some actual facts.

Socialism as a term was introduced in 1827. Karl Marx was only nine years old then so I doubt he had much to do with that.

The basic idea is a lot older anyway. In Norway and Iceland w've essentially had it since the middle ages - probably longer but nobody seems to remember much further back than that. It's worked fairly well so far.

But that being said, I can't iamgine socialism could work in the USA. For a starts, transparency of government is essential for it to work and the bigger the populatin, the harder it becomes. With 300 milion inhabitants, I think it's impossible.

[Phil Deakins]

10 hours ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

True/false quiz:

1) The Internet uses the same hardware now that it did in 1995. (T/F)

2) The Internet uses the same concept now that it did in 1995 (T/F)

Those are very strange questions to ask me. What brought them up? I suspect that it's to do with me saying, "We've come a long way from the internet merely being a concept without actually existing lol." If it was, then you misunderstood. I meant that we've come a long from you saying that the internet is merely a concept.

Edited December 11, 2017 by Phil Deakins

[Bobbie Faulds]

.

On 12/9/2017 at 5:04 PM, Gadget Portal said:

While I agree with Net Neutrality, I gotta call out this statement.

This issue is a consumer protection one, not a human right one. We have trouble enough with actual rights before we start making up new ones.

Internet access should be treated as a utility, like electricity, land line telephone and water. In most cities in the US, cable/internet companies have an exclusive right and are the only one you can get service from. In Atlanta, we do have a choice of 2, AT&T or Comcast and a few areas also have Google Fiber. Since there isn't any real competition, so they should be regulated like any other utility. When I lived in Minot, ND, there was only one cable TV company that you could get internet from. You could get DSL through SRT, the local phone company. Fortunately, SRT was a local co-op, so costs were reasonable.

As for self-regulation, that's why Net Neutrality was instituted. Comcast was throttling Netflix and wanted more money for their access. Netflix was already paying for the extra bandwidth. Comcast wanted more.

Oh, and my understanding is that the Internet started life as the connection between the US and USSR during the Cold War so the leaders had a way to communicate after the near miss of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

 

Edited December 11, 2017 by Bobbie Faulds

[Theresa Tennyson]

3 hours ago, Phil Deakins said:

Those are very strange questions to ask me. What brought them up? I suspect that it's to do with me saying, "We've come a long way from the internet merely being a concept without actually existing lol." If it was, then you misunderstood. I meant that we've come a long from you saying that the internet is merely a concept.

Here's what I really said:

This "network of computers connected by cables" simply doesn't exist, except as an idea. The computers and cables are independent. As an old geek, over the years I've connected to the "internet" over lines intended for voice telephony (if we stretch definitions, even by using an acoustic-coupling modem connected to a teletype, as my avatar blushes and hides her face), lines intended for cable television service, etc. The physical internet only exists to serve the idea of connected computers. The hardware itself constantly changes.

It's like a river. At any given time there will be water in that river; however, the exact water in that river at any given time will be different from the water the day before and the day after. The water doesn't make the river - if you suck up the water into a tank truck you don't own the river, only that water. The river existed before and after independent of that water.

The Internet existed before any of the hardware that it's currently running on, and before any of the current ISP's existed as ISP'S -- by pure logic, because if there was no IS to P there would be no need for an ISP. In fact, as the articles you yourself linked to pointed out, the Internet existed on publicly owned,  non commercial networks before there was any commercial involvement.

Now here's what you actually said:

 

21 hours ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

No, what makes it the internet is a shared set of protocols, procedures and addresses that are universal and discoverable. Most of those were developed at government agencies and controlled by nonprofit groups. Without them? Good luck being found and heard.

(I, on the other hand, still have an AOL account from before there was what we think of as the "internet." Nyah.)

You are mistaken. The internet exists as hardware - cables and connections. Good luck accessing the internet without the express permission of those who own that hardware.

The protocols you mention are not the internet. They facilitate uses of the internet's hardware, but they are not the internet. The internet is the hardware, which is not publically owned and, therefore, nobody has an intrinsic right to use it.

It sure looks like you're saying "the river is the water", doesn't it?l

ETA: Found the exact moment you jumped into the briar patch.

Let's be clear about this. Nobody has a right, human or otherwise, to access the internet. It's as black and white as that, and there are no shades of grey in between.

The reality of the internet is that it consists of hardware that is owned by people. Mostly it is owned by individuals like us. That's our computers. When they are connected, they are part of the internet. But what makes it a network (the internet) are cables and connection points (ISPs), and those are owned by companies that are in it for profit. The internet cannot work without them. They are what make it a network. None of us have a right to use their equipment, unless they give us that right. It is definitely not a 'human right'.

As has been pointed out several times, the Internet existed and worked without the cables and connections owned by companies that are in it for a profit for years. Those cables and connections and the companies that run them exist only because there was a reason for them to be installed - the Internet, which is independent of them. It would run pizz-poor without them right now, yes, but they could be replaced. It's Atlas Shrugged in reverse, basically.

Edited December 11, 2017 by Theresa Tennyson

[BilliJo Aldrin]

7 hours ago, ChinRey said:

Ummm.... how about some actual facts.

Socialism as a term was introduced in 1827. Karl Marx was only nine years old then so I doubt he had much to do with that.

The basic idea is a lot older anyway. In Norway and Iceland w've essentially had it since the middle ages - probably longer but nobody seems to remember much further back than that. It's worked fairly well so far.

But that being said, I can't iamgine socialism could work in the USA. For a starts, transparency of government is essential for it to work and the bigger the populatin, the harder it becomes. With 300 milion inhabitants, I think it's impossible.

I never said Marx invented socialism, but he took the ideas found in socialism and took them to their most extreme conclusion.

I'm not sure who invented the term useful idiots either.

Whats fascinating was that the Republican party was founded by failed socialists fleeing Europe.

That's why their party color is red. At some point in time the republicans and democrats switched ideologies, but that makes sense because for most politicians their number one priority is pandering to popular opinion in an effort to gather more support.

Politicians true to their beliefs usually aren't very successful since the population doesn't care about ideals, it just cares about which party will give them more goodies.

Edited December 11, 2017 by BilliJo Aldrin
added a few lines

[Klytyna]

1 hour ago, BilliJo Aldrin said:

I never said Marx invented socialism,

End of the Napoleonic Wars, in 1815, brought an end to the very lucrative military procurement contracts, flooded the labour market with demobilised soldiers, and stuffed the economy.

In addition there was War-Debt, Britain was spending 60% of its total government budget servicing the Napoleonic War Dept, 45 years AFTER that was ended.

This massive recession caused crushing poverty. In the early 1830's an official report, discovered for example, more than 40 people sharing ONE public water tap, located 3 feet above a drain grating that served as the sewage disposal point for the 40 plus people.

In the mid 1840's, a European industrialist, Engels Senior, sent his son Engels junior to be a manager at a Mill in Salford, NW England, Engels Junior was horrified by the poverty he saw in the area now occupied by a public park, just behind Manchester Cathedral. Engels sent his writings to another german, a friend of similar age & social class called.. Marx...

And Marks, like so many of his social equals, basically took a potentially useful idea, and turned it into an impractical pipe dream that ignored basic humanity.

Comrade Potatoe Farmer cant read... So who is going to count the potatoes, and see everyone gets a fair share? Yup, good old Comrade Tax Accountant, who's out of a job now the rich people have been executed... Pretty soon Comrade Tax Accountant, needs a biggr office, and a better house, because all that paperwork is so stressful, and he needs a PA, and some clerks, and Pretty soon he is Commissar Tax Accountant, with a limo and a driver, and a big house in the suburbs.

Next thing you know, Tax Accountant Junior is a member of the Polit-Bureau, and a pogrom or two later Premier Tax Accountant is known around the world as an oppressive Commie Tyrant, who has potatoe farmers boiled alive for asking if their kids can keep enough potatoes not to starve in winter.

Communism was basically invented by two snobby upper middle class university graduate types, less than 200 yards from Manchester Cathedral.

Chinese communism... Yup, university lecturers, university students, the first official meeting of the Chinese Communist Party took place on a rented vacation house boat.

"Workers Revolutions" have a distressing tendency to be started and controlled by people who were never 'workers'. People in clean suits telling the man holding a water buffaloe on a bit of string that he's holding the string all wrong, and that  his buffaloe is guilty of counter-revolutionary bowel movements, because the Commissar stepped in it...


 

Edited December 11, 2017 by Klytyna

[Phil Deakins]

3 hours ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

As has been pointed out several times, the Internet existed and worked without the cables and connections owned by companies that are in it for a profit for years. Those cables and connections and the companies that run them exist only because there was a reason for them to be installed - the Internet, which is independent of them. It would run pizz-poor without them right now, yes, but they could be replaced. It's Atlas Shrugged in reverse, basically.

Sorry, but I found that the rest of your lengthy post wasn't worth replying to.

Yes, the intrenet did exist before today's infrastructure, and yes there was a reason for companies to create and own the current internet's infrastructure. So? Are you trying to make some sort of point? I've taught you what the internet actually is. Why aren't you satisfied with that?

Edited December 11, 2017 by Phil Deakins

[ChinRey]

1 hour ago, Klytyna said:

Communism was basically invented by two snobby upper middle class university graduate types, less than 200 yards from Manchester Cathedral.

 

Chinese communism... Yup, university lecturers, university students, the first official meeting of the Chinese Communist Party took place on a rented vacation house boat.

"Workers Revolutions" have a distressing tendency to be started and controlled by people who were never 'workers'. People in clean suits telling the man holding a water buffaloe on a bit of string that he's holding the string all wrong, and that  his buffaloe is guilty of counter-revolutionary bowel movements, because the Commissar stepped in it...

It's the inherent danger of trying to fight somebody else's battles. It's a good thing we're not trying to do that.

Edited December 11, 2017 by ChinRey

[encidious Opus]

On 12/9/2017 at 1:05 PM, Prokofy Neva said:

BTW, you're welcome to have the last word in this "debate". You can mention subsidies of telecoms which you'll call "corporate welfare" and I'll call "normal business incentive by any sane government because you know, they create instead of take away jobs like your friend Google does". You'll rant that I'm a "land barron" in SL, although renting land that pays US $1.50 a month is hardly anything more than chump change. Let me think. Maybe you'll say I'm fat! 

But that's just why I don't like to argue RL issues with SL anonymous avatars who can lob all kinds of things at you without any responsibility because they're anonymous.

Prokofy Neva made a cogent argument in the beginning of this thread. He only stated his opinion on the actual subj matter. You must admit he was prophetic on how the replies would devolve into pejoratives and personal attacks. Surprising derogatory comments from the Good Samaritan Pixieplumb. And Lady Charlton, can you explain how his statements reflect any misogyny? Where did you see this in his statements? Wikipedia: Misogyny is the hatred of, contempt for, or prejudice against women or girls. Misogyny can be manifested in numerous ways, including social exclusion, sex discrimination, hostility, androcentrism, patriarchy, male privilege, belittling of women, violence against women, and sexual objectification.

Prof, congratulations on extricating yourself from the thread

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