34 replies to this topic

[Sidestreet]

Is the Daily Beast something we can all enjoy?

 

 

The Federal Communications Commission voted 3 to 2 on Thursday to repeal net neutrality protections.

 

The decision is a blow for consumers, and a win for internet service companies like Verizon and Comcast, which gain the power to dramatically reshape—and limit—the way Americans access the internet.

 

Net neutrality, a series of Obama-era protections, require internet service providers to treat all data equally, preventing ISPs from charging more for certain services, or restricting access to certain content.

 

Those rules have won vocal support from free speech advocates and internet users—and staunch opposition from internet companies like Verizon, which could increase profits throttling online content and charging more for individual internet services.

 

Internet service providers hit the legislative jackpot when the Trump administration appointed a Republican-majority leadership to the FCC and installed former Verizon general counsel Ajit Pai as the commission’s chair.

 

Under the new rules, companies like Comcast could slow access to competitors, effectively making sites aligned with the company—or ones who pay their way out of slow lanes—appear to load faster. Over 56 million American households have no choice in internet service providers in their area, leaving them potentially tethered to an artificially slow internet under the new rules.

 

In their testimonies on Thursday, which were briefly interrupted by a bomb threat, the Republican FCC members dismissed their opponents as hysterical.

“The legend of a cable company trying to break the internet makes scary bedtime stories for children of telecom geeks, but it is not reality,” Republican commissioner Michael O’Rielly said in defense of his vote for repeal.

 

Pai defended internet fast lanes by likening them to promoted tweets and advertisements, which are legal. “What else are promoted tweets but prioritization?” Pai asked.

 

O’Rielly characterized some net neutrality advocates as being too mean, complaining that some commenters told him he looked “like a potato.” Some of the pro-Republican comments were forged in the name of dead Americans, and are currently under investigation by attorneys general in 19 states.

The FCC’s GOP majority has largely ignored the fraud complaints and calls to delay the vote.

 

His comments echo Pai’s previous criticisms of net neutrality advocates, whom he mocked as “desperate.”

 

More here: https://www.thedaily...eople-to-access

 

 

 

 

Boooooooooooooooooooooooooooo...

[Spooner]

Everything is OK.

If the companies do not behave responsibly then Vladimire Putin will step in and fix it.

Nothing to worry about here folks.

[Alder Logs]

Yes, yes, the Russian hackers will fix it!   Look at all they did already without the NSA getting any evidence and only CNN and MSNBC could solve the case.  

[Heirloom]

A question about the repeal. I have seen credit card banks refuse to do business with sites that sell spore prints. Can internet providers block my access to Mycotopia because they don't approve?

[Alder Logs]

A question about the repeal. I have seen credit card banks refuse to do business with sites that sell spore prints. Can internet providers block my access to Mycotopia because they don't approve?

 

If the fine print is anything like I had to sign to get this unbelievably crappy DSL from the only ground based provider available here, they reserved the right to do anything they wanted, I already signed away to them any and all rights they and their lawyers could come up with.    I signed up for 1 megabit per second and never got that.  They lowered it to .75 and I rarely have gotten that.  I still have to pay, 24/7 during times of outages and for speeds like this:

 

[Alder Logs]

[Direct Link]

[Heirloom]

I can only hope the corporate threat fuels a cultural revolution taking away corporate power, holding them accountable their assets seized. If they are ever released they will be paid the same minimum wage they believe is fair. I believe they have conspired with government officials to oppress and exploit the American people abolish freedoms to gain more power. This amounts to treason. Since I do not hate them I do not want them hung as traitors often get, instead I want them to understand that they were trying to create a dictatorship that far exceeds any the world has ever seen and at some point be thankful the people took action before they gained absolute power.

I know some of you will laugh thinking I am some kind of extremist i do not advocate violence but a lawful peaceful action in the best interest of all Americans and the World

[niemandgeist]

The fight is just beginning. People aren't going to take this lying down. Fortunately this isn't over yet. The NY attorney general and a few other states are going to challenge this:

 

https://techcrunch.c...eutrality-vote/

 

New York attorney general announces a multi-state lawsuit challenging the net neutrality vote

 

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, a leading voice in the fight against the FCC’s net neutrality rules repeal, has stepped forward with one of the first legal challenges to the commission’s controversial vote.

 

Citing his investigation into the FCC’s public comments process preceding the vote, Schneiderman declared his office’s intention to sue to “stop the FCC’s illegal rollback of net neutrality” — a forthcoming legal challenge that’s sure to be in good company. In response to questions from TechCrunch, Schneiderman’s office noted that he will spearhead a multi-state lawsuit and that we can expect it “in the coming days.”

 

“We will be filing a claim to preserve protections for New Yorkers and all Americans. And we’ll be working aggressively to stop the FCC’s leadership from doing any further damage to the internet and to our economy,” Schneiderman said in a press release.

 

“Today’s new rule would enable ISPs to charge consumers more to access sites like Facebook and Twitter and give them the leverage to degrade high quality of video streaming until and unless somebody pays them more money. Even worse, today’s vote would enable ISPs to favor certain viewpoints over others.”

 

While we don’t yet know which states will be joining New York in the legal action, it’s safe to assume that we’ll see overlap with those that joined a letter calling for a delay of the vote due to revelations around faked comments during the public feedback process. The letter included 18 attorneys general from the states of Virginia, Delaware, Hawaii, California, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Iowa, Illinois, Maryland, Maine, Mississippi, Oregon, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Washington, Vermont and the District of Columbia.

 

Schneiderman’s office told TechCrunch that it expects to see more statements very soon from other state attorneys general about their intentions to join the claim. We’ll be following this story and other reverberations from today’s net neutrality vote as they develop.

[Heirloom]

The post I made above is a sign of a mental health issue I am experiencing.

[Soliver]

The post I made above is a sign of a mental health issue I am experiencing.

 

#metoo

[Alder Logs]

At last, Net Neutrality has been made understandable.

 

[Direct Link]

Edited by Alder Logs, 22 December 2017 - 03:42 PM.

[OysterFarmer]

I have heard of people trying to make their own internet.  Not sure how that is working out.

 

I've always had this idea for a personal internet.  I am not a tech guy but I think the idea is sound.  You basically get a black box of sorts to carry on your person.  It can connect to any other black box it senses within range.  It works basically the same as any modern wireless network that carries signals.  Each black box can run its signals through every other black box.

 

Now if only one person has this its pretty weak obviously.  But if millions of people had them then millions of people would be able to transmit the same signals currently transmitted by fiber optic internet networks.

 

If you are on a mountaintop with no one around again weak signal.  But in a crowded city center with millions of people carrying these devices everyone would be fully wired.

[Alder Logs]

Guess what, you can't even buy a radio receiver that isn't cleared by guess who?   

 

 

The FCC!

[Spooner]

Guess what, you can't even buy a radio receiver that isn't cleared by guess who?   

 

 

The FCC!

 

You can build one from easily available off the shelf electronic components.

Broadcasting is a bigger problem, the signals are traceable so your broadcasting station can be located and harassed if it breaks any laws.

[August West]

I have heard of people trying to make their own internet.  Not sure how that is working out.

[Direct Link]

[Alder Logs]

 

Guess what, you can't even buy a radio receiver that isn't cleared by guess who?   

 

 

The FCC!

 

You can build one from easily available off the shelf electronic components.

Broadcasting is a bigger problem, the signals are traceable so your broadcasting station can be located and harassed if it breaks any laws.

 

 

A guerrilla internet can't work without both download and upload.   Since a beat cop or prowl car could carry an RDF device tuned to WIFI frequencies, and be empowered to shoot us for everyone else's safety,  I see chances for such an internet, or any form of radio frequency communications outside what the government says we can do with "our" airwaves, to be rather remote. 

 

On edit:  After watching that whole Corbett Report, I am a bit amazed that James could get so pie-in-the-sky about the same governments allowing such a parallel internet to come into being.   It would be like having a labor rally and not expecting the Pinkertons to have their spies in the crowd.  

Edited by Alder Logs, 29 December 2017 - 11:39 AM.

[Spooner]

Anyone remember the old Bulletin Board Systems?

​​It was not internet but it did allow a community to form.

[Alder Logs]

I remember when those BBSs were about, we were using 1200 baud dialup modems.  

 

When the hairy eyeball gets to see any kind of content, and its Fascist corporate gateways are handed control of the throttles, and are seeing whatever content is going through, the idea of a free and open broadband internet ceases to be.   I can't even get a decent bandwidth on a weekday at 10:30 AM.  I am at .3 Mbps right now, and forced to pay for .75 on the deal that started being 1Mbps when I signed up.    They oversold their bandwidth and anyone like me who has no alternative for any ground level connection other than one company with monopoly status, must pay full price every month to be getting fucked.   I and my neighbors will not see a fiber cable conduit ploughed in up our road so long as we are not helped by the dreaded government regulation.   We need a works project akin to what happened in the '30s.   Fat chance of that.

 

"In Europe and Asia in WWII, the Fascists lost.  In America, they won."

~Will Slayton

 

At 10:56 download is at .23 Mpbs.   It will just get slower as the day goes on.   Everyone around here is playing with all their new devices they got for Christmas, and wishing the downloads were quicker.

Edited by Alder Logs, 29 December 2017 - 01:58 PM.

[Alder Logs]

Senate Vote To Save Net Neutrality Coming

 

[Direct Link]

[dead_diver]

The US already has some of the slowest and most expensive internet in the world. USA #1