[governance] Re: Comcast Blocks Some Internet Traffic

[Ian Peter]

Lee,

and human rights, privacy and copyright are violated daily, are you
suggesting we make no efforts in these areas as well, or these shouldn’t be
covered by a Bill of Rights, because they are not well supported by the
current state of the Internet?

And are you suggesting that no technical effort go into improving protocols
and network infrastructure to minimize packet loss? 



Ian Peter


-----Original Message-----
From: Lee McKnight [mailto:lmcknigh at syr.edu] 
Sent: 26 October 2007 15:17
To: ian.peter at ianpeter.com; governance at lists.cpsr.org
Subject: RE: [governance] Re: Comcast Blocks Some Internet Traffic

wrong, the Internet is a best effort network, emails disappear in black
holes/get lost in queues/who knows where the packets get dropped, every
day, 24/7. No Bill of Rights will guarantee packets get delivered.

if you want guarantees go get yourself another network, or pay premium
prices for qos or whatever on top of the net. Meaning: discriminate in
favor of your packets over mine.  

So I'm trying to be polite and not tell all of you squirming to define
net neutrality that there is no there there, but I guess I'm not that
polite.

Yeah Comcast was devious but all you pretending to 'be shocked!
shocked!' that a private company does funny things on their own piece of
the pie, well i guess I should take that back and some of you really are
shocked? I'm not.

Lee

Prof. Lee W. McKnight
School of Information Studies
Syracuse University
+1-315-443-6891office
+1-315-278-4392 mobile
>>> ian.peter at ianpeter.com 10/25/07 4:38 PM >>>
This debate here and elsewhere is getting very confusing. But to put it
simply.

Traffic shaping is a necessary tool for network management and a good
one
for users in that it can dramatically improve performance. 
(eg it doesn't really matter of your email packet arrives a second late,
but
it does matter to performance if your voip packet gets delayed. So
traffic
shaping can help performance).

Traffic shaping is not a violation of network neutrality as most people
know
it.

Although traffic shaping does involve packet discrimination by type, it
does
not provide discrimination by provider or complete blocking of any
particular type of package. That would be a violation of network
neutrality
(and some basic rights of internet users as well)

What Comcast has done appears to fall into the latter category.

The principle here (Bill of Rights people, are you reading?) might be
something like "an internet user has the right to expect that packets
sent
to anywhere on the network will be delivered".

Ian Peter
Ian Peter and Associates Pty Ltd
PO Box 10670 Adelaide St  Brisbane 4000
Australia
Tel (+614) 1966 7772 or (+612) 6687 0773
www.ianpeter.com
www.internetmark2.org
www.nethistory.info
 

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