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StevenHwangPaper2 6 - 18 Feb 2009 - Main.EbenMoglen
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//Comment: As I mentioned in the comments below, the heart (and point) of the previous essay WAS the point of view argument, so stripping it of that left it with just a basic overview of network neutrality--which I don't think adds anything to the discussion. | >
> | Comment: As I mentioned in the comments below, the heart (and point) of the previous essay WAS the point of view argument, so stripping it of that left it with just a basic overview of network neutrality--which I don't think adds anything to the discussion. | | | | |
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< | Here, I try to give a talking point regarding network neutrality--that it needs to be protected to help help the consumer class. I also attempt to give a brief, simple, and straightforward explanation of network neutrality that I think is largely lacking elsewhere on the internet. I feel like even the wikipedia article doesn't explain the concept in a way where a lay-reader can easily understand its importance or even what it really looks like at all. This paper is a completely new rewrite from the prior essay, taking into consideration your comments. | >
> | Here, I try to give a talking point regarding network neutrality--that it needs to be protected to help help the consumer class. I also attempt to give a brief, simple, and straightforward explanation of network neutrality that I think is largely lacking elsewhere on the internet. I feel like even the wikipedia article doesn't explain the concept in a way where a lay-reader can easily understand its importance or even what it really looks like at all. This paper is a completely new rewrite from the prior essay, taking into consideration your comments. | | | | |
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- But Steven, you can't misinform the reader, or your piece has no credibility. This "must treat every packet and person equally" position is technical nonsense. Not only doesn't the network operate this way, it can't operate this way. The problem with the "network neutrality" concept is that no sensible person who understands how networks are managed could possibly agree with a description based on it, so it's not a basis for the formulation of policy, just a slogan. To take this supposed principle of non-discrimination and stack it up with a rhetorically similar process of "social equalization" produced by the Net is to join a valuable social objective to a technologically illiterate premise. This is not improvement.
- As I said, the real problem for real-world policymakers is that packet and endpoint discrimination is a required element of network operation. Even within my own home network I need to use traffic shaping, for example, so that a VoIP phone call's packets always have priority over HTTP traffic instigated by a browser. My personal browser should also get better service than one running on my neighbor's computer, if my neighbor is borrowing my bandwidth through my open wireless node. Even more complex is the fact that my VoIP call may be encrypted inside an OpenVPN packet stream using UDP rather than TCP. And that's just my little home network: what Verizon or Sprint is doing to run their networks is many orders of magnitude more complex.
- So regulators of the current, badly-designed capitalist network infrastructure confront the need to distinguish between reasonable and unreasonable discrimination in network operation, which is not well-modeled by foolish talk about neutrality.
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Net Neutrality and Social Equality |
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