NetNeutrality vs. AT&T censoring Pearl Jam

So in response to my anti-netneutrality tweets/blogs, Jose Pagliery asks "what about this?"

Let's pick the first one. You can read about the details by Googling "AT&T Pearl Jam".

First of all, this obviously isn't a Net Neutrality case. The case isn't about AT&T acting as an ISP transiting network traffic. Instead, this was about AT&T being a content provider, through their "Blue Room" subsidiary, whose content traveled across other ISPs. Such things will continue to happen regardless of the most stringent enforcement of NetNeutrality rules, since the FCC doesn't regulate content providers.

Second of all, it wasn't AT&T who censored the traffic. It wasn't their Blue Room subsidiary who censored the traffic. It was a third party company they hired to bleep things like swear words and nipple slips. You are blaming AT&T for a decision by a third party that went against AT&T's wishes. It was an accident, not AT&T policy.

Thirdly, and this is the funny bit, Tim Wu, the guy who defined the Continue reading

The Internet Society and NetBlocks Team up to Keep it on!

By Constance Bommelaer de Leusse and Alp Toker

How much do government shutdowns cost? How do they impact growth and prosperity?

In 2016 Internet shutdowns cost globally about $2.4 billion USD, and across 10 African countries they led to loss of $237 million USD over 236 days.

If we don’t act now, shutdowns and restrictions of access will continue to rise and the economic cost will increase over the next few years. At a time where developing countries can benefit the most from Internet access for economic growth, education and health, we cannot let this situation become the new normal.

The economic rationale of keeping it on

The impact of shutdowns on freedom of expression and human rights is already well understood. Unfortunately, this has little effect in reversing the trend. This is why we need the ear of economic and trade Ministers, investors, development banks, and others who can ensure the Internet isn’t shut down. Because they care about the growth and prosperity the Internet can bring.

Today we are excited to announce that the Internet Society and NetBlocks are teaming up to develop a tool to better measure the cost of shutdowns, and convince governments to keep the Continue reading

The FCC has never defended Net Neutrality

This op-ed by a "net neutrality expert" claims the FCC has always defended "net neutrality". It's garbage.

This wrong on its face. It imagines decades ago that the FCC inshrined some plaque on the wall stating principles that subsequent FCC commissioners have diligently followed. The opposite is true. FCC commissioners are a chaotic bunch, with different interests, influenced (i.e. "lobbied" or "bribed") by different telecommunications/Internet companies. Rather than following a principle, their Internet regulatory actions have been ad hoc and arbitrary -- for decades.

Sure, you can cherry pick some of those regulatory actions as fitting a "net neutrality" narrative, but most actions don't fit that narrative, and there have been gross net neutrality violations that the FCC has ignored.


There are gross violations going on right now that the FCC is allowing. Most egregiously is the "zero-rating" of video traffic on T-Mobile. This is a clear violation of the principles of net neutrality, yet the FCC is allowing it -- despite official "net neutrality" rules in place.

The op-ed above claims that "this [net neutrality] principle was built into the architecture of the Internet". The opposite is true. Traffic discrimination was built into the architecture since Continue reading

Holiday Weekend Reads (22nov17)

The coming holiday is cutting my publishing schedule short, but I didn’t want to leave too many interesting stories on the cutting room floor. Hence the weekend read comes early this week, and contains a lot more stuff to keep you busy for those couple of extra days. For the long weekend, I have five on security and one on culture. Enjoy!

This first read is about the US government’s collection and maintenance of security vulnerabilities. This is always a tricky topic; if a government knows about security vulnerabilities, there is at least some chance some “bad actor” will, as well. While the government might want to hoard such knowledge, in order to be more effective at breaking into systems, there is at least some possibility that refusing to release information about the vulnerabilities could lead to them not being fixed, and therefore to various systems being comrpomised, resulting in damage to real lives. The US government appears to be rethinking their use and disclosure of vulnerabilities

There can be no doubt that America faces significant risk to our national security and public safety from cyber threats. During the past 25 years, we have moved much of what we value Continue reading

Letter from Ethiopia: Can We Use Technology to Help Privacy Evolve?

I’m writing from Addis Ababa, where the African Union’s Specialist Technical Committee on ICT is having its biannual conference. I won’t report on that, as it’s still happening, but I can report that some of the hallway conversations have been both interesting and reassuring.

The topic of privacy came up over coffee, of course – and I was glad to hear that it is not only seen as a key issue for technology and governance, but it’s also seen as being closely interconnected with issues of cybersecurity. As readers of the Internet Society’s blogs will know, we think so too. You can’t have good privacy if you don’t have good security tools, and you can’t have good security in the absence of privacy.

As you would expect in a continent with all of Africa’s rich diversity, the cultural and social approaches to privacy can also vary widely, and people face exactly the same challenges as elsewhere, about how to translate them into workable technical and governance solutions. Today I will have a few minutes to set out some thoughts on that, in one of the afternoon sessions. I plan to suggest that we keep asking the “why?” question. Why Continue reading

A Deep Dive Into NEC’s Aurora Vector Engine

We caught wind of the “Aurora” Vector Engine vector processor and the “Tsubasa” system from NEC that makes use of it ahead of the SC17 supercomputer conference, and revealed everything we could find out about the system and speculated a bit about how the underlying processor in the absence of real data. At the conference in Denver, NEC formally unveiled the Tsubasa system and its vector motors, and now we can tell you a bit more about them and how NEC stacks them up against CPUs and GPUs when it comes to floating point work.

Just to be consistent with

A Deep Dive Into NEC’s Aurora Vector Engine was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.

Cumulus community: giving back and giving thanks

It’s that time of year when people start to get a little sentimental. The seasons change, the new year starts to hurriedly approach, and it makes you want to think about all of the things you’re grateful for. And like a contagious laugh, it looks like some of us here at Cumulus have caught those feelings. We’ve got a lot to give thanks for, so let’s take a moment to reflect on the year so far and all the bounty it’s brought us. Here are some of the things Cumulus Networks is thankful for:

Our company’s continued growth

It’s been an eventful year for Cumulus as we’ve continued to push the boundaries of web-scale networking. So when we receive recognition for our hard work and vision, it means the world to us. This July, we were incredibly grateful to be included in Gartner’s 2017 Magic Quadrant for Data Center Networking in the “visionary” category. Creating a culture of visionaries is incredibly important to us, and it’s great to hear that other people are catching on as well. But the celebration doesn’t stop there. In addition to being recognized for our vision, we were also honored for our innovation this year. Continue reading

Why Linux can make you feel thankful or merely stuffed

Thanksgiving is tomorrow. While I’m looking forward to turkey, stuffing and pie, I’m also thankful to have been able to spend most of my career administering Unix and Linux systems. So, today’s post is going to focus on some of the things I’ve felt most thankful for and most gratified by over the span of more than 30 years with Unix and Linux.Also on Network World: 14 Linux apps that will change how you work There are many reasons why I came to appreciate Unix and then Linux and why they became such an important part of my life. These operating systems provided a focus and a career specialty that I've greatly enjoyed. I appreciate Linus Torvalds and the many thousands of developers who have contributed their time and energy into building a powerful, efficient and enjoyable operating system. I appreciate the many tools and commands that make them so easy to use and get my work done. And I appreciate the chances that I've had to share what I've learned with so many others. It's been fun, and it's been very rewarding.To read this article in full, please click here

Docker for Windows 17.11 with Windows 10 Fall Creators Update

Experimental support for Microsoft’s Linux containers on Windows (LCOW) feature has been available for Windows Server 1709 via the Docker EE “Preview” release. The same functionality is now available for Windows 10 Fall Creators Update with the release of Docker for Windows 17.11. In fact, it’s been available since Docker for Windows 17.10. 

How to get it

Docker for Windows 17.11 is an Edge channel release. If your copy of Docker for Windows is set to the Edge or Nightly channel you will receive the update automatically. Users on the Stable channel will need to switch to Edge via the Setting dialog to receive the update.

Doesn’t Docker for Windows already run Linux containers?

That’s right. Docker for Windows can run Linux or Windows containers, with support for Linux containers via a Hyper-V Moby Linux VM (as of Docker for Windows 17.10 this VM is based on LinuxKit).

The setup for running Linux containers with LCOW is a lot simpler than the previous architecture where a Hyper-V Linux VM runs a Linux Docker daemon, along with all your containers. With LCOW, the Docker daemon runs as a Windows process (same as when running Docker Continue reading

We need a more sustainable approach to Network Neutrality

Yesterday, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chair Ajit Pai announced that in the FCC’s upcoming December 14 meeting they will vote to remove the Title II classification of Internet service providers.

As we outlined in our Policy Brief on Network Neutrality, the core principles of choice and transparency are fundamental to a free and open Internet that benefits users around the world. Simply put, users should be able to access the Internet content and services they choose without corporate or government interference.

Now is not the time to give up on these goals. Regardless of the action the FCC takes in the coming weeks, the Internet Society will continue to fight alongside allies around the world for our fundamental goal – to ensure an open Internet, characterized by access, choice and transparency for all users around the world.

Thus, we believe that strong rules are still needed – merely focusing on transparency is not enough to protect users’ access to an Open Internet.

We hope that the U.S. government can take a more sustainable approach to net neutrality; one that upholds the principles that are rooted in the Internet Society’s core values of a global and open Internet. Between Continue reading

History Of Networking – Roland Dobbins – DDoS

In this episode of History of Networking on Network Collective, Roland Dobbins from Arbor Networks joins us to talk about his role in mitigating distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on the internet.


Roland Dobbins
Guest
Russ White
Host
Donald Sharp
Host
Eyvonne Sharp
Host

Outro Music:
Danger Storm Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

The post History Of Networking – Roland Dobbins – DDoS appeared first on Network Collective.

History Of Networking – Roland Dobbins – DDoS

In this episode of History of Networking on Network Collective, Roland Dobbins from Arbor Networks joins us to talk about his role in mitigating distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on the internet.


Roland Dobbins
Guest
Russ White
Host
Donald Sharp
Host
Eyvonne Sharp
Host

Outro Music:
Danger Storm Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

The post History Of Networking – Roland Dobbins – DDoS appeared first on Network Collective.