Archive for the ‘net neutrality’ Category

A Tale of Lesser Evils – Choosing a new ISP

July 21, 2012


I recently moved… and because my internet connection was DSL, I had to change it, either to move the service or start a new one of some kind.

It had been a while since I’d looked around, so I thought over my options:

  1. Stay with my current ISP
    DSL from Launchnet (based in California) and connected by Covad
    6mbit down, 2mbit up, and 5 IPs for a not cheap price per month
  2. Some local, cheaper DSL provider
  3. Fiber optic: super fast for cheap
  4. Cable: faster and cheaper
  5. WiMax: portable
First I checked in with Launchnet and Covad separately and found out some bad news: my new house would cut my download speed in half. 3mbit is the fastest I could get from them or any other DSL provider. Hm. Also I’d have to buy a new modem and be locked in for a full year (or was it 2 years?). The other DSL providers could indeed be cheaper but they wouldn’t be better or faster. Next I checked to see if Verizon has gotten fiber into the area. Nope. Has the city done anything with all the fiber they strung up and down the city limits? No. Okay so cable internet. I had high hopes that cable companies other than Comcast had begun providing in the area but they all turned out to be ones that sold ONLY to tenants of the giant sky-rise appts/condos downtown. For WiMax all there is, is Clear, who used to be called Clearwire.
So now from 5 potential options I’m down to 3 actual options:
  1. 3 mbit DSL
  2. 20 mbit Comcast for about the same price
  3. 3-8 mbit Clear for slightly less
I had a thought then about the companies themselves, about their evil factor, so I looked up their history:
  • Launchnet is small and ambiguous but Covad is now owned by Megapath, who has a history of buying providers and ruining their good service at the expense of consolidation profits. Megapath in turn is now owned by Best Buy. What are they like? Well the most I could find is some financial crimes.Evil Factor: minor.
  • Clear has the most sordid origin, which was started by seed money from such evil forces as Goldman Sachs and the Texas Rangers. Later it had some semi-shady deals to get it’s wireless spectrum and gain more investment and shareholders like Intel, TimeWarner, and oddly enough Comcast. Currently it’s mainly owned by Sprint though. Evil Factor: not good.
  • Comcast is just as evil as they’ve ever been. They spend millions of dollars lobbying legislators to push internet and media policies that are diametrically opposed to my world view. They have the worst customer satisfaction rating of any U.S. company or organization (including the IRS). They block service, they discriminate, they cap, and they attempt to buy every sports team and media company in the country. They even had the gall to try buying Disney. They’ve been caught multiple times for filling federal hearings with randomly hired people off the street, just to keep opposing citizens from testifying before Congress or the FCC. Evil Factor: absurdly evil.
The info on these companies can be found in many places but most of it is already summarized well on Wikipedia.

Faced with this information I was twisted in a dilemma: Should I choose the least evil for the highest cost, slowest service, and most inflexible contract? Or the middle evil for questionably better service? Or the cheapest, fastest service who will use all the money I give them to undermine every internet/media policy I stand for?

In the end, I ended up trying out Clear since it seemed the easiest to back out of if it didn’t work well. It certainly wasn’t a clear winner (bad pun) but it seemed like the only balance between evil and connectivity in North Seattle. It shouldn’t have to be this difficult.

Democracy is what is at stake

February 13, 2009

The Internet is the last bastion of freely diverse communication. Radio and TV have been de-regulated (both officially and through lack of enforcement) to the point where differing viewpoints are squashed under a sea of propaganda. People running for public office are not afforded the air time that by law, the radio and tv stations were supposed to provide for free. The list of negative situations goes on and on.. and now that the Internet is popular, the rich information mongers who seek profit at the expense of Freedom, Democracy, and Public Welfare – have every intention of doing the same thing they’ve done with Radio and TV, to the Internet.. only worse, because of the advanced auditing capabilities of fully digital communications.

Currently on the Internet, news from around the world can be broadcast, seen, shared, commented on, and replied to.. news that DOESN’T appear on TV or Radio. Also on the internet, political candidates can post their speeches, policies and campaign messages in a variety of media, all potentially for free.. anyone wondering about what the various candidates are likely to stand for can view this material just as easily as any other candidate, regardless of how much money those candidates have at their disposal. The same is not true for TV and Radio.. or even often, in-person. Candidates are frequently now, barred from attending debates and rallies if they don’t have x amount of dollars to PAY for a seat in the debate.. which is horribly corrupt.

On the Internet however, all these viewpoints can still be expressed on a much more equal basis. Aside from the basic Internet connectivity (which really by now should be free for all U.S. citizens.. much easier to build than interstate highways) or hosting charges, there are no other mandatory costs associated with making your views available to others via the Internet. If you have connectivity or hosting through a provider that has a certain transfer rate, that rate is the same for all customers, no matter what the subject matter or content of their messages are. Many providers operate through advertising and allow “customers” to post their text, audio, or video for free.. for all to see at full speed, all the time.

So obviously, rich social oppressors who are friends with the rich owners of media and connectivity companies will want to squash this source of diversity, free expression, free reporting, and free democracy (voting can also happen over the internet!). And what better way to squash than through monetary restriction! More profit for their corporate pals and more oppression of opposing viewpoints for them. A win-win solution for them.. a big fat lose-lose for everyone else on the entire planet.

You at the FCC should also realize that your very jobs are tied into this as well. You’re appointed by elected officials. If the officials who appoint you are unable to compete with other candidates who have more money than they do, you’ll be out of a job as soon as a richer candidate comes into office… What’s more, if the political landscape is further made into a dictatorship, the role of the FCC will likely disappear completely.. it will just be the Media Broadcast division of Blackwater Homeland Security and will have no need for regulation of any kind.. merely heavily armed raids inflicted upon any persons who are deemed enemies of Broadcast Corporations.

Wouldn’t you like to keep your jobs and your role as a regulatory commission? Don’t you think that Democracy and Freedom are more than buzz words? Do you CARE about the future of this country? Do you realize that through the Internet is one of the last ways that the defining principles of our Constitution can be practiced?

Well for that to continue, we need some things called equal access, free speech, and what is now being called Net Neutrality. If you allow the telcos and the social oppressors to shut down freedom on the internet.. that’s it, game over. The only way freedom within U.S. borders can continue is through underground, grassroots efforts. The technological equivalent to the pony express. TV, Radio, and Internet will be utterly and completely useless for real communication, real news, and real democracy… because diverse viewpoints and diverse candidates will be shut out by the power of the dollar.

_________________________

Net Neutrality is essential to free speech, equal opportunity and economic innovation in America. Since the FCC removed this basic protection in 2005, the top executives of phone and cable companies have stated their intention to become the Internet’s gatekeepers and to discriminate against Web sites that don’t pay their added tolls.

This fundamental change would end the open Internet as we know it. It would damage my ability to connect with others, share information and participate in our 21st century democracy and economy. The FCC must ensure that broadband providers do not block, interfere with or discriminate against any lawful Internet traffic based on its ownership, source or destination.

Congress.org – 2009 Priorities

November 24, 2008
Next year, I want Congress to focus on the following easy to understand, two word issues:

– Green Jobs

– End War
– Health Care
– Net Neutrality

to Obama – Jobs and The Economy plan outline

November 22, 2008

Greening Jobs
        Federal and State Departments for employing people directly
                For centralized services mainly
                Track everything to measure success
        Loans, Tax Breaks, Grants, and Contracts for companies/people
                For individuals and small regions
                Guard against monopolies
        Job Categories
                Research – reviving old tech and finding new tech
                Design – making what is built the best it can be
                        Non-toxic fabrication methods
                        Recyclable materials
                        Power/battery efficiency
                Construction – manufacturing and building new solutions
                Installation – putting new solutions directly into use
                Retrofitting – replace innards with green tech, melt/recycle old tech
                Maintenance – keeping centralized, business, and home solutions running
                Trade – exporting services, technology, and equipment internationally
        Job Industries
                Power Generation from Wind, Solar, Thermal, and Tidal
                        Dual focus on centralized and home/business generators
                                Decentralization reduces transmission waste
                        Australian Power Tower Design
                        Cut subsidies for toxic dig & burn sources
                                coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear
                        Cut subsidies for ethanol crops
                New Power Storage
                        Hyper-efficient batteries
                        Hydrogen Fuel Cells
                        Flywheels
                        Rain Collection
                Electric Transportation
                        Bikes, Scooters, Cars, Trucks, Busses, Trains
                        Focus on fully Electric Vehicles
                        Power management intelligence
                        Retrofitting used cars with new fuel/engines
                        Cut subsidies for gas, diesel, and ethanol vehicles
                Carbon Neutral Building
                        Green Materials
                        Energy Efficiency
                        Water conservation
                        Green Roofing
                                Grass, Garden, Function (rain to power conv.)
                Water Purification
                        “Amphitheater” and other designs
                        Reduce waterway contamination
                                from farmland, industrial, and residential waste water
                                renegotiate/enforce pollution agreements
                Greener General Consumer Goods
                        electronics, clothing, furniture, etc.
        Organization and Transparency
                Invest in transparency network for governmental funding tracking
                Fund a universal citizen participation network
                        (of my design: swiftmouse.com/icare/ )

Education Jobs
        Grade School
                Federally fund public schools
                        Boost teacher salaries
                        Reduce administrator salaries
                        Reduce class sizes
                                Build more schools
                                        150 students max
                        Replace outdated materials
                        Develop admin software to reduce waste/corruption
                        Broaden subjects taught
                Increase support staff for students
                        Shift style from industrial-lecture to “coaching” model
                        Create more types of counselors
                                for students
                                for teachers
                        Focus on participation instead of assessment
                        Mandate paid leave for parents to participate certain days a week
                Regulate out corporate influence
                Increase food self-sufficiency
                        school gardens, cooking, and nutrition
        College and University
                Increase subsidies
                        Encourage lower tuitions
                        Offset textbook costs
                Increase financial transparency
                Reduce administrator pay
                Increase instructor and assistant pay
                Federal grants for more domestic students
                Reduce interest rates for student loans
                Build additional colleges
                Promote continuing education
        Trade School
                Validate/Accredit certifications
                Build some federal trade schools for industries in this outline
        Adult School
                Fund night-time working family education
                        Community promotions
                        Modernize courses
                        Increase teacher pay
        Free School (“teach-in”)
                Subsidy funding
                Promotion grants
                Certification and accreditation
        Prison and Jail Schools
                Create one or more in every jail and prison
                        both state and privatized
                Fund and manage separately from prison/jail budget
        Textbook publishing
                Research and Develop electronic materials technology
                Encourage younger authors to publish
                Re-assess copyright law to make developing coursework easier/cheaper
                

Agriculture
        Break up and auction off farming conglomerates
                Fund small farmer buy-back programs
        Subsidize smaller and independent farms
        Encourage more employment and less equipment
        Research and Educate for best practices
                Encourage systems-based “grass farming” approach
                        Organic growing
                        Locally consumed
                        Humane livestock conditions and waste management
                        Increased crop/breed diversity
                Gather and compile local/cultural wisdom
                Employ ex-farmers as educators
                Ban genetically modified food and open-air testing
                Tax sale of nonreproducible hybrid seeds heavily
        Create subsidies/policies for decentralized farming
                Urban gardens
                        Commercial building roof gardens
                        “pea patch” community gardens
                Organize farmers markets
                Organize/assist CSA programs
                Create a federal farmworker job type
                Create federal farming exchange programs
                        land owners open specific acres for outside farmers to grow on
                Expire patents on all “living systems”

Healthcare
        Grow Medicare jobs and eligibility to replace Insurance for all ages
                Treat all citizens automatically for basic care
                        consider most women’s treatments as basic care
                Treat immigrants and foreigners with some conditions and charges
                Normalize practitioner salaries for basic care
                Offset cost of “optional” medical care with federal funding
                        Working class pays moderate amount
                        Rich pay more
        Set up little state run clinics in communities without nearby hospitals
                mobile and in unoccupied buildings
        Develop open source tools for medical information management
        Provide incentives for doctors and nurses to return to general practice
        Ban Insurance companies from healthcare
                Liquidate assets of healthcare portions of insurance companies
                Replace with loans/savings programs for costly optional treatments

Employment Quality
        Streamline federal employment hiring procedures
        Cap executive pay maximums
        Raise minimum wage
        Increase vacation time
        Increase national holidays
        Reduce weekly hour maximums
        Regulate against “crunch times”
        Create incentives for co-op style businesses
                Everyone is paid the same
                Everyone has a vote for important decisions
        Encourage “monkeysphere”-aware organization sizes
        Ensure new programs reach the most marginalized populations
                American indian, african american, latin american, immigrant

to Obama – Chief Technology Officer

November 11, 2008
Net for neutrality, jobs, education, voting & free access

The internet has the potential to be an amazing means to right the wrongs of the past and remain an agile society faced with resource depletion.

Network transmission must be kept free, open, and unbiased – that makes the rest possible. National effort must be put into solving some of the employment crisis by hiring people to build free access hardware, educational materials, independent media, governmental transparency, and bring it all back together with Democracy 2.0 online.

Power that with electricity from “green economy” energy infrastructure and you’ve got a bright future for this country.

For various reasons, these would be my picks for CTO in order of priority:
Brad Templeton of the Electronic Frontier Foundation
Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia
Lawrence Lessig of the Creative Commons
Brewster of Internet Archive
Craig Newmark of Craigslist
Rob Malda of Slashdot.org

to Obama – my vision of the future

November 9, 2008

My vision of the future is about a change of national and international priorities from empire, conquest, profit, and control; and into making our cultural goals being sustainability, tolerance, balance, culture, and awareness.

As for actions, they can be prioritized into the following categories:
1. Diverting funding from the absurdly rich to the working class.
2. Turning our foreign actions from aggression to healing.
3. Holding the crimes of the Bush administration to account.
4. Healing our population and planet.
5. Reforming our government to fully represent us.

My expanded action list can be found at ihoby.com/plan but I can also summarize further in future posts.

1. Diverting Funds – Bankers and Billionaire Corporations have been receiving free handouts in the form of subsidies, bailouts, tax breaks funded by the hard work and tax dollars taken from the majority of Americans. This has gone too far for too long. While Americans are increasingly prudent and in need, they are being neglected by the collusion of business and government setting disaster capitalism to run amok. Business is treating government and government is rewarding business.. this exclusive relationship is poison for this nation’s people, land, sea, and air. It’s a poison that has built slow but it’s effects are unmistakable in causing this financial crisis and climate change. Trickle-down economics has been proven time and time again to never work. Trickle-up however, obviously works very well.

The rich have this power because we are allowing them to keep it – either from kindness, obedience, or ignorance. The time has long since past when we need to claim our eminent domain on the hoardings of the rich, to cut off their supply of corporate entitlement programs, corporate welfare, corporate socialism. They have enough money to be just fine while we route our federal spending back into America’s communities:

– bail out the families facing foreclosure, make their mortgages be affordable
– start the Green Economy with jobs building wind and solar generators
– supplement medical costs to make health care affordable
– increase the minimum wage and lower taxes for smaller businesses

All this and more can be funded by cutting off the corporate free lunch and requiring the richest CEOs and bankers to pay their fair share.

2. Foreign Actions – Our wars of aggression into Afghanistan and Iraq (among other places) are clearly both internationally illegal and extremely immoral. They were started out of a series of dysfunctional world views and need to be ended immediately so that pacification, reconciliation, and healing can bring about the changes and improvements that war can never, ever accomplish.

– remove combat from countries we’ve invaded, replace with infrastructure services
– cut aid to countries who are committing atrocities
– halt all contracts to mercenary, service, and construction profiteers
– cut spending on military procurement programs

3. Holding Accountable – Many many people in and well outside of the Bush administration are clearly guilty of some involvement in War Crimes, Treason, Crimes Against Humanity, and other more minor but serious breaches of law and moral turpitude. Since these crimes were not thwarted at the time or dealt with swiftly after through impeachment – they’ll have to be treated to justice slowly and carefully over the next few years. The perpetrators of these modern atrocities have done these deeds in our name, with our flag, and they must not be allowed to continue their evil deeds under new titles.

– set Congress to investigate War Crimes, Invasion Pretext, War Contractors and Mercenaries, Election Crimes, 9/11 “false flag” evidence, Domestic Spying, etc.
– prosecute perpetrators of crimes being investigated in federal and international courts
– draft regulation to help keep these tragic atrocities from happening again

4. Healing – The endeavor of medicine should simply not be run by organizations who’s primary goal is to maximize profit. That is unfortunately what we have and that is why our medical system is failing to meet the needs of Americans. We also have industries trampling across our fragile earth in a reckless surge of exploitation and pollution. Our natural systems, our global ecosystems cannot handle this level of abuse. We must enact ambitious programs to provide free healthcare for all citizens, affordable healthcare for all people, and a livable planet for ourselves and our successors.

– build a free, universal healthcare system
– dismantle the insurance companies and replace them with assistance programs
– ban the building of any new “dig and burn” plants
– build “green” sources of energy
– shut down the existing “dig and burn” plants

5. Progressive Reform – The Bush administration has been the most secretive, corrupt, criminal, deadly, and unrepresentative office ever. They have privatized, militarized, and marginalized more aspects of our country than ever should have been. All of this has to stop, all of it must be reversed. We want a government who is accountable, transparent, just, peaceful, respectful, and receptive.. a government who spends our money wisely and truthfully.

– do all of the previously stated action items
– expand citizen access to continually participate through democracy
– regulate yourselves
– solve problems instead of creating or exacerbating them
– declassify, declassify, declassify

Tracking Web Users

August 26, 2008

It would be one thing if this tracking was being done for scientific purposes.. or social research, even some sort of altruism. But it’s being done for the sake of profit and illegal authoritarian spying.

It would also be defensible if users had access to the data being collected on them – to be able to turn the tracking on and off, to delete data they don’t want or isn’t theirs. But it’s not being made that way – it’s being constructed to operate secretively, with no regard to our wishes or well being.

It’s basically predatory. If it’s one thing we don’t need, it’s another way for people to prey upon each other.

“Just how do they expect the online world to pay for itself?”

How about using some progressive corporate taxes (Exxon’s consecutive record profits anyone?) to subsidize websites instead of war? Plenty of untapped Billion$ there each quarter.

Another funding source could be similar to how the TV cable companies were required to provide public access channels and fully equipped stations to towns that had no airwave TV access.

If the web site or service can be deemed an asset to the public, it would be a viable choice for funding as a public service.

AT&T policing the internet?

June 8, 2008

NO, no no and NO

They should not. Ever.

Why? For several reasons:

1. Filtering is error-prone.. it will end up blocking or letting through information that it shouldn’t – and the fixes might create more problems than they solve.

2. Filtering with ease opens up the door for abuses. Carriers will be tempted and succumb to temptation to filter what they’re not supposed to. That can ruin fair competition, people’s lives, and even Democratic process and Freedom.

3. Policing should never be given to a for-profit entity with no civic transparency. If we can’t obtain their records, control their funding, or vote them in and out of “office”, they certainly should NOT be in charge of policing. Judicial corruption is bad enough already, we don’t need net-cops “maximizing profit” at our expense.

4. AT&T is already guilty of enabling the illegal NSA spying on Americans.. these are federal crimes.. Treason crimes! There is NO WAY we can trust people like this with positions of legal authority.

Seattle Indymedia – FCC Town Hall Hearing

February 12, 2008
The FCC hearing tonight at the Seattle Town Hall went pretty well for the public – it wasn’t so good for the handful of media conglomeration advocates who spoke. Kevin Martin got an earful of our discontent, our hopes, our accomplishments, and our strong opinion against media consolidation.

I was present in Monterey, CA at that leg of the 2004 hearings.. and I’d have to say that this recording of public and panel comments was as good or better than that one. There weren’t as many people (given the short notice) but the people who where, gave solid and passionate testimonies to not only commissioner Copps but also Kevin Martin! Can you believe it? Now, Martin didn’t stay at the commissioners’ table the entire time, nor was he paying attention 100% – but he DID keep coming back and listening. I left a little after 9:30 pm so I don’t know if he stayed in his chair until the end but he was CERTAINLY subjected to hours and hours of people telling him that the previous FCC decisions concerning consolidation have caused so much harm and any future loosening of consolidation restrictions would cause even more – that it is NOT in the public interest, it is NOT what we need, and it is NOT what we want.

There were speakers from diverse backgrounds, ages, shapes and sizes – all giving the same opinion but from their own perspective, in their own way. In a discussion of media diversity, we gave them public diversity.. in person and en masse.

Probably one of the best (there were so many memorable speakers) angles of perspective came from a middle aged woman with a british accent. She got up and told the commission that she was “shocked.. that there are so many people here tonight, BEGGING to you – for what should be their right.” (not sure if I’m quoting exactly)

It’s something that no one else spoke of and I myself hadn’t backed out of the moment enough to realize the absurdity of the entire situation. Why ARE we needing to fly, drive, bike or run in from across town or across the country with a few days notice, just to have the chance to jostle in line for a chance to beg to this appointed commission? Why aren’t we being asked what’s in our interest before-hand? Why aren’t we polled? Why aren’t they coming to US to make their decisions?

Why must we be forced to beg for what is right? To beg for them to do what is right?

It’s an important point that I’m glad was made. Within the sea of other statements that comprised some of the finest public feedback I’ve witnessed from a group as large as this – it wrapped it all up, back to a point where all of the impassioned pleas from us were suddenly in a greater perspective.. That it’s come down to this now. That we’re being treated this way. It’s simply inhumane.

How could ANYONE after hearing everything that was said tonight, go back to their office and still side with corporate media on this? How could they live with themselves?

I guess we’ll find out when Kevin Martin gets back to D.C.

John Kerry discussion on Save The Internet

January 9, 2008

As I see it, the internet is the most important communication medium that we need to protect, expand, and enhance – both nationally and internationally.

IMPORTANCE

Democracy is at stake. Being the only uncensored means of high speed communication, it is the only place candidates and ballot measures have nearly equal footing for the public to experience what they’re about and make an informed vote.

Freedom is at stake. Through the internet you are free to express nearly anything you want to potentially anyone in the world, unbound by corporate suppression. True information, whistle-blowing, investigative reports and so on are necessities. Creativity, entertainment and cultural records are enriching. The ability for us to do EXACTLY WHAT WE’RE DOING NOW on this website is at stake.

Once again, community and human enlightenment are at stake. As with other means throughout history with which people gained new abilities to communicate and interact across previous barriers, we are at a point where the internet has the potential to let us realize how similar all our hopes and concerns are, how little we really need borders, and how once enough of us realize that – then it’s obvious that we can start making life better for everyone.

SOLUTIONS

Many years ago, a plan was called for and drawn up. It was said to be the most ambitious project ever attempted, the man who drew up the plans did not have confidence it could really be done. But the government was determined and the resources were allotted. The project was to build an Interstate Highway system.. and guess what – they succeeded. And with the exception of turnpikes, U.S. roads are free for everyone to use.

That’s how the “last mile” of internet should be – and CAN be. If all the necessary people in our government can ignore the corporate lobbyists for a minute and LISTEN TO US instead, they could see that we want this. They could pick a plan to do this and they could build what needs to be built for us to have free, nation-wide internet access.

People of government should realize that if they don’t listen to the citizens who elected them and are corrupted by corporate interests (who are by definition and legal charter, dictatorships with a single goal of monetary profit over all other concerns), THEIR VERY JOBS ARE AT STAKE. The system in which they’re employed as “public servants” will continue to slide into a republic not based on democracy but on despotism.. exactly the abuses of power that the U.S. rebelled against Britain for so many years ago.

So they need to take a new look at who they’re supposed to be serving (hint: us). They need to realize that if they save and expand the internet for all, they won’t NEED to be funded by corporate interests to appear on TV because people will get their information from the internet – and you won’t NEED millions of dollars to appear on the internet. You can campaign all you want on the net without spending much at all, and reach thousands, millions of voters without the TV and Radio networks chopping your message into half-second bites.

So if you don’t need millions of dollars to reach millions of voters, you don’t need corporate campaign funders looking for special favors.. and you can listen to who you’re supposed to be listening to, to make your decisions on what bills should pass and fail – the American People.

An economy based on fleecing citizens for corporate profit and fighting war is not sustainable. An economy based on bankers controlling all is not sound. A culture based on capitalism is not humane. We need to stop this direction while we still can, before it all comes crashing down.

The first place to start is with the last bastion of free speech, high-speed communication, and potential for true democracy – the internet. It can be the main conduit between the people and the government to get things on the right track.