EFF, By Richard Esguerra, January 27

Remember what put the debate over net neutrality into high gear? In 2007, EFF and the Associated Press confirmed suspicions that Comcast was clandestinely blocking BitTorrent traffic. It was one of the first clear demonstrations that ISPs are technologically capable of interfering with your Internet connection, and that they may not even tell you about it. After receiving numerous complaints, the FCC in 2008 stepped in and threw the book at Comcast, requiring them to stop blocking BitTorrent. The Comcast-BitTorrent experience put net neutrality at the top of the FCC agenda.

Yet now that the FCC has formally issued draft net neutrality regulations, they have a huge copyright loophole in them — a loophole that would theoretically permit Comcast to block BitTorrent just like it did in 2007 — simply by claiming that it was "reasonable network management" intended to "prevent the unlawful transfer of content."

David Kravets | Washington | January 8

Wired - A federal appeals court gave notice Friday it likely would reject the Federal Communications Commission’s authority to sanction Comcast for throttling peer-to-peer applications.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit suggested as much during oral arguments with the FCC and Comcast. The Philadelphia-based cable concern is appealing the agency’s 2008 decision ordering it to stop hampering the peer-to-peer service BitTorrent as a traffic-management practice.

A little while back Martin Bosworth sounded the alarm on the Obama administration's typically gutless approach to Net Neutrality, Copyright and the creeping control apparatus of the military infotainment complex:

Tech bloggers, Internet rights advocates, copyfighters,and fair use supporters have been beating the drum for months now on the dangers of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), a massive updating of global policy regarding piracy, copyright laws, and the like that could have dire consequences for the Internet as we know it. Much of ACTA has been completely hidden from the public - the negotiations have been secret, the documents classified, the information locked down and only obtained through leaks and hearsay. What we have learned has been distressing - if implemented, ACTA would force U.S. Internet service providers (ISPs) into the role of copyright cop, enforcing a "three strikes" strategy against users accused of downloading "illegal" content, and extending the Digital Millenium Copyright Act beyond the borders of the U.S., turning the EU into our unwilling partners in crime. Here's a great rundown of opposition to ACTA from across the Internet, as well as a video lecture from BoingBoing detailing how dangerous it is. (Warning: It's pretty technical and wonky, but I have faith you guys can follow along.)

Meanwhile, a few days ago, several consumer groups wrote the FCC and asked them for clarification on a statement made by the FCC's Julius Knapp, who said that even with net neutrality as the law of the land, it would be okay for ISPs to prioritize voice and video traffic over other kinds under the heading of "reasonable network management." This is odd, given that it's a looser interpretation of the rules than was the case under former commission chief Kevin Martin - a die-hard friend of the telecom industry who nevertheless voted to penalize Comcast for violating the principles of a free Internet when it blocked access to BitTorrent. Current chairman Julius Genachowski has been all smiles and cheer about the importance of net neutrality and has promised to protect it - so where does this come from?

Let's start with the obvious. Consider how much money Hollywood and big entertainment companies feed to the Democratic party. However, it's not nearly as much as that donated by big telecom companies, such as all-time heavyweight champ AT&T. If money talks and bullshit runs the mile, you would think that ISPs-which have repeatedly rejected the role of "content cop"-would have more of a say. So why play along with this?

Now two Senators have stepped up -- Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Bernie Saunders of Vermont -- to demand that the text of the ACTA be made public. This is the kind of crap that can't survive sunlight very well so well done Sens Brown & Saunders.

Not intent on watering down health care reform the Blue Dogs are now going after one of the few things Obama has been very prgoressive about: net neutrality.

Cecilia Kang | Washington | September 18

WaPo (Post I.T. Blog) - Julius Genachowski, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, plans to propose a new so-called net neutrality rule Monday that could prevent telecommunications, cable and wireless companies from blocking Internet applications, according to sources at the agency.

Genachowski will discuss the rules Monday during a keynote speech at The Brookings Institute. He isn't expected to drill into many details, but the proposal will specifically be for an additional guideline to existing principals [sic] on how operators like AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast can control what goes on their networks. That additional principal [sic] would prevent the operators from discriminating, or act [sic] as gatekeepers, of Web content and services.

Erick Schonfeld | Washington | August 1

WaPo - Right about now, Apple probably wishes it had never rejected Google Voice and related apps from the iPhone. Or maybe it was AT&T who rejected the apps. Nobody really knows. But the FCC launched an investigation last night to find out, sending letters to all three companies (Apple, AT&T, and Google) asking them to explain exactly what happened.

On its face, it might seem odd to some people that the FCC is investigating the rejection of a single iPhone app. After all, iPhone apps are rejected every day. But the Google Voice rejection caused an unusual amount of uproar, and there is nothing like a high-profile case to make an example out of in pursuit of pushing a bigger policy agenda. The FCC investigation is not just about the arbitrary rejection of a single app. It is the FCC's way of putting a stake in the ground for making the wireless networks controlled by cell phone carriers as open as the Internet.

AT&T blocks access to 4chan, then restores it

The Net Neutrality war has begun

Today, another unfortunate sighting took place on the open subject of Net Neutrality. A now rather infamous telecommunications provider in the United States has taken its first slash in a battle that will wage on for months against consumer democracy and against and the digital natives of Generation Y until the FCC can intercede. Grab your coats Americans, and get ready for war. Today is the day that AT&T officially began censoring the internet.

In a rather vicarious attempt to fire a first shot in the Net Neutrality war, the Telco provider blocked rights to view certain sections of the highly popular imageboard 4chan.org throughout the night. In particular, the /r9k/ and the infamous /b/ sections were inaccessible and the site’s owner has confirmed that AT&T was in fact filtering access for many of its subscribed customers. Several social news blogs and websites have been circulating the information for several hours while many users nationwide are confirming that the site had indeed been blocked in a number of geographic US locations.

Recently as of 8am EST, AT&T has restored access to the site and has confirmed that the censorship issued was “following the practices of their policy department.” In particular, AT&T contacted the owners of 4chan and requested that specific undisclosed changes be made, of which 4chan’s owners have failed to comply. Meanwhile, several concerned activists have contacted AT&T support and have received very general statements regarding the status of the situation, including a few unique responses.

The global internets are already swirling in a storm of exasperated rage and fury at the company’s past statements regarding Net Neutrality and it’s current decision to blacklist 4chan for the time being. At this point, all we can say is that the newly appointed FCC Chairman Genachowski had better be diligently prepared to lead the internet generation of 2010 and beyond if the National Broadband Plan receives enough public interest.

Source

This is great news for internet freedom.

France's highest court has inflicted an embarrassing blow to President Sarkozy by cutting the heart out of a law that was supposed to put France in the forefront of the fight against piracy on the internet.

The Constitutional Council declared access to the internet to be a basic human right, directly opposing the key points of Mr Sarkozy's law, passed in April, which created the first internet police agency in the democratic world.

The strongly-worded decision means that Mr Sarkozy's scheme has backfired and inadvertently boosted those who defend the free-for-all culture of the web.

more

h/t Primalfire

With a new President in favor of network neutrality, the presumptive FCC chair in favor of network neutrality, with every new Democratic member of the Senate in favor network neutrality, with the new chair of the relevant senate subcommittee in favor of network neutrality, with Henry Waxman chairing the Energy and Commerce committee in the House and with the chair of the relevant House subcommittee, Rick Boucher, fighting hard for network neutrality in the past, everything seemed to be in place to pass network neutrality legislation this year. But now, shockingly, Boucher has decided to delay net neutrality legislation, opting instead for more talks and even a possible non-legislative solution.

Grant Goss | January 28

IDG - Google and a group of partners have released a set of tools designed to help broadband customers and researchers measure performance of Internet connections.

The set of tools, at MeasurementLab.net, includes a network diagnostic tool, a network path diagnostic tool and a tool to measure whether the user's broadband provider is slowing BitTorrent peer-to-peer (P-to-P) traffic. Coming soon to the M-Lab applications is a tool to determine whether a broadband provider is giving some traffic a lower priority than other traffic, and a tool to determine whether a provider is degrading certain users or applications.

$6 Billion for broadband and wireless is in the stimulus package passed by the House; along with net neutrality requirements "to ensure nondiscrimination between network owners, content providers and consumers.”

A Democratic agenda is that Obama and Congress are to legislate net neutrality, and a copyright rewrite in '09; meanwhile, Republicans and telcom giants accuse Democrats of "sneaking" net neutrality rules into the stimulus package.

Meet Vint Cerf, the 'father of the internet', and find out what he thinks about net neutrality, spam and how we deal with use and abuse of the web.

W. David Gardner | September 4

Information Week - The sky isn't falling and the Internet isn't running out of capacity either.

In a report that should placate the Chicken Littles who believe the Internet is heading for a monstrous traffic jam, Internet monitor TeleGeography Research said international Internet traffic grew more than 53%, but Internet capacity grew even faster.

In a report released Wednesday, TeleGeography said Internet traffic grew 53% between mid-2007 and mid-2008, a drop from 61% in the preceding year. Internet capacity, however, grew faster than the total Internet traffic, which resulted in lower utilization levels on many Internet backbones.

"Broadband subscriber growth has been slowing since 2001, but the volume of traffic generated by each user [has] grown," Alan Mauldin, the market research firm's director of research, said in a statement. "Traffic growth is fueled by consumer demand for video, delivered via Web browsers, peer-to-peer services, or streaming protocols."

Traffic in the mature U.S. market rose a modest 47%, but in the new market between the United States and Latin America, traffic growth took off, surging 112% for the period.

The TeleGeography findings could be meaningful input in the ongoing debate involving U.S. service providers and consumers concerning the imposition of downloading restrictions on heavy users. Some service providers maintain they will have to impose limits on some users who use too much Internet capacity.


more at the source

Aug. 1 2008

Save The Internet - the Federal Communications Commission voted to punish Comcast for violating Net Neutrality and blocking your right to do what you want on the Internet.
This win is yours. Defying every ounce of conventional wisdom in Washington, activists, bloggers, consumer advocates and everyday people have taken on a major corporation and won.
Today's vote at the FCC is also a precedent-setting victory that sends a powerful message to phone and cable companies that blocking access to the Internet will not be tolerated from this time forward.

Rogers Cadenhead

Apparently AP's legal knickers are in a serious knot over Drudge Retort users links to its stories, contending that copyright is being violated.

Duplicate post, please comment here.

Peter Kaplan | Washington | May 29

Reuters - U.S. communications regulators are considering auctioning a piece of the airwaves to buyers willing to provide free broadband Internet service without pornography.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin is proposing to auction an unused piece of 25-MHz wireless spectrum, with the condition the winning bidder offer free Wi-Fi access and filter out obscene content on part of those airwaves, a spokesman for the FCC said Thursday (May 29).

Under Martin's proposal, the winner would be allowed to use the rest of the airwaves for commercial services.

The plan would address criticism from some consumer advocates, who say the the government has not done enough to get broadband service into more U.S. households. It also could win praise from anti-obscenity watchdog groups.

The main reason "Net Neutrality" is under attack is because of the rising case of identity theft. This problem is caused by dim-witted individuals, YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE, using their credit cards to buy bogus products on illedgtimit websites. Because of these shit for brains, dumbasses our freedom to use the internet, which is possibly our last form of freedom in a so-called democratic world, is now at the mercy of men who think with their wallets. Now if you want to help, here's what you do:
Step 1: Ask around and try to find a person who is a victim of I.D Theft.
Step 2: Invite them into your house for a cup of tea and a few biscuits.

Kenneth Corbin | May 7

InternetNews.com - A House subcommittee held a hearing today to consider legislation that would codify broad principles intended to prevent Internet service providers (ISPs) from slowing or degrading the delivery of certain content over their networks.

Once again, all sides of the Net Neutrality debate lined up to stake their positions while the House debated how to treat the latest bill addressing how traffic on ISPs should be treated.

At this morning's hearing before the House Energy and Commerce Committee's subcommittee on telecommunications and the Internet, ISPs warned that Net neutrality legislation could slow broadband deployment by imposing heavy regulations that would create uncertainties in the business model.

"The weak state of the economy is front pages news," said Walter McCormick, president and CEO of the U.S. Telecom Association. "But one of the bright spots is broadband," he added, warning that the law could put a "chill" on further investment in the sector.

If you are in the Stanford California area tomorrow. FCC hearing.
This is a huge deal coming down, as most Agonistas know. If you have
never been to a FCC hearing, it is well worth the effort.
http://www.savetheinternet.com/=stanford

Global Gridlock:
How the US Military-Industrial Complex Seeks to Contain and Control the Earth and it's Eco-System

by Dr. Kingsley Dennis
Global Research, March 31, 2008

Introduction

The Argentinean writer Jorge Luis Borges once famously wrote of a great Empire that created a map that was so detailed it was as large as the Empire itself. The actual map itself grew and decayed as the Empire itself conquered or lost territory. When the Empire finally crumbled, all that remained was the map. In some sense we can say that it is the map in which we live; we occupy a location within a simulation of reality. Although semanticists say that 'the map is not the territory', within this digitised age the territory is increasingly becoming the map and the separation between the physical and the digitised rendition is blurring. In this context, to 'know the map’ gives priority to intervene upon the physical. In recent years many of us have been scrambling to get 'on the Net' and thus be 'mapped'; within a few years we may find that living 'off the Net' will no longer be an option.

Today I received an accusatory, threatening email from Cox Cable.

Cox's message accuses me of downloading something from a "bittorrent" site or something like that. Although a thorough search of my computer found no evidence of what they mentioned, what this letter does prove is that Cox Cable and the NBC company are engaged in an active, coordinated program of spying on the American public. These two companies appear to have joined AT&T in tracking and gathering information on American citizens.

How widespread is this scheme? I know they are spying on me; are they spying on you, too?

Comcast spokeswoman Jennifer Khoury said that the company paid some people to arrive early and hold places in the queue for local Comcast employees who wanted to attend the hearing.

Some of those placeholders, however, did more than wait in line: They filled many of the seats at the meeting, according to eyewitnesses. As a result, scores of Comcast critics and other members of the public were denied entry because the room filled up well before the beginning of the hearing.

http://www.attytood.com/2008/02/comcastic_phillys_cable_giant.html

Submitted by lambert on Tue, 2008-01-29 09:52.

AT&T is planning to open “all packets” on the Internet, and examine them for intellectual property violations. Email, IM, everything. So, when Gizmodo writer Joel Johnson was invited onto AT&T’s Hugh Johnson Show to talk about gadgets, he decided to talk about that instead. The video:

Read more and watch the video at Corrente

Obama says what we want to hear:

Would you make it a priority in your first year of office to re-instate Net Neutrality as the law of the land? And would you pledge to only appoint FCC commissioners that support open Internet principles like Net Neutrality?"

Obama gave a resounding reply: