[ NNSquad ] Re: Broadband Infrastructure (from IP)

[Brett Glass <nnsquad@brettglass.com>]

> > Any new public funding/tax incentives for ISP broadband deployment
> > should be predicated on a reasonable regulatory approach, including
> > disclosure, transparency, neutrality,

In other words, you personally want to set the rules for funding. 
(And so does everyone else, each according to his own personal 
preferences.) Who died and made you king?

> > and an understanding that we're
> > not going to throw money at the ISPs the way we just did with the
> > financial services sector.

I'm not asking for a penny. I'm asking for you not to regulate me 
out of business, and I will be damned if I will let you. This is my 
resolution for 2009: at whatever cost, your efforts to destroy ISPs will FAIL.

> Agreed 100%.  In fact, I'm a lot happier with this idea than with 
> flat-out regulation.  Here, you can have this subsidy for setting 
> up cable to more places, provided:
>  . You reach at least X% of the households in the designated 
> geographic area, with Y% signing up.

Very, very, VERY bad idea. Because if one carrier achieves this 
goal, then others can't. This leads to monopoly or duopoly.

>  . At least X% of the cable bandwidth is allocated to Internet 
> access (vs. TV cable, PPV, etc.)

You have no business telling us how to run our buainess or allocate 
our resources. If you do, you're sure to mandate something that is 
economically infeasible.

>  . Bandwidth caps must be demonstrably reasonable based on median 
> and 90th percentile usage.

Again, bull. We need to set caps based on simple economics.

>  . Protocol and port-agnostic carriage.  [Exceptions: users must 
> explicitly opt-in to allow access to the Windoze filesharing and 
> to allow _outgoing_ connections to port 25.  In the latter case, 
> users explicitly agree to accept responsibility for spam sent 
> from their machine.]

I see: you wish to dictate our network management policies and 
technology, and to tell us which ports to block and not. Again, who 
died and made you king?

>  . No modification of data sent to or from the user's machine except for:
>     + those explicitly allowed by the RFCs (e.g., decrementing 
> TTL, changes involved in packet splitting)
>     + caching,

Again, who gave you the right to manage MY network?>

>  . Users are allowed to run any application -- specifically 
> including servers -- except those things generally recognized as 
> malware (spam or spim generators, botnet directors, port scanners 
> without explicit consent of the scanned site, attempts to exploit 
> known security holes).
> [Note: I would have no objection if users have to opt-in before 
> remove access to servers is allowed, as long as there is no 
> additional charge for this.  That protects the vast majority of 
> users from having their systems exploited in various ways, at a 
> small inconvenience (one phone call) to the relative few who 
> actually _do_ want to run web/ftp/filesharing servers.]

Why don't YOU put 16 years of your life into a network and try to 
run it that way? If you're not willing to walk the walk, do not 
talk the talk. And do not try to use the government's guns to 
enforce your whims.

--Brett Glass

    [ Welcome to 2009 ...

      As I've previously promised, I will *occasionally* be passing
      through items like this to help demonstrate the depth of
      emotional furor associated with these issues.  Judge such
      texts as you will.

        -- Lauren Weinstein
           NNSquad Moderator ]