[Cybertel-Ann] 2.19.8 :: Transformative Auction - Demand Investigation Now! :: Markey Barkey :: The Demise of the Net is Nigh :: Pretty CAIDA Graphs :: What if Speedtests Were Done With BitTorrent? :: Liar! ::

Tue Feb 19 15:58:34 PST 2008

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Doing research on the Web is like using a library
assembled piecemeal by pack rats and vandalized
nightly. - Roger Ebert

Chairman Kevin Martin on FCC's 'Transformative'
Auction, Ecommerce Times
Kevin Martin, chairman of the Federal Communications
Commission, has pulled off a major policy coup, using
an auction of new wireless spectrum to pry open the
nation's cellular networks to more competing devices
and services. For the past year, Martin has been an
active proponent of the push, persuading his fellow
commissioners to impose auction rules requiring
winners of the largest block of spectrum to allow open
access on the resulting networks. Now, Martin says
these conditions have already begun transforming the
industry.
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/rsstory/61705.html
More Info:
http://www.cybertelecom.org/broadband/w700.htm

700 MHz Auction Inches towards $20 Billion - People
want an investigation into the D-block issue,
dslreports
The FCC s spectrum auction continues on despite
announcements that it should be coming to a close
soon. Approximately 100 licenses are still getting
bids, primarily those in the B-block and E-block
sections of the spectrum. A couple of licenses,
primarily in ND, that had received no bids until now
have started to get some attention. Although the bids
are much lower than when the auction first began, each
new round of bidding brings in over $4 million
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/700-MHz-Auction-Inches-towards-20-Billion-91905
More Info:
http://www.cybertelecom.org/broadband/w700.htm

No Liability for Providing User-Selected Category
Tags--Whitney v. Xcentric, Tech & Marketing Law
Whitney Information Network v. Xcentric Ventures, No.
2:04-cv-47-FtM-34SPC (M.D. Fla. Feb. 15, 2008) On
remand from the...
http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2008/02/no_liability_fo.htm
More Info:
http://www.cybertelecom.org/cda/samaritan.htm

Internet Freedom Policy Act, Peerflow
Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) and Rep. Chip Pickering (R-MS)
have introduced the Internet Freedom Preservation Act
of 2008, which will amend Title I of the
Communications Act of 1934 to say Internet freedom,
commerce, innovation, participation, and speech are
the policy of the United States. It's interesting what
this bill does not say. It doesn't specify any
regulations, so that those who oppose net neutrality
don't have a leg to stand on when they say net
neutrality is all about regulation. It doesn't say
"net neutrality": it says "freedom", "marketplace",
"innovation", and other positive benefits. (I think
I'll take a cue from Commissioner Copps and start
referring to Internet freedom.)
http://riskman.typepad.com/peerflow/2008/02/internet-freedo.html
More Info: http://www.cybertelecom.org/ci/neutral.htm

Markey's Bark Worse Than His Bite, Tech Liberation
Front
The long-awaited network neutrality bill of Rep. Ed
Markey (D-MA) was unveiled this week. H.R. 5353
establishes a new broadband policy and requires the
Federal Communications Commission to conduct an
Internet Freedom Assessment, with public summits and a
report to Congress.
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/techliberation/~3/235892161/043353.php
More Info: http://www.cybertelecom.org/ci/neutral.htm

Comcast’s Disappointing Defense, Freedom to Tinker
Last week, Comcast offered a defense in the FCC
proceeding challenging the technical limitations it
had placed on BitTorrent traffic in its network. (Back
in October, I wrote twice about Comcast’s actions.)
http://feeds.freedom-to-tinker.com/~r/freedom-to-tinker/~3/237218063/
More Info:
http://www.cybertelecom.org/ci/neutralp2p.htm

BitTorrent Developers Working on Ways to Get Around
Sandvine - New encryption to prevent Comcast from
BitTorrent throttling, dslreports
Comcast may insist that its traffic-shaping practices
are reasonable but people who use BitTorrents are in
the business of trying to stop the company from
throttling. BitTorrent developers are working on a new
extension to BitTorrent header protocol encryption. If
successful, this change will allow people to bypass
the BitTorrent interference of advanced applications
such as Sandvine (the application used by Comcast as
well as by other ISPs).
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/BitTorrent-Developers-Working-on-Ways-to-Get-Around-Sandvine-91919
More Info:
http://www.cybertelecom.org/ci/neutralp2p.htm

Unclogging the Tubes: ISPs Search for Solutions to
Overburdened Lines, Ecommerce Times
Why are our Internet lines in danger of jamming up?
One way of looking at it is this: Internet service
providers have been serving us an all-you-can-eat
buffet for years. That has worked great, because
they've had more food than they knew what to do with
and we've enjoyed the simplicity of a flat price and
our pick of the dishes. But every year, our appetites
have been growing. Some of us have turned into real
gluttons, taking advantage of the pricing to eat 10
times as much as the majority of customers.
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/rsstory/61658.html
More Info:
http://www.cybertelecom.org/ci/neutralp2p.htm

As Expected, BitTorrent Providers Planning To Route
Around Comcast Barrier, Techdirt
It's no secret that every time ISPs look to filter or
degrade the performance of a certain kind of traffic,
it only increases attempts to encrypt the traffic,
which actually makes things worse for the ISPs. So now
that Comcast is standing by its BitTorrent traffic
shaping efforts, a group of different BitTorrent
developers are working together to build in encryption
that gets around the Comcast traffic shaping system.
That encryption will, of course, add somewhat to the
overhead that Comcast needs to deal with, and will
become more expensive if they have to keep looking for
new systems to degrade traffic. Perhaps they'll just
follow the lead of some other ISPs in simply degrading
all encrypted traffic -- though, considering how much
legitimate traffic is encrypted, that's going to cause
some problems. Of course, rather than spending so much
fighting all of this, they could focus on building out
their systems to better handle the traffic. But why
would they do that?
http://techdirt.com/articles/20080215/171450267.shtml
More Info:
http://www.cybertelecom.org/ci/neutralp2p.htm

AS Core IPv4 Graph 2007, CAIDA
The long-awaited 2007 AS Core visualization of the
IPv4 AS level topology, generated from a 2007 AS Core
visualization of the IPv4 AS level topology.
http://www.caida.org/analysis/topology/as_core_network/2007/
More Info: http://www.cybertelecom.org/dns/ip.htm

Survey: More government workers can telecommute, CW
A survey says 96% of U.S. government employees could
work from home at least part time -- but only about
20% do.
http://feeds.computerworld.com/~r/Computerworld/News/~3/237719632/article.do
More Info: http://www.cybertelecom.org/environment/

Slashdot Keeps Rediscovering Comcast Powerboost - And
every time wonders if the ISP is mucking with speed
tests
, dslreports
For the second time in less than a year, Slashdot, and
the site's users, are seemingly confused about the
nature of Comcast's popular Powerboost technology,
which gives users a slight boost in bandwidth for the
first few moments of a download or upload. Last July,
a Slashdot user thought Comcast was somehow gaming
speedtests, and the post resulted in a network
neutrality flame war. This morning yet another
Slashdot user discovered Powerboost for the first
time, the site again suggesting that Comcast was
somehow manipulating Internet speedtest results.
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Slashdot-Keeps-Rediscovering-Comcast-Powerboost-91976
More Info:
http://www.cybertelecom.org/industry/comcast.htm

Craigslist's Craig: 'It Just Feels Right', Ecommerce
Times
"The effort started in 1994. I was at Charles Schwab,
working on overall security architecture. While I was
looking around at the Internet, I saw a lot of people
helping each other out and thought that I should do
something too. So in 1995, I began to e-mail a bunch
of friends about art and technical events in San
Francisco. Over the months that followed, people kept
asking if I could add the occasional job posting and
listings for things to sell, too. Then I said, 'Let's
add apartment listings, too,'" said Craig Newmark,
founder of Craigslist.
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/rsstory/61690.html
More Info: http://www.cybertelecom.org/media/

Blogger Wins Top Journalism Award, IP Democracy
This past weekend an unbelievably uninteresting debate
gripped a select group of bloggers, triggered by a
post from uber-VC Fred Wilson. Wilson, upset with what
he considered to be low caliber blogging by what he
calls "journabloggers," or well-funded bloggers who
skirt the line between journalism and blogging, called
for, well, better journalism by bloggers.
http://www.ipdemocracy.com/archives/2008/02/19/#002879
More Info: http://www.cybertelecom.org/media/

Surveillance Law Set to Expire Today, Wash Post
A federal law granting President Bush extensive powers
to monitor the communications of foreign terrorism
suspects without a court warrant expires today, the
culmination of an unusual political game of chicken in
which neither side gave way before leaving Washington.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/15/AR2008021503195.html?nav=rss_technology
More Info:
http://www.cybertelecom.org/security/fisa.htm

Lies, Damned Lies, and National Security, Tech
Liberation Front
House Minority Leader John Boehner is just full of
interesting statements on the FISA debate:
    Because of the Democrats’ inaction, the Protect
America Act expired last night at midnight, forcing
our intelligence officials to revert to the same
terror surveillance laws that failed to protect
America from the al-Qaeda terrorist attack on 9/11. Al
Qaeda and other terrorist groups are still plotting
against the United States and our allies, but now our
intelligence officials don’t have all the tools they
need to protect us. These laws didn’t safeguard
America in 2001, so why would House Democrat leaders
place our nation at risk by putting them back into
effect now?
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/techliberation/~3/236658411/043355.php
More Info:
http://www.cybertelecom.org/security/fisa.htm

Court Turns Deaf Ear to ACLU Wiretapping Appeal,
Ecommerce Times
The Supreme Court rejected a challenge Tuesday to the
Bush administration's domestic spying program. The
justices' decision, issued without comment, is the
latest setback to legal efforts to force disclosure of
details of the warrantless wiretapping that began
after the Sept. 11 attacks. The American Civil
Liberties Union wanted the court to allow a lawsuit by
the group and individuals over the wiretapping
program. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
dismissed the suit, saying the plaintiffs could not
prove their communications had been monitored
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/rsstory/61724.html
More Info:
http://www.cybertelecom.org/security/fisa.htm

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