Re: [Cerowrt-devel] BBR congestion control algorithm for TCP innet-next

[dpreed@reed.com]

On Wednesday, September 21, 2016 3:32am, "Alan Jenkins" <alan.christopher.jenkins@gmail.com> said:

> On 20/09/16 21:27, dpreed@reed.com wrote:
> I don't think the source is hard to identify.  It's Sandvine press
> releases.  That's what the periodic stories on Ars Technica are always
> derived from.
> 
> https://www.sandvine.com/pr/2015/12/7/sandvine-over-70-of-north-american-traffic-is-now-streaming-video-and-audio.html

Press releases have almost no scientific verifiability and validity, and Sandvine is self-interested in a biased outcome. (Sad that Ars Technica just repeats these without questioning the numbers). In the past, I have actually questioned Sandvine directly, and had friends in the measurement community have asked for the raw data and methodology.  The response: "trade secrecy" and "customer privacy" prevent release of both raw data and methods.

If one is predisposed to "like" the result, one then repeats it as a "citation" often omitting the actual source and quoting the place where it appeared (e.g. Ars Technica said, rather than Sandvine said).

This is how propaganda works. It's exactly how propaganda works - I happen to have propaganda textbooks from the late 1940's that have chapters about these techniques.

Of course, the best propaganda is the stuff that you can get engineers in the field to promulgate based on their "gut feel".