[NNagain] Some backstory on the nn-again mailing list

Sun Oct 1 14:56:35 EDT 2023

OK, so I will bite the bullet! I have invited Ajit Pai and Martin Geddes to
join us here and let's see if they still have some time and/or even stomach
for current round of NN discussion.

Anyway, here is my bullet.* I will argue with Martin, that - Net Neutrality
CAN'T be implemented: *

*Whilst people argue over the virtues of net neutrality as a regulatory
> policy, computer science tells us regulatory implementation is a fool’s
> errand.*
> Suppose for a moment that you are the victim of a wicked ISP that engages
> in disallowed “throttling” under a “neutral” regime for Internet access.
> You like to access streaming media from a particular “over the top” service
> provider. By coincidence, the performance of your favoured application
> drops at the same time your ISP launches a rival content service of its own.
> You then complain to the regulator, who investigates. She finds that your
> ISP did indeed change their traffic management settings right at the point
> that the “throttling” began. A swathe of routes, including the one to your
> preferred “over the top” application, have been given a different packet
> scheduling and routing treatment.
> It seems like an open-and-shut case of “throttling” resulting in a
> disallowed “neutrality violation”. Or is it?
> *Here’s why the regulator’s enforcement order will never survive the
> resulting court case and expert witness scrutiny:*

*https://www.martingeddes.com/one-reason-net-neutrality-cant-implemented/*
<https://www.martingeddes.com/one-reason-net-neutrality-cant-implemented/>

I hope you will read the link ^^ before jumping to Martin's conclusion, but
still, here it is:

> So if not “neutrality”, then what else?
> *The only option is to focus on the end-to-end service quality*. The
> local traffic management is an *irrelevance* and complete distraction.
> Terms like “throttling” are technically meaningless. The lawgeneers
> <http://martingeddes.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=f105fd56904428bca9da44a82&id=732dff72e5&e=8d627b38dd> who
> have written articles and books saying otherwise are unconsciously
> incompetent at computer science.
> *We computer scientists call this viable alternative “end-to-end” approach
> a “quality floor”*. The good news is that we now have a practical means
> to measure it
> <http://martingeddes.us1.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=f105fd56904428bca9da44a82&id=b5afe64690&e=8d627b38dd>
>  and hard science
> <http://martingeddes.us1.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=f105fd56904428bca9da44a82&id=ea6122c7a8&e=8d627b38dd> to
> model it.
> Maybe we should consciously and competently try it?

All the best,

Frank

Frantisek (Frank) Borsik

https://www.linkedin.com/in/frantisekborsik

Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp: +421919416714

iMessage, mobile: +420775230885

Skype: casioa5302ca

frantisek.borsik at gmail.com

On Sun, Oct 1, 2023 at 7:15 PM Dave Taht via Nnagain <
nnagain at lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:

> I am pleased to see over 100 people have signed up for this list
> already. I am not really planning on "activating" this list until
> tuesday or so, after a few more people I have reached out to sign up
> (or not).
>
> I would like y´all to seek out people with differing opinions and
> background, in the hope that one day, we can shed more light than heat
> about the science and technologies that "govern" the internet, to
> those that wish to regulate it. In the short term, I would like enough
> of us to agree on an open letter, or NPRM filing,and to put out a
> press release(s), in the hope that this time, the nn and title ii
> discussion is more about real, than imagined, internet issues. [1]
>
> I am basically planning to move the enormous discussion from over
> here, titled "network neutrality back in the news":
>
> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/pipermail/starlink/2023-September/thread.html
>
> to here. I expect that we are going to be doing this discussion for a
> long time, and many more issues besides my short term ones will be
> discussed. I hope that we can cleanly isolate technical issues from
> political ones, in particular, and remain civil, and factual, and
> avoid hyperbole.
>
> Since the FCC announcement of a proposed NPRM as of Oct 19th... my own
> initial impetus was to establish why the NN debate first started in
> 2005, and the conflict between the legal idea of "common carriage" vs
> what the internet was actually capable of in mixing voip and
> bittorrent, in
> "The Bufferbloat vs Bittorrent vs Voip" phase. Jim Gettys, myself, and
> Jason Livinggood have weighed in on their stories on linkedin,
> twitter, and elsewhere.
>
> There was a second phase, somewhat triggered by netflix, that Jonathan
> Morton summarized in that thread, ending in the first establishment of
> some title ii rules in 2015.
>
> The third phase was when title ii was rescinded... and all that has
> happened since.
>
> I, for one, am fiercely proud about how our tech community rose to
> meet the challenge of covid, and how, for example, videoconferencing
> mostly just worked for so many, after a postage stamp sized start in
> 2012[2]. The oh-too-faint-praise for that magnificent effort from
> higher levels rankles me greatly, but I will try to get it under
> control.
>
> And this fourth phase, opening in a few weeks, is more, I think about
> privacy and power than all the other phases, and harmonization with EU
> legislation, perhaps. What is on the table for the industry and
> internet is presently unknown.
>
> So here we "NN-again". Lay your issues out!
>
>
>
> [1] I have only had one fight with the FCC. Won it handily:
>
> https://www.computerworld.com/article/2993112/vint-cerf-and-260-experts-give-fcc-a-plan-to-secure-wi-fi-routers.html
> In this case this is not so much a fight, I hope, but a collaborative
> effort towards a better, faster, lower latency, and more secure,
> internet for everyone.
>
> [2] https://archive.org/details/video1_20191129
> --
> Oct 30:
> https://netdevconf.info/0x17/news/the-maestro-and-the-music-bof.html
> Dave Täht CSO, LibreQos
> _______________________________________________
> Nnagain mailing list
> Nnagain at lists.bufferbloat.net
> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/nnagain
>
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