Why We Need A New Telecom Law Now

"Dr. John Rutledge on why inadequate investment in high-speed telecom networks undermines our competitiveness. For the past decade, policies in Washington have discouraged investment by undermining the return on capital invested in US telecom assets." -clubbin714

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A good read, however my thoughts concerning this are that expecting the government and or the telecoms to change is probably just wishful thinking. Rather the public needs to build new networks which are not backed and operated by corporations, or regulated by governments. The most likely network of this kind would of course be wireless, as it is very unlikely a wired network could be formed considering the massive amount of legal red tape and restrictions, along with other boundries.

How this relates to the internet, currenly in the U.S. most connections provided by isp's are far more costly than they should be even for just 56k dialup, worse yet there is a major conflict of interest spreading amoung isp's as they are intent on being content providers as well as service providers, which I think is something that should be made illegal by law. Average broadband speeds are under 10mb/s both ways, the upstreams often less than 1mb/s. While internet services continue to degrade for customers in the U.S., other countries have pulled far ahead of America, in providing services at far better rates such as 100mb/s both ways for roughly the same monthly rates Americans are being charged for broadband. Is this really alright?

Using current comercial grade wireless products a public wireless could be formed, that would have much higher speeds than 10mb/s both ways. Also by using newer wifi standards and mixing in wimax, both range and performance can be made even greater.

So should not Americans consider just leaving telcoms behind, instead forming a much better internet? One that is completely free to access?

I think a free internet is the future, isp's are soon going to become part of the past, a dinosaur, just something we can tell our grandkids about.

Isp's, the government and corporations have seriously messed things up for too long, why not tell them to shove off?

Granted forming this new free internet won't be easy, there will be hardware and software requirements to be overcome, possibly even international issues. Though any trouble will be well worth it. It will mean no more messing with finding hotspots and hijacking wireless networks through wardriving. Everyone with a computer will be able to connect, freely from anywhere within range of any wireless hub.

Corporate and government agenda's will not decide or influence the future of the network. Instead just the limits of technology will.

The only thing that could prevent such a network being formed would be the spread of cheap fiber to the home connections. Say at a rate of no more than 20$/month. Whatever the future holds, the days of overcharging for highspeed internet are numbered that much is almost certain.

Why this blog has been idle for a little while

Why? Mostly that I have not had much interest in blogging and really been too busy with other things to bother posting. Much has gone on during that time and has been worthy of being posted here. Most recently the issue with isp filterring and continued antipiracy efforts, also changes and developements with bittorrent. The following post will cover those, additional posts relating to other topics may follow today or soon after.

The future of bittorrent and the internet

Bittorrent clients have already seen some interesting changes since the original client was first released, including the addition of dht networking and more recently the use of encrypted headers.

Unfortunately many people will misunderstand just what the encrypted headers features provide and what they do not. To clear some of the more serious misunderstandings up, first they do not make you anonymous or secure from unfriendly peers. All they do is prevent middlemen such as isp's from as easily identifying clients and traffic. Mostly this feature is just a response to traffic shaping and not an serious effort to protect users privacy.

Also in order to take full advantage of the encrypted headers feature every peer should be using a client which includes it even if they really do not need it. Why? if they do not there will be two groups of peers, the ones with it and the ones without it. Content does not get shared between these two groups so you can just imagine how this will degrade the content distribution process.

Problems facing filesharers

Traffic shaping by isp's is just one problem facing filesharers these days, a problem which is spreading and becoming more common. There are other problems such as the ones in regards to user safety and privacy, some of us that are more familiar with these topics know that they are just as serious and far more costly to users than mere traffic shaping.

So while encrypted headers might be a temporary solution to the traffic shaping problem, peers still face other problems that need to be addressed as well. Since in order to continue sharing they have to start using encryption anyways, why not go all the way and protect themselves from bad peers. Many clients already include blocklist support, such as bitcomet's ipfilter.dat and azureus's safepeer plugin, however that is a far from ideal solution to the bad peers problem, it is not really effective enough to protect peer's privacy. Certainly since dht, trackers and even peer exchange features will distribute peer addresses. So bad peers still get your ip address even if you use such a blocklist, even if they cannot connect to you, do you really think that matters, maybe in some areas of the world, but not the U.S. and possibly many countries in Europe. Some might argue that the peers in the U.K. are safe, that without strong proof they cannot be taken to court, that is really unknown and may or may not be true. Also even if true could be subject to change at any time.

Besides the U.S. and Europe, which are two of the most densely populated areas of peers, the remaining areas with many peers are in similar if not often worse situations when it comes to their local laws.

Now what percentage of peers knowingly share content which is only deemed by copyright groups as illegal? Those groups have already admitted years ago they realize that many peers share content not even knowing they are doing so or that said content is considered as illegal by just those groups. Also those groups have made it very clear they do not care who they target, innocent but technically legally responsible parents, which for the most part know nothing or next to nothing about filesharing, yet when confronted settle out of court as a natural kneejerk reaction to being notified. Targeting minors, even as young as those who are just preteens. Do they really expect such young children to understand the law and complicated issues such as copyrights, certainly since most adults do not and even cannot understand them?

Online copyright enforcement is a morally reprehensible activity, where corporate greed prevails and the public be dammed. It has never been about artists, their rights and putting money in their pockets. Only a few artists who happen to own and operate their own recording groups are effected by online piracy, even then how much it effects them is very questionable, far from anything certain. Even argued that piracy might be good for many artists, that many become more popular solely because of it and end up making more money, since they are not being held down as much by the copyright groups. Of course that is just the music related piracy and not other piracy such as movies and software. For the most part software piracy has been around for about as long as software has, it existed long before the internet and played a major part of the adoption of computer technology, it is mostly misunderstood and wrongfully villianized, certainly not given the credit it is due. Online movie piracy on the other hand is fairly new compared to music and software piracy. Now to point out that online piracy is not very serious at all, it is not very harmful or costly to its supposed victims which for the most part are multi-million or even multi-billion dollar companies, many of which are only too happy to rip off their customers and grossly overcharge for their products.

Piracy

Yes stealing is still stealing, but piracy is not technically stealing, certainly at least not in any classic sense of the term. Yet regardless the real crime surrounding piracy is of course the crimes that copyright enforcers are committing and allowed to commit against the public.

Where is the real pirates anyways, since they are not filesharers? They are where they have always been offline, bootleggers which copy and more importantly sell their illegal hard copies of albums and movies. These bootleggers are having a real and seriously costly effect on content producers.

Also never mind that many people who supposedly download illegal copies of content end up buying the content which they like. That since the copyright groups have started waging this anti piracy war years ago, shutting down the original napster, many people have been put off and just stopped buying content, every year more people join them, some on principal alone, others due to being notified and sued. This is going to eventually have a serious effect on the media providers, at this point their missed profits already are probably in the millions and continuing to increase. This is a loss that they are solely responsible for creating, alienating your customers and driving them away is not a winning money making strategy, regardless what the media providers would like to believe.

Going after offline bootleggers, is worthwhile and a just endeavor. The copyright groups should not have ever started this online war, a war they are not only losing, but is costing them far more than they can ever hope to gain from it. Not only financially they would be better off if they didn't wage it, but also when it comes to their public image, they would be much better off. So far they are needlessly making fools and villains of themselves and actually seem proud of it.

Does any company that goes after its customers be allowed to stay in business? It is fundamentally stupid and wrong.

Thanks mostly to these clowns, pirates are more like modern day robbinhoods than anything even close to being criminals. Hence they are the publics online heroes, fighting the big evil organizations who wish to rule the world, controlling culture and the public.

Anyhow, the main point here of making these statements concerning the piracy situation, is that people need to understand these clowns are extremely dense, inflexible and not understanding, they do not care about circumstances and will go after anyone, doing whatever it takes. There is nothing reasonable or logical about these groups. They know nothing of mercy and fairness. Have yet to show any sign of such things.

So is it not reasonable to do whatever you can to protect your online privacy? Does it not make sense not to leave your safety from these groups up to mere chance, a roll of the dice? Hundreds of people are being sued all the time, thousands have already been notified and sued, many have settled. Guilt and actual proof have nothing to do with it.

The near future and new Internet

Bittorrent's future and even the future for nearly all online activity will lay in not only using encryption, but also in networking which protects users privacy. Recently the situation with google being told to turn over its records to the U.S. government is a prime example that even using search engines is going to require some measures to ensure your privacy.

We are seeing a new internet age emerging, one where most activities will be conducted through encrypted connections and other networking measures which protect users privacy.

There are both good and bad examples of how to go about anonymous networking, the best example of how not to do this is of course freenet, since it suffers from horrible speeds and clearly is not suited for regular use. For the best example of how to do anonymous networking we look no further than i2p, already far better developed than freenet, tor and gnunet, it has not only the features, but also the performance for regular use, though it still lacks the polish that will make it popular with newbies and the less technologically equipped. Though it is important to note that tor really should not be compared to i2p, since it is merely a stepping stone towards user privacy and not really a full solution.

Bittorrent and all filesharing's future already reside with the i2p network, peers have just yet to adopt this future. Given more time and development they will, certainly as the internet continues to become increasingly hostile and problematic. As filesharers adopt the i2p network, other groups of internet users will as well. More developers will flock to the network and through their efforts will create new applications and help improve the many existing ones.

In the last few months more bittorrent clients have been made for the i2p network and one is now even included with i2p. Also the gnutella client i2phex has seen further development, recently with the addition of webcaches to it.

From the bad something good has come

As the internet continues to become more regulated, restrictive and performance is degraded through filtering, spam and worms, the new internet, i2p's internet will rise from its ashes like a phoenix.

Unlike older attempts at internet anonymity such as freenet, i2p's development efforts are more serious and has a more talented main developer, along with many contributing developers. It already greatly outshines the other similar projects. From the burning ashes that make up the internet this new network and community are rising. Nothing can and will stop this. This network will someday be far bigger than napster, freenet, kazaa, irc and even bittorrent. This is not your parents or commercial internet, it is a new internet, by the people, for the people, it is the people's internet. Though it might stumble and fall, it will always get back up and move forward, though the hardware network may change it will keep going. Though the old internet may self destruct, upon itself, through corporate greed and corruption, this new internet will go on.

Who you can thank and blame for this rant

This rant was brought to you by recent isp trafficshaping and continued antipiracy efforts, by such groups as the riaa and mpaa.

Wtf is going on with the chip sector?!

This week amd's stock declined due to groups downgrading it based on problems reported by intel. Such reports should cause amd's stock it go up, not down. However this is nothing new, those groups have typically downgraded the entire chip sector based on intel. This is just wrong, for years intel has had serious problems which if anything has been good for other chip companies. Today amd's stock has rebounded and in a big way, which has brought up the entire chip sector. Again this does not make any sense. If anything the rest of the sector should go down if not stay where it is at. For the last few years amd's stock continues to be wrongfully judged and seriously undervalued, it could easily be double where it is at today, without becoming overvalued. While intel's stock continues to be highly overvalued, judged favorably without reason.

Sooner or later regardless of unfair favor and good judgements, intel's stock is heading for a major correction, could even see losses of up to 50% or more.

This is just my take on these stocks, yet are they more illogical than the market judgements concerning the chip sector over the last couple years if not longer?

My statement concerning the gains that amd's stock (not intel's) should be seeing are based on both recent and long term data and possitive reports some of the big names (kramer for example) in stock reporting have given.

There is no possible reason for intel to be up, beyond wrongfully possitive judgements.

Guess my main point remains, wtf is going on? Within the last few years what has intel done to earn such unfair favor? Bad management and the total failure to bring new technology to market are amoungst the reasons against giving intel any favor.

Proxytools Kit For WindowsXP

Been a little busy, have not had much time to update the blog. Here is something for winxp users who use proxies and need to regularly find them and yes it includes a massive sample list. You will need winrar or something similar to extract its contents. Enjoy and check out the forum post for further details.

Free Proxy Toolkit for windows xp.

Download

sha1 hash:075286611D0B8620334027000427F770198C759C

Filesize 4,084,576 bytes

Forum Post

emule p3p

No client yet, a development pack released, discussion just starting. Also don't blame me for the name as I didn't pick it. Also I think it is a bad idea.

read more | digg story

Bush Authorized NSA Domestic Spying

"A new report indicates President Bush may have authorized illegal activity by signing an order allowing the NSA to bypass all provisions of the Patriot Act and spy on US citizens without any authorization or oversight. Scary stuff!"

read more | digg story

Wow imagine that, the tinfoil hat people seem a little less crazy now don't they? Just shows a moderate amount of paranoia is a good thing, while not enough or too much is usually bad.

Just Let Us Play The Movie

"Great story pushing for a single industry and os wide standard. Also points out about the need to not overcharge for products in the first place as a key against piracy."

read more | digg story

Will media companies take such a sane approach when historically they tend not to? Seems very unlikely.

Latest Anti Filesharing Campain, What Will Come Of It?

With the flood of new stories in the news and advertisements in various forms of media such as tv. What will come from all of it? Historically the numbers and stats say very little if anything, so why the major costly effort?

There are a few possible outcomes, amongst them being a major win for the anti filesharing groups. However another as unlikely outcome being a win for filesharers everywhere. How could it possibly become a win for filesharers? Well they might finally take the hint that continuing to use unsafe insecure software and networks is bad, their activities legal or otherwise is too risky. Recently with one filesharer in the United States of America losing his internet account due to downloading linux iso's, it seems not even legal filesharing is safe anymore. So that is a clear victory for the anti filesharing groups like the much hated riaa and mpaa, which are well known for going after minors, the elderly and parents.

Really at this point how could it become a victory for filesharers? Well they might finally see not just the point but the great need to use something safe and secure, such as i2phex. Granted the likelihood of filesharers waking up and realizing such things is very low. Instead millions of filesharers possibly as much as up to 100 million or more throughout the US and Europe will likely opt to remain vulnerable and exposed online, mostly completely naked save for the few which use a few minor security settings and software such as peerguardian in a very weak attempt to isolate themselves from the current storm of bots and bad peers.

Granted the US and Europe filesharers are far from being alone, others such as the ones in South Korea and Australia are also starting to become more effected. Adding millions, perhaps another hundred million or more to the tally of those being effected.

When there are completely free ways for filesharers to stay safe online and avoid getting their accounts canceled by their isp's or possibly wrongfully sued by some group like the riaa, how many filesharers will actually choose them? On a purely technical standpoint both i2p and i2phex clearly are ready enough for so many users, it is just a matter of choice, plus overcoming the initial installation and configuration process, which for many is not too tough, in fact it is probably too easy. So while they could do so now, it seems unlikely they will. Many people underestimate how serious these problems are and that they even can happen to them! They think there probably is a better chance of being hit by lightening or hit by a car.

Our reviewer gets banned for downloading Linux torrents

"Our reviewer in the States Mark Fitch was banned from his internet service provider after writing a bad review of their service on dslreports.com as well as downloading torrents which his internet service provider says that none are legal(interesting eh?)?"

read more | digg story

This story certainly deserves our attention. A ISP in the US did what?! More to the point the customer supposedly did nothing illegal and the ISP was not willing to work with the customer to resolve the issue. So to all the filesharers in the US seems yes your internet access can be dropped for just filesharing, even if you are not breaking the law, just running applications like bittorrent, gnutella, edonkey2000, kazaa, soulseek, winmx and other such older p2p software will get you kicked offline and your account dropped. It has happened and no doubt will happen even more commonly in the near future. Certainly after this last media campain led by the riaa, mpaa and supported by others.

Also seems you have to watch what you say about your isp they are listening and paying attention! Also you can be sure that just writing a bad review on some forum like dslreports is not the only way to lose your connection, others certainly include IM, IRC, Blogs, Websites, Newsgroups and more!

Remind us who is supposed to be the criminal, filesharers or the Riaa?

The Truth About Piracy

A clear and simple point of view, could also be labeled as Piracy From A Pirates Point Of View, or Rational For Piracy.

Theater-to-DVD Release Window Shrinks

So piracy has had some good results for consumers, what next?

Mom VS. Riaa Loses and we're crying foul

Well who didn't see that coming, even though many of us hoped it would not. Terrible news for peers on Fasttrack, Gnutella, Edonkey2000, Bittorrent and other such networks. A true pirate or not, you are legally screwed.

PIRACY WAR, PATRIOT ACT, ESCALATING?

"We are being led to believe that sharing information is illegal. We have previously exposed how under proposed expansions to the Patriot Act, which has just been extended, News and information gathering could be deemed to be illegal."

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