A recent Net Neutrality proposal from Google and Verizon has dominated the news this week, with opponents claiming that the deal would kill Net Neutrality on wireless (cellular) networks. What hasn’t been mentioned thus far, however, is that BitTorrent and other types of evil traffic have already been banned for years by Verizon, AT&T and others.

This week, Google has been bashed by dozens of self-respecting news outlets on the Internet after it published a joint proposal with Verizon that aims to preserve Net Neutrality. Most of the critique is aimed at the suggestion of limiting the proposed rules to wired networks for now, while leaving wireless networks untouched.

Although the proposal is far from perfect, we are even more surprised by the misplaced outrage towards Google. How can it be that thousands of reporters and activists claim that the Google / Verizon deal will kill Net Neutrality if there’s no such thing in the first place?

Next week marks the three year anniversary of the story that Comcast was preventing BitTorrent users from uploading content to others after they had finished downloading. Rightfully so, Comcast’s practices led to a thorough FCC investigation and the ISP was eventually punished for its interventions.

But Comcast was not the only one who play(ed)s foul.

Despite Net Neutrality being in the spotlight for nearly three years due to the Comcast debacle, nobody seemed to pay attention to the fact that wireless broadband providers such as Verizon and AT&T were completely banning BitTorrent traffic on their networks.

In the spring of 2007, months before Comcast’s BitTorrent blocking practices were revealed, we already reported that Verizon was not allowing any BitTorrent traffic on its wireless networks. In the years that followed the company slightly changed the wording of its Terms of Service, but up until today BitTorrent users are still not welcome.

Verizon isn’t the only wireless carrier with such a policy either. The Terms of Service at AT&T for example, includes the following section under the heading Prohibited and Permissible Uses.

While most common uses for Intranet browsing, email and intranet access are permitted by your data plan, there are certain uses that cause extreme network capacity issues and interference with the network and are therefore prohibited. Examples of prohibited uses include, without limitation, the following: (i) server devices or host computer applications, including, but not limited to, Web camera posts or broadcasts, automatic data feeds, automated machine-to-machine connections or peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing.

That doesn’t sounds very neutral does it?

For years nobody gave a cent for Net Neutrality on wireless networks, but this all changed a few days ago when Google and Verizon presented their plans. The thousands of reports, calls for protests, petitions and random Google bashing that followed were mind-blowing to say the least.

Although we’re not backing the proposal, we can’t help but note that Google’s proposal is in essence very similar to the (widely praised) Net Neutrality regulations that were suggested a few month ago by the FCC. On several points it’s actually an improvement, as the EFF also noted.

Even the most troubling part of Google’s proposal – that wireless networks would be excluded for the time being – is not much different from what the FCC suggested. In fact, buried in their proposals the FCC also acknowledged that wireless networks needed special treatment.

“We seek comment on the application of the principles to different access platforms, including how, in what time frames or phases, and to what extent the principles should apply to non-wireline forms of Internet access,” the FCC wrote in their proposed rulemaking (pdf) a few months ago.

Despite this vagueness about how the rules would apply to wireless networks, the majority of the Net Neutrality proponents hailed the FCC proposal. Take this comment from Ben Scott, policy director of Free Press for example:

“After years of hard work, we are pleased that the FCC has begun this crucially important rulemaking on Network Neutrality. A well-crafted Net Neutrality rule can ensure that the open Internet continues to serve as a great force for economic innovation and democratic participation for all Americans.”

Then compare that the statement Free Press released a few hours ago, when it rallied support for a protest at Google’s offices.

“In the week since news of Google’s deal with Verizon broke, more than 300,000 people have signed letters calling on Google to abandon the proposal, which threatens to destroy Network Neutrality – the fundamental principle that keeps the Internet open and free from discrimination.”

Seriously, we don’t understand where all the hatred towards Google comes from. The proposal is not going to destroy Net Neutrality, simply because Net Neutrality doesn’t exist yet.

In our view, the proposal is a great step forward to Net Neutrality on wired networks, something that doesn’t yet exist. Of course it still leaves the door open for BitTorrent throttling, but so did the FCC proposal.

The reality is that the Internet would be better off with the rules put forward in the Google / Verizon proposal than with no rules at all. That said, wireless networks need to be neutral in the long run of course.

I guess the take home message is that you can’t kill something that isn’t there. So, if all the people who are so outraged at Google’s proposal could also organize protests at the offices of Verizon and AT&T to demand the right to use BitTorrent on their wireless services, we’ll stop complaining.

Article from: TorrentFreak.

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In 2008 Comcast was ordered to stop slowing down BitTorrent users by preventing them sharing files with others. In addition, the company had to disclose all “network management” practices.

The whole Comcast debacle ignited a discussion about Net Neutrality and eventually led to the FCC’s national broadband plan which was released last month. Today, the Court of Appeals overruled FCC’s decision in the Comcast case, with three judges stating that the commission doesn’t have the authority to require ISPs to keep their network neutral.

After appealing FCC’s decision in favor of BitTorrent users, Comcast has finally got the verdict (pdf) it wanted. Although it seems unlikely that the ISP will pick up its old habit of preventing BitTorrent users to seed files, it could in theory do so.

The Court of Appeals ruling states that the FCC did not have the power to regulate ISPs network managing practices, which leaves the commission with two options. It could appeal at the Supreme Court, or it could ask Congress to give it the powers it wants and/or needs.

The latter option will pose potential problems for the likes of Comcast, with the FCC potentially asking not only for powers to deal with this particular case, but for greatly increased powers to regulate the entire sector.

For BitTorrent users on Comcast and other US Internet providers there are uncertain times ahead.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

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Although Comcast has been at the center of the BitTorrent blocking and Net Neutrality debate, they are certainly not the only Internet provider targeting the popular file-sharing protocol.

All around the world, hundreds of larger and smaller ISPs are actively interfering with BitTorrent traffic, allegedly to keep their networks in good shape. Thus far, only Comcast has been punished for doing so.

In 2008 the FCC looked into Comcast’s BitTorrent blocking and concluded that the company’s network management practices were unfair because they specifically targeted BitTorrent, not any other protocols.

The FCC ordered Comcast to stop blocking BitTorrent transfers, and last year the communications commission decided to take up the task of ensuring that the Internet remains neutral. At least, that was the initial plan, the reality is less hopeful.

Although it was Comcast’s anti-BitTorrent measures that sparked the current Net Neutrality debate, the FCC’s current proposals are not going to stop ISPs from slowing down or even blocking BitTorrent traffic. In fact, if these rules are implemented, BitTorrent users will be worse off than three years ago.

In the 107 page proposal detailing the Net Neutrality regulation, the FCC says that all traffic on the Internet should be treated equally, but it allows ISPs to slow down or block traffic if it’s considered to be “reasonable network management”.

So the key issue is, what are reasonable network management practices and how may these affect BitTorrent traffic? Let’s take a look at what the FCC has to say about this.

Reasonable network management consists of reasonable practices employed by a provider of broadband Internet access service to [...] (i) reduce or mitigate the effects of congestion on its network or to address quality-of-service concerns; [...] (iii) prevent the transfer of unlawful content; or (iv) prevent the unlawful transfer of content.

In short, this means that ISPs have plenty of options to target BitTorrent traffic and keep the Net Neutral at the same time. Let’s take a closer look.

As the EFF has also pointed out, the latter two conditions (iii and iv) would make it perfectly reasonable to block BitTorrent traffic for the purpose of preventing piracy. The terminology is rather vague, but we expect that when the MPAA or RIAA produce a report stating that 95% of all BitTorrent traffic involves copyright violations, blocking BitTorrent may become perfectly reasonable.

And that’s just one of the many loopholes. There are also plenty of options for ISPs to target BitTorrent traffic without going for the piracy/copyright angle. In fact, congestion issues and quality-of-service concerns are even more viable and can be implemented to target BitTorrent traffic specifically, but indirectly.

Under the proposed plans, ISPs could simply manage their networks by slowing down connections that use “too many” TCP connections, one of the key characteristics of BitTorrent traffic. There are plenty of arbitrary rules that may look reasonable and neutral, but will specifically (not exclusively) hinder BitTorrent transfers to ease the strain on the network.

In fact, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) which develops and promotes Internet standards is working on a proposal that might kill BitTorrent traffic if implemented. The proposed protocol will mark all packets which are expected to cause congestion as “negative packets,” which is likely to apply to and slow down most peer-to-peer traffic.

One way or another, the FCC’s Net Neutrality plan is no guarantee that BitTorrent will be able to download at full speeds. On the contrary, the plans might actually encourage ISPs to use Deep Packet Inspection technologies to check if the traffic of its subscribers is lawful, if it’s the last resort to slow down BitTorrent. We don’t want that to happen do we?

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

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After more than two years, Comcast’s BitTorrent throttling practices and their implications for Net Neutrality are still making the headlines. The company still refuses to admit its wrongdoings and prefers to make its own rules for how the Internet should be regulated.

Their decision to prevent BitTorrent users from sharing content over their network has sparked the Net Neutrality debate, resulting in an FCC investigation and various lawsuits. One of these suits was settled last month.

Comcast agreed to put $16m into a fund to pay BitTorrent users that were affected by the ‘network management’ which made it impossible for them to share files after their downloads had completed.

Each of the affected users can now claim their $16 in damages, but those who do are required to state to the Court, under penalty of perjury, that their use of BitTorrent “was for lawful purpose consistent with applicable copyright and other laws.” This required statement came as an unpleasant surprise to many affected Comcast users.

“Am I supposed to be able to remember everything I downloaded during that period, and be cognizant of the copyright status of those items not only then, but now?” one worried Comcast user told TorrentFreak. “I certainly do not think that sixteen dollars is enough incentive to possibly suffer the penalties of committing unwitting federal perjury.”

Other Comcast users will have to agree with this assessment, simply because it is often not clear when one is violating copyright law. For example, there is still a large portion of BitTorrent users who think that downloading a TV-show that they could have watched for free on TV, is not a crime.

It wouldn’t surprise us if a large portion of the $16 million fund is left unclaimed because of this required statement, saving Comcast a significant amount of money.

That leads us to the question why was included in the first place. It somehow suggests that Comcast was attempting to stop copyright infringement with their throttling practices, aside from the network management purpose it served. Maybe they just want to hang on to their money.

Whatever the motivation to include this option, it is completely irrelevant to the case itself. Comcast has never used copyright infringement as a justification for stopping BitTorrent traffic, so the lawfulness of the traffic should not be an issue.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

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The Comcast BitTorrent throttling story is one of the major case studies for net neutrality. More than two years have passed since we broke the story that led to an FCC investigation and even lawsuits from affected users.

In one of the class action suits that were brought about from the long-running incident, Comcast has now agreed to settle, meaning those affected may be eligible for compensation.

About two and a half years ago, reports surfaced on what appeared to be the throttling of BitTorrent connections by Comcast. The throttling, first discovered by Rob Toplowski, was confirmed by TorrentFreak, and was first reported in August 2007. Other news agencies picked it up later, especially after tests by the EFF and Associated Press confirmed events and included reports that other network based activity was also affected.

Comcast long-denied any wrongdoing, but a leaked memo revealed that the company went as far as instructing its front-line staff to lie about the issue. Then the FCC got involved and things deteriorated. At a hearing at Harvard, Comcast packed the venue with people they bussed in, but it didn’t stop the BitTorrent throttling practice being termed a ‘hacker technique’.

Eventually, some assurances were made, and the FCC ordered Comcast to stop using Sandvine. Meanwhile lawsuits had been filed. One of these, Hart vs Comcast of Alameda, attained class action status, and there is now a proposed settlement.

Comcast has agreed to put $16M into a fund to pay BitTorrent users that were inconvenienced by the ‘network management’.

The downside is the size of the settlement. If you qualify, you can receive a maximum of $16, yet still Comcast refuses to accept it did anything wrong. The administrators of the settlement have set up a website to deal with questions about the case which can be found at www.p2pcongestionsettlement.com

It’s not hard to imagine that some customers will feel this doesn’t go far enough, and undoubtedly the discussion on this topic will continue. For the affected Comcast users there is still time to decide how to proceed – the deadline for claims is August 14th 2010. Meanwhile, network neutrality remains a pipe dream for most people.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

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Together with Amelia Andersdotter, Christian Engstrom represents the Pirate Party in the European Parliament. He worked hard last month on ensuring judicial review before disconnections or sanctions over file-sharing can take place, and now he’s looking to do more with a proposed Bill of Internet Rights.

The Bill of Internet Rights would cover topics such as Net Neutrality, online privacy and freedom of information. Where possible the bill will take existing legislation as the basis. What makes this different though, is the process he’s using to help develop the document – an “Internet swarm”. Comments, suggestions and questions are all welcomed via his website, to contribute to the development of the document.

“I don’t think the problem is that there are a lot of politicians who actively want to dismount our civil liberties,” Engstrom told TorrentFreak. “It’s just that they haven’t realized that the Internet is an important part of our society, where the fundamental rights have to apply. They think it’s some kind of toy they can take away from the children if they’ve been naughty. The task is to explain to them that this is not an acceptable way of handling the net.”

The idea for the bill came from the “Internet Core Group” inside the European Greens, where the proposal has strong support. Engstrom also says that during the negotiations for the Telecom Package there was a lot of talk about the need to safeguard net neutrality, so he feels hopeful about this proposal.

“When it comes to safeguarding the fundamental civil liberties, such as the right to privacy and information freedom – well, that’s a fight we just have to win,” Engstrom said. According to the current planning, the Bill of Rights will be ready for proposal in the spring of 2010.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

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Thus far 2009 has been a great year for the Pirate Party movement. With more than 7 percent of the vote, the Swedish Pirate Party secured a seat in the European Parliament, and the Pirates in Germany entered the local Parliament a few weeks later.

These successes motivated supporters of the party’s ideals in other countries to become active as well. In the UK the Pirate Party was officially registered at the Electoral Commission in August and in other countries local parties are trying to achieve the same.

In Canada the Pirate Party is currently trying to get federal approval, in order to become recognized as an official party and get involved in Canadian politics. “The goal is to gain at least one seat in Parliament,” Pirate Party spokesman Jake Daynes told TorrentFreak.

“As soon as the party is officially registered with Elections Canada, we hope to gain a bit more of the mainstream media’s attention; let Canadians know we are out there and build a community,” Jake added.

Among other things the Canadian Pirates will push for copyright and patent reform, Net Neutrality and freedom of culture, Jake said. A detailed overview of their goals and solutions is available on the party’s website.

Canadians interested in helping the party to get federal approval should fill out the membership form listed on the site and send it in. The Pirates need another 140 paper forms (how old-fashioned) to be sent in to get approval from the authorities, so they can use some help.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

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