The Internet As We Know It Is Under Attack

[Thaiquila]

Legislation is being considered in Washington DC that can change the internet for good. This is bigger than a US political issue and it does concern internet users all over the world, including Thailand:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/06/09/newmark.internet/index.html

[solo siam]

Can't see it happening myself, Can you imagine every single telecomms company from around the world trying to work out how much money they are 'owed' and by whom.

Pretty greedy IMO, the telecomms company already charge for access - why should they be able to double dip and charge again.

[tjo o tjim]

Can't see it happening myself, Can you imagine every single telecomms company from around the world trying to work out how much money they are 'owed' and by whom.

Pretty greedy IMO, the telecomms company already charge for access - why should they be able to double dip and charge again.

They try to do it now through peering arrangements. This is just a more sophisticated way of pulling it off. The next big evolution in the infrastructure needs to happen to trivialize some of this stuff.

[Gary A]

The entire Internet as it is now is out of control. It is a never ending battle to keep the SPAM out of your mailbox. It irritates me to no end when I am searching for something and the same sites always come up. They have ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with what I am looking for. I think it will eventually have to be a paid for service. Start charging the SPAMMERS and the phony sites that pop up for everything you happen to be searching for. Like it or not our privacy is going to have to suffer. Idiots creating the worms and virus problems are too hard to catch because of the lack of control. Phishing and outright fraud is becoming more common everyday. Chain letters and most SPAM would stop if they had to pay for it. Jamming the bandwidth with junk slows everything down.

[solo siam]

Well if nobody bought the spam stuff then the problem would go away overnight, as it is there are enough dimwits that actually buy this stuff that it makes it a highly profitable business.

I think I read once that 0.3% of people end up buying stuff from the spam merchants, that makes sending out 1,000,000 emails very lucrative.

I agree that perhaps the net does need policing, but it doent need commercialising in the context that the telecomms companies want. They are running scared because of things like Skype.

Now perhaps having to pay to send email would be a good idea, but it wouldn't stop spammers.

[Crushdepth]

Start charging the SPAMMERS and the phony sites that pop up for everything you happen to be searching for. Like it or not our privacy is going to have to suffer. Idiots creating the worms and virus problems are too hard to catch because of the lack of control. Phishing and outright fraud is becoming more common everyday. Chain letters and most SPAM would stop if they had to pay for it. Jamming the bandwidth with junk slows everything down.

The only way to stop them is to kill them IMHO. I met an Oz government spam-hunter a few months back. He said that the success rate for spams is somewhere around 1 in 10,000. Can be a very lucrative 'business'.

As for privacy - the major threat is actually from governments, not from spammers.

[dantilley]

If you made people pay for emails only when they exceed, say, 5,000 a month then your average member of the public would probably never pay for emails, whereas your spammers would be hit where it hurts as they would be unable to do mass broadcasts into the millions as they do currently. Could be a good way to keep emails effectively free, except for those who abuse the system by sending out an unusually high volume.

[francois]

hi'

it is impossible to control the net now, just can keep it on with a load of humanressources, not counting the hours of work.

security companies are overload with over a few thousands attacks or ddos everyday ...

control this? mad idea!!

just some more paranoia

francois

[britmaveric]

This monster is unstoppable.... too late to apply massive change. Can't see any cooperation to be honest.

[paulfr]

Guys ...

The point of this Net Neutrality legislation in WDC is that the ISPs are going to be able to give different speeds and priorities to those who pay extra bucks. This means the little fellow will get a 2nd rate internet while the bigger players ride in the fast lane. The government should not be messing with and granting enormous rights to big companies ..... just the priveledge to manage the pipes.

This is very important and if the politicians side with big business on this one, the internet as we know it will be a very different medium.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrr

[simcity]

The government love big businesses , they do not take cash out the till !

They hate small businesses and will do to the max to get them out ..

they want to get ride of the cash society.

New laws for employment / regulations / controls !

Stick with small business and paid with cash..

Do not let the government fool you!

[Crushdepth]

This sounds like they want a slice of of the ISP action but want it handed to them through legislation rather than by setting up their own ISP businesses and providing services for it, ie "money for nothing".

Carriers have been trying to devise a way to make money out of the *content* that flows through their pipes for years. They usually fail because they cannot seem to focus on developing their own competetive products. They always fall victim to the urge to abuse their monopoly position as 'owner of the pipe'.

A classic example is the 'walled garden' approach where carriers restrict the internet access on your mobile phone to their own small, crappy website full of shit and overpriced services. If they let you access the rest of the internet at all, they charge like wounded bulls for the privilege. Typical result: Even with a monopoly customers don't use it because it simply sucks.

Carriers that want to make money out of content or services need to set these up as separate businesses that live or die in an open market, rather than trying to prop them up using anti-competetive practices. In this case - they should set up their own ISP businesses (which most of them have anyway) and restrict bandwidth utilisation by offering different levels of hosting packages in competition with everyone else - not try (yet again) to use their carrier status to set up a monopoly and squeeze out the other players.

Of course, none of the Thai carriers would ever dream of abusing their power in this way

[meadish_sweetball]

Guys ...

The point of this Net Neutrality legislation in WDC is that the ISPs are going to be able to give different speeds and priorities to those who pay extra bucks. This means the little fellow will get a 2nd rate internet while the bigger players ride in the fast lane. The government should not be messing with and granting enormous rights to big companies ..... just the priveledge to manage the pipes.

This is very important and if the politicians side with big business on this one, the internet as we know it will be a very different medium.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrr

It sucks indeed, but unfortunately it follows the same trend as we have seen in other respects, with the government siding with big corporations. They have too much influence on the US system for it to be healthy...