Tech with a twist of lime! & FLHybrid Club.

         I don't know anyone who supports net neutrality more than I do and I don't know anyone who was more upset that nothing seemed to come from the recent campaign to keep the internet neutral. A new wave of concern seems to be rising after several companies have displayed that they are not keeping the net neutral.

    What is "net neutrality" and why should you care? Take for instance this web site. If we post something on here about say Cromcast, (not a real company) and Cromcast is your internet provider, they might block our site. Do you think that someone working at Cromcast should have the ability to make decisions for you?? Can someone else really make a better decision about what YOU look at than YOU? Net neutrality would prevent that from becoming a reality.  

    Let us start with real life company Comcast. Comcast is one of the largest providers of U.S. high-speed internet with an estimated 11 million customers. In a recent cross country experiment done by the Associated Press, it was shown that Comcast was actively interfering with some of its high speed internet subscribers ability to use P2P or "peer-to-peer" file sharing networks like BitTorrent. Comcast of course has denied that it prevents users from using any specific program, it has admitted that it uses technology that prevents uploading of complete files from one user to another. As the AP reports , the Comcast technology works something like this:

...Comcast's technology kicks in, though not consistently, when one BitTorrent user attempts to share a complete file with another user. Each PC gets a message invisible to the user that looks like it comes from the other computer, telling it to stop communicating. But neither message originated from the other computer - it comes from Comcast. If it were a telephone conversation, it would be like the operator breaking into the conversation, telling each talker in the voice of the other: "Sorry, I have to hang up. Good bye..."

    The AP and a few internet users are not the only people to have noticed the P2P slowdown, bloggers have been accusing Comcast of this slowdown for a while now. Even Congress is getting into the game, crying foul, and asking for a probe into the way Comcast discriminates against BitTorrent. And what a better way than having outspoken Congressmen and Congresswomen like Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va speak out about the Comcast problem. 

    Recently The New York Times brought to public knowledge that Verizon Wireless refused to alow an abortion rights group to use the Verizon Wireless text messaging network to send out messages to subscribers. Most other major networks were alowing the group to send out their messages. 

    So with all of these net neutrality issues coming to light, how long do you all believe that it will take to get some sort of legal action taken? I honestly do not think it will take long. If we don't do something, the internet as we currently know it may be gone sooner than we think. Even in my area (Alachua County Florida) Where the University of Florida and the Gator nation are founded, our Congressmen Cliff Stearns (R-06) and Corrine Brown (D-03), voted against Rep. Ed Markey's Net neutrality amendment in the House of Representatives. We are a pretty liberal area with college students everywhere. I can't think of to many college students who would vote against net neutrality so what our congressmen were thinking is beyond me!

Brandon M. Langston
GRLT.COM
"Tech With A Twist of Lime"

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