How The Internet Works - With Tubes 664
Chardish writes "In an attempt to explain his reasons for voting against a Net Neutrality bill this past Thursday, Alaska Senator Ted Stevens delivered a jaw-dropping attempt to explain how the Internet works. Said Stevens: 'They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the internet. And again, the internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a truck. It's a series of tubes. And if you don't understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and its going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.'"
Senate Intelligence Down the Tubes (Score:5, Interesting)
I read the whole thing in hopes that he was addressing why the government & pentagon use their own equipment and lines for communications but he wasn't.
One would hope that if you were planning on giving a speech about the internet that you would either pay an aide to sit you down and brief you on it
Hopefully this will be somewhat of a wake-up call for politicians to educate themselves on the topic of the internet before they start passing legislation on net neutrality. I doubt it though.
I can laugh at this guy, but if I think of any member of my immediate family they probably think of the internet as a "magic tube" just as much as Senator Ted Stevens. I could go through the frustrating process of trying to explain it to them but that's not so enticing.
Just shut up and take your bribe money (Score:5, Interesting)
Your ignorant words accomplish nothing except make you look like an idiot. Just save your breath, shut up, vote against net neutrality, and take your bribe money like a good little corrupt politician.
Netwhat?/? You know, taht inter-movie-thingy!!1!`! (Score:5, Interesting)
Internet?!? That bozo can't even understand Netflix:
I'm calling Netflix in the morning to ask where my other 7 DVDs are... and argue that I shouldn't be charged for changing my Queue. I'll also ask them where their non-internet website is at. My other 7 DVDs better arrive when I get home!
CSPAN is sometimes indistinguishable from Comedy Central. I can't believe this guy is the President pro Tempore of the senate (third in line of presidential succession). He also chairs the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. If you voted for this asshat, do the rest of us a favor and please don't ever vote again.Ted Stevens, I love the guy..... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Ted Stevens, I love the guy..... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:It's NOT a truck??!?!? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Just shut up and take your bribe money (Score:5, Interesting)
No, but I have always wanted to believe they aren't completely retarded. My grandparents don't even own a computer and they could explain the Internet better than that. You don't have to be a mechanic to know that a car has pistons, needs gas and oil.
The joke's on us (Score:4, Interesting)
Seriously -- do you expect him to hand out copies of a few dozen RFCs and a map of the backbone sites and say "here, read this, and everything will be crystal clear." Politicians have better things to do than try to understand BGP.
Don't Just Reply on Slashdot (Score:5, Interesting)
I know that the very structure of this site lends itself to keeping your comments and opinions contained within the slashdot community. However, in this case, it's not a great time to be so inward. You can take just a couple of extra seconds and make a difference with your opinions on Net Neutrality--go to http://stevens.senate.gov/contact.cfm [senate.gov]. Write Senator Stevens a short message expressing your concerns about his lack of expertise on the subject (even his fundamental lack of understanding about what the internet is and how it works). Don't do it by calling him an idiot or otherwise insulting him. Give him a quick summary of how things actually work. Tell him what Net Neutrality *really* is and why it is important--especially to the average consumer. Then take a couple more seconds to go to http://thomas.loc.gov/ [loc.gov], find out how to contact your House rep or your favorite senator from your state, and write a similar message explaining that you were concerned with the views Senator Stevens expressed to the Senate Commerce Committee about his lack of support for even the most basic Net Neutrality legislation. Again explain why you feel Net Neutrality is an important issue for the average consumer. This is particularly important if the Senator to whom you write is one of the other 10 members of the Senate Commerce Committee who voted against adding this minor Net Neutrality amendment to a recent telecom bill (presumably, a Republican from this list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Senate_Committe
Best,
Chris
Geek clique (Score:5, Interesting)
As for the issue at hand, he isn't far off the mark although I think Congress is totally ill-equipped to address the issue just as they were ill-equipped to address the SPAM issue. Frankly I think the market should decide. If the telecomm providers try to double-tap the content providers they will more than likely get a very rude shock when the large content providers purchase, if they don't already have it (Google}, dark fiber, fire it up, and do an end run around the telecomms industry. It wouldn't be hard for the larger providers to do so and with cross-trading capacity agreements, they could probably do a better job, cheaper, actually. Then the telecomms providers wouldn't have a basis for complaint at all. All that excess capacity they already have to handle peak traffic would just sit there, not earning them a dime on their capital investment. Couldn't happen to nicer people (SBC anyone?).
he might of been reading slashdot... (Score:2, Interesting)
http://www.internetofthefuture.org/ [internetofthefuture.org]
I was curious, seeing it was a big banner saying "the FUTURE of the INTERNET." Not your normal banner asking you to buy stuff. So I clicked it.
Turns out its a whole lot of propaganda from the ISPs. However, it explains the whole net neutrality in a way which kinda is total bullshit. For one, it uses the same traffic jam analogy that the senator used. And while it does use trucks and cars, it also does call "net neutrality" a "dumb pipe", which would also explain how this guy got the idea of tubes. Hes probably knows more about plumbing than networking, which would explain how he would equate the two.
I seriosuly reckon this guy has watched that movie... it would explain where he got his warped ideas from. The question begs tho, if him trying to explain what he saw in that movie creates sparks, why doesn't that movie itself create sparks? Why on earth was slashdot accepting money for showing that movie? I'm not trying to defend the senator here... hes a dumbass for trying to explain something based on a flash propaganda movie when he is in his position. However, he is a good representative of the majority of people.
I know that realistically it doesn't matter what the people think, but theoretically American politics is based on the people's ideas (at least as far as I know, I could be an ignorant Australian). However, with movies like that being made by the telco industry, it would seem to me that even *if* the senator knew what he was talking about, the people would probably make the same decision as him anyhow - not many people are tech saavy enough to see where that movie goes wrong. Writing to politicians is always a good idea, but maybe an even better course of action in this case would be to figure out a way to pwn the telco industry for their deceiving propaganda?
Re:Just shut up and take your bribe money (Score:3, Interesting)
More to the point, if you don't know that a car has pistons, then perhaps you shouldn't vote about laws concerning safety- or enviromental regulations of car engines.
It's the good old dihydrogen monoxide effect at work again.
Re:Netwhat?/? You know, taht inter-movie-thingy!!1 (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps so, but he'll beat you hands down in a spelling bee.
Back to topic.
Stevens is known to be very powerful in the Senate ("Dances with Bottomless War Chest"). Despite Alaska's low population (let alone population density), it makes you wonder how it happens...unless you know about this:
I don't know if this is still the practice, but in college (early 80s), my roommate and his brother were from Juneau|Douglas, AK.[1] When it came time to memorialize the Sinking of the Titanic (IRS - April 15), it turned out they didn't have to pay state taxes. Instead, they were the recipients of oil rebate checks; in essence, profit-sharing. I think they were receiving [at least] $1'500/year [each]. One would think there would have to be graduated degrees of monies received considering how much money+oil is flowing up there. And where there's money passed around...there are politicians.
Because there aren't many voters up there, it doesn't take all that many votes to elect someone, e.g., to the Senate. With a well-oiled machine, why stop?
As far as N^2 goes, I think it's a foregone conclusion as to what the outcome will be but that doesn't mean everyone has to give in without a fight. It took awhile for taxation to grasp an inevitable hold. (I suppose they could assess some fixed Internet tax against all who have the ability to shop online, encouraging them to shop online as much as possible. That obviously wouldn't help the brick & mortar stores.)
If he was going to get up & deal with Internet-related stuff, why not disassemble the 2003 U-CAN-SPAM act which the DMA (Direct Marketing Association) wrote and Congress rubber stamped? That would have shown true insight into how the Internet works. And if it's going to seem like too much work (despite the fact those Congress Critters who have been willing to chat about it have admitted it was a mistake), then add something to it: make it illegal to hire a spammer and illegal to solicit someone for the purpose of spamming. That stops spammers from having a reason to send anything: people can't hire them. That leaves them with spamming everyone for the purpose of solicitation to be a customer of their services, and I just covered that.
_______________________________
[1]
We slept with the windows open every night with a 24" fan for white noise. (They weren't the only polar bears.) But imagine what it was like for someone who answered a floor-common phone walking into our room in single digit temperatures whilst in nothing but their boxers to get me up to function as one of three EMTs within a twenty minute drive of the nearest hospital.
stupid, ignorant, or corrupt? (Score:3, Interesting)
Most places call this extortion, and the mob made quite a living doing this. Apparently the mob has gotten to congress in a big way, since approx 50% of the senate commerce committee seems to have been bought off (plus/minus the ones who are simply ignorant). I'm not sure whether to send a letter to my congressman or stockpile
Over the top? Maybe. But read the distinguished Senator's attempt to explain how the internet is made up of "tubes", and you'll realize why I'm convinced they're dipping at both the cash and booze troughs. A 2nd grader sopping full of Jack Daniels could come up with a better explanation of how the internet works...
He even claims that net neutrality has caused the DoD to create it's own "separate internet". What a load of crap. This guy is either stupid, amazingly ignorant, chemically imbalanced, flat-out-drunk, or, since we assume senators don't fit into those categories, bought off by someone. He's so wrong that as a citizen I'd like to believe that he's merely ignorant, but it's not POSSIBLE to be that wrong about the structure of the internet. What part of DARPAnet and the relationship between NIPR and SIPR nets, and the fact that the "internet" is merely ones and zeros running around wires and glass, is he unable to understand?
There is so much excess capacity laying around that Google is buying up so-called "dark fiber" (unused fiber optic cable) by the hundreds of miles. How long until these corrupt senators figure out a way to blackmail google into halting their purchases? I give it a year, because net neutrality is big money, the mob never backs off of money this big, and senators need their cut because it's going to be a tough election cycle and campaigns are expensive.
Re:Subliterate Legislators (Score:3, Interesting)
What's really lacking in the system is transparency.
While privacy (or, at least the veneer thereof) is certainly a requirement, what of the ethic that whatever I'm doing, I should be comfortable admitting publicly? IOW, conscience.
2 simple examples of why net neutrality needs govt (Score:4, Interesting)
2 examples of why we need govt regulation to ensure network neutrality. It's become an essential national resource just like the phone system or the telegraph before that, so what's different this time? Oh yea, it's congress who has changed course 180 degrees from protecting national resources to ensuring that more money gets into a select group of hands. That's all that's changed.
We used to be able to trust congress to at least pretend to act in the national interest, but the DMCA, the repeated MPAA/RIAA copyright modification attempts, and now this make it pretty clear who congress is working for.
Neutrality vs. priority tubes (Score:3, Interesting)
Were the pros of neutrality reported in terms easily grasped by politicians?
Is the chosen analogy flawed beyond any hope of effectiveness?
Was every word of speech written ahead of time by someone else?
Re:Are all your bloody politicians like dubya? (Score:3, Interesting)
Ted: Joan [the secretary], I asked for that report to be emailed to me by Friday morning and yet I haven't received it.
Joan: I emailed it yesterday at 10 o'clock.
Ted: I could not see it in my inbox when I checked earlier.
Joan: Maybe you should have another look. You know how slow internet emails can be. *finds email in draft folder, clicks send*
Ted: Oh yes! It's there now! Damn slow internet!
C'mon, we've all said "the cheque's in the post".
Re:Subliterate Legislators (Score:3, Interesting)
Chances are Stevens (not exactly renowned as a world-class legislator, see: Bridge to Nowhere pork scandal) has been listening to lobbyist who has as much respect for his intelligence as Stevens has for taxpayers and constituents.
Re:Subliterate Legislators (Score:3, Interesting)
I find that I rarely have a strong opinion on many issues, outside of the tenets of a civil society - libertarianism, almost. A belief in the fundamentals of individual existence.
Re:Correction (Score:2, Interesting)
People don't want to be well-informed, they want to be told that the politician is well-informed, and that they don't need to know the details about it because the politician will take care of it. If you know what you're talking about on a complex subject (networking, evolution, global warming, terrorism), you're usually talking over most people's heads so you get painted as an elitist who doesn't understand the common man's needs and fears. It doesn't pay to be informed, it pays to pretend your informed and just never actually say anything that would betray this image.
The Republicans aren't really idiots, they're just the party that figured this out. The real problem lies in the fact that regardless of who's in charge, the people in this country have somehow become so complacent and ignorant that they just want to hear that everything will be okay so they can completely ignore what's really going on.
Re:Subliterate Legislators (Score:5, Interesting)
ALTERNATIVELY!!, YOU!! COULD!! -- oh wait, I'll stop yelling. Alternatively, you could consider the system that was practised in ancient Athens -- every elected official, upon leaving office, underwent an independent audit of his conduct in office. Those found wanting were prosecuted for abuse of power -- and not too infrequently, I might add. I've often wondered why this isn't practised nowadays. It's just too haphazard, this being held accountable only when someone happens to call you on something you've done.
Re:Subliterate Legislators (Score:3, Interesting)
http://politicalcompass.org/questionnaire.php [politicalcompass.org]
Where the result is a 2D plot of their political point of view with the x-axis being left/right and the y-axis being libertarian/authoritarian. Of course the candidates would need to take it too. Then their vote would be cast for the candidate whose coordinates were closest to their result.
Re:No, not like Slashdot! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Subliterate Legislators (Score:4, Interesting)
*ahem* Anyhow, Illinois has this nice little part of their Constitution that states that all bills must cover only a single logical subject matter (i.e. no riders allowed), and it works out very nicely around here. Maybe something like that will help the US Congress immensely.
Highway analogy (Score:3, Interesting)
However, this doesn't generate enough revenue for the Telcos, so they come up with an even "better" idea. They install traffic lights at the freeway entrance ramps, which allows cars onto the road at timed intervals, keeping the freeway nice and empty. They also install reserved on ramps which are available only to cars with special passes.