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.'"
Subliterate Legislators (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't it bizarre having sub-literate legislators who determine the future of our livelihood: the internet?
Re:Subliterate Legislators (Score:5, Insightful)
The sad part here is that this guy feels qualified to stand up and lecture everyone on why he voted like he did, despite the fact that he knows nothing about the subject.
I understand that not every legislator can understand every nuance of every issue being voted on, but this guy seems to have developed a strong opinion on the subject. To my way of thinking he needs to have some basic understanding of the subject under discussion to hold a strong opinion.
Re:Subliterate Legislators (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Subliterate Legislators (Score:4, Funny)
Sounds exactly like Slashdot, wouldn't you say?
No, not like Slashdot! (Score:5, Insightful)
- Robin
Re:No, not like Slashdot! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No, not like Slashdot! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No, not like Slashdot! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:No, not like Slashdot! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Subliterate Legislators (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the BAD part.. not the sad part. The sad part is, he was VOTED to power by people like us, to stand up and lecture... The corrective action would be.. Have a set of tests to determine which senator(s) can lecture / vote on a given topic. Those who fail the test lose their voting rights...
this guy seems to have developed a strong opinion on the subject..
Or maybe he has been subjected to a strong influence, to lecture the way he did. Or maybe no one else listening knew enought o call the bluff. Or maybe the rest were lobbied to remain mute as well.. Or maybe all of the above.
Re:Subliterate Legislators (Score:3, Insightful)
Unfortunately, this is not the solution either. The way it SHOULD work in our society. An issue is brought up, each congressman is given X amount of time. The congressman asks his constituants their opinion and their majority rules. The congressman then uses the majority of his constituants decision to vote. He doesn't have to debate with his other congressman, he has to debate with us.
Alas our society is not like that. We vote for a guy, and t
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:5, Insightful)
Future Simulation (Score:4, Informative)
We'd have to set up a list of tasks to do in each. e.g.
- you got called in to the office to do sign some papers, and will miss The Big Game. Can you - watch it over the Internet? record it at home for later? If possible, for how much?
- you heard a song on the radio that you liked, but didn't catch the artist's name. You called in to the radio station, but couldn't get ahold of anyone who could help. You remember some distinctive lyrics; can you "google" it?
-You bought a DVD movie. Your DVD player seems to be broken, can you watch it on your computer?
and so on.
Re:Subliterate Legislators (Score:4, Insightful)
Won't work. People don't vote senators ONLY to debate on things like net neutrality. More likely, illiterate people have problems other than net neutrality... hunger, medicare, welfare etc.
My suggestion was "Those senators voting either FOR or AGAINST a particular bill should pass an aptitude test.... "
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:Subliterate Legislators (Score:3, Insightful)
"I'd always support my country, whether it was right or wrong." Who defines right or wrong? I mean seriously, obviously if you believe the actions to be RIGHT you'd support your country. The question p
Re:Subliterate Legislators (Score:5, Funny)
The man is the President Pro Tempore. If the President, Vice President and Speaker of the House die... he becomes President of the United States.
Re:And yet... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:And yet... (Score:3, Funny)
Yes, we call it the Quayle Shield...
Re:Subliterate Legislators (Score:3, Insightful)
Anyway, what do you expect from somebody elected ? You cannot win any election without an inflated ego and strong opinion.
Not saying that for trolling, but fighting to be elected is essentially a media fight. People elected are showmen and they need to believe in themself, they need to feel they know everything to look credible.
The job of the politician is to get elected. That's the job of their teams to understa
Re:Subliterate Legislators (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Subliterate Legislators (Score:5, Insightful)
Since when has a lack of understanding ever stopped a politician from meddling in someone else's affairs?
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.
Funny (Score:5, Funny)
Hahahahahaha! Aha! Ha! Oh man! *wipes away tear*
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, Informative)
Apropos in an amazing array of situations - this being an outstanding example.
Re:Subliterate Legislators (Score:3, Interesting)
I find that I rarely ha
Re:Subliterate Legislators (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Subliterate Legislators (Score:4, Insightful)
I remmeber reading an interview with a some media pundit (IIRC, Fred Barnes) holding up this exact quality as what was necessary to be a good media pundit. The more expertise you have on a subject, the more nuanced your understanding of it is, which leads to longer and less "black-and-white" commentary, which in modern 'Murka is b-o-o-o-ring. The more successful pundit is the one who can sound convincing knowledgeable on a subject without the slightest understanding of it, and make a good dumbed-down sound bite that of course doesn't conflict with his employer's interests.
Re:Subliterate Legislators (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Subliterate Legislators (Score:5, Informative)
Of course this typically currently only works in reasonably densly populated areas where ADSL2+ can be deployed (distance contraints from the user to the telco equipment) although it gradually starts to cover the countryside as well.
Of course in this configuration, video is only streamed from the ISP to its users, no through the Internet. So called "last mile" bandwidth can't possibly a problem. It could theoretically be possible that the backbones lacked bandwidth at some point. Isn't there still lots of dark fiber lying around though ?
I wish he were subliterate (Score:5, Informative)
Stevens presided over this hearing. He knows the facts of the matter quite well. This is not a case of ignorance but of deception. Sorry, it just is.
12 O'clock flasher (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Subliterate Legislators (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Subliterate Legislators (Score:4, Insightful)
Imagine going to the gas pumps, and having to pay more for gas, because you're a pizza delivery guy, and you're making money off of that gas. Or because you're Walmart, and you make gobs of money, we're going to charge you 10x the amount we'd charge a regular person for gas.
You forgot the bit where Wal-Mart has their own pizza delivery service. I think it's more like Pizza Hut owning all the gas stations in the area and selectively charging more for gas to Domino's, Papa John's, the local Mom and Pop pizzaria, UPS, FedEx, and whoever else they think is making too much money off of it.
Re:Subliterate Legislators (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Subliterate Legislators (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Subliterate Legislators (Score:5, Funny)
That explains why it took so long to turn up in his inbox too. Doesn't he realise that Internets are fucking huge.
No wonder his tubes got all clogged up.
Re:Subliterate Legislators (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Subliterate Legislators (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Subliterate Legislators (Score:3, Insightful)
Nowadays of course very few servers will be left broken and unattended long enough for email to sit around for longer than a few minutes. So basically either the stuff is delivered in a few minutes, vanishes without a trace (getting fairly rare as well) or bounces.
Re:Subliterate Legislators (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Subliterate Legislators (Score:5, Funny)
I think I'll send him an internet right now.
Neutrality vs. priority tubes (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Subliterate Legislators (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Correction (Score:5, Informative)
he should just talk to former Sen. Gore, who should know exactly how it works, on account of being its inventor and all.
Har dee har har, you hear that joke on "Hee Haw" or Rush?
But Gore did have an understanding of how the Internet worked, he made it his business to be informed on relevant subjects when he was a congresscritter. He talked to and listened to subject matter experts, and he wrote position papers and popular articles that clearly showed an understanding of the basic concepts.
Re:Correction (Score:5, Funny)
Those facts and their damn liberal bias! You aren't being truthy! [wikipedia.org]
Gore delivered and continues to deliver good stuff (Score:5, Informative)
A lot of things Senator Gore says sound very wooden and otherwise poorly expressed. However, Gore delivers [imdb.com]. In a private email message, Vint Cerf [washingtonpost.com] told me that it was true that Al Gore was instrumental in the development of the Internet. Before Mr. Gore's involvement, it was a semi-private utility known as ArpaNet and NSFNet. Mr. Gore championed the development of the private network as a public utility. This was years before Bill Gates, for example, recognized its importance.
No, Vint Cerf is not a friend of mine; that's not the point. The point is that Senator Al Gore has a brain of his own, and a very good one.
Republican Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska [irregularnews.com] is known as someone who supports destructive causes. So, those who want corruption in the U.S. government go to him. Many people on Slashdot suppose that he views his ignorance as bad; on the contrary, he is openly advertising his ignorance so the corrupters will know to find him when they want someone who will help them corrupt.
Re:Subliterate Legislators (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
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.
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:Just shut up and take your bribe money (Score:5, Funny)
It's one of the magic tubes inside your car engine. When put your foot on the gas or the brake, you send a transmission across the engine (the transmission is another tube). See, the engine is not the sort of thing you just dump something on. It's not a truck. It's a series of tubes. And if you don't understand how those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your 'transmission' in, it gets in line and is going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material, like for example listening to pirated music on your car stereo.
I just the other day got, a brake transmission was sent by me at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday, and I just slowed down yesterday. Why? Because I was listening to music I'd gotten from Kazaa at the time. The problem is, I was braking the transmission because there was a truck stopped in front of me. Because the transmission was slowed by enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material (pirated music), my piston tubes never got the signal in time. And a truck 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, enormous amounts of material.
Long story short, there was a horrible crash, a big explosion, and I was fatally killed. You see, a person isn't 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, enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material. In the end, though, all the material left my pipes as a result of the explosion. This is what happens if you don't regulate the flow of material through those pipes properly.
And that is why I voted against road neutrality.
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.Re:Netwhat?/? You know, taht inter-movie-thingy!! (Score:5, Insightful)
A majority of the US population seem to have taken variations of this advice already.
Besides, this is a variantion of the whole 'only the intelligent know they're stupid'-problem.. if you have everybody who realise they're wrong withdraw because of their own perceived stupidity, you'll just be left with the people who weren't capable of realising their errors. Learning is doing mistakes; people who never do mistakes are just good at shifting blame.
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.
And the humour is? (Score:4, Insightful)
Sounds like a good analogy to me.
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.
Re:The joke's on us (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And the humour is? (Score:3, Insightful)
And being a Republican from Alaska, you have to figure he has pipelines on the mind.
Ted Stevens, I love the guy..... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Ted Stevens, I love the guy..... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:How much pork does he get? (Score:3, Insightful)
without consideration for others
If this were not true, then murder would be perfectly acceptable method to accumulate wealth.
The guy is right (Score:3, Funny)
Proof is, most emails I get are along those lines :
Tubes hah! (Score:5, Funny)
That's a poor choice of quote in the summary... (Score:4, Insightful)
"I don't have to have the type of speed they're introducing, but the people who are streaming through 10-12 movies at a time or a whole book at a time... for consumers use, those are not you and me, they're not the consumers, those are providers."
Re:That's a poor choice of quote in the summary... (Score:3, Insightful)
I feel a warm fuzzy feeling. I'd vote for this guy.
Re:That's a poor choice of quote in the summary... (Score:5, Funny)
Clogged Tubes (Score:5, Funny)
Just an observation: (Score:4, Insightful)
Are all your bloody politicians like dubya? (Score:3, Insightful)
Judging by the almost complete lack of any real grasp of the English language or how the internet works, could it be that his email was delayed by the fact that he had no idea what the internet was until one of his staff had asked why he hadn't replyed to his emails?
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,
What he REALLY wanted to say... (Score:5, Funny)
Without net neutrality, the internet goes down the tubes.
I think he was talking about the trucks. (Score:3, Funny)
What he appears to be saying is "Trucks, unlike the internet, have infinite capacity. You can continue to dump things
Give the guy a break (Score:3, Insightful)
Internet Access Via Pneumatic Tubes -- Whooosh! [slashdot.org]
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
I for one... (Score:4, Funny)
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?).
Re:Geek clique (Score:5, Insightful)
Except that this isn't your clueless uncle we're talking about. We're talking about someone who will be deciding the future of something he doesn't understand. Understanding basic concepts like this is this man's entire job.
So, yes, it is a problem. The man's not doing his job, and we're all going to suffer for it.
Re:Geek clique (Score:3, Funny)
Plan Nine from Alaska? (Score:3, Funny)
"Take a can of your gasoline. Say this can of gasoline is the sun. Now, you spread a thin line of it to a ball, representing the earth. Now, the gasoline represents the sunlight, the sun particles. Here we saturate the ball with the gasoline, the sunlight. Then we put a flame to the ball. The flame will speedily travel around the earth, back along the line of gasoline to the can, or the sun itself. It will explode this source and spread to every place that gasoline, our sunlight, touches. Explode the sunlight here, gentlemen, you explode the universe."
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.
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.
This is actually about telecommuters (Score:3, Informative)
Thank you for your message.
The Comcast @Home product is, and has always been, designated as a residential service and does not allow the use of commercial applications. A VPN or Virtual Private Network is primarily used to connect Internet users to her or his work LAN from an Internet access point.
High traffic telecommuting while utilizing a VPN can adversely affect the condition of the network while disrupting the connection of our regular residential subscribers.
To accommodate the needs of our customers who do choose to operate VPN, Comcast offers the Comcast @Home Professional product. @Home Pro is designed to meet the needs of the ever growing population of small office/home office customers and telecommuters that need to take advantage of protocols such as VPN. This product will cost $95 per month, and afford you with standards which differ from the standard residential product.
If you're interested in upgrading your current Comcast @Home service to Comcast @Home Pro, please e-mail your name, address, and phone number to: sales@comcastpc.com. Prior to Sept 15th, you will be contacted by one of our Comcast @Home Pro representatives to discuss upgrading from your current Comcast @Home residential service.
While VPN is not a prohibited use of the @Home Pro product, Comcast does not provide support for VPN technology. All inquiries regarding VPN should be directed toward your company's network administrator.
Currently, the Comcast @Work commercial services do provide VPN support. If your company pays for your internet service, or if you would like to use supported VPN or IP tunneling, please contact our commercial services at 888-638-4338 or visit www.comcastwork.com.
If there is anything else we can help you with, please contact us. Thank you for choosing Comcast@Home.
Steve Comcast@Home Email Response Specialist
Stop talking about this like it has anything to do with video. This has nothing to do with video, and everything to do with them turning off telecommuting (indeed, any encrypted communication) [computerworld.com] by default.
Excellent Point! (Score:4, Informative)
If the point is that law makers have no business legislating things they know nothing about, this guy is the poster child. Ironically, this is one of the party lines against Net Neutrality and he's now a shining example.
On the flip side, if the congressmen actually understood the issue, and the way they should be rightfully eviscerated for corporate toadyism come next reelection campaign, they'd leave it alone.
I hope he's a South Park fan... (Score:3, Funny)
About Senator Stevens (Score:3, Informative)
For those who don't know about Senator Stevens, he is a senior member of the Senate and has lots of power. He is the chair of the commerce committee. I only follow the Senate now and then, but to me he seems to be the model of what's wrong with American government. When the government need to cut down the budget, he refused to cut a $400 million bridge project in Alaska. To many, the bridge was a pork barrel project that connected the main part of Alaska to a remote village of 300 people. Currently the village uses ferries. Those dealing with the situation didn't want to remove it completely but rather postpone it or at least fund it in phases.
When Big Oil execs testified in front of Congress last year, he refused to swear them under oath as is the custom. Time and time again Stevens seems to be doing what is in the lobbyist's best interest like right now with the net netruality bill.
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.
Well, I can understand his problem (Score:3, Funny)
Just the other day, someone e-mailed me Usenet, but fortunately my Spam filter discarded 98% of it.
Stevens a corrupt scumbag, not just an idiot (Score:4, Informative)
During hearings on oil industry price gouging, Sen. Cantwell wanted to put those testifying under oath. Stevens arrogantly refused. The oil execs promptly and obviously lied throughout the hearings. Stevens made it possible. They basically pissed on the face of the Congress, and by extension, on the American people, and Stevens held their dicks.
Follow the Money (Score:4, Informative)
1 News Corp $47,250
2 Boeing Co $41,900
3 Verizon Communications $36,550
4 Veco Corp $31,750
5 Viacom Inc $23,000
6 AT&T Inc $22,500
7 General Electric $20,000
7 Walt Disney Co $20,000
9 BAE Systems $19,000
10 Northrop Grumman $18,000
11 Cubic Corp $17,250
12 Mantech International $16,500
13 Intergraph Corp $15,600
14 Cassidy & Assoc/Interpublic Group $15,569
15 General Dynamics $15,000
15 Lockheed Martin $15,000
15 Northern Lights PAC $15,000
15 Teamsters Union $15,000
19 Science Applications International Corp $14,500
19 Sprint Nextel $14,500
Has all this corruption and ineptitude in our government caused anybody else to come to the conclusion that gun control is a bad idea?
Re:It's NOT a truck??!?!? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:It's NOT a truck??!?!? (Score:3, Insightful)
Wow, congratulations for you on your ability to pay your way into your proposed elite circle of law-abiding rich Americans. But what of all the people who have enough trouble simply connecting to the internet in the first place? What of the rampant inaccuracy of your lame ad-hominem against apparently the entire Slashdot 'collective'? Are you so bigoted that you really think that the proponents of net neutrality are secretly just protecting their bittorrent download speeds?
What of the fact that a US implem
Re:It's NOT a truck??!?!? (Score:5, Informative)
Huh? No they really are not. Did you ever hear about something call truncating and load-sharing? If there ever comes a time when your ISP (or any in the line between you and your data), they can and will simply upgrade their connection. You see, they are actually be PAID to transmit/carry that data. The more data that flows through their "pipes", the more they can "bill" OTHER ISP's that connect through them. So whenever they have an edge router that starts hitting its limits, it is always in their own best interests to replace/upgrade/load-share/truncate that connection so that they can bill even more money to the people around them. Maybe there are vast amount of data going through those pipe because of porn and p2p applications, but you know what that means to the compaines? They have more data to BILL other companies with to get more money for the service they provide by allowing that data to use the network infrastructure.
In the meantime, all the legit stuff is in threat of getting caught up in a porn jam.
I say "huh?" and "what?" again. You are under the misconception that some data is more important then other data. You see you are falling into the biggest trap there is when dealing with an entity like the internet. You will almost always be "biased" toward what you want to use the internet for. So your particular "types" of data you feel should get priority. Well the problem is that the person next to you will have a completely different set of priorities, and the next one, and the next, and so on and so forth. There are probably thousands of people out there who feel that their NTP traffic should have "realtime" priority over everything. Now imagine if we actually started to try and do things like this. Well, your ISP will because you are so happy to pay extra for it, will prioritize on http traffic, email, and maybe VOIP (assuming you use "their" VOIP and not someone elses). But the people you wish to connect to are not using your same ISP, instead they are using one that results in your traffic crossing, lets say "three" other ISP's inbetween yours and theirs. Let us also greatly assume that because you are not on those other 3 ISP's, they will most likely NOT have the exact same priorities. Why? Because you aren't the one paying them directly. One their network, they have paying customers that want different things, so they prioritize differently as a result. Now, back to my case here, ISP "A" has a priority of http, email and ftp, but VOIP is not considered a priority because they also own a POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) network, so VOIP is a direct competition to their phone services, and they do not want anything to do with it. ISP "B" has a priority of http, ftp, and VOIP. Email is not high priority on ISP "B" because they feel that email should be handled the way it was origionally intended, as a simple, unreliable delivery mechanism. ISP "C" prioritizes p2p, ftp, and VOIP because their main business is "content" delivery. They have a major customer who has a p2p video delivery system which uses ftp connections to get the data out first to several servers and then uses them to seed the data into a custom p2p network.
Now your problem is that you want to connect to someone else, and your network connection path goes through all those other ISPs, well, your optimized connection inside your ISP, just have every one of your critical uses degraded and and relegated to transmittion only when there was nothing else occuring through those other ISP networks. This is what WILL happen. Your money isn't enough to change the immediate priorities of every ISP in the world or even the immediate world around your ISP.
You know what? My legitimate downloads or VoIP should get priority over your illegal
Re:I'm (Score:5, Informative)
Huh? No, the "bridge to nowhere" [mccarthy.vg] would go from Ketchikan (population 8,000) to Gravina Island (population less than 50). If agriculture on Gravina Island has anything to do with it, that's news to me; the officially defined need [alaska.gov] says nothing about farming the island's mountain ranges. What probably is related is that your governor's wife owns 33 acres on that island. I can understand why you might be unaware of that fact -- he failed to disclose it [anchoragepress.com] as required by state law.
Alaskan politicians may be working on a useless Anchorage-Wasilla bridge also, but that's not that famous "bridge to nowhere."
Bridge to nowhere (Score:3, Informative)
That's the idea for the "bridge to nowhere." It's really the bridge between Ketchikan and i
Re:Bridge to nowhere (Score:3, Insightful)
Ahh.. so to make this somewhat on topic, Alaska simply needs to inact an anti-ferry neutrality bill. Rather than allow anyone to use the limited "pipes" (Ferry bandwidth), more "legitimate" traffic (local commuters) should get priority over junk traffic (rich tourists). Just have