Net neutrality to be tested by Virgin Media

Wow,
thanks for the scoop on Bell Canad. I use them at home and for my business.

I always suspected they were up to something. Emails that never appear, spped variations at different times of the day, etc.

I expect the corporations will effectively lobby government for self-serving controls. They will calim it's in the interest of the public, protecting privacy, filtering out the Usual Suspects - porn, hate, crime, etc.

Some canny entrepreneurs will have an alternates services going, and htese will become the subject of much mainstream media bile.

They will be filled, unfortunately, with much of the nasty crap and compulsive lunatic fringe element who already clog the current system - and too often sites like this one.

It'll eventually evolve like cable television, where you subscribe to the Porn Net, the Conspiracy Net, the Religious Net, etc.

A lot of the information nd communication from the first 10-15 years of the open Net is already lost. I don't think there is much attempt ot preserve what is online right now. It wolud take so much time, manpower, storage space.

We'll rememeber this as some kind of Golden Age of free information exchange. and have reunions in years to come.


Mike F

reply to post by audas

Web hosts should start a campaign and literally BLOCK all users who visit their site using Virgin Media - net censorship can work both ways.

That is brilliant. Anybody know how to run a viral campaign? The technical aspect of this don't seem very complicated as one would only need to add the following code to his .htaccess file:

order allow,deny
deny from 123.45.6.7
allow from all

source
Of course, we'd have to replace the IP with the IP blocks assigned to Virgin Media.

Or even simpler this poster posted the code to redirect certain IP blocks to a particular webpage. (which would explain why the host bans Virgin Media)

I for one think this is something worth exploring. Someone with actual technological knowledge could even make this even simpler for webhosts to implement.

Perhaps ATS itself would be interested in starting such an initiative?

[edit on 20/12/08 by ConspiracyNut23]

reply to post by ConspiracyNut23


Umm both of you have retarded ideas, period!

Why should paying customers be banned from using ATS or any other site, by the site owners, just because the owners do not agree with Virgins policy?

It would make you no different than Virgin, but you would be the bigger hippocrit of the two!

Oh wait is this some attempt to force people to move from Virgin? Typical bully tacticks if ever.

reply to post by Saf85

It's to keep Virgin's idea from spreading to other ISP. If enough sites would actually do this, Virgin would be forced to back down.

No need to call an idea you don't agree with "retarded". We're just discussing here, your rudeness is not necessary.

You have any better suggestions to offer?


[edit on 20/12/08 by ConspiracyNut23]

Originally posted by Saf85
reply to post by ConspiracyNut23

 

Umm both of you have retarded ideas, period!

Why should paying customers be banned from using ATS or any other site, by the site owners, just because the owners do not agree with Virgins policy?

It would make you no different than Virgin, but you would be the bigger hippocrit of the two!

Oh wait is this some attempt to force people to move from Virgin? Typical bully tacticks if ever.

Well that point flew right over your head huh. The point is that it would force virgins hand after they started hemorrhaging customers. They would put their old policies back in place and they'd get their customers back. That is what protest is all about.

However this idea won't really work i don't believe because most websites won't block large amounts of customers. Doing so would reduce their advertising revenue. The idea is great but the execution i think would be impossible.

Youtube, Amazon, Digg, BBC, Google. These are some of the most visited sites by UK users and i can't imagine any of them blocking Virgin Media users.

reply to post by ConspiracyNut23


Appologies if I came across as rude, but your suggestion came across as more than rude to Virgin users (me included).

This will not force Virgins hand in anyway. They lost over 50,000 customers when Sky tried to fleace them more cash for Sky 1 and Sky news. But Virgin stuck to their guns no matter the cost. What makes you think a few hundred (face it, those who use sites like ATS on Virgin, probly is less then 1000!) leaving Virgin will make them even look into why? I see any similar idea as nothing but collective punishment on Virgin users.

I do not have a better idea, but given the global climate, there are more serious things we should be worried about rather than loseing net nutrality.

The way I see it is, this issue is one of the million side shows setup by the elites, to divert our attention from the real issues in the world. Face it, if everyone concentrated on why we have the credit crisis and how the banks are responsible 100% etc (also why mosts wars are started, why the third world is so messed up etc etc), there wouldn't be long before vigilanty action wiped out the banking elites.

Anyway back to my point, there will be little to no net during ww3, so why are we worrying so much about loseing freedom of speach on it, when we will lose it almost altogether?

Originally posted by Saf85


I do not have a better idea, but given the global climate, there are more serious things we should be worried about rather than loseing net nutrality.

How long have you been using the net? How much do you actually know about how important a free internet is? The internet is truly the last bastion of free speech, the last place to blow the whistle on something and do it anonymously, the last place where any man, woman or child can start a movement against something, connecting with millions of people with the click of a mouse.

There are few things more important than free speech.

I do not have Bell Canada for my internet, but was disturbed to learn here that they are throttling back both their own retail as well as wholesale customers.
Looking it up on the net I discovered that the whole issue is still being considered by the CRTC. They have an on-line form that can be completed to express your concerns.
I filled it out with my concerns. I disagree both with throttling back so that you get less than what you paid for, and also the issue of there being a potential for a breach of security and privacy when they use tools to "analyze" types of web use.

Here's the link to the CRTC correspondence page where you can express your concern about the issue. First, select the button labeled "Interventions/Comments" There will be several subjects listed. This one was the last issue on the list when I visited the page moments ago.

support.crtc.gc.ca...

[edit on 21-12-2008 by wayno]

RIM is a Canadian company with email servers for all corporate and consumer Blackberry users. Does that make it possible for Bell Canada to access all email being sent a Blackberry in USA?

reply to post by mmiichael


Bell Canada are very bad. They have awful internet quality and awful customer service. Mountain Cable or Rogers cable are good if those are available in your area.