INTERFERENCE
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DEAR READER IN THE SPIRIT OF IDEALISTIC MEDIA REFORMERS,
agitated syndicates and good old-fashion corporate “fuckyous”, i bring you interference. he trivial details of who I am and where I came from is hardly relevant. I am a designer, a student, a working class citizen. I am here to tell you about the internet you use everyday, the network you rely on to check your Facebook page, to laugh at the latest Reddit meme, to promote your small business. I want you to know that this freedom has been protected by innovators, artists, reformers, people like you for the past 10 years and it will take another decade to maintain this openness. “Interference” takes its name for three distinct reasons. he irst part, “Interference as Noise” refers to the deinition of interference as being “the disturbance of received radio signals”. Net neutrality is a complex issue on a technical and ethical level. he truth is easily manipulated by biased politicians, and power-hungry CEOs. “Interference as Noise” aims to present the issue of the Open Internet with indisputable facts, background
information, and other necessary details to help the viewer understand the basics and clear up the noise. he second installment, “Interference as Intrusion”, is a more aggressive interpretation of the net neutrality debate. Its purpose is to expose how telecommunication companies have literally interfered with consumer content and laws that protect the Open Internet. Finally, “Interference as Whistle-Blowing” alludes to referee’s calling “interferences” during sports events. his section ends the campaign with a call-toaction from the viewer. It is a inal attempt to encourage you, the viewer to learn more and be inspired to blow the proverbial whistle on any corporation or government that threatens the Open Internet. We are ighting for the right to maintain an open platform between each other and what we love. Michael Noer writes, “Resist! An Open Internet is worth ighting for”. So please – consider this publication an invitation to join the ight.
Sincerely,
PAGES 14-17
he FCC PAGES 8-13
Deining Net Neutrality PAGES 18-19
Common Carriers
PAGES 26-31
Case Studies
PAGES 32-33
An Orwellian Nightmare
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Contents 6
PART I Deining Net Neutrality he FCC & the Open Internet Common Carrier Laws
20 PART II
PAGES 22-23
Tiered Pricing
Tiered Pricing Net Competition Case Studies An Orwellian Nightmare
PAGES 24-25
Net Competition
34 PART III A Letter From Woz Take Action
PAGES 36-39
A Letter From Woz PAGES 40-41
Take Action
40 41
WHAT IS NET NEUTRALITY
THE FCC
COMMON CARRIER LAWS
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IN T E R F E R E NC E A S NOI S E
INTERFERENCE AS NOISE when your TV would lose reception and the screen mutated into a million tiny pixels, contorting like a digital Dali painting? Maybe your dad tried to build a contraption out of duct tape to keep those awkward rabbit ear antennaes from falling out of place. Sometimes when the picture becomes distorted we have to do more than calibrate the screen – we need to ask how and why it went wrong. his is the purpose of Interference As Noise. It is an attempt to explain the state of the internet today and what means to be “open”. It will explain how it is under threat and who is on which side. REMEMBER BACK IN THE DAY
Deining Net Neutrality Three main interpretations
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Net Neutrality is a complex issue with many perspectives. Ed Felten, a computer science, professor from Princeton University, deconstructed three main interpretations
1. END-TO-END DESIGN he irst perspective sees neutrality as an engineering principle, akin to the end-to-end principle, saying that the network’s job is to carry the traffic it is paid to carry, and decisions about protocols and priorities should be made by endpoint systems. As Tim Lee puts it, “Network neutrality is a technical principle about the coniguration of Internet routers.” Another more technical aspect of Internet openness has had the efect of empowering entrepreneurs to innovate without needing to seek permission he practical implication of this design philosophy has been that a software developer can develop new networked applications by writing programs only for enduser computers, without needing to modify the far more specialized programs running on network routing equipment difers from how the Public Switched Telephone Network has historically operated. By allowing innovation to be easily implemented at the edge of the network, the end-to-end design of the Internet has lowered technical, inancial, and administrative barriers to entry for entrepreneurs with technical skill and bright ideas.
2. NON EXCLUSIONARY BUSINESS PRACTICES he second perspective see neutrality as an economic principle, saying that network providers should not offer deals to one content provider unless they offer the same deal to all providers. Larry Lessig takes this position in his initial response to the journal: “he zero discriminatory surcharge rules [which Lessig supports] are just that -- rules against discriminatory surcharges -charging Google something diferent from what a network charges iFilm.
3. CONTENT NON DISCRIMINATION he third perspective sees neutrality as a free speech principle, saying that network providers should not discriminate among messages based on their content.* his perspective is popular among media reformers and innovators. Net Neutrality has even been rebranded as “he First Amendment Issue of the Internet”.
Minnesota Senator Al Franken would agree and calls net neutrality “the irst amendment issue of our time”.his perspective is probably best summed up by SavetheInternet.com,
THE OPEN INTERNET IS THE FIRST AMENDMENT ISSUE OF OUR TIME which is a branch the media reform group FreePress, “Internet service providers may not discriminate between diferent kinds of content and applications online. It guarantees a level playing ield for all Web sites. Opponents of the “Open Internet” argue that talks about the First Amendment has no place in the debate and is just way for advocates to appeal to a broad audience.
ED FELTEN freedom-to-tinker.org
2008
One of the most basic arguments in favor of Net Neutrality is that it is needed in order to preserve what is known as the “endto-end principle.” The end-to-end principle is one of the underlying system principles of the Internet, which states that network features should be implemented as close to the end points of the network -- the applications -- as possible.
End-to-End Design How the internet was built for decentralization
BING
AT&T
END USERS
THE AT&T DOWN THE STREET
LOCAL ISPS “BACKBONES”
YOU
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INFORMATION NETWORKS ARE OFTEN MORE VALUABLE WHEN THEY ARE LESS SPECIALIZED AUTHOR/PROFESSOR TIM WU
NETWORK NEUTRALITY IS
best deined as a network design principle. he idea is that a maximally useful public information network aspires to treat all content, sites, and platforms equally. his allows the network to carry every form of information and support every kind of application. he principle suggests that information networks are often more valuable when they are less specialized – when they are a platform for multiple uses, present and future. (For people who know more about network design, what is just described is similar to the “endto-end” design principle). (Note that this doesn’t suggest every network has to be neutral to be useful. Discriminatory, private networks can be extremely
useful for other purposes. What the principle suggests that there is such a thing as a neutral public network, which has a particular value that depends on its neutral nature). A useful way to understand this principle is to look at other networks, like the electric grid, which are implicitly built on a neutrality theory. he general purpose and neutral nature of the electric grid is one of the things that make it extremely useful. he electric grid does not care if you plug in a toaster, an iron, or a computer. Consequently it has survived and supported giant waves of innovation in the appliance market. he electric grid worked for the radios of the 1930s works for the lat screen TVs of the 2000s. For that reason the electric grid is a model
of a neutral, innovation-driving network. he theory behind the network neutrality principle, which the internet sometimes gets close to, is that a neutral network should be expected to deliver the most to a nation and the world economically, by serving as an innovation platform, and socially, by facilitating the widest variety of interactions between people. he internet isn’t perfect but it aspires for neutrality in its original design. Its decentralized and mostly neutral nature may account for its success as an economic engine and a source of folk culture.
TIM WU
The Master Switch 2003
Non Exclusionary Business Practices Lawrence Lessig, and internet law professor from Stanford, seems to be at the forefront of assessing Net Neutrality and its afect on business innovation. He talks about Zero Discriminatory Surcharge Rules “he zero discriminatory surcharge rules are just that -- rules against discriminatory surcharges -- charging Google something diferent from what a network charges iFilm. he regulation I call for is a “MFN” requirement -that everyone has the right to the rates of the most favored nation.” He analyses the fundamental problems that could arise from a “two-tiered” system. What this essentially means is that ISPs want to create a “fast-track”, if you will, for companies that are willing to pay top dollar. All other content would go at a slower pace. To this, Lessig argues “the only companies that could aford to buy access to the fast lanes on the Internet are companies like Google and Yahoo! and Microsoft 12 INTERFERENCE 2013
and the content companies that already have succeeded in the marketplace. he next generation Yahoos! and Googles cannot buy access to the fast lane...his restriction in competition would fundamentally weaken the growth of the Internet.” Since early 2000s Lessig has altered his opinions and solutions for Net Neutrality but none could argue he has always been ighting on the same side.
THE INCENTIVES IN A WORLD OF ACCESS-TIERING MAY BENEFIT ESTABLISHED COMPANIES, BUT IT WILL ONLY BURDEN NEW INNOVATORS
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Content Non Discrimination At the heart of the debate is the question of whether Internet Service Providers ought to be subject to a non-discrimination (aka neutrality) requirement. he pro neutrality camp has argued that neutrality must be legally mandated lest we lose the beneits that the Internet has enabled. hose opposed to neutrality requirements generally view the Internet as a good thing, too; they argue, however, that market forces will assure continued access to the Internet on reasonably neutral terms, and that legislating this requirement will stile investment in new broadband services. hat there is emerging competition to ofer high-speed Internet services is certainly good news, but to suggest that competitive network services have no need of non-discrimination rules is to ly in the face of hundreds of years of common carriage tradition.
But competition alone will not necessarily assure the future of the Internet as an open platform, nor obviate the need for baseline non-discrimination requirements, enforced through a light-weight complaint process. For example, the mere fact that there is an competitive market for some telephone services (wireline, wireless, VoIP, etc.), just as there are competitive Internet service providers, is hardly a reason to suggest dropping the basic Title II non-discrimination requirements of the Communications Act. We keep these Title II requirements not because there is a long list of infringements in recent memory, but because they are an integral element of the basic
operating requirements of the telephone system. Indeed, the non-discrimination mandates in the Communications Act are largely self-enforcing and pose little regulatory burden inasmuch as they are the widely accepted mode of operation for the voice telephone network. he same would be true for the Internet provided the enforcement or complaint mechanism was designed to match the lightweight operating style of the Internet.
DANIEL J WEITZNER
2006
FCC CHAIRMAN julius genachowski
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Background
he FCC’s Report & Order Since its inception in 1934, the FCC has played a major role in how telecommunication companies conduct business
In 2009, the Commission launched a public process to determine whether and what actions might be necessary to preserve the characteristics that have allowed the Internet to grow into an indispensable platform supporting our nation’s economy and civic life, and to foster continued investment in the physical networks that enable the Internet. These rules were developed following a public rulemaking process that included input from more than 100,000 individuals and organizations and several public workshops. This process made clear that the Internet has thrived because of its freedom and openness—the absence of any gatekeeper blocking lawful uses of the network or picking winners and losers online. Consumers and innovators do not have to seek permission
A RECENT HISTORY Beginning in the early 1970s, the FCC has had a hand in the Net Neutrality debate. While some companies want more actions from the FCC, opponents have discouraged regulation.
1971
2002
2003
THE FCC ISSUES A SET OF RULES
AMAZON.COM, MICROSOFT, and Yahoo!
LAWRENCE LESSIG AND TIM WU,
to keep AT&T from directly entering the market for “online services” to ensure that other online computer services lourish.
join in the Coalition of Broadband Users and Innovators to lobby for Net Neutrality.
two of the most active academics in the debate, addressed an important ex parte comment to the FCC
3
he three basic rules adopted by the FCC provide greater clarity and certainty regarding the continued freedom and openness of the Internet. Applied with the principle of reasonable network management, the rules empower and protect consumers and innovators while helping ensure that the Internet continues to flourish:
1. TRANSPARENCY
2. NO BLOCKING
Broadband providers must disclose information regarding their network management practices, performance, and the commercial terms of their broadband services.
Fixed broadband providers (such as DSL, cable modem or fixed wireless providers) may not block lawful content, applications, services or non-harmful devices. Mobile broadband providers may not block lawful websites, or apps that compete with their voice or video telephony services.
3. NO UNREASONABLE DISCRIMINATION Fixed broadband providers may not unreasonably discriminate in transmitting lawful network traffic over a consumer’s broadband Internet access service, subject to limited exceptions for “reasonable network management.”
A RECENT HISTORY (cont.)
2004
2005
2008
FCC CHAIRMAN Michael Powell gives a
In August the commission proposed a set of: FOUR OPEN INTERNET PRINCIPLES
FCC V. COMCAST Software engineer Robb Topolski begins a 3-year long battle between the FCC and Comcast over throttling P2P transfers.
speech called “Guiding Principles of the Internet Freedom” outlining the idea of four Internet Freedoms in response to calls for some type of network neutrality.
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THE INTERNET HAS THRIVED BECAUSE OF ITS FREEDOM AND OPENNESS
Background Cont. before they use the Internet to launch new technologies, start businesses, connect with friends, or share their views. Consumers can make their own choices about what applications and services to use and are free to decide what content they want to access, create, or share with others. This openness promotes competition. It also enables a self-reinforcing cycle
of investment and innovation in which new uses of the network lead to increased adoption of broadband, which drives investment and improvements in the network itself, which in turn lead to further innovative uses of the network and further investment in content, applications, services, and devices. A core goal of the Open Internet Order is to foster and
2009 COMCAST SUES THE FCC in response
FCC CHAIRMAN Julius Genachowski
to the FCC’s public censure against Comcast. By the end of 2008, Comcast had earned one of the worst reputations out of a list of 60 major companies.
appends the Four Rules from 2005 including content non discrimination and transparency from network providers.
accelerate this cycle of investment and innovation. The record and the Commission’s economic analysis demonstrated, however, that the openness of the Internet cannot be taken for granted, and that it faces real threats. Broadband providers have endangered the Internet’s openness by blocking or degrading content and applications without disclosing their practices to end users and edge providers (i.e., providers of content, applications, services, and devices), notwithstanding the Commission’s adoption of open Internet principles in 2005. The record also established the widespread benefits of providing greater clarity in this area: clarity that the Internet’s openness will continue; that there is a forum and procedure for resolving alleged open Internet violations; and that broadband providers may reasonably manage their networks.
Common Carrier Laws The rules that protect us from them and them from the government BY DEFINITION, a common carrier
is legally bound to carry all passengers or freight as long as there is enough space, the fee is paid, and no reasonable grounds to refuse to do so exist. A common carrier that unjustiiably refuses to carry a particular person or cargo may be sued for damages. Why is this relevant to the discussion of Net Neutrality? Tim Wu touches on these points in “he Master Switch”. AT&T’s role as a common
carrier has threatened to change over time. He writes, “At the heart of common carriage is the idea that certain businesses are either so intimately connect, even essential, to the public good, or so inherently powerful - imagine the water or electric utilities that they must be compelled to conduct their afairs in a nondiscriminatory way... In the anglo-american common law tradition, one asks how essential
A formal complaint against AT&T is iled to the FCC for blocking Facetime
A RECENT HISTORY (cont.)
R&O 2010 THE FCC adopts the Open Internet R&O which establishes three high-level rules to preserve the open internet.
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2012 COMCAST V. FCC CONTINUES A court of Appeals rules that the FCC does NOT have authority to censure Comcast despite their throttling.
THE OPEN INTERNET R&O enacted
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or necessary the service is - how much other industries depend on it.” Practically this focus had led to four basic industries being identiied as “public callings”: telecommunications, banking, energy and transportation. Each plays a certain essential role in the workings of the nation and the economy, and thus there are the industries that have attracted regulation as common carriers, or infrastructure.
Should AT&T Have the Right to Look hrough Our content? AT&T’S RECENT PROPOSAL to examine all the traffic it
carries for potential violations of US intellectual property laws is not just bad but corporate seppuku bad. At present AT&T
2013 VERIZON v. FCC Verizon calls the FCC’s rules unconstitutional and unnecessary, claiming their inability to censor consumer violates their freedom of speech.
is shielded by a federal law they wrote themselves that provides they have no liability for ‘Transitory Digital Network Communications’ — content AT&T carries over the Internet. To maintain that immunity, AT&T must transmit data ‘without selection of the material by the service provider’ and ‘without modiication of its content’ but if AT&T gets into the business of choosing what content travels over its network, it runs the serious risk of losing its all-important immunity. ‘As the world’s largest gatekeeper,’ Wu writes, ‘AT&T would immediately become the world’s largest target for copyright infringement lawsuits.’ AT&T’s new strategy ‘exposes it to so much potential liability that adopting it would arguably violate AT&T’s iduciary duty to its shareholders,’ concludes Wu.”
TIERED PRICING
CASE STUDIES
AN ORWELLIAN NIGHTMARE
IN T E R F E1RINTERFERENCE E NC E A S IN T2013 RU SION
INTERFERENCE AS INTRUSION IMAGINE LOGGING ONTO GOOGLE to search for I don’t
know, let’s say - you want to what happens when the narwhal bacons (a old Reddit joke). You try to search on Google but, to your surprise, it is taking painfully slow to load. You can’t take the suspense anymore, what happens when the narwhal bacons? You log onto Bing instead, search, and discover the narwhal bacons at midnight – of course. But what happened with Google? What you didn’t think to search was the new merger Bing made with Verizon (your ISP). Starting today, it is in Verizon’s best interest to slow any traffic through Google to help out their new BFFs at Bing. It may be a minor inconvenience to you today, but what could they do next?
Tiered Pricing Ed Felten explains how a tiered internet would work THE WORD IS OUT NOW THAT
residential ISPs like BellSouth want to provide a kind of two-tier Internet service, where ordinary Internet services get one level of performance, and preferred sites or services, presumably including the ISPs’ own services, get better performance. It’s clear why ISPs want to do this: they want to charge big web sites for the privilege of getting preferred service. I should say up front that although the two-tier network is sometimes explained as if there were two tiers of network infrastructure, the obvious and efficient implementation in practice would be to have a single fast network, and to impose deliberate delay or bandwidth throttling on non-preferred traffic. Whether ISPs should be allowed to do this is an important policy question, often called the network neutrality issue. It’s a harder issue than advocates on either side admit. Let’s think about the practical aspects of how an ISP would present the two-tier 18 INTERFERENCE 2013
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users will still blame the ISP for the performance problems they see. he basic dilemma for ISPs is pretty simple. hey want to he second option segregate preferred sites in users’ is for users to name minds, so that users will blame sites using ordinary the site rather than the ISP for names and URLs. the poor performance of nonIn this scenario, the preferred sites; but segregating only diference the preferred sites makes the sites between preferred and ordinary much less valuable because they sites is that users would see much can no longer be named in the better performance for preferred same way on diferent ISPs. sites. To an ordinary user, this would look like a network that How can ISPs escape this advertises high peak performance dilemma? I’m not sure. It seems but often has lousy performance to me that ISPs will be driven to in practice. If you’ve ever used a strategy of providing Internet a network whose performance service alongside exclusive, onlyvaries widely over time, you on-this-ISP content. hat’s a know how aggravating it can be. strategy with a poor track record. And it’s not much consolation to In writing this post, I didn’t mean learn that the poor performance to imply that web sites were only happens when you’re trying the only services among which to use that great video site your providers wanted to discriminate. friend (on another ISP) told you I chose to use Web sites because about. You assume something is they’re useful in illustrating the wrong, and you blame the ISP. In issues. I think many of the same this situation, it’s hard to believe issues would arise with other that a complaining user will be types of services, such as VoIP. impressed by an explanation In particular, there will be real that the ISP could have provided tension between the ISPs desire higher performance, but chose to label preferred VoIP services not to because the site didn’t pay as strongly associated with, and some fee. Users generally expect supported by, that particular ISP; that producers will provide the but VoIP services will have strong best product they can at a given reasons to portray themselves cost. Business plans that rely on as being the same service making products deliberately everywhere. worse, without reducing the cost of providing them, are widely seen ED FELTEN freedom-to-tinker.com 2006 as unfair. Given that explanation,
2
Internet to customers. here are basically two options, I think. Either the ISP can create a special area for preferred sites, or it can let sites keep their ordinary URLs.
1
he irst option is to give the preferred sites special URLs. For example, if this site had preferred status on AcmeISP, its URL for AcmeISP customers would be something like freedom-to-tinker.preferred. acmeisp.com. his has the advantage of telling customers clearly which sites are expected to have preferred-level performance. But it has the big disadvantage that URLs are no longer portable from one ISP to another. Portability of URLs – the fact that a URL means the same thing no matter where you use it – is one of the critical features that makes the web work, and makes sites valuable. It’s hard to believe that sites and users will be willing to give it up.
Net Competition Opposing arguments against an Open Internet
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One of the most aggressive opponents of Net Neutrality is a group called Net Competition, founded by Scott Cleland. Their beliefs stem from the idea that the internet should not be regulated by the FCC or any other government agency. Some of their active members, to name a few, include: Sprint, Verizon, AT&T, Time Warner Cable, US Telecom and Comcast. Here is a look at their mission statement:
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NETCOMPETITION.ORG e-forum
members share a market vision of: A constantly-improving Internet that functions most efficiently, efectively, and productively so consumers and the economy can enjoy maximum beneit, productivity, and growth; A vibrantly growing and competitive broadband market free of government micromanagement that maximizes economic growth, job creation, and U.S. competitiveness; and a winwin growth dynamic where everyone on the Internet: network operators, device makers, application developers, and content providers — enjoy the freedom to innovate, invest and diferentiate to best serve their customers and advance our economy. Market-based competition beneits consumers more than government-managed competition. Times have changed; consumers enjoy a wide range of broadband providers and technologies. Moreover, technology is the primary enabler and driver of competition — not the government • Antitrust is the appropriate and sufficient mechanism for addressing anti-competitive behavior.•Regulation is appropriate for homeland security, law enforcement.
Consumers should retain their freedom to choose among different broadband services and technologies. All broadband providers have an interest in developing good solutions to the challenges posed by applications and services demanding increasing bandwidth. Innovation to meet consumer demand should be encouraged, so that consumers experience the best Internet possible • Customers collectively in the marketplace make better decisions than government because: immediate customer feedback efficiently deters customer-unfriendly practices; and economic incentives of success and disincentives of failure have real consequences. he marketplace is more effective than regulation in promoting efficient use of bandwidth and maximizing value to consumers. Marketplace arrangements can reduce the costs of Internet service to consumers • Effective management of bandwidth is vital to ensuring that consumers can continue to access the content and applications that they desire. • Marketplace arrangements are far more capable than rigid government regulations of promoting efficient use of bandwidth and delivering ever more innovative Internet content and applications to consumers.
CASE IN POINT Six arguments to consider written by an insightful Reddit contributor.
THE ACCESSIBILITY ARGUMENT By limiting the ability for ISPs to adapt to changing conditions and to remain profitable, you are discouraging them from expanding their networks and improving their service.
THE UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES ARGUMENT Market manipulation sometimes seems attractive, but you never know what undesirable, unforeseen, consequences will result.
THE INNOVATION ARGUMENT You don’t know what the future of the Internet holds. Nobody does. It’s naive to think that the best course of action for the future is a continuation of today’s technology. Net neutrality is a good way of codifying the Internet ideals of today, while making future innovations that much more remote. When companies, such as ISPs, are subjected to constant oversight and regulation, it makes it difficult for them to innovate. If somebody’s new business plan doesn’t fit into the regulatory framework, it may not ever be tried.
Case Studies Barbershop Punk is a documentary by Georgia Sugimura Archer and Kristin Armield, The film is, “one man’s personal quest to defend what he believes to be his inalienable rights, Barbershop Punk examines the critical issues surrounding the future of the American Internet and what it takes to challenge the status quo.” This story is just one case where a telco company got caught interfering with user content. Here is a look at some of other cases:
AMERICA ONLINE ON
2006
AOL BLOCKS EMAILS Case: AOL blocks emails from competitors. Calls it a “glitch”. Considers implementing an “e-mail postage program” to block spam. AOL Spokesman: Nicholas Graham “We discovered the issue early this morning, and our postmaster and mail operations team started working to identify this software glitch”. Prosecutors: Coalition Dearaol.com “AOL is essentially scanning e-mail for anything that’s opposing their policy,” - Wes Boyd, leader of Moveon.org Author: Stephanie Olsen CNET.com
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Wednesday apparently began blocking e-mail on its servers containing the Web address of a petition against the company’s upcoming certiied-mail program, an issue the company called a “glitch.”¶ he Internet service provider, which has roughly 20 million subscribers in the United States, began bouncing e-mail communications with the URL “Dearaol.com” sometime late Wednesday and continuing through hursday. ¶ A e-mail sent by CNET News.com to an AOL. com address and containing the URL “www.dearaol.com” bounced back on hursday afternoon with a system administrator note that read: “he e-mail system was unable to deliver the message, but did not report a speciic reason.” ¶ Dearaol.com is a coalition of companies and individuals against AOL’s adoption of GoodMail’s CertiiedEmail, an antispam program that requires marketers to pay to ensure delivery of their e-mail messages and circumvent spam ilters.
THE FACT IS, ISPS LIKE AOL COMMONLY MAKE THESE KINDS OF ARBITRARY DECISIONS-SILENTLY BANNING HUGE SWATHES OF LEGITIMATE MAIL ON THE FLIMSIEST OF REASONS-EVERY DAY, AND NO ONE HEARS ABOUT IT he Web site contains an open letter and a petition that calls on people to protest what it calls an “e-mail tax” that would inhibit the Internet’s inherent free low of information and create a two-tiered system.¶ Despite its quick ix, the hiccup adds fuel to a long-running controversy around GoodMail’s certiiedmail program and various ISPs adoption of it. Earlier this year, AOL and Yahoo said they would implement the e-mail postage program because with the rise of phishing scams and spam, they needed a way to tell legitimate marketing messages, like those
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advertising a sale at Jcrew.com, from junk. But their endorsement of GoodMail’s system immediately spurred outcry from groups like MoveOn.org, the AFL-CIO, Gun Owners of America and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which formed the coalition Dearaol. com. ”AOL is essentially scanning e-mail for anything that’s opposing their policy,” Boyd said in a phone interview. ¶ he group says it also believes the alleged blocking cements the view that an e-mail tax will harm free speech on the Internet. ” The fact is, ISPs like AOL commonly make these kinds of arbitrary decisions-silently banning huge swathes of legitimate mail on the limsiest of reasons-every day, and no one hears about it said Danny O’Brien of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “AOL’s planned CertiiedEmail system would let them proit from this power by ofering to charge legitimate mailers to bypass these malfunctioning ilters.”
EDDIE VEDDER, LEAD SINGER
2007
AT&T MUTES PEARL JAM’S POLITICAL RANT Case: Pearl Jam sings anti-Bush lyrics on stage. AT&T responds by replacing their alterations with 15 seconds of silence on their online videos. AOL Spokesman: Michael Coe “We discovered the issue early this morning, and our postmaster and mail operations team started working to identify this software glitch”. Prosecutors: Pearl Jam, SavetheInternet Coalition. “AT&T’s censorship is an excellent example of what could go wrong when ISPs control what their users see and hear.” - Tim Carr, neutrality advocate. Author: William Marr ABCNews.com
of the rock band Pearl Jam, is using his powerful pipes to call out corporate censorship after an AT&T webcast of the band’s Lollapalooza performance that edited out Vedder’s anti-George Bush musings. ¶ he improvised lyrics in question were sung to the tune of Pink Floyd’s “he Wall”: “George Bush leave this world alone. George Bush ind yourself another home.” ¶ he telecom giant has been contrite after last weekend’s live webcast, calling the censorship an unacceptable mistake and saying its policies strictly forbid editing political messages out of webcasts. ¶ But the politically charged band and activists are saying that the 15 seconds of silence is a resounding signal of a much larger issue: the power of Internet service providers to regulate what users can access when they surf the net... the band said in a statement on their Web
THE FAIRNESS ARGUMENT If a major content provider is making billions of dollars off of someone else’s infrastructure, then isn’t it fair to at least give the infrastructure holder the option of trying to get a piece of that pie?
THE GOVERNMENT ENCROACHMENT ARGUMENT The Internet has been so successful in large part due to its relatively unregulated, anarchist, merit-based nature. By inviting the government into this wonderful world of selfdetermination, you are setting a precedent that you may soon regret.
THE MORALITY ARGUMENT Liberty-minded people usually believe that it is morally wrong to force other people to do as you wish by threatening them. You might feel that you are above the guilt because you elect people who then employ other people to do the threatening for you, but that doesn’t change the fact that you are using government to bully people into submission.
AT&T’S ACTIONS STRIKES AT THE HEART OF THE PUBLIC’S CONCERNS OVER THE POWER THAT CORPORATIONS HAVE WHEN IT COMES TO DETERMINING WHAT THE PUBLIC SEES AND HEARS THROUGH COMMUNICATIONS MEDIA site.¶Following a rendition of Pearl Jam’s song “Daughter” during the show at Chicago’s Grant Park, Vedder transitioned into the Pink Floyd classic, singing the Bush lyrics to an enthusiastic crowd that shouted “No more war!” and held up homemade anti-war signs. he rock band Pearl Jam is upset after lyrics... View Full Caption he irst time Vedder sang “George Bush leave this world alone,” the lyrics were transmitted to users on AT&T’s Blue Room Web site. he second two anti-Bush verses were cut.¶ AT&T employs the irm Davie-Brown Entertainment (DBE) to edit their webcasts for profanity that is not a part of a song’s lyrics, and also for nudity, company spokesman Michael Coe said. Political messages and curse words that are part of a song are not edited, he said. DBE insisted that the censoring of the Pearl Jam lyrics was an honest mistake, not part of 28 INTERFERENCE 2013
some broader political agenda to protect the president, and that they are undertaking a review of the incident. ¶ “I don’t think it was politically motivated,” said DBE president Tom Meyer. “My guess is [the webcast editor] felt that it was something controversial and they had to make a snap decision, and they made the wrong one.” But Nicole Vandenberg, a spokeswoman for Pearl Jam, said that even if it was a genuine mistake, these excuses miss the point. ¶he Hot Potato Mash blog noted the irony of the situation, that the censored lyrics were set to the tune of the famous Pink Floyd song that includes the line “We don’t need no thought control,” before writing: “his little ‘mistake’ was the last straw for me regarding AT&T. I will begin the process of transferring my cell phone number to another carrier today.”¶ Pearl Jam has posted the entire unedited version of their “he Wall” performance on its Web site. AT&T said it is currently negotiating with Pearl Jam for the rights to post the unedited version as well.
2007
VERIZON BLOCKS TEXT MESSAGES Case: Verizon blocks anti-abortion text messages, saying they have the right to censor “unsavory” content. Verizon Spokesman: Jefery Nelson Prosecutors: Naral “No company should be allowed to censor the message we want to send to people who have asked us to send it to them.” - Nancy Keenan, Naral’s President Author: Adam Liptak NYTimes .com
SAYING IT HAD THE RIGHT TO
block “controversial or unsavory” text messages, Verizon Wireless has rejected a request from Naral Pro-Choice America, the abortion rights group, to make Verizon’s
mobile network available for a text-message program. ¶ he dispute over the Naral messages is a skirmish in the larger battle over the question of “net neutrality” — whether carriers or Internet service providers should have a voice in the content they provide to customers.¶“his is right at the heart of the problem,” said Susan Crawford, a visiting professor at the University of Michigan law school, referring to the treatment of text messages. “he fact that wireless companies can choose to discriminate is very troubling.” In turning down the program, Verizon, told Naral that it does not accept programs from any group “that seeks to promote an agenda or distribute content that, in its discretion, may be seen as controversial or unsavory to any of our users.”
interference as noise
AT&T IS FACING A FORMAL
2012
AT&T BLOCKS FACETIME Case: AT&T blocks Facetime on mobil devices. AT&T VP: Bob Quinn. Prosecutors: FreePress AT&T’s decision to block FaceTime unless a customer pays for voice and text minutes she doesn’t need is a clear violation of the FCC’s Open Internet rules”. - Matt Wood, Free Press Policy Director Author: Ester Shein BYTE.com
complaint by public advocacy groups Free Press, Public Knowledge, and New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute for allegedly violating net neutrality by blocking wellknown video chat application FaceTime. he groups informed AT&T they will be iling the complaint with the Federal Communications Commission in the next couple of weeks.¶ he complaint comes on the heels of Apple releasing its new iOS 6 operating system, which lets customers use FaceTime over mobile networks on the iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, and its third-generation iPad. Use of FaceTime previously was limited to Wi-Fi connections. Unless customers subscribe to one of AT&T’s new
Family Share plans, they will be unable to use FaceTime via mobile devices. ¶ “AT&T’s decision to block FaceTime unless a customer pays for voice and text minutes she doesn’t need is a clear violation of the FCC’s Open Internet rules,” said Free Press policy director Matt Wood, in a statement. “It’s particularly outrageous that AT&T is requiring this for iPad users, given that this device isn’t even capable of making voice calls. AT&T’s actions are incredibly harmful to all of its customers ¶ In 2010, the FCC passed rules that AT&T cannot block apps that compete with the carrier’s traditional voice-calling service. At the time, AT&T argued that the FCC’s neutrality rules don’t apply to apps preloaded on the device.
In 2008, VUZE developed a plug-in that could monitor the median rate of an ISP’s TCP RST According to Vuze’s filing, 8,000 people around the world installed the plug-in, and the company collected over a million hours of data about reset activity on various ISPs. 1 computer = 1,000 downloads
AT&T HAS SENT A COOL RESPONSE
2008
COMCASTS FORGES TCP RESETS ON P2P Case: Comcast forges “TCP Resets” on peer-topeer transfers. Software engineer Robb Topolski catches them. FCC inds them guilty. Comcast CEO: Brian Roberts. “Comcast does not block any Web site, application, or Web protocol, including peer-to-peer services. Period. Doesn’t happen” - David Cohen. Robert’s right hand man. Prosecutors: Robb Topolski. he FCC. Tim Wu. Students, activists, AT&T customers...etc. Author: Mathew Lasar ArsTechnica .com
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to the Vuze Corporation’s “PlugIn” survey of ISPs, ranked by their median rate of TCP reset activity: “Given that Vuze itself has recognized these problems with the measurements generated by its Plug-In, we believe that Vuze should not have published these misleading measurements, nor iled them with the [Federal Communications Commission].” So AT&T Vice President Charles Kalmanek Jr. wrote to Vuze CEO Gilles BianRosa, following the P2P content provider’s FCC iling last week. And AT&T insists that it does not insert false reset signals into P2P packets.¶ “We’re just putting this out there...” Vuze sent the study both to AT&T and to the FCC. As Ars
has reported, the company recently published a ranking of ISPs using a plug-in application that “measures the rate at which network communications are being interrupted by reset (RST) messages,” in Vuze’s own words. In November of last year Vuze petitioned the FCC to launch its present proceeding on ISP network management practices, especially after Comcast was accused of using reset packets to block ISP traffic. ¶ According to Vuze’s iling, 8,000 people around the world installed the plug-in, and the company collected over a million hours of data about reset activity on various ISPs. Comcast topped the chart, with one of its local networks having a median reset rate of 23.72 percent. Cablevision came in
I N T E R F E R E N C E A S I N T RU SION
eighth with 17.58 percent, AOL arrived at 20th, and an AT&T Worldnet Services network landed at 25th with a median rate of 13.97 percent. ¶ he Comcast inding is no surprise. Even FCC Chair Kevin Martin told the Senate Commerce Committee on April 22nd that he thinks the software Comcast employs can’t really detect ISP traffic problems. Using reset packets, Martin explained to the Senate, just “blocks the uploads of at least a large portion of subscribers in that part of the network, regardless of the actual levels of congestion at that particular time.”¶ Vuze concluded its report stating that “there is sufficient data to suggest that network management
practices that ‘throttle’ internet traffic are widespread.” But in the various letters that Vuze sent to top ISPs included in its survey, AT&T among them, the irm conceded that the plug-in “cannot diferentiate between reset activity occurring in the ordinary course and reset activity that is artiicially interposed by a network operator.” ¶ Vuze also told AT&T that it “appreciate[d] the methodological limitations of our data, and therefore have drawn no irm conclusions from it,” but still thinks the results “show a signiicant enough diference in the level of resets from one network operator to another, to warrant asking certain network operators to describe their network management practices.” ¶ “We agree: your test proved nothing” AT&T’s April 24th response categorically denies
VUZE CONCLUDED ITS REPORT STATING THAT “THERE IS SUFFICIENT DATA TO SUGGEST THAT NETWORK MANAGEMENT PRACTICES THAT ‘THROTTLE’ INTERNET TRAFFIC ARE WIDESPREAD.
that any negative signiicance can be traced from Vuze’s experiment. “AT&T does not use ‘false reset messages’ to manage its network,” the telco giant says. “We agree with Vuze that the use of the Vuze Plug-In to measure network traffic has numerous limitations and deiciencies, and does not demonstrate whether any particular network providers or their customers are using TCP Reset messages for network management purposes.” ¶ And in its response, AT&T forwarded Vuze and the FCC an academic paper from Canada’s University of Calgary, which argues that resets often occur due to “network outages, attacks, or reconigurations.” he authors based their conclusions, published in 2004, on a one year study of the Calgary campus network, which found that 15 to 25 percent of TCP connections had at least one reset. ¶ Meanwhile, the media reform group Free Press has submitted over 26,000 citizen Web ilings to the FCC regarding the agency’s net neutrality docket. he template comment asks the FCC to take “serious and immediate action” to stop ISPs “from following Comcast’s example of discriminating against the free low of online information.”
SLOW LANE FAST LANE
An Orwellian Nightmare At the heart of the debate is the fear of how ISPs could control the internet if Net Neutrality were erased. Rather than a neutral environment, here is a look at how telecoms could favor some websites and block opponents. 32 INTERFERENCE 2013
interference as noise
“With iber and video on the horizon they wish to sell services to the highest bidder with exclusive accounts. his means Time Warner can sell an exclusive FIBER ACCOUNT to Yahoo which they chose to deny Google. You and I click our Google icon and it takes a minute to come up but when we click on Yahoo it comes up instantly. Where you going to click? Imagine that in all aspects of the web. And even more problematic... THEY CAN PUT ALL THE SMALL WEBSITES INTO THE VERY SLOW LANE, KILLING US OFF.”
- Techwit
“If Net Neutrality is gutted, Google, eBay, and YouTube either pay protection money to companies like AT&T or risk that their sites process slowly on your computer. Comcast could intentionally slow access to iTunes, steering Internet customers its own music service. And the little guy with the next big idea would be muscled out of the marketplace, relegated to the “slow lane” of the information superhighway.” - Huffington Post
“If we want to ruin the Internet, we’ll turn it into a cable TV system” - Public Knowledge
letters
RESOURCES
SAVE THE INTERNET
IN T E R F 1E RINTERFERENCE E NC E A S W H2013 I S T L EB L O W ING
INTERFERENCE AS WHISTLEBLOWING RECESS ON THE PLAYGROUND. Whether you played
handball, dodgeball or tag, it’s hard to forget the rules. Kids are always so quick to call “interference” on each other, so quick to deliver swift justice to any one playing out of turn. What happened to us? Over time it seems apathy gets the better of our judgement and we seem to sweep minor infractions under the rug. For this reason, we may not notice when the internet is under attack. A shudder of fear shot down the world’s spine when the Egyptian government shut of the country’s internet during a national crisis. It reminded everyone that we are not in control and our information superhighway may not always be free and clear. For this reason, this inal chapter are ways for you, dear reader, to get involved and blow the proverbial whistle on anyone who interferes with your digital playground.
I HAVE ALWAYS LOVED HUMOR AND LAUGHTER. AS A YOUNG
engineer I got an impulse to start a Dial-a-Joke in the San Jose/San Francisco area. I was aware of such humor services in other countries, such as Australia. his idea came from my belief in laughter. I could scarcely believe that I was the irst person to create such a simple service in my region. Why was I the irst? his was 1972 and it was illegal in the U.S. to use your own telephone. It was illegal in the U.S. to use your own answering machine. Hence it also virtually impossible to buy or own such devices. We had a monopoly phone system in our country then.
To Whom it May Concern A letter from Steve Wozniak, co-creater of Apple
he major expense for a young engineer is the rent of an apartment. he only answering machine I could legally use, by leasing (not purchasing) it from our phone company, the Codaphone 700, was designed for businesses like theaters. It was out of the price range of creative individuals wanting to try something new like dial-a-joke. his machine leased for more than a typical car payment each month. Despite my great passion and success with Dial-a-Joke, I could not aford it and eventually had to stop after a couple of years. By then, a San Francisco radio station had also started such a service. I believe that my Dial-a-Joke was the most called single line (no extensions) number in the country at that time due to the shortness of my jokes and the high popularity of the service. Yes, my guard stood hard when abstract threats, Too nobel to neglect Deceived me into thinking I had something to protect Good and bad, I define these terms Quite clear, no doubt somehow Ahh, but I was so much older then I’m younger than that now -- Bob Dylan
Moving ahead, I have owned four homes in my life. None of these had cable TV, even though one was a new development where the law required cable. None of these had DSL, including my current home, which is only .8 miles up a hill from the populous (constant-homes) town I live in. I pay for a T1 line, which costs many times what DSL runs for about 1/10 the bandwidth. hat’s as close as I can come to broadband where I live. he local phone providers don’t have any obligation to serve all of their phone customers with DSL. hey also have no requirement to service everyone living in the geographic area for which they have a monopoly. his is what has happened without regulatory control, despite every politician and president and CEO and PR person since the beginning of the Internet boon saying how important it was to ensure that everyone be provided broadband access.
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interference as noise
As a side note, I once phoned the cable company in the town I lived in. I could look from my bedroom window at homes ¾ of a mile away which had cable. I told the cable company that I would be willing to pay the cost of laying cable to my home. he cable company looked into it and got back to me that they could not do this because there were not enough homes on my hill to pay for the monthly rental of running their cable on telephone poles. In the earliest days of satellite TV to homes, you would buy a receiver and pay a fee to get all the common cable channels. I had a large family (two adults, six kids) and felt like making every room a lot easier to wire for TV. Rather than place a satellite receiver in each room, I’d provide all the common channels on a normal cable, like cable companies do. In my garage, I set up three racks of satellite receivers. I paid for one receiver to access CNN. I paid for another to access TNT. I paid for others to access HBO and other such networks. I had about 30 or 40 channels done this way. I had modulators to put each of these channels onto standard cable TV channels on one cable, which was distributed throughout my home. I could buy any TV I liked and plug it in anywhere in the home and it immediately watch everything without having to install another satellite receiver in that room. I literally had my own cable TV ‘company’ in the garage, which I called Woz TV, except that I
I PHONED HBO AND ASKED HOW MUCH THEY WOULD CHARGE ME JUST TO BE A NICE GUY AND SHARE MY SIGNAL WITH 60 NEIGHBORS... I INSTANTLY REALIZED THAT YOU COULDN’T DO SOMETHING NICE IN YOUR GARAGE AS A NORMAL PERSON
even kept signals in stereo, a quality step that virtually every cable company skipped. hen I got this idea that I could pretty easily run my signal through the wires in conduits up and down our 60-home neighborhood. he neighborhood had been partially wired for cable before the cable company went bankrupt as the neighborhood was being developed. I phoned HBO and asked how much they would charge me just to be a nice guy and share my signal with 60 neighbors. What came back was an answer that I couldn’t do such a personal thing. I had to be a cable company charging my neighbors certain rates and then a percentage of what I was charging, with minimums, had to be paid for HBO. I instantly realized that you couldn’t do something nice in your garage as a normal person and I gave up the idea. he Internet has become as important as anything man has ever created. But those freedoms are being chipped away. When young, I remember clearly how my father told me why our country was so great, mainly based on the constitution and Bill of Rights. Over my lifetime, I’ve seen those rights disregarded at every step. Loopholes abound. It’s sad. For example, my (Eisenhower Republican) father explained the sanctity of your home and how it could not easily be entered. It was your own private abode. And you had a right to listen to any radio signals that came because the air was free and if it came into your home you had a right to listen to it. hat
principle went away with a ban on radios that could tune in cell phone frequencies in the days of analog cell phones. Nobody but myself seemed to treat this as a core principle that was too much to give up. I was also taught that space, and the moon, were free and open. Nobody owned them. No country owned them. I loved this concept of the purest things in the universe being unowned.
I WAS ALSO TAUGHT THAT SPACE, AND THE MOON, WERE FREE AND OPEN. NOBODY OWNED THEM. NO COUNTRY OWNED THEM. I LOVED THIS CONCEPT OF THE PUREST THINGS IN THE UNIVERSE BEING UNOWNED.
he early Internet was so accidental, it also was free and open in this sense. he Internet has become as important as anything man has ever created. But those freedoms are being chipped away. Please, I beg you, open your senses to the will of the people to keep the Internet as free as possible. Local ISP’s should provide connection to the Internet but then it should be treated as though you own those wires and can choose what to do with them when and how you want to, as long as you don’t destruct them. I don’t want to feel that whichever content supplier had the best government connections or paid the most money determined what I can watch and for how much. his is the monopolistic approach and not representative of a truly free market in the case of today’s Internet. ¶ Imagine that when we started Apple we set things up so that we could charge purchasers of our computers by the number of bits they use. he personal computer revolution would have been delayed a decade or more. If I had to pay for each bit I used on my 6502 microprocessor, I would not have been able to build my own computers anyway. What if we paid for our roads per mile that we drove? It
38 INTERFERENCE 2013
would be fair and understandable to charge more for someone who drives more. But one of the most wonderful things in our current life is getting in the car and driving anywhere we feel like at this moment, and with no accounting for cost. You just get in your car and go. his is one of the most popular themes of our life and even our popular music. It’s a type of freedom from some concerns that makes us happy and not complain. he roads are already paid for. You rarely hear people complain that roads are “free.” he government shines when it comes to having provided us pathways to drive around our country. We don’t think of the roadways as being negative like telecommunication carriers. It’s a rare breath of fresh air. I frequently speak to diferent types of audiences all over the country. When I’m asked my feeling on Net Neutrality I tell the open truth. When I was irst asked to “sign on” with some
I N T E R F E R E N C E A S W H I S TL EB L O W ING
THE THOUGHT HIT ME THAT EVERY TIME AND IN EVERY WAY THAT THE TELECOMMUNICATIONS CAREERS HAVE HAD POWER OR CONTROL, WE THE PEOPLE WIND UP GETTING SCREWED good people interested in Net Neutrality my initial thought was that the economic system works better with tiered pricing for various customers. On the other hand, I’m a founder of the EFF and I care a lot about individuals and their own importance. Finally, the thought hit me that every time and in every way that the telecommunications careers have had power or control, we the people wind up getting screwed. Every audience that I speak this statement and phrase to bursts into applause. hat’s how the people think. hey don’t want this to encroach on their Internet freedom. ¶ I was brought up being told that one of the main purposes of our government is to help people who need help. When I was very young, this made me prouder than anything else of my government. I felt that way until the year that the San Jose Draft board voted 5-3 to call me not a student because I’d submitted my grades instead of the proper form, and made me 1A for service in Vietnam. As soon as I got a safe draft lottery number, they sent me a letter saying that they would grant me a 2S student deferment, because then they could get a shot at me in a later year. What was this game? Why was the government doing this sort of thing to a citizen? hey aren’t always about helping the people.
Sincerely, Steve Wozniak
We have very few government agencies that the populace views as looking out for them, the people. he FCC is one of these agencies that is still wearing a white hat. Not only is current action on Net Neutrality one of the most important times ever for the FCC, it’s probably the most momentous and watched action of any government agency in memorable times in terms of setting our perception of whether the government represents the wealthy powers or the average citizen, of whether the government is good or is bad. his decision is important far beyond the domain of the FCC itself.
Take Action
A few good resources to learn more and get involved
For the past ten years, the Open Internet has been preserved through the collaborative efforts of innovators, artists, legislators and agitated citizens. It will be even more vital for this generation to understand what is at stake because our unbreakable connection to our computers is our way of connecting to each other.
SAVETHEINTERNET.ORG
“the fight for internet freedom starts here�
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I N T E R F E R E N C E A S W H I S TL EB L O W ING
READ
VIEW
he Master Switch by Tim Wu
FIND OUT how and why Columbian professor Tim Wu coined
the term Net Neutrality in this indispensible retelling of the history of information empires. Wu walks the reader through the “cycle” of open and closed information systems such as radio, telephony, ilm and the internet. he book will readjust your view on how the dark past of telecommunication companies can serve as a warning for the future of the internet.
GO ONLINE www.savetheinternet.org FreePress is one of the leading websites for media reform and Open Internet. The site stays current and gives the viewer a chance to get involved. Visit and sign the Declaration for Interet Freedom.
Barbershop Punk A documentary by Kristin Armield
Following one man’s personal quest to defend what he believes to be his inalienable rights, BARBERSHOP PUNK examines the critical issues surrounding the future of the American Internet and what it takes to challenge the status quo.
theopeninter.net Scroll through this illustrative, vector-based site to learn the basics about the Open Internet and how to get more involved.
www.dpsproject.com No, the dps doesn’t stand for damage per second, nerd. The Dynamic Platform Standards Project writes “facing the reality of net neutrality”.
www.fcc.gov Check out the source of current internet rules. Here, you can read proposals, a brief history and official documents regarding the open internet.
ipower.movielol.org Get involved with the forums here to discuss net neutrality around the globe with European media reform group, IPOWER.
TPB AFK A documentary by he Pirate Bay A self-made documentary following the trial of the world’s largest ile sharing website – the Pirate Bay. While the ilm doesn’t focus speciically on Net Neutrality, the theme of freedom of speech and censorship remain relevant and eye-opening.
Colophon
Odds and ends.
INTERFERENCE is a single-
THANK YOUS Laguna College of
issue journal edited and designed by Renee Granillo. he articles featured here were collected from various websites including, but not limited to: Ars Technica, Forbes, Freedom-to-Tinker, FreePress, Net Competition, HuďŹƒngton Post, WIRED, the FCC and SavetheInternet
Art and Design Graphic Design class of 2013. Speciically, Dana Herkelrath and Catharin Eure for direction and support Teachers: Nathan Olsen. Matt Frantz. Dan Jensen. John Zegowitz. Bahador Shojapour. Grant Hier. Mike Stice.Friends: Dom Valdez, Matt Dawson, Kat Elliott. Hannah Rae Davidson. Brett Anderson Chris Sommers. Jon Mann. Chris Dollar. Tim Musso. Gil Aranowitz. Ron Swanson. Inspiration: WIRED Magazine. Adbusters. Family & Near-Family: Melissa Brown. Sharon and Rick Granillo. Whitney Klein. Beth Payne. Steven Beccera
Each illustration was designed by the editor using photo references. he photograph of FCC chairman Julius Genachowski was taken from the LATimes and digitally manipulated by the editor.
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Cut along the dotted lines for a mini-poster
INTERFERENCE Resist! An Open Internet is worth ďŹ ghting for - Michael Noer
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