Nayanee Gupta's weblog

A “Sandvine” for internet customers

Thu, 06 Dec 2007 06:45:05 -0500

Two months ago, Comcast was in the news for it’s covert attempts at traffic-shaping, by throttling peer-to-peer file sharing between BitTorrent customers. The cable internet provider reportedly used equipment from Sandvine, a Canadian company which makes networking equipment designed for traffic policing, i.e. blocking new and forcefully terminating already established internet connections when required.

In a counter move, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has released software that helps users determine whether online hiccups they are experiencing are genuine network delays or evidence of deliberate network traffic manipulation.

Essaying doubts about Africa's new EASSy cable

Thu, 06 Dec 2007 04:43:55 -0500

Following our very interesting discussion in class on the spread of the Internet in the developing world, and the effects thereof, I wanted to highlight this interesting news article about the deployment of a new fiber-optic cable project, funded by the Africa Development Bank, that will connect 22 East African and landlocked African countries to one another and to the rest of the world through high-quality Internet services. The cable is expected to transform telecom services for 250 million Africans.

While West Africa is relatively well connected by undersea cable, the Indian Ocean’s eastern African seabed is the only one in the world without a submarine fiber-optic cable, forcing the region to rely heavily on limited and expensive satellite links. As a result, countries along the coast and in its hinterland have some of the highest communications costs in the world (about 2000 to 3000 times that of developed countries).

Presidential candidates graded on their Internet manifesto

Mon, 26 Nov 2007 23:45:01 -0500

How well do the presidential candidates score on their Internet policies? Where do they stand on contentious issues like net neutrality?

Andrew Rasiej and Micah Sifry of the Personal Democracy Forum evaluated the Democratic candidates and this is what they had to say —
“Of the eight Democrats running, only two have demonstrated that they really understand the transformational power of the Internet: John Edwards and Barack Obama. Hillary Rodham Clinton is a disappointment. The rest of the field is worse.”

While the Net neutrality issue is split along party lines (with Democrats supporting neutrality regulation, and Republicans favoring a free market approach), only Edwards and Obama have addressed the issue in depth.

Web admins edging out Google's competitors at system level

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 14:34:11 -0500

In what sounds like a self-fulfilling prophecy, researchers at Penn State University found that files used by Web administrators to regulate search engine agents (called crawlers or bots) significantly favored Google over it’s close rivals, Yahoo and MSN.

Systems administrators use text files called (robots.txt) to regulate web crawlers, and to keep their servers from getting overloaded. In the robots.txt file, the Web administrator has to explicitly specify which search engines are “favored”, and researchers found a strong correlation between a search engine’s market share and the access given to it’s crawlers.

Google “bots” were favored more than twice as often as those of Yahoo and MSN.

Analyzing Comcast's "data discrimination" incident

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 06:13:01 -0500

Was it network management or data discrimination? Comcast’s “denial of service” incident, which I wrote about earlier, provided a fresh impetus to Net Neutrality proponents in their crusade for improved regulation of Internet service. Public interest groups like Public Knowledge and Save the Internet called on Net Neutrality champions in the Senate to move more aggresively on their agenda. Comcast customer John Hart filed a lawsuit against the company for interfering with his file sharing.

Will Europe show FCC the way?

Mon, 12 Nov 2007 23:06:56 -0500

The European Commission today announced it’s plan to come up with a centralized regulatory framework for it’s telecommunications companies, with the goal of restructuring telecom companies by separating the Internet and telephone services into separate divisions.

“I have come to the conclusion that the instrument of functional separation should be added to the remedies tool box of national telecom regulators, to be available for the stubborn cases where other remedies have been tried, but have failed to deliver the desired regulatory outcome,” stated EU Commissioner for Information Society and Media Viviane Reding, in a speech last October 11.

Net Neutrality debate back in the spotlight, thanks to Comcast

Mon, 29 Oct 2007 05:10:07 -0500

Following the discovery last week that Comcast was interfering with file-sharing among customers using disingenuous methods, AP News reported that two Senators on Friday called for a congressional hearing to investigate reports that phone and cable companies are unfairly stifling communications over the Internet and on cell phones.

Future for tiered pricing of Internet service

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 13:33:40 -0500

I just came across this rather witty visual of where the net neutrality issue could be headed.

( Source: SteveX Compiled (http://blog.stevex.net/)

Comcast : a new twist on internet traffic policing

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 00:54:36 -0500

For everyone following the debate on Internet data discrimination and Net Neutrality, this has been an interesting week.

On Friday, AP news reported that Comcast was actively interfering with file-sharing among some customers of it’s high-speed internet service. AP news reported that :
“The interference, which The Associated Press confirmed through nationwide tests, is the most drastic example yet of data discrimination by a U.S. Internet service provider. It involves company computers masquerading as those of its users.”

Activism and generation Q

Sun, 14 Oct 2007 07:59:41 -0500

Last week I came across an interesting comment on activism in college campuses by Economist Thomas Friedman. Friedman calls this generation of college students the generation Q (for quiet), and it makes an interesting contrast to the instances of successful activism we’ve been reading about — Sinclair Broadcasting being forced to halt their propaganda attack against John Kerry before the 2004 elections, or more recently, and closer home, Virginia Senator George Allen’s infamous “Macaca moment” during the run-up to the 2006 Senate Elections. Allen’s insensitive remarks about a campaign aide of foreign descent, captured and instantly posted on YouTube, unleashed a wave of public outrage, infamously caused Allen to lose the election.

The Internet and the Autism movement

Fri, 12 Oct 2007 01:26:32 -0500

In this entry I’d like to divert from my Net neutrality thread and talk a little about this week’s class readings — emergence of democracies on the Internet, how they organize and advocate for their cause. I look at these issues through the lens of my personal life, specifically as the parent of a child who has autism. Three years ago we learned that my daughter had autism. I have, since then, aggressively used every available resource to obtain information about, and manage my daughter’s therapy. In this regard, the information, the dialogue and the support system(s) that I have found on the Internet have proven invaluable.

Telecom regulation and net neutrality : a little history

Thu, 11 Oct 2007 10:44:10 -0500

Net neutrality has been been hotly debated for the past 5 years, with digital freedom advocates and academicians joining together with Internet companies to advocate the enforcement of Net Neutrality regulations that would ensure that the Internet continues to thrive in the manner that it was intended to; critics of this principle include cable and telecom companies who insist that Net neutrality is a solution in search of a problem. The NCTA (National Cable and Telecom Association) contends that
“Network neutrality is no such thing. The idea behind proponents of network neutrality is that somehow there is a problem and we need to provide a solution. There is no problem today - a cable customer can go anywhere they want on the web. It is in our business interest to keep a cable customer happy.”

Is Google eyeing the telcom business?

Thu, 27 Sep 2007 14:45:58 -0500

On Tuesday, 9/25, I attended a discussion forum organized by GWU’s ITDI (Institute for Politics, Democracy and Internet). The guest speaker was Rick Whitt, Media Counsel for Google.

The topic under discussion was the forthcoming auction for the 700 MHz frequency space vacated by TV broadcasters next year, which Google wants to bid for. For more on why would Google be interested in bidding for this frequency read here,

The power of the Code

Tue, 18 Sep 2007 11:40:09 -0500

My first entry is going to spell out my thoughts on some of our readings so far, because I’m still thinking about the general long-term direction of my blogs this term.
To me, some of the arguments presented by the lawyers in the list seem exaggerated as well as vague as they argue the exact mechanism of policing the internet without clearly outlining the boundary conditions of the problem. Some of the issues I have a problem with are :