As I understand it, the FCC and the description of common carriers under "Title II" of the Communications Act of 1934 was created by Congress. The FCC is ruling that Internet Service Providers are "common carriers" under the language of Title II, and not "information service providers" under the language of Title I. This ruling includes adjustments/interpretations of the Title II language as the FCC envisions it would be applied to Internet Service Providers.

The FCC didn't give themselves this authority, the FCC was created by Congress to have this authority.

Someone, someplace, has decided that for the United States to remain competitive in the global arena, we need to have more people who can code, and that the best way to achieve that goal is to just, well, teach more people to code. So we see all kinds of government and private initiatives to just get more people coding. To the extent that we really do need more coders, and that we reach people who otherwise would not have had the opportunity to try coding out, these initiatives are not a bad idea. However, if we ignore other pressing problems and think that just getting more people to code is going to solve those problems, we will miss out on other opportunities.

I like coding, but I haven't done it for years. My son likes coding, and he may very well have a career doing it. But as others have pointed out, using a computer and/or using computer technology to solve problems doesn't necessarily require coding skills any more than driving a car or operating heavy equipment requires automotive engineering or heavy equipment design and engineering skills.

I created a ridiculous straw man argument claiming altruistic behavior because I thought that the idea that the individuals who were coerced into confessing were responsible for the outcome was ridiculous. I thought that my statement dripped with enough sarcasm that it would be obvious. Since the individuals in question could not possibly have hoped to profit from their coerced confessions (even though they were ultimately awarded a large settlement), I'm not sure what other reason for their behavior other than altruism could be given, given the assumption in the posting to which I was replying that their confessions were an intentional outcome on their part for which they could be held responsible.

I'm a little fuzzy on how the position I took makes me a "Republican troll." Could you explain that to me?

If it isn't clear, I think that the practice of coercing confessions is bad. I think that the outcome of a coerced confession from not guilty people isn't limited to putting "not guilty" people behind bars, but extends to letting the "guilty" remain free to commit further crimes. If anyone coerces a confession, using psychological techniques that are known to result in false confessions, then they are responsible for the outcomes, not the ones from whom the confessions are coerced.

I'm not sure what these beliefs have to do with being "Republican" or "Democratic". I would have expected a "Republican" slur to have been thrown at me for supporting coerced confessions in the name of law and order, or something like that, not from attacking what may be a common "law and order" practice. No one has every accused me of being too bright about political stereotypes, however.

Cheers, Mr. Anonymous Coward. I hope you have a nice day.

Is it your premise that the kids exhibited extremely altruistic behavior in confessing to a crime that they didn't commit, the confession to which put them in prison, in order to protect the real criminal so that he could remain free and commit more crimes? And that they did so without any sign that they would ever receive any reward for such behavior?

Occam's razor suggests to me that the kids were psychologically manipulated into confessing. The real failure was in the investigators rushing too quickly to judgement.

Some interesting things have been happening in home automation communications infrastructure standards. I'll preface this by saying that I'm not an expert, but have been trying to follow developments here for a few years for my own system. I can see four or five different media that you may want to consider. If you don't want to be stuck on an island, the problem to be solved is one of compatibility, especially looking towards the future.

Power Line Communications - these are attractive because your house is already wired for them and the source of power for a device interface is rather obvious. Unfortunately, many solutions are low bit rates, unreliable, or proprietary. Universal Powerline Bus (UPB) seems to be the current raining champion here. Much more reliable than X10, but slow slow slow (240 bits per second). Works for on/off, but won't be useful for higher-end sensor applications. There are other low-speed PLC approaches, some of which are faster (4800 baud even!). What may be the way of the future in PLC is HomePlug AV and HomePlug Green PHY. The former is a high-speed PLC approach (up to 200+ Mbps) that costs a lot per device, the latter is a dumbed-down version of the former that has a much lower bit rate but supposedly costs 75% less in both $$ and power. Its bit rate is still supposedly much higher than UPB. Here the target is something like 250kbps which is touted as necessary for "Smart Grid" applications. IEEE 1901 is a standard that incorporates the HomePlug AV technology; I don't think it includes the HomePlug Green PHY yet, but HomePlug Green PHY is supposed to be compatible (on the same power line media) as HomePlug AV.

Low-voltage bus - here you have to run wires. Ethernet is the reigning champion, running over UTP, coax, fiber (ok - not exactly low voltage but it fits the mood). Great bandwidth, great reliability, but sucks down power and costs $$ for interfaces. PoE makes this useful for remote sensors/controls that don't have a local source of power.

High-speed wireless - you don't have to run communications wires, but the solutions here require more power than you want to supply if running off batteries in a remote location. 802.11 is the champion here.

Low-power wireless - lower bit rates (250kbps) but much less power consumed so that even battery-powered remote devices can be used. ZigBee is one example, which I think is interesting, because...

Ideally you want to be able to tie all of these together so that you don't need to plumb multiple media interfaces into your controller, and ideally you want to be able to use TCP/IP as a high-level protocol. Here is where IEEE 1905 comes into play. The IEEE 1905.1 standard provides an abstraction layer to established powerline, wireless, coaxial cable and Ethernet home networking technologies - IEEE 1901 / HomePlug AV, Wi-Fi, MoCA®, and Ethernet. I think there is some effort underway to get ZigBee into the fold as well.

If vendors see an advantage in following the standard, and interoperability becomes a selling point, perhaps we'll get away from the multiple proprietary islands.

I agree that calling it fraud could stop identity theft, and I'm completely baffled why this hasn't happened in the United States already. The victim is the bank or the store, and if they don't want to be victims they should do a better job of proofing their customers. As long as its called "identity theft" and we continue to consider the person whose name was used the "victim" we won't see a change. As soon as courts start telling businesses that unless they have iron clad proof of identity they (the business) are the victim, we'll see the problem go away. Certain things will become much less convenient (like instant credit) but that seems to be a reasonable price (to me).

I like your idea. Back in 1997 or so I speculated about the "information utility" that towns/cities could provide based on ATM. The town provides the basic data "pipe" and anyone who wants to sell you a service over that pipe can do so.

Perhaps local jurisdictions need to take the existing cable/optics infrastructure by eminent domain and use it for the benefit of the public. That court case from Connecticut where the Supreme Court held that private property (houses) could be taken by the city so that a developer could build more financially-remunerative structure on them seems to set the groundwork in place. What could be more of a benefit to the public than to have an information utility service, especially since Verizon effectively dismantled the highly-survivable communications infrastructure that they were originally entrusted with (well, ATT was entrusted with ...)?

I have Verizon as my telecommunications provider here in Maryland. I had DSL Internet and phone with Verizon until I met with Verizon's marketing engine following the big FIOS rollout. My Internet/phone bill combined was $75 prior to FIOS. Verizon convinced me to switch to FIOS Internet and phone with a 3-year agreement; my bill initially went down to $68/month, but would rise to $113 in the third year. I was assured that there would be "another deal" that would make the price lower as long as I committed to another term of service. A little over four years later, and Verizon is charging me $125/month for Internet and phone, insisting that this is the "best price" I can get. Color me a sucker.

I was recently upgraded "for free" to 15 Mbps up in addition to 15 Mbps down. This happened after I was heavily marketed to buy this not-so-valuable (to me) capability 2 months earlier. Funny thing - the same day that I received the glossy postcard from Verizon announcing the "free" upload speed upgrade, I received that month's bill from Verizon, complete with a $7 cost increase for FIOS Internet (which took my bill from $116 to $125). Just how stupid does Verizon think I am? The message is clear - I will buy whatever Verizon wants to sell me, and if I don't, I'll get anyway, and Verizon will increase the cost of my service.

The real kicker is the way that the cost is divided up. FIOS Internet service is $75/month; my phone is $30 (the balance of my bill is various fees and taxes that Verizon has broken out separately over the years to obfuscate their rate increases). Of the two (Internet and phone) I believe that I could do without Verizon's phone service much more easily than the Internet. I have a cell phone, and I can subscribe to a broadband VoIP service for about $3/month and operate it over my Internet service. I can't cut out Internet at this point and run it over my phone service. My job, my wife's job, my kid's school work, and access to a myriad of necessary on-line services (banking, investments, my grad school, Amazon for purchasing, etc.) all depend on my Internet service. Hardly anything depends on my phone. If that isn't a clear sign of a utility service, I don't know what is.

Its long past time for Internet service to be classified and regulated as a utility - the Verizons and Comcasts of the world have clear demonstrated how they will reap a fortune in fees from people who have to use their services left unregulated. With regulation will come other encumbrances, such as the ability for the FCC to enforce (or not) "Net Neutrality". So be it. The big communications providers have gobbled up all of the Internet access services and combined them under a very small number of companies, while at the same time the public's use of Internet for practically every aspect of work, school, and commerce as grown by leaps and bounds. Internet access is a utility. Let's declare it so.

Yes, I can explain why ISPs are different. They are simply the carrier, and should not be a policy enforcement point. Government is very interested in having ISPs be a policy enforcement point, because government can control big ISPs (sort of) much better than government can control a vast number of endpoints.

Most of the businesses you reference above (banks, fertilizer distributors, munitions retailers) are not common carriers. Haulage companies are a form of common carrier, but their responsibility with respect to the load that they are carrying is to make sure that it was legally handed off to them by what appears to be a reputable company. They are not engaged in examine the content of what they haul to determine if it violates government rules/laws.

The phone company provides a service (not a product) that is widely used for criminal activity as well, but we aren't proposing that the phone company is responsible for monitoring communications content to ensure that the communications activity isn't in violation of law.

ISPs should carry traffic. Period. Not serve as a handy proxy for the government, especially when the use of them as a proxy allows the government greater control/monitoring of the communications than the government is allowed in the first place.

The tradeoff is between a little more time, and a little more resources, against the benefit of keeping my communications private and unaltered by all of the middlemen through which my communications pass. That's a no-brainer for me.

In the days before the exposure of Verizon's (and others) schemes to actually interfere with the content of communications from their customers passing through their network (I'm talking about the physical modification of the communications content, and not just traffic management/prioritizing), I may have had a different opinion about the tradeoffs. But now that the "common carriers" have shown that they have no morals what so ever with respect to the content of traffic they are carrying through their networks, SSL encryption is simply a necessary function to prevent interference.

Today that interference may be limited to tracking user activity using an additional HTTP header that the user never knows exists. Who knows what packet re-writing magic might be used by the carriers in the future to completely "customize" each user's experience interacting with third parties to the benefit of the carrier?

I live in a very liberal state. The powerful majority engages in gerrymandering in order to prevent an "unfortunate outcome" arising from concentrations of conservative voters. So, for example, the county I live in, which is about 50-50 conservative/liberal, is divided in half for federal elections; half is districted with the very liberal county to the west, and half with the very liberal county to our east. The idea that the party with the popular majority doesn't really have to gerrymander seems to ignore the reality that any political party that is in power wants to stay in power and will take whatever legal steps it can to do so. Oh, and the powerful liberals are just as wealthy (if not more so) as the conservatives in my state.

A corollary to the indiscriminate use of broad data gathering technology is that it will likely lead to a desire on the part of the general public for more secure technologies to keep these abuses from affecting them. So the overreach may (eventually) lead to more secure technology being generally available, which means the bad guys will have it along with the general public. And law enforcement will be worse off than before. This problem was apparently recognized by the NSA but the cooler heads did not prevail, and we are seeing public Internet services becoming more secure, which will protect the public, but which will also protect the scum.

I interpret Google's search results being regarded as speech as recognizing that Google can choose how to tell people what information Google has indexed on various web sites. In other words, when Google crawls the web, builds an index, then allows you to conduct searches against their index, they can return the results to you however they want to. If you don't like it, you can build your own web-crawling, indexing, and search engines and have at it.

As such, Google is just telling people what is out there on the web, not claiming that what is there is true or false. You could even view Google as helping folks if there is libel out there, because without Google it might be hard to for the injured party to even find the libel.

In fact. the original Internet was heavily "regulated" with rules against commercial use of any kind. I worked for a company that had an Internet connection through a regional educational network, and we were careful to even only send e-mail messages that were related to either educational subject matter or subject matter related to the work we were doing under government contracts with organizations reachable through the Internet.

I didn't state my position well. I'm trying to make the claim that the API is nothing more than an interface, regardless of which side of the interface one implements. Unless there is something patentable in the structure or operation of the interface (because of invention), or copyrightable in the expression (because of some kind of original expression of ideas) the interface itself shouldn't be/can't be protected by law from use by someone else. In software the notion of "calling" a subroutine might be claimed to establish a difference between using the interface as the caller versus using it as the callee. In the case of a printer/ink cartridge (or toner) interface, which side is the caller and which is the callee may be a matter of opinion and ultimately irrelevant. I would argue that the printer actually calls upon the ink cartridge to supply the ink, rather than the ink cartridge calling upon the printer to do something with the ink, making the situation exactly analogous to software from a requestor/servicer point of view, yet copyright can't/hasn't been used to prevent ink cartridge third parties from "duplicating" that interface. The claim with respect to software APIs is, I believe, that duplicating the API on the callee side is a copyright violation where as duplicating it on the caller side is not (or else no one would be able to write software that used that API to call for a service) without violating copyright.

My argument is that since the API is nothing more than a minimal description of the interface, copyright can't be used to prevent duplication of the interface for software any more than it can be used to prevent duplication of the interface for an ink or toner cartridge. The fact that in the case of software the written description of the interface IS the interface is immaterial because it is just information alone, without a minimum of original creativity. A Supreme Court decision (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_v._Rural) established, for example, that a phone directory was not copyrightable because it didn't contain a minimum amount of original creativity. Even using the previous doctrine for copyright (sweat of the brow) I wouldn't think that an API was copyrightable, because there isn't likely to be significant time and energy invested in the API (assuming that the API isn't some brilliant creative piece of work).