I work for a small company right now. It's an independent telco and ISP and I'm the only IP admin. A big pro is that I get to touch everything and learn everything. A major con is that I also HAVE to do everything. Even though we're small and family-owned there is a layer of mid-level management between the SMEs and the owners. They filter everything going up and never share anything coming back down. My opinion means jack shit around here. If I tell sales not to sell something because it's a bad solution they'll do it anyway. If I tell my boss not to buy something because it won't work right in our network he'll do it anyway. This place has gone downhill fast too. A few short years ago I could sit down with an owner and vent or talk about solutions and help steer where this company goes. Today I'm just another voice in the crowd. I need to ramp up my certs and move on I guess. It's a shame too because the bulk of the people here are fantastic. I'm also from the general area. Still, I don't foresee these problems every being resolved unless the owners 1) recognize that it's a problem and 2) decide to commit the resources needed to fix it. So I don't see it happening.

Holy shit people. Slow the fuck down. You're all assuming that this is for some sort of evil data mining conspiracy. It almost certainly isn't. They are almost certainly asking the kids to provide their own elastic strap for the heart monitor, the thing that tell them and most gym-quality cardio equipment how fast their heart is beating. The sensor and watches (if they use the watches) are plastic and cleanable whereas the elastic strap isn't (short of a wash cycle in a washing machine). They just want the kids to bring their own strap so that they are only wiping germs and dried sweat onto their body that came from their body anyways (ie, not sharing that which carries carries germs). This isn't a big deal. Did you flip out when your kids were in elementary school and the teacher told you as a parent that your kid had to bring their own comb or brush to school instead of sharing with everyone else? It's not the big deal that everyone is making it out to be.

I hear that Sarah Palin is in need of a good job.

You're missing out. Seriously. Catch up with his show on Miro or Youtube.

Seriously, you need to name names. You need to blog this one.

Why can't we call it a Colbert on land too? "I'm heading to the Colbert to take a Colbert." "Man, my Colbert stinks! I shouldn't have had those tacos for lunch." One if by land, two if by Colbert.

For the record, I love the Colbert Report. Especially the one a week or so ago where he lambasted Glen Beck for making his career off of 9/11. Colbert and Stewart are amazing.

If I'm not mistaken his President 'boss' hit his two-term limit and the both of them left office on January 20th. Of course Mr Cheney is still on TV touting who knows what BS. Perhaps he can be the next Sham-Wow pitch man.

"Part of their Safe Harbon immunity requires them to actively respond to takedown request and to cooperate with copyright enforcement. You might be able to read that as requiring them to participate in this sort of program. I know if I was marketing such a program that that is indeed the spin I would put on it."

Actually no it does not require an SP to "cooperate with copyright enforcement." SPs are required to follow very specific steps to meet the requirements of the Safe Harbor provision. It does not in any way require the SP to cooperate with copyright holders. It requires the SP to receive DMCA Takedown notices, take action against the customer based on those notices (notification, disabling in some cases) but does not require anything beyond that. Like I said in a previous post, all copyright holders include links in their Takedown notices and imply that the SP is required to use that link to provide the copyright holder with customer info. They're relying on at least a few SPs being dumb enough to provide them with said information. They can legally ask for the info in the Takedown notice but it is illegal for the SP to provide it thanks to CPNI. SPs can not provide any customer info without a court order. A DMCA Takedown notice is not a court order. The fine per CPNI violation is extremely stiff. We can all thank former HP CEO Patricia Dunn for that.

For the record I can speak with authority on the topic because I do work for an SP and contract to others. I receive several Takedown notices each week.

"So assisting in enforcement doesn't hurt them."

Actually it may very well hurt them depending on what the ISP does. The ISP can not legally give out any customer info without a court order. A DMCA Takedown notice is not a court order. Providing any customer without a court order is a CPNI violation and hence illegal. All copyright holders provide a link in their Takedown notices implying that the ISP is required to use the form found at that link to provide the copyright holder with the customer's information. They're hoping that there are at least a few SPs out there who are dumb enough to do that. It is of course illegal for the SP to do so.

Back to the topic of the original article, providing any customer info to Nexicon is a CPNI violation. CPNI isn't just for telcos, folks.

To the best of my knowledge FOX Network hasn't given Ann Coulter her own show, yet.

I thought I heard about researchers growing human teeth, cloned teeth, on the back of lab rats when I was in college a decade ago.

Having a DOCSIS 3 CM has nothing to do with providing IPv6 to the CPE. DOCSIS 3 added IPv6 support for the CM itself. It could care less what flows across it. The CMTS on the otherhand is another matter. IPv6 support can be configured on a cable interfaces of a Cisco uBR which doesn't yet support DOCSIS 3. The uBR7225VXR is a good example. Other vendors are different. Arris C3s do not and never will support DOCSIS 3. DOCSIS 3 isn't a simple software upgrade. It has specific hardware requirements. Arris' C4 on the other hand is modular and can have modules with DOCSIS 3 support installed in it. Motorola's BSR line is similar. The pizza box CMTSs do not support DOCSIS 3. The larger modular chassis like the BSR 64000 will eventually support DOCSIS 3 (they currently don't or didn't the last I looked).

On the topic of DOCSIS 3 in general, there is no such thing as DOCSIS 3.1. There also is no such thing as "proprietary extensions" being added to DOCSIS 3.0. The notion is purely horse shit. A CM or CMTS is only certified by CableLabs as DOCSIS-compliant if it adheres to the strict CableLabs DOCSIS spec. There aren't any "proprietary extensions" in DOCSIS. This is exactly what DOCSIS was created to eliminate. CMs are 100% interchangeable. Moto CMs offer no enhancements on DOCSIS that Arris CMs don't already offer and likewise with the other smaller CM manufacturers.

The only things slowing DOCSIS 3.0 deployment are 1) demand or need for the benefits of DOCSIS 3 (bandwidth or IPv6 support for CMs) and 2) cost. DOCSIS 3.0 requires a significant investment in the HE. It's not a simple software upgrade. In many cases the CMTS itself must be replaced and a new investment made in expensive new hardware. If the cost was the same then we'd be deploying DOCSIS 3.0 CMTSs today and migrating CMs as needed. An Arris C4 costs approximately $250,000 for a basic chassis with half a dozen upstreams and a single downstream. The pizza box C3 which does not support DOCSIS 3.0 (and never will) costs $20,000. If the demand was there for bandwidth we'd be deploying DOCSIS 3.0 CMTSs. If we were Comcast and had the world's largest CATV OSP we'd be deploying DOCSIS 3.0 CMTSs for our CM management needs alone (and they are BTW regardless of whether or not they're offering DOCSIS 3.0 to their users).

Agreed. Go Cats!