I don't think it's illegal to create malware though. That seems to be the only overt act they accuse him of in the indictment. So, assuming he did in fact write it, it will come down to whether the government can prove that he conspired to sell and distribute it based on more than just accusations from his alleged co-conspirator.

Imagine you wrote some malware and I took it from you and sold it. If I was arrested, I would offer to give up the person who created it in exchange for something. Then I'd point to you and swear up and down that I have an agreement with you, whether or not it's true.

So, the big question: Assuming he wrote the malware, other than the word of his co-conspirator (who obviously wants someone to share the blame), is there any evidence he conspired to sell it?

I don't understand why any of that is relevant. Comcast could be the worst company in the world, so what? What does that have to do with net neutrality?

Again, it is a simple fact that:

1) It is almost universally the case that a packet that flows from a content provider to an access provider costs the access provider more to handle.
2) Yet that packet benefits the two companies roughly equally.
3) Because of this, a mostly free market has resulted in content providers paying (directly or indirectly) access providers to compensate for the cost disparity.

Do you agree with those three things or not?

> All of which is part and parcel of being an ISP.

Agreed. Historically, ISPs have been the beneficiaries of paid peering.

> However you didn't address my point that Comcast could have helped their situation by buying up dark fiber if nothing but to help with infrastructure like Google did.

I don't see why you think that's relevant. Comcast could be the best company in the world or the worst company in the world and it wouldn't change the fact that it's going to cost Comcast more money to carry its average packet than Netflix or Google. It's always cheaper when your endpoint is servers in dozens of datacenters than when it's routers in millions of homes.

> Also you complained specifically about what Netflix and Google did while not acknowledging Comcast could have done/can still do the exact same thing.

Comcast cannot move their customers into datacenters. Fundamentally, the only major, unavoidable difference between an access network and a service provider is that service providers can locate their endpoints in datacenters and access networks can't because their endpoints are homes and businesses. The reason access providers put their servers in datacenters is because that's much cheaper. An ISP *has* to build a municipal network, an access provider doesn't.

This is so absurdly simple and I can't understand why you refuse to acknowledge it.

It's this simple:

1) Fundamentally, providing Internet connectivity to homes and businesses costs more than providing connectivity to online services.
2) Every packet exchanged benefits both endpoints roughly equally.
3) Historically, service providers (like Netflix) have paid (directly or indirectly) to access providers (like Comcast) to compensate for this cost/benefit asymmetry.
4) Now, service providers want a better deal than a mostly free market has given them.

> Because you are advocating that Netflix -- Internet -- VPN -- Comcast is more efficient than Netflix -- Internet -- Comcast. Adding in an extra hop is more efficient to you.

How hard is this to understand: If, for example, Netflix is a Level 3 customer, then when you try to reach Netflix from Comcast, you will go through Level 3's peering with Comcast, period. If Level 3's peering with Comcast is congested, your traffic will suck. If you use a VPN, you can avoid Level 3's peering with Comcast.

It really is that simple. If you honestly don't get it, I don't know what to say.

> Your point is bemoaning how terrible things are for Comcast because they are an ISP and how Netflix has some sort of responsibility to fix Comcast's problems and lack of foresight.

It has nothing to do with how bad things are for Comcast. It's just a fact that Comcast's customers are spread out throughout cities and that means that whoever is going to serve those customers has to build a massive, sprawling network. That is the explanation for why each packet exchanged between Comcast and an access provider costs Comcast more than it costs the access provider.

> And the fact that Comcast and other ISPs actively keep out other competition through multiple means has no effect on you? For example some municipalities fed up with terrible or non-existent service have been sued to prevent them from providing Internet to their constituents.

I agree that that's a problem, but net neutrality does nothing to fix it. Again, either it regulates peering or it doesn't. If it doesn't regulate peering, it won't help because Comcast can still keep the pipes to Netflix congested unless Netflix pays it. And if it does regulate peering, then what are the proposed peering regulation rules so we can analyze if they'll provide a benefit or not? Nobody has ever explained what they'll be.

> No that's idiocy. If you go through a VPN through Comcast to get Netflix, you're still going through Comcast and Netflix. You are not avoiding congested links; you are merely adding an extra step.

Honestly, I don't know how I can reason with you if you're going to assert obvious falsehoods and accuse me of idiocy. There can be a congested link between Comcast and Netflix, and Comcast can have other links that have great bandwidth and there can be other paths into Netflix that have great bandwidth. A VPN can avoid the congested link. When a VPN providers better bandwidth than a direct connection, it's almost always because it avoids a congested link.

If I recall this specific situation correctly, it looked like this:

Comcast -> Level3 -> Netflix

The congestion was, I think, between Comcast and Level3. But Comcast has links to many other providers than Level 3. And Level 3 has links to many other providers than Netflix. If you used a VPN hosted at Sprint, your path would be:

Comcast -> Sprint -> Level3 -> Netflix

That would avoid the congested link. Comcast->Sprint was fine and Sprint->Level3 was fine.

I may be misremembering the specific details, but the concept is simple -- a VPN can avoid a congested link between providers and where a VPN providers a bandwidth improvement, that's typically why.

You didn't answer my question. If net neutrality will solve this problem, it will have to do it by regulating pair peering, since the problem was an inability to agree on paid peering. So what will the rules for paid peering be? What will the regulations be?

The main part of the attraction of net neutrality to all the supporters who don't understand it is that it is pitched to them as being simple -- just treat all traffic the same. But that won't solve the problem since the problem can also come from unequal pipes even where traffic is treated the same.

So, please, if you say net neutrality will solve the unequal pipes problem (which was the Comcast/Netflix problem), explain *how* it will solve it. What would it have done in that situation?

I am aware of all those things but I don't see how they're responsive to my point. Sure, Comcast can do other things if they want, but their customers will still cost roughly the same amount to service and some company will service them. So some company or other will be in the position Comcast is in, unless you think that people who are expensive to service shouldn't have Internet access.

The fact is still that every packet benefits Comcast and Netflix equally but costs Comcast more to carry than Netflix. Thus the market has worked out a system where Netflix (typically indirectly) pays some money that winds up going to Comcast. This system of paid peering was established in a mostly free market and has worked very well. Its opponents cite the one or two times it failed, even though all of those times worked themselves out just fine and were largely the result of one side trying to strong arm the other into an unfair advantage and then not getting it. (Which seems like a reasonable free market result to me.)

1) The law isn't in effect yet, so it hasn't prevented anything.

2) It is well known who I am. I work for a company that is neither an ISP or a content provider.

3) I do remember the Comcast/Netflix scandal. It's one of very, very few examples where the system broke down. The market sorted it out.

4) It is interesting how you are unable to presume good faith when people disagree with you, even when they present reasoned arguments.

Not only do many people have only a single option, some people have no decent option at all.

I'm not objecting to rules that prevent ISPs that actually hold monopoly positions from exploiting them in ways that harm consumers. But as I've explained above, net neutrality doesn't do that. Instead it unfairly shifts costs from content providers to service providers.

> Charging for transit is unrelated to net neutrality. You don't understand the issue.

I agree. I'm talking about settlement-based peering. Not transit.

What good will it do if my ISP has to treat traffic to YouTube and Netflix equally if they can charge Netflix (or the tier 1 that peers them to my ISP) such a high price for peering that the pipes to Netflix are terrible while the pipes to YouTube are awesome?

That's not where my analogy breaks down, that's the whole point. Netflix can arrange their network to get very low per packet costs because they can move their endpoint wherever they want. Comcast can't do that. So, necessarily, Comcast's per-packet costs are higher. Yet Netflix and Comcast cooperate to deliver packets that benefit them both equally. When benefit is equal, but costs are wildly unequal, it makes sense for one side to pay the other. And that's what the free market developed over many decades.

That makes my point, doesn't it? Will net neutrality prohibit that practice or not? If not, what good will it do? If so, what are the new rules that will decide when Comcast can or can't ask for money to colocate equipment? How much of the currently largely unregulated Internet peering/hosting/connecting landscape will have to be regulated to fix a problem that pretty much does not even exist?

Yes, you say it's "more about" that. But that's the side that has no immediate, tangible effects. Why isn't it "more about" the part of it that's trying to drastically re-organize an efficient, free market?

> They already do. You've missed this point. Netflix pays a Tier 1 company for their Internet connection. As a customer to Comcast I am paying them for my ISP connection. As a Netflix customer, I am paying them for access to their library. I'm a customer of both companies.

Yes, I agree. The way it works now is with settlement-based peering. That is, companies do charge each other for peering when their bandwidth costs are asymmetric. As I said, the system the free market has built works just fine. But it does allow ISPs to demand whatever fees they want to build faster pipes to particular peers.

> In your analogy which is highly flawed you've asserted that one company does more work than the other in transporting. In the real world Internet, that is not the case. Netflix has a huge pipe with their ISP to deliver the packets to the Internet. For the most part, Comcast only deals with the last mile. Other Tier 1 companies deal with the part in the middle. So neither company does more work.

It's not flawed. A typical ISP network is way more expensive than anything Netflix does. Netflix puts their servers in cheap datacenters -- they specifically put their servers wherever the costs are the very lowest. Comcast has no choice but to take their customers where they live. You cannot deny this, it is an absolute simple obvious fact. The highest costs for moving a packet between Comcast and Netflix are born by Comcast's last mile.

> Second in your analogy, the shipping company you are dealing with and paying is responsible in figuring a reasonable price in transport including paying intermediaries. If they miscalculated pricing, that's on them. They don't get to ask you for more money after you've sent the package off. The last. More importantly, the postman at the other end that is delivering the package to the recipient doesn't get to extort more money from you otherwise he will delay the delivery.

But that's just the thing. They didn't miscalculate pricing. So long as the costs are fairly divided between all the companies that did the work, their pricing is just fine. And today, that's how their pricing works. We do have settlement-based peering today.

The situation now is that content providers do pay money that winds up flowing to access providers. That's how settlement-based peering, the norm for decades, works. The ISPs didn't miscalculate, they got it right. The content providers benefit disproportionate to their costs, so it's fair they pay some of the costs of the access providers. That's what the free market set up. Nobody miscalculated. One side just wants to use the government to strong arm a better deal.

> And ISPs can't locate buildings where they want? They can't have infrastructure in places that are cheaper? Your argument falls apart because ISPs in places that have cheap bandwidth do not necessarily have better performance or cheaper Internet.
They can, but they can't move their customers. All the costs can be fairly split but the first and last miles. Comcast has datacenters that are cheap just like Netflix does. But Netflix can put the endpoint (their servers) in those datacenters. Comcast simply can't do that. Their customers are where they are. It is a fact that the access provider almost always has higher costs than the content provider.

> As another example of how flawed your argument is, during the Netflix-Comast slowdown, several people showed that running their Netflix connection through a VPN was actually faster than Comcast directly. Comcast was throttling Netflix specifically. If it was a matter of bandwidth, there would have been little difference in speed.

Comcast wasn't throttling Netflix specifically, they just had poor bandwidth to Netflix. A VPN allowed you to avoid the congested links between Netflix and Comcast.

> Two flawed premises: ISPs don't deliver across the ocean.

I never said they did. ISPs simply have much higher per-packet costs than content providers do because content providers can put the endpoint wherever it's cheapest and ISPs can't. The endpoint is their customer's home or places of business.

> And ISPs can build infrastructure where they want. In fact Google did so and they are not an ISP. In the early 2000s, Google bought up a lot of dark fiber for cheap because they wanted their own networks. The ISPs could have done so; they chose not to do so.

What the hell does that have to do with anything? Are you seriously denying that at typical Netflix->Comcast or Comcast->Netflix packet, all things considered, costs Comcast a lot more than Netflix because they have to maintain a network that goes all the way to their customer's homes and businesses?!