You are so close to getting it. Without multiple electric grids, you can't have "competition" for distribution service. It's pretty obvious we won't ever get redundant grids - there isn't room, the enormous expense of building that much redundant infrastructure should make it clear how crazy the idea of competition should be...

Except it doesn't, for you? Are you really expecting to convince anyone that they can go out and start up a competitor to Comcast and Verizon? Or that they can expect anyone else will?

Ah, you may as well boycott the roads. They'll be thrilled, because your boycott is obviously doomed, and the very few silly enough to try it will curtail their own mobility (/ability to participate in society/democracy), hurting rather than helping their cause.

The only nuclear option is in the polling place in the next election. Any elected representative who isn't fighting this is out of office.

There is no functioning market in broadband ISPs.

Back when we all used modems to get on the internet, and anyone could set up shop with a bank of modems, and any customer could call any ISP they wanted, sure.

Let's compare and contrast that with today's broadband ISPs.

Broadband requires copper or fiber to each premises. Physical limitations prevent competitors, for the same reason you wouldn't have multiple electric utilities with multiple electric grids and multiple outlets in your house for each one. Then there are barriers to entry; if it costs billions plus a block-by-block, house-by-house battle for access, incumbents are sufficiently insulated from competition as to be a functional monopoly, or (if there are, say, 2 of them, cable and telecom) an oligopoly (or cartel).

Markets are amazing and wonderful. They just don't solve everything. You can't have a free market in police forces. Free market in judicial systems. Free market in electricity. Etc. Some things, it doesn't quite work.

The Internet, classic example, only exists because of DARPA - centrally controlled, big government research.

There were lots of telecoms that could have provided a network like it, but all of them were thinking about "how can I charge the most for the least" instead of "let me make something completely new, and make it incredibly cheap, and then there'll be a new telecom paradigm." To the extent they were aware of new paradigms as a possibility, they were concerned with stopping them, to preserve their existing businesses.

The government-scientist invented, publicly funded, Internet was wildly more successful than anything created by the free market to that time. Eventually the government privatized it, turning it over to a few companies, who became fantastically wealthy on the back of it.

It still stuns me when people say stuff like this. But then I remember, maybe they weren't here, and didn't see what happened.

The net has always been neutral. From time to time an ISP would try to test the boundaries, and then we would stop them:

2005 - Madison River Communications was blocking VOIP services. The FCC put a stop to it.

2005 - Comcast was denying access to p2p services without notifying customers.

2007-2009 - AT&T was having Skype and other VOIPs blocked because they didn't like there was competition for their cellphones.

2011 - MetroPCS tried to block all streaming except youtube. (edit: they actually sued the FCC over this)

2011-2013, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon were blocking access to Google Wallet because it competed with their bullshit. edit: this one happened literally months after the trio were busted collaborating with Google to block apps from the android marketplace

2012, Verizon was demanding google block tethering apps on android because it let owners avoid their $20 tethering fee. This was despite guaranteeing they wouldn't do that as part of a winning bid on an airwaves auction. (edit: they were fined $1.25million over this)

2012, AT&T - tried to block access to FaceTime unless customers paid more money.

2013, Verizon literally stated that the only thing stopping them from favoring some content providers over other providers were the net neutrality rules in place.

2015 was just the FCC formalizing what we've had since the internet was first invented. The Internet only exists because it was always neutral. This is about breaking the entire premise of the internet, after decades of it working properly.

You think you can have meaningful competition in "last mile" for internet, any more than you can have it for electricity? Hilarious. Someone's going to start up a new ISP, somehow get right of way to everyone's last mile? That's your competitive marketplace?

"Oh but the local governments." I can give you another list of all the cities and towns full of people who can't get decent service at all, from any ISP, and then when they try to build their own, the big ISPs sue and harass them to stop them from doing it...

Ah, right. The feds will hold the ISPs to their word. Then the invisible hand of the market will take care of everything.

It's like these assholes think the free market fairy can just wave her little magic wand and make anything work.

Except they don't think that. They know you have only 1-2 choices for ISP, and if both suddenly decide to provide shittier service, you're fucked. They even know that you know that. They're just testing to see if this makes it in above the pain threshold of the American voter, because everything that you can suffer, you will be made to suffer.

Actually, now that you mention it, being AT&T exclusive pretty much is why Android is the world's most popular mobile OS and iOS is a minority operating system.

Meanwhile, is Amazon as good at this as Apple? Is it 2007, or 2014?

You remind me of the people who always whine about dupes.

It was always amusing that people cared about that. Half the time I missed the original post. The other half I missed the dupe. Maybe you're just checking slashdot too much. :)

You know what? Other people come and have the same discussion. Redundancy of discussion is assumed and unavoidable, since this is a news site, with comments on each of the endless stream stories.

He misses an important point, too. If people are successfully able to opt-out of tracking, this does nothing other than concentrate the power to track into the hands of the few giants that people affirmatively log into, and who are also plugged into half the internet. Namely, Google, Facebook.

+1

And you, clearly, are a scholar of international law.

Uh, title of the story is "Bruce Schneier On the Marathon Bomber Manhunt."

I'll come back when you've sobered up. :)

It's reading comprehension then. You apparently really think what went on in Boston rivals what Israelis deal with. OK then.

"The father of three was killed when terrorists infiltrated Israel from Sinai and led a coordinated attack against those constructing the fence on the Israel-Egypt border. The attacking terrorists used automatic rifles in addition to anti-tank missiles." When you have a team of guys with anti-tank missiles running around Boston, and it's not the first time this year, and your body count from terror is routinely actually higher than your body count from accidental shooting by police, we'll talk. That entire country is one big ongoing rampage. You would be able to see it as easily as the rest of the world, if you weren't doing the mental equivalent of cowering in your basement even still.

I see you still have no answer for my point. It really doesn't matter if you get it or not - only if the next people who'd like to shut down Boston get it.

The T was closed. Which means among many, many other things some people couldn't even easily get to medical care.

(found here)

Second, they may have interned US citizens, but let's not switch topics from the fact that they didn't panic and shut down their cities. :) And by the way, what did it take them to even start interning people? Wake me up if Al Qaeda manages to field a million person army and expresses intent to invade and occupy. Yes 9/11 is scary and the Boston bombing is scary, but let's not forget, these people are just criminals with a bit of creativity, hoping for some free PR for their cause. This is theater, and this level of panic is like giving the terrorists a standing ovation. With this kind of encouragement, expect repeat performances.

Dude, I'm not the one saying "So yes i can see rescuing the morons costing more than just shutting down the state because every moron that slips in the snow will be suing the state for 20 million bucks."

There just is no tort reform angle on the Boston Bombing. None. There isn't even a tort reform angle period; the only reason to be worrying about it is because you lost about 1,000 other more important issues off your list. Which in fairness happens to me all the time on the days when I start drinking early. But still.