The Five Levels of ISP Evil 243
schwit1 writes "Recently a number of ISPs have been caught improperly redirecting end-user traffic in order to generate affiliate payments, using a system from Paxfire. A class action lawsuit has been filed against Paxfire and one of the ISPs. This is a serious allegation, but it's the tip of the iceberg. I'm not sure if everyone understands the levels of sneakiness that service providers can engage in."
Had a chance at First Post (Score:2, Insightful)
But decided that I had nothing really pertinent to say--ISPs doing evil? That ranks up there with Banks collecting money and M$ collecting technology--happens every day but no one really cares unless it hurts them directly... ...huh, guess I did have something to say...
Re:The free market exist for a reason (Score:1, Insightful)
Ya - fuck you too! how easy is it to find an alternate ISP you moron
Re:The free market exist for a reason (Score:5, Insightful)
Most markets in USA have either an effective monopoly or a duopoly when it comes to ISPs. Or otherwise we have options that cost 3-5 times over the fair market rates which do not even try to compete for the residential dollar.
Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it? (Score:5, Insightful)
If so, where do I sign on to the lawsuit for fraud?
Too late. The "Open Government" Obama administration has already granted them immunity, including retroactive immunity, for any illegal spying. The one big thing I was hoping for from Obama was to roll back some of the grosser programs put in place in violation of 1st and 4th amendments by the Bush administration. Instead his administration has taken them WAY farther. It's getting to the point of approaching gross violations of the Constitution by Lincoln during the American Civil War. But at least Lincoln had the excuse of a civil war to contend with. Obama and the morons in Congress are doing primarily to line there pockets with money from corporate interest.
Re:And it continues... (Score:5, Insightful)
The motivation for all 5 is money. That's not what makes it evil. What makes them evil is that they are interfering with the way the internet works. If it were a phone call, they would have been jailed. But for some reason, traffic on the internet is not yet considered private use of a communications network the way the phone network is.
Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Count me out of an armed revolt. Too much bloodshed, and it creates more problems than it solves.
Only because you're still in the comfort zone created by the bread and circuses. But that's ok they are going to erode a little more of your rights every year, until finally you won't care about shedding blood anymore. Revolution happens when the people would rather be dead than live under such conditions. Today people are still willing to live under these conditions - indeed the US is still much better than "those other places". However there are those of us that still remember that it was much better than it is today. It's only a matter of time.
Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it? (Score:4, Insightful)
Armed revolt is messy, indiscriminate, and has a pitifully high probability of installing authoritarian regimes. I am under no illusion that it would lead to a "better" way of living if I manage to survive it. Contrary to what fearmongers would have you think, the United States still has a bit of democracy left, and it is easier to make the public politically active than it is to fight a civil war with no end in sight.
Re:A better system than points: Jail Terms (Score:4, Insightful)
All you have to do is buy one of the servers the traffic naturally passes through on its merry way. Then, any modification you make is 'legal' since it is an authorized system for your use, and no 'hacking' is taking place.
Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it? (Score:2, Insightful)
if you
don't want
to read
my words
i don't
fucking care
Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it? (Score:4, Insightful)
You forgot the extremely obvious #3: A realist with solid grasp on history and no illusions in line with "humanity is great force for good, and democracy is the best ruling system ever!".
Humans certainly have a great degree of control of how they live their own lives. By extension all but very few on top have any control over how world works, just like a grand machine doesn't really get a major impact if one of atoms that form it's structure suddenly dies to radioactive decay.
I'm not certain how you can "reject my understanding of subject matter" when your entire argument is essentially summed in these words: "I _believe_ it will be different this time".
You have NOTHING to base this belief on except belief itself. I have several thousands of years of DOCUMENTED history to back mine, and several tens of thousands of assumed history based on significant amount of evidence and not really countered by any decent historian.
Let me give you a great example, based on your claims of our "major achievements" on just how ridiculous your beliefs are in light of history: "women can vote. slavery is abolished. the middle class has risen to take power".
Yet we have:
1. Constant reports of legitimized slavery in Western countries by UN which has taken forms of everything from prostitution to working for essentially no wages (also look at 3.). Even more outside Western countries. Religious communities which have essentially slaves under different names. Etc.
2. Women voting rights (and rights in general) are still far below those of men in vast majority of the world (read: everywhere, but the gap differs based on location). In the west, any improvements of right of women are massively fleeting and directly linked to financial superiority over other regions. In has been systemically observed that when crises hit, women are the first to get laid off to stay home with children. In many countries, including but not limited to Germany, France and Japan women are culturally EXPECTED to leave work to have children and then stay home with them if their husband makes enough money. It is also observed that empowered women have significantly lower birth rate, essentially getting squeezed out over generations by those in more "traditional" circumstances who have much better birth rate. There is a very good example of this in modern Israel, high birth rate of orthodox jews in comparison to general populace has taken their marginal political power and turned them into a powerhouse - they now have a foreign minister who is a member of their party, and somewhere between 15 and 20% of soldiers drafted into army are now treating the Palestine conflict as a "holy war" rather then "war for survival".
As a result, any advanced made in this field can be maintained only as long as financial superiority holds. When reset happens (looking at many African countries with their constant revolutions is a great example) women are very quickly pushed back into traditional roles.
3. Middle class rise to power is absolutely nothing new. For example that's how Rome was built. In this regard, it also makes a great example on how Rome collapsed: middle class was slowly pushed out of power by slaves on working front from below, and squeezed dry by rich class from above. We have essentially the same socioeconomic situation brewing in the West as we speak, with cheap gastarbeiters working slave wages and hours destroying middle class from below, while rich class continues the financial squeeze from above shrinking the middle class. Just like it happened in Rome. And when middle class finally cannot take the strain and shrinks too far, modern West will likely join Rome in the history books as yet another empire that got killed not by outside forces, but simply rot from inside and collapsed on itself.
On the last note: our argument is likely pointless. You have very little facts available to support your hypothesis of "optimistic outcome" of modern Western empire(s) - the likelihood of me missing any historic evidence on th
Re:Does Verizon FiOS do it? (Score:2, Insightful)
Actually bloody revolution has almost always been a part of it, and in the past has been relatively more bloody due to people being much more accustomed to death. Especially back when medicine was in it's infancy, and predators still ate people in significant numbers. The thing with modern West, is that it'll far more likely go down the route of Rome, with slow, rotting collapse on itself. The bloody part will then come when division has been clear enough and people will start fighting each other for scraps, or when outsiders simply come and pillage/extract revenge on it, just like it happened in Rome.
Honestly though, I don't understand why people look at this as a purely bad thing. The cycle of death and rebirth is essentially a part of nature itself, as old must die to make way for new. USA wouldn't have been born if not for a bloody war against colonial masters. USA and modern West wouldn't have a French Revolution-style constitution without bloody French Revolution and it's revolutionaries. From the ashes of old, new empire always rises, and in many cases it brings humanity forward in the process.
The only people who can view this cycle as "pessimistic" are ones who know that they are on the "winning" side now and are very likely to be on "losing side" when wealth re-balancing will happen. It's worth noting that in general when such re-balancing happens, vast majority of people benefit from it in the long run, and losers are in a very small minority due to concentration of wealth and power.
Which is why I agree with the argument that we're still very far from the critical point in the cycle. We're fairly clearly headed there, but we're still likely decades away at least.