The Philosophy of Nate

What does "metadata" actually mean?

One of the buzzwords around online surveillance and leaked NSA data collection programs has been the word “metadata.” The government doesn’t collect content of communication, just the “metadata” we’ve been assured, which seems to imply that collecting only metadata—though at times, far more than just metadata has been collected—is acceptable and respects our privacy. Unfortunately, “metadata” is a broad term and allows for a large amount of data collection. Not only that, but collecting metadata is not subject to regulations as stringent as those requiring warrants for wiretapping.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines “metadata” as “data about other data.” Everything stored digitally has some sort of metadata associated with it, such as where it lives on a computer, who created it, who owns it, or where it came from. Th...

Opposing net neutrality threatens the viability of open source communities

The net neutrality discussion is, at its core, about free speech on the internet. Free speech online is a driving force for the online community; an average of 1.32 billion people each day share their voices on Facebook alone (as of June 2017). It’s possible to be heard as well, with more than half of Americans using the internet as their primary source of information. Unfortunately, internet service providers (ISPs) want their own say in how free speech actually is online, with some claiming their own rights to free speech when it comes to what people can access.

ISPs are serious about their free speech claims when it comes to net neutrality. Several ISPs and telecom associations have filed briefs with the U.S. Court of Appeals arguing that net neutrality prevents them from favoring their own servic...

Keep Up with Net Neutrality - Preorder My New Book!

July 12, 2017 was the Day of Action for Net Neutrality. Across the Internet, sites showed banners, slowed themselves down, and tried to make it clear what a non neutral Internet might look like. It’s not pretty. A tiered, throttled, and restricted Internet would likely hurt your favorite web services, making them harder to access and more expensive.

Net neutrality is one of the most important digital rights battles we’ve had so far. The battle is raging and doesn’t appear to be ready to end soon with the FCC suggesting it will ignore pro net neutrality comments and telecom lobbying kicking into high gear. Net neutrality matters to everyone because it prevents ISPs from picking and choosing what parts of the Internet - and what information - you have access to when you get online. If we lose net neutrality, ISPs will gain a lot of power over our ability to be informed.

Net neutrality is so important, that I’m releasing a book about it on August 7, 2017. It details ...

Go Comment on the FCC Net Neutrality Proposal

This week, the FCC published its promised proposal to dismantle net neutrality rules. The proposal claims to “restore Internet freedom” by undoing Title II classification. In addition, the proposal asks whether net neutrality rules are necessary to protect the Internet at all. This comes after a court decision that refused to re-hear a challenge to Title II. Rather than focus on the benefits of Title II and net neutrality, as well as the fact that Title II has been found legal, it focuses on dissenting opinions which have in some cases been debunked (or that are generally accepted to be false) in order to explain unproven holes in net neutrality.

The FCC head has called net neutrality a mistake, arguing among other things that there is plenty of competition in the broadband Internet market, that net neutrality would harm consumers, and that net neutrality would stifle innovation. Evidence to the contrary for all of those is prevalent. Very few people have more than two ho...

The Fight for the Internet

In 2002, the FCC classified Internet providers under Title I, an “Information Service” classification. This is generally regarded as a win for net neutrality advocates but didn’t go as far as many wanted. Title I classification has been referred to as a “hands off” or “lite” classification in that it recognized that the Internet was an important means of communication but provided minimal regulations around that status. Specifically, Title I allowed the FCC some indirect authority to regulate interstate and international communications, but did not allow regulation of services themselves. Net neutrality advocates considered this to be too little. While the FCC promised that Title I would allow them to enforce net neutrality as needed, Title I by its definition did not allow them to follow up on those promises.

ISPs (in particular, Verizon) fought Title I classification...

Online Surveillance Briefing

Along with the free flow of information the Internet provides, the Internet has also been a powerful means of government and corporate surveillance. Learning a lot about someone is not a difficult task online even based only off of public information, which some websites even compile and sell access to. People such as Richard Stallman have been vocal about governments keeping closer tabs on their citizens via the Internet and through other means. For a long time, the theories of people like Stallman seemed plausible but unlikely and were pushed aside as nothing more than conspiracy theories. It wasn’t until the Snowden leaks that those ideas were proven to have some validity. It turns out that even the worst of Stallman’s suggestions about surveillance are true and that many government agencies use...

What Net Neutrality Is Not

Net neutrality includes a number of additional or enforced restrictions on Internet service providers to prevent them from prioritizing some content over others. Regulations such as these are essential for making sure the Internet is an open flow of information; that is, that ISPs are not gatekeepers to information. Internet providers often argue that net neutrality rules would stop them from expanding and improving their networks by removing their ability to force upstream service (like say, Netflix) to pay them for their traffic to be fast and reliable. Wireless providers have even suggested that they should be exempt from net neutrality guidelines because bandwidth is more limited over wireless networks. These arguments are not necessarily invalid. Service providers still need control ove...

What a Non-Neutral Internet Might Look Like

Verizon and Time Warner Cable (now Spectrum after a merger) have stated that they are committed to an open and unfettered Internet. However, recent practices such as zero-rating have started to bring those statements into question and show the possibility of the first cracks in net neutrality in the U.S. Already, services that provide access to only a small collection of websites exist. We can also look to the UK, where one ISP has taken things further by throttling (slowing down) certain types of traffic, imposing data caps, and selling Internet packages with varying privileges. This bears a strong similarity to how cable TV is sold, where the number of channels you can watch depends on the cable package you subscribe to, and where some networks such as HBO are often available only at an extra cost. China, which is well known for its restricted Internet, is another example of what a non-neutral Internet can look like.

Although net neutrality continue reading

Your Internet Versus Your Privacy

While many of us are generally aware that various sites track us in order to sell advertisements, we usually don’t give much thought to whether our ISP might be collecting similar information. The expectation of privacy from an Internet Service Provider is important because they are the gateway to the Internet. No matter how many anti-tracking browser add-ons you might have, your Internet provider can still see what you visit online. The only way to avoid your ISP seeing what websites you visit is to use a service such as a VPN - which is sort of like paying for a secure gateway to the Internet somewhere else, that your ISP can’t see. This means that unless you are willing and able to pay for privacy, your Internet provider likely knows more about you than you’re comfortable with.

As being tracked online becomes pretty much ubiquitous, privacy has...

You Already Paid for Net Neutrality

As with other infrastructure projects, taxpayer dollars have been granted to Internet providers for the purpose of expanding and upgrading their infrastructure. At a high level, this is fine because Internet is an important and arguably critical service in the modern world. Ensuring networks are up to modern standards is important for providing access to information, education, and other services. However, the network improvements expected from many of these grants have never materialized. Grants and subsidies amounting to over 400 billion taxpayer dollars by some counts have rarely resulted in larger or better networks. Despite those grants, there are still people in the U.S. who do not have Internet speeds available to them that are usable for accessing modern websites.

ISPs have argued that if net neutrality dies ...