Re. Steve:
The nightmare scenario for "after the end of net
neutrality" is that the Bigs adopt _time-based_ or
_QOS-based_ control of any content that isn't
paying through the nose.
For example a typical small biz website's main
page is about 2 meg. Under the new regime they
find it takes 60 seconds to load (long enough to
chase away customers), so they redo the site and
now it's only 200K. But the 200K version of the
page still takes 60 seconds to load. And if they
slimmed it down to 20K it would still take 60
seconds to load.
Even easier, just assign the lowest QOS priorities
to "commoner" traffic, so it's totally
unreliable. Think call-drops in bad cell coverage
areas, translated to the entirety of the internet
over both wired and wireless media, so it becomes
totally but randomly useless. The reason you hear
people say they "don't like to talk on the phone"
is because "the phone" has become crappy audio and
unreliable connections compared to what it used to
be. Translate that to the whole internet with the
exception of the "preferred channels," Google,
Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, and of course Fox
News. "I don't go online any more except to buy
stuff...." Right, exactly.
Either of the above would shut down internet
broadcasting, and also shut down small business
websites, for which reason Main Street USA ought
to be up in arms about it, pitchforks &
torches included.
If either of those censorship-by-"nudge" things
happens, a huge explosion of pirate radio would
not be unexpected, including deliberately stepping
on big stations' signals to make the point. For
that matter, revenge-jamming of the entire AM
& FM broadcast bands by "outlaws" is a
foreseeable consequence. Think of people running
around dropping off disposable jamming
transmitters all over a city, that kind of thing.
Argh...
What I'm thinking is:
Make this THE issue of the 2014 Congressional
elections. "The biggest free speech issue of the
21st century." Every candidate gets grilled on
it: where do you stand on net neutrality? Anyone
who isn't with us gets dragged through a nasty
primary battle. And if they lie about supporting
it, and get into office and do nothing or worse,
then they get primaried in 2016, which will be a
high-turnout year.
And of course, back up the electoral strategy with
a barrage of lawsuits covering every possible
angle, and with peaceful civil disobedience
designed to generate more trials where these
issues can be brought up again and again and
again.
Re. CONELRAD:
I've read plenty of Civil Defense material from
the Cold War era and it described the low-power
broadcast scenario. That Wikipedia article is the
first I've heard of anything like round-robin, and
it would be difficult to manage a round-robin
system in the middle of a nuclear attack.
But either scenario might be adaptable to "modern
conditions." "Civil Disobedience IS Civil
Defense!" Heh, may as well adopt the CO