"Let the data flow like a river, with no bit hindered for reasons of which cloud it came from."

It's that time again when something annoying is happening on the internet!

This time the issue is Net Neutrality - "the principle that Internet service providers and governments should treat all data on the Internet equally, not discriminating or charging differentially by user, content, site, platform, application, type of attached equipment, and modes of communication." Here's an article from the Electronic Frontier Foundation explaining why *now* is a good time to get much more worked up about the issue than usual (article from April 24th, 2014): FCC's New Rules Could Threaten Net Neutrality (USA stuff)

As far as what Net Neutrality is and why we should care (and which side we're on - I'm for it, BTW):
Internet Citizens: Defend Net Neutrality is a three-minute animation/video from CGP Grey explaining what Net Neutrality is and why it's good.
Here's a technical explanation from Netflix and one from Level 3 (a Tier 1 Internet provider) with a bit about how the internet works and why Net Neutrality is good (or rather, the lack thereof is bad). Here's a nice diagram.

For further reading, Level 3 has a follow up post Observations of an Internet Middleman, and Netflix had an earlier post on the issue Internet Tolls And The Case For Strong Net Neutrality. Time has a few articles under the tag Net Neutrality, including Net Neutrality: FCC Boss Smacked by Tech Giants, Internal Dissent, which links to the letter "More than 100 Internet companies sent to the Federal Communications Commission." There's also this article (January 2014) Podcast: Net Neutrality, the Internet and the First Amendment with associated podcast. Arstechnica has a 4-apge article (2008) How the ‘Net works: an introduction to peering and transit.

For an analogy: Dude Arnold has a cell phone, and he pays LavaFore for X minutes every month. Dude Bill has a cell phone, and he pays Womcast for Y minutes every month. Normally, if Arnold wants to call Bill, he pays his provider, LavaFore, to connect/talk to anyone, in this case Bill, and Bill pays his provider Womcast to connect/talk to anyone, in this case Arnold. That's it. When they're done, they hang up.

The bad part: Arnold now, in addition to paying LavaFore to send a call, and Bill paying his provider, Womcast, to receive a call, Bill's provider Womcast decides to *also* charge Arnold to send Bill the call which Bill has already paid to receive. Womcast is charging two people for one service. Additionally, without neutrality, phone companies could do other shady things. For instance, Womcast might decide to charge Arnold for the "premium" service of not hearing crackles and hisses, to block his calls to Bill entirely whether they pay an extra fee or not, might let the call mostly go through but block "silly noises" like laughing, and other such nonsense.

We don't allow that sort of thing with phone lines, we shouldn't allow it with internet data, either.

So, what can be done? To quote some guy:
And to rephrase/be more specific/quote some other guy:
(Also, we want to make sure "all ISPs" include both wireless/mobile providers and at-home/landline connections.)

How to contact congress: http://www.contactingthecongress.org or Senators of the 113th Congress and Directory of Representatives. Look up who your Representative is at Who Represents Me?

Besides getting in touch with congress, what else can be done?

You can write a letter to the editor in your local newspaper. Good for letting people who aren't on the internet 100% of the time know about what's going on, and I hear congressmen tend to read those.

You can contact the FCC. Here's an article to read first, Everything You Need To Know Before E-mailing The FCC About Net Neutrality. If you want to file with the FCC, it says "Note: You are filing a document into an official FCC proceeding. All information submitted including names and address will be publicly available via the web." You can go to "14-28 Protecting and Promoting the Open Internet" and click "Submit a Filing in 14-28" or click here. It has been suggested that "while you're at it let them know about the Comcast/Time Warner merger under "Proceeding #14-57."" (The Netflix blog post mentioned earlier references the proposed merger.)

There's a couple of White House petitions: Reclassify Internet broadband providers as common carriers. and Maintain true net neutrality to protect the freedom of information in the United States. I don't think too much of that site (a lot of petitions don't even get answered), but figured I should include these anyway.

If you have a webserver in the US (XD) you can ask your hosting company to support Net Neutrality. Or you could petition other internet businesses to support Net Neutrality, explaining why it should matter to them/their bottom line, and why it's good in general.

You can Test Your ISP to see if they are up to any funny business.

If you really feel like it you can protest: Protesters set up camp at net neutrality rally outside FCC headquarters.

There's the meshnet, the poor man's internet! There's this article about uses for it: When the internet dies, meet the meshnet that survives [NewScientist]. Basically, you connect to other people on the mesh without using ISPs (or cell phone towers) at all. It's kinda like an extended LAN you connect to with random people in your area who are also running meshnet software. I think it's pretty much all wireless connections. It's good for having a backup in place in case of natural disasters or the like, or where you can't get good/any internet, or if you just want to putz around with networking stuff.

This is what the FCC wrote in response to some letters they've gotten: Setting the Record Straight on the FCC's Open Internet Rules by: Tom Wheeler, FCC Chairman and Finding the Best Path Forward to Protect the Open Internet - My response: The FCC does *not* currently have Title II authority. The FCC can't actually use Title II unless the ISPs get classified under Title II, so until/unless that happens, Wheeler's claims that he'll use it "if necessary" are rather moot. So, boys and girls, keep hammering at it!

For an example of what can happen when an ISP is *not* net neutral, Comcast was messing with people's use of BitTorrent (article from 2008): FCC Rules Against Comcast for BitTorrent Blocking
This follow-up explains how the courts have decided the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) does not have the authority to prevent such nonsense (2010): Court Rejects FCC Authority Over the Internet
Here's one from AT&T where they decided to charge for a separate data plan for people to use Apple's app called FaceTime (2012): AT&T faces Net neutrality complaint for FaceTime over 3G

Okee dokee, guess that's all I've got to say about that! Oh, one last thing, the FCC's proposed rules are scheduled to be presented May 15th. So... bug 'em now before they come out with them, then if we need to we can bug 'em again depending on what specific sort of nonsense they come up with.

Okee dokee, a bit more info:

I found a pic that expresses the problem. And I found a better video (11 minutes): Net Neutrality in the US: Now What? It's a bit less hyper "go team" than the other one and more informational. It's also got some links in the description. It's a great starter video, methinks.

Here is info from the FCC about "open internet" stuff: https://www.fcc.gov/openinternet

Other things one can do:

You can check to see if there's any legally enforced monopolies in your area and if so you can file a complaint about them.

If you have AT&T, do *not* sign up for UVerse. This explains. In short a UVerse "phone line" is not regulated like a phone line but an "information service", and related nasty stuff.

You can let people know about the Ferengi plan ("We are rate limiting the FCC to dialup modem speeds until they pay us for bandwidth"), in case they want to implement that or similar on their own sites - you don't even have to be in the US for that one. ;)

For those with too much time on their hands, there's a three hour video and a 100-page filing by Comcast/Time Warner regarding the proposed Time-Warner Cable / Comcast merger. If you want to comment on that, it's proceeding # 14-57 "Applications of Comcast Corporation and Time Warner Cable Inc. for Consent to Assign or Transfer Control of Licenses and Applications".

"This comment alone should disqualify you from any discussions about net neutrality. Thanks and remember your silence will make the internet a better place."

Alrighty! Time for some more Net Neutrality stuff!

There's this article "The Net Neutrality Hysteria."

Ok! In response to that:
People care! :D

Sounds about right.

Exactly! (See What is Net Neutrality In 60 seconds, the spoof ad The First Honest Cable Company, and the South Park episode Informative Murder Porn.)

Here's a couple articles: Massive survey finds Comcast and TWC are the two most hated companies in America – period and Gov. Cuomo orders review of Comcast, Time Warner merger. Also, Comcast is employing 40 lobbying firms to try to get the merger approved: Comcast goes for shock and awe.

They haven't? (See The worst net neutrality violations in history)

By "nobody can" he means Verizon did answer in court. See Verizon's Outrageous Plot to Crack Up the Internet. By "unenforceable," he would be referring to the January court ruling. This article, Why the FCC Can't Actually Save Net Neutrality explains. Also, for why the only thing which the FCC can do that will work is to reclassify as Title II: Net Neutrality’s Legal Binary: an Either/Or With No “Third Way” For those just tuning in, Why the FCC Can't (or Won't) Just Enforce Net Neutrality gives a good overview for those new to the subject.

If it was such a good deal, then why was Netflix complaining about it? See Internet Tolls And The Case For Strong Net Neutrality and The Case Against ISP Tolls. But, for a post critical of Netflix, see: Netflix & Level 3 Only Telling Half The Story, Won’t Detail What Changes They Want To Net Neutrality

What he fails to ask is, would the network have been upgraded if Netflix didn't pay Comcast? If the interconnection wasn't sufficient to provide the agreed upon speeds, then why wasn't it upgraded? Who's to blame? If Netflix is paying for adequate bandwidth from its bandwidth providers, and Comcast's customers are paying for adequate bandwidth from Comcast, then this special routing should not be necessary in the first place.

Er, no. People want more competition amongst ISPs so that they can vote with their wallet. While the Comcast/Netflix situation brought up a lot of debate (See It’s not a “fast lane” but Comcast built a CDN to charge for video delivery and Comcast is the one who should pay for network connections, Cogent claims), we're not asking the government to get involved with who Comcast or any ISP peers with or who pays who.

What we *are* saying is, "Don't sell me services that you can't deliver."

Not exactly. I think there's some misunderstanding as to what people are asking for. We want to prevent the ISPs and/or governments from censoring the internet. We want to prevent ISPs and/or governments from altering or controlling our communications. We want, when we buy internet service, to get what we paid for. We want "CONSUMER PROTECTION." You know, like them looking into things like this: (2010) US gov proves ISPs lie about bandwidth.

When I buy "internet" I want "internet", just like when I buy beef I want beef and not horse. If something is labeled "ice cream" it must follow a set of specific technical guidelines. No matter how much competition there is, some things should be enforced across the board.

Which two? Do I have to go look that up? Is he talking about the rules we want or the ones we don't want?

For background information on the subject: Here's the Communications Act of 1934. The site itlaw.wikia.com explains the act a bit. ISPs are currently regulated under Title I of that act, as an information service. Title II would reclassify them as a telecommunications service. Here's an FCC Filing by Tejas Narechania and Tim Wu, which details the history of ISP regulation. Here's a letter to the FCC from broadbandforamerica.com, signed by a bunch of ISP CEOs. Here's an article on the ISPs' position, AT&T claims common carrier rules would ruin the whole Internet. Here's a letter (2010) by Steve Wozniak to the FCC: Keep the Internet Free.

A glossary of terms is here: Net neutrality jargon explained, which leads to the follow-up post Title II is the key to net neutrality—so what is it?

Here's an article, FCC votes to move forward with controversial net neutrality plan and Only you can save the Internet: Here’s how to fight the FCC’s controversial net neutrality plan and The FCC Thinks We're All Idiots, which points out some specific problems with the proposed rules.

Here's the documents from the May 15th FCC meeting. The FCC's proposed rules are under NPRM. The NPRM are also here, titled Filing by Wireline Competition Bureau in 14-28 on 2014-05-15 - NOTICE OF PROPOSED RULEMAKING. Here's the May 15th, 2014 C-Span video of the meeting, Open Internet Rules. For a two minute clip from that meeting, see Net neutrality protesters foricbly removed from FCC vote for speaking out to save the Internet.

This article was from before the May 15th meeting: Prepare to Take Action to Defend Net Neutrality. Here's How the FCC Makes Its Rules.

After that, there's this post, What Do You Want Your Representatives to Ask Chairman Wheeler About Net Neutrality? in regards to the Oversight of the Federal Communications Commission meeting that came soon after. Here is a direct link to the video of that hearing.

[continued in next post...]

Yup. That jumped out to me, too. We do not want the FCC or ISPs to act as law enforcement. It is not in the Federal Communications Commission's nor the internet service providers' jurisdiction to determine whether the information a customer is sending or requesting is legal, just as it is not the phone company's jurisdiction to listen in when I make a phone call to determine whether I'm wishing someone a happy birthday or trying to scam someone. That's a police matter, and they would need a warrant. Nor do we want the FCC to control content on the internet, treating it like a television station or censoring things. We had the internet blackout of January 18, 2012 in protest of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA). Here's my favorite YouTube playlist, "Why the Internet Matters" as a response to that (links to download the videos are in the description).

Edward who? ??? Just kidding. This guy here: interview part one and interview part two. Hey, it's a UK newspaper! XD

That would be bad. But, um there's other countries where one can host stuff. And people use VPNs and proxies and things.

For info regarding the US government's surveillance program, see Introducing the ACLU's NSA Documents Database. Also, regarding exposé type material, I'd say cryptome is worth a mention.

Oh, like that's the only reason the government wants to control the internet. *Rolls eyes*

USA - It's come up a number of times that the government wants an "internet kill switch", but I'm not sure where we are on that. Schneier on Security (2010) Internet Kill Switch details why a kill switch would be a bad idea. (2010) Obama internet 'kill switch' proposed by Senator Joe Lieberman. (2011) Internet 'kill switch' bill gets a makeover. (2013) Homeland Security must disclose ‘Internet Kill Switch,’ court rules.

Egypt (2011) - The Egyptian government shut down the internet to stop protests. See How Egypt shut down the internet and Mubarak Shut Down The Internet, And The Internet Paid Him In Kind But shutting it down didn't work and President Hosni Mubarak was ousted anyway. See Egyptian president steps down amidst groundbreaking digital revolution.

Turkey (2014) - The Turkish government went after sites disseminating embarrassing information. See As Turkey bans Twitter, Tor usage skyrockets, Google Refuses Turkey's Requests to Yank YouTube Videos, Turkey lifts Twitter ban after court ruling, Turkey Blocks Google DNS, YouTube Could Be Next, and Turkey moves to block YouTube access after 'audio leak'. Also, the self post Leaked recording of Turkish officials discussing military operations inside Syria which links to the audio: part one and part two.

Does he mean this letter? Oh no, 4Chan signed onto it, too! =O So did reddit, they even made a blog post, Only YOU Can Protect Net Neutrality on which they posted the letter. IT'S A CONSPIRACY! And it's one we're all being asked to join in on! Quite publicly, too. *Shock*

Wait, what?

Where does this video (6min 22sec) Net Neutrality [RAP NEWS 25] by thejuicemedia fit into all of this?

Not that it seems wise to trust a matter of life and death to maintaining a stable internet connection anyway, but... In Defense of All that is Good: We are underselling Net Neutrality.

So... is he saying that "Net Neutrality" and "Title II" aren't specific enough? That we need to write out the explicit technical guidelines ourselves because the government can't be trusted to figure out what we're asking for, or know how to implement it? That kinda sounds pretty much like how the internet works.

Is anybody up for that?

Let's start with spelling out what "internet" is: "The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to link several billion devices worldwide."

Stanford has a paper (2012) Network Neutrality and Quality of Service: What a Non-Discrimination Rule Should Look Like. Would anyone care to give that a read?

I don't cry foul when I'm paying for 768Kb/sec and my neighbor pays for 1.5Mb/sec and his connection is faster than mine. Is he talking about dedicated bandwidth like T1 lines? See Slashdot discussion (2007) Why Are T1 Lines Still Expensive? Or does he mean things like (2011) New Transatlantic Cable Built to Shave 5 Milliseconds off Stock Trades?

Well, I do care. Cat blogs are critical infrastructure.

Does he see them more like Guy In A Guy Fawkes Mask would?

Lack of alternatives and the internet being an essential service like water, electricity, roads, postal service, and phone lines. See NPR podcast Episode 529: The Last Mile. Also see Why Starting A Competitor To Comcast Is Basically Impossible discussing costs of laying cable, companies getting bigger by buying each other, franchise agreements, the proposed Comcast / Time Warner Cable merger, and municipal braodband.

But yes, let's look at some alternatives. For example, Discussion on trying to start Municipal Fiber in your town, particularly this comment. Also, "If you're in Massachusetts, they have a huge section of statewide franchise agreements right on their site." Here's a list. A different comment suggests that towns make "a teeny tiny change to their building codes" requiring installing empty conduits for internet wires like "developers already have to do power, water, gas and every other utility."

And Comcast has a hand in the government's pocket: These are the members of the House of Representatives who have received donations from, or own stock in, Comcast.

Does he mean use scare tactics to push things like the Transportation Security Administration, do not fly lists, "enhanced" pat downs, and backscatter scanners? See The case for abolishing the TSA. It seems like The FCC is about to turn the internet into airport security. Or -mandatory- kill switches on cell phones? Smartphone Kill-Switch Bill Resurrected In Calif. Will that end up like when BART San Francisco cut cell services to avert protest? Or here's one, Cops can now search your car without a warrant in Pa. And how about this? Congress reaffirms indefinite detention of Americans under NDAA.

On the other end, how about this post, encouraging people to run for office: Dear United States of America, RE: Net Neutrality, I don't think you have what it takes to be a free and democratic society anymore. Anyone interested in running for office might want to take a look at some of the legislation: http://thomas.loc.gov/home/thomas.php will be redirecting to http://congress.gov , so if you want to link people to any bills, use the congress.gov site!

Fair warning, Family Guy's "The Freaking FCC" song is a bit risqué. >_> It starts, "Oh, I know all about the FCC..."

No, we don't want the FCC to have jurisdiction over content on the internet. At all. We don't want ISPs to have that jurisdiction, either. See: (2011) Major ISPs agree to "six strikes" copyright enforcement plan and (2012) "Six strikes" Internet warning system will come to US this year, and (2013) The Copyright Propaganda Machine Gets a New Agent: Your ISP.

Uh, the FCC has had something to do with it this whole time. They auction off spectrum to determine who can use the airwaves, because there's only so many frequencies. They impose rules on phone service providers and television stations. Unless the FCC's ability to regulate broadband is removed entirely, they are involved in it. The question is, are they working for the common good, or for the select few?

But sure, what are some other options? We could get some ideas from this article, The Netherlands Passes Net Neutrality Legislation, which points out a bit about how the Dutch decided to do things. There's also How Google found the best route for the Netflix era which argues in favor of competition.

Indeed we will.

To help explain Net Neutrality in non-technical terms, I think that describing it in relation to the alignment system used by Dungeons and Dragons would be helpful.

After careful analysis of the situation, I have come to the conclusion that, in terms of Dungeons and Dragons and related fantasy games, that Net Neutrality would be classed as "True Neutral." For a video analyzing True Neutral in the Dungeons and Dragons sense, please refer to the video D&D Alignments: True Neutral (14min 29sec).

It was of course clear to me that Net Neutrality is neither good nor evil, but neutral. Net Neutrality protects the writings of the damned as much as those of the devine. It does not impede one for the sake of the other. A neutral internet run by evil will foster evil, and a neutral internet run by good will foster good. Where good and evil share the same network, it does not give an advantage to either side. If they are given no choice but an internet which is Net Neutral, then the forces of good, darkness, and those who are neither (or neutral) must create their advantages and win their battles via other means.

The question then lied in whether Net Neutrality was chaotic neutral, neutral neutral (aka true neutral), or lawful neutral. It was easy to eliminate chaotic neutral, as net neutrality is conerned with following certain rules, and certainly doesn't reject rules on the basis that they are rules or fight to seek its own way outside of all of them. The rule of equality is valued by Net Neutrality, as are rules which foster it. But the extent to which it follows laws or rules I had yet to determine.

In dissecting that article, and in other readings, I came across situations where strict enforcement of equality for the sake of equality in the name of neutrality might be considered detrimental. In these cases, Net Neutrality would bend to accommodate the situation that makes the most sense rather than following a particular path - a "lawful" path or dedication to a particular creed - regardless of the outcome. Net Neutrality finds laws and rules to be useful and to have their place, but it does not sacrifice itself in blind obedience to them. Hence my conclusion that, in my personal opinion, Net Neutrality is not lawful neutral, but true neutral.

For discussions on each D&D alignment, see:
D&D Alignments: Chaotic Evil
D&D Alignments: Neutral Evil
D&D Alignments: Lawful Evil
D&D Alignments: Chaotic Neutral
D&D Alignments: True Neutral
D&D Alignments: Lawful Neutral
Dungeons & Dragons Alignments: Chaotic Good
D&D Alignments: Neutral Good
Dungeons & Dragons Alignments: Lawful Good

"We must take the time to get the job done correctly, once and for all, in order to successfully protect consumers and innovators online." - Tom Wheeler

See: FCC CHAIRMAN TOM WHEELER’S STATEMENT ON PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA’S STATEMENT REGARDING OPEN INTERNET

The following was a message to invite people to a November 20th, 2014 event, intended to be sent via email:

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Email subject title: Do you know anyone in San Francisco?

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Please forward this message to everyone you know.

If the person works with computers for a living, they will know why it's important.

If they do not work with computers for a living, they can simply pass it on and it will get to the people who need to know about it.

"Net Neutrality" is an ambiguous nonsense computer nerd term that geeks use when discussing the underlying functionality of the internet. Like many such technical terms, it is a form of shorthand that encompasses a topic of considerable depth, thereby enabling anyone to easily look it up on the internet what it means if they come across a discussion using it which they don't understand, while allowing anyone who does understand it to not have to write out whole paragraphs of text any time they want to say something about it.

This is similar to someone referencing the movie "Star Wars" under the presumption the other person you are talking to has already seen the movie and doesn't need a rundown of the entire plot when you make a two-sentence joke about Princess Leia.

The following is a message from the Electronic Frontier Foundation: "November 20 Rally and Forum on Net Neutrality at San Francisco City Hall": https://www.eff.org/press/releases/november-20-rally-and-forum-net-neutrality-san-francisco-city-hall

EFF Joins Local and National Groups in Call to Protect the Internet

San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is joining a broad coalition of local and national public interest groups for a rally and forum in support of strong net neutrality rules at San Francisco City Hall on Thursday, November 20, at 5:30 pm.

"Bay Area Speaks: A People's Hearing on the Future of the Internet" comes at a key moment in the debate over net neutrality. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has a proposal that does not provide full protections for the Internet and could vote to enact the plan early as December. Meanwhile, President Obama has issued a statement urging the FCC to change course and reclassify the Internet as a telecommunications service. This reclassification would be the best way to achieve strong rules against blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization online, and echoes the demands of millions of Americans who have submitted their own comments to the FCC over the last few months.

Former FCC Commissioner Michael Copps will be one of the speakers at Thursday's rally, along with EFF Intellectual Property Director Corynne McSherry and many others. The event is free and open to the public, and there will be time for community comment. The public testimony will be submitted to the FCC.

What:
"Bay Area Speaks: A People's Hearing on the Future of the Internet"

Date:
Thursday, November 20

Time:
Rally – 5:30 pm
Forum – 7 pm

Where:
San Francisco City Hall
1 Dr Carlton B Goodlett Place
San Francisco, CA 94102

For more information and to RSVP:
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/933163

Contact:

Rebecca Jeschke
Media Relations Director
Electronic Frontier Foundation
press@eff.org

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Follow up on the event:

EFF blog post on November 24, 2014 Rain or Shine: Bay Area Internet Users Take the Net Neutrality Fight to City Hall

Video of the November 20th event: Bay Area Speaks: A Public Forum on the Future of the Internet (2hr 1min 24sec)

"Wait... so they still haven't figured out this is one big scheme to send Spiderman back home to Marvel?"

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For an excellent run down of the Sony hack story, please see: A Breakdown and Analysis of the December, 2014 Sony Hack by Risk Based Security.

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From Wikipedia (December 2014):
You may ask, "How is the 2014 Sony Pictures Entertainment hack related to Net Neturality?" and the answer is, it relates to a lot of things, actually. These at least include:

It relates to information security and should be a reminder that that topic needs to be taken seriously in general. This wasn't the first time Sony has been hacked, one noteworthy incident being the PlayStation Network outage in 2011, so it also should be a reminder that Sony needs to take its own data security seriously. As a multinational corporation, one would expect that it would have the resources to do so.

It relates to malware (for example: viruses, trojans, worms, etc.) Sony is the corporation which in 2005-2007 thought it would be a good idea to include rootkits on CDs sold to customers in the name of preventing piracy. Also, the use of malware is part of how Sony got hacked.

It relates to global politics. The United States government accused the North Korean government as being responsible for the hack. The North Korean government denied it was involved and offered to conduct a joint investigation with the United States. The United States government asked the Chinese government to weigh in. The Russian government weighed in. (But wait, there's more!) All this over a movie studio hack.

Speaking of Russia, U.S. sanctions against the country isn't making the United States very popular over there: Russians Rage Against America | Enduring Sanctions, Anger Turns to Hate: Racist Names for Obama and Putin Disses Coca-Cola. Russia wants to look into the United States' bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan towards the end of World War II: State Duma chief suggests trying US for WWII nuke attacks. In regards to Ukraine/Crimea and US/Russia, there's this: Париж, Севастопольский бульвар | В час украинской трагедии потомки белой эмиграции обращаются к лидерам Европы.

Coincidentally, after 50 years of embargoing Cuba suddenly the US has changed its mind as to how to relate to the nation - There's this article, Sudden U.S. Thaw Worries Cuban Dissidents and this one, CNN's Candy Crowley interviews President Barack Obama (Dec. 21, 2014): I guess he might as well just come out and bluntly say that "normalizing relations" is a plot to overthrow the Cuban government, eh?

And this is all occuring in the wake of the United States torture report. See: CIA experimented on humans in black sites: Report and The Senate Just Released the CIA Torture Report. Read the Full Document. and the .pdf file itself (525 pages).

Relatedly, there's the article CIA Admits to Hacking Senate Computers (July 31, 2014).

The CIA, which ran the torture program, messing with a congressman/her staffs' computers, which the congressional panel was using to read about and review said program? What could possibly go wrong?

It relates to personal privacy and media gossip. Weird Al Yankovic has a good parody on the general topic of media gossip: "Weird Al" Yankovic - TMZ (Parody of "You Belong With Me" by Taylor Swift) (3min 41sec). Sony employees' personal emails were dumped along with whatever else got dumped, which generally is something one wouldn't want to happen with their correspondance, and having it re-published for wider dissemination would of course make it worse. See: I Will Not Post This | The Coming Age of Self Censorship

Coincidentally, the NSA gave everyone a holiday gift this Christmas eve (presumably as a result of an ACLU and MFIA FOIA lawsuit). See: NSA waited until Christmas Eve to reveal its embarrassing self-audit and On Christmas Eve, NSA quietly releases 12 years worth of internal reports. The report itself is posted to the NSA website.

It relates to taking things out of context to mean something different than what was originally intended. I'm sure it was deliberate on the part of Guardians of Peace, knowing that most journalists would simply repeat any scary-sounding phrases, with few printing the whole message so that people could draw their own conclusions as to what it means, but if you read what was actually written... Source for the full text (at the bottom of the article): Sony Hackers Threaten 9/11 Attack on Movie Theaters That Screen ‘The Interview’
Unless there was more to go on than that (I'm sure I've missed some things), by my interpretation the only thing these hackers (if that really did come from the hackers) were threatening theater-goers with is a warning that the movie sucks.

Soon all the world will see what an awful movie Sony Pictures Entertainment has made.

Really?

I think they were saying that the world will denounce Sony because the movie sucks. People will be scared of just how bad it is, watching it is such a disaster that it'll feel like September 11th, 2001 all over again. You don't even want to be -near- the theaters, it's that bad.

I laughed so hard when I read that.

- Also, probably they only brought up 9/11 because people called hacking Sony to be on the same level as 9/11.

To quote from: Seth Rogen, Howard Stern liken Sony hack to terrorism: ‘This attack is no different than a 9/11-type attack’

It relates to 9/11 and what followed after that. Hey, someone else brought up 9/11, so why not roll with it, eh?

In short, with regards to the events of September 11th, 2001, along with other aspects of it, there's been a fair amount of discussion regarding what actually happened that day and who's to blame. South Park made their case that it wasn't an inside job and that the government just messed up/wasn't able to stop it from happening.

A while back someone asked, "Who still thinks 9/11 was an inside job?" to which I replied, "Susan Lindauer, apparently." Here's her Wikipedia page, and here's a video of her discussing what she knows. (1hr 36min 12sec)

Here's another video, '9/11 was an inside job': Full speech by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at UN (33min 49sec).

"Whodunit: 9/11" isn't really what I look into, but those links should be enough to get one started if one is interested in the topic.

Regardless of whodunit and why... how it relates is, as is the case with the Sony hack of today, 9/11 was a big event that a lot of people were at least aware of it having happened. It has the potential to be a catalyst for major changes in the world and society. There are calls for a response to this, going as far up as the President. If you think about it, there was definitely a conspiracy involved in pulling it off, so it's a question of how deep does it go, what do we know, what was the motivation, and other sorts of questions, not "if" it was one or not. And so forth.

But what's different this time is...

It was a computer hack. Data got leaked, data was deleted, but nobody blew up.

We may not have thousands or millions of engineers burning thermite and steel beams at home for fun (too expensive, maybe? Maybe dangerous? Well, at least guy was experimenting: 9/11 Experiments: The Great Thermate Debate) just to see how it works as a normal part of their daily lives who can relay to the average Joe how likely a given scenario is when it comes to how a building might have collapsed, but programmers, sysadmins, and so on? In regards to a computer hack?... I hypothesize that either whoever did (and/or whoever ordered/encouraged/suggested) the Sony conspiracy was very perceptive, knowing to a large extent what the reaction would be, or was an idiot, too unfamiliar with information technology and nerd culture to have any clue as to what would happen in response, and their scheme, whatever it was, backfired. (Or maybe a half dozen of one and six of the other?) Or maybe... they saw The Dark Knight (particularly this scene) and took it a little too seriously?

There are just so many possibilities to consider! Bruce Schneier considers a few in the article Lessons from the Sony Hack. (Dec. 29 Update: IT Secuirty firm Norse has their own theory, with evidence they're presenting to the FBI: Ex-Employee, Five Others Fingered in Sony Hack.)

As far as response to the hack: Here's a link to the YouTube video with United States President Obama talking about the Sony hack (8min 43sec). Here is the full press conference (50min 35sec). Here's a link to both North Korea and Sony's response: North Korea proposes joint Sony hack inquiry with US. (There's a video at the top of the article, "Sony Pictures CEO: "We have not given in"" where Michael Lynton speaks about it.)

This is funny: Bring It On, Sony Hackers! - Late Night with Seth Meyers" (2min 30sec).

I have two things to say:

No, Barack Obama, no John McCain, we don't need your "cyber security" legislation, which by my estimation would be no more about securing our data and cyber infrastructure than the "PATRIOT Act" was about resisting tyranny, upholding the United States Constitution, and baking apple pies. To quote Obama:
Yes, I take this seriously. And yes, IT can manage. If computer nerds had to rely on government to figure out what to do, the state of the internet would never have progressed this far. See: The coming digital anarchy.
(Of course, there is more to concern ourselves with than whether our computers and internet connections and software function as intended. See: Beyond Whistleblowing.)
Unless the "cybersecurity" law you're thinking of says something like, "the government will publically publish a guideline every year of what it feels are best practices that companies and individuals can implement to secure their own or their users/employees/customers data," or otherwise does something useful, I'm not sure what you think a law will accomplish? You can't legislate people to write error-free code any more than you can legislate sculptors to produce works like the Statue of David or painters to create something akin to the Mona Lisa. Creativity and technical skill is something one develops over time and exercises for their own pleasure. It is something which can be taught, it is something which one can learn on their own, but it is not something which someone far away writing on a piece of paper saying that people need to be good at it, can change. When you've got the sort of people who are demanding to be allowed do their jobs... (See: Leaked Sony IT Evaluations: "There Is No Overall Strategy")
Where does congress come in again?

As far as something that's been proposed before (which seems to have become a yearly event): The first time I heard about CISPA (1min 16sec), the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, was in 2012. I read about it from the EFF and the ACLU and read the bill, and from what I gathered the point was to make it legal for companies to pass data to certain other companies and the government without regard for existing privacy laws.

How is deliberately handing over the contents of my database to a third party supposed to secure my data? It does the exact opposite of that. I don't need or want laws that tell me I have the right to deliberately fuck over the people who are entrusting me with their information.

Seriously, back down on that crap.

Honestly, I think people reading articles like this: After Sony, Every Startup Should Prepare For War and passing it on to others to read will do more good than anything congress has in mind. I would be amazed if they could prove me wrong.

Separately:

"To whom it may concern: Never forget (6|18). If you don't know what (?|?) means, I suggest you find out."

(For those reading this who already did know what that means - Meh. I find it relevant in its own way, but it would spoil the fun if I explained it. Don't read too much into it.)

As for how the hack relates to Net Neutrality (and Google and copyright):

(First, I think it's best to just put this under the category of "fuckery/preventing fuckery" and think about how it fits in with everything else than worry about whether this fits the definition of a particular term.)

The short version: I like copyright, I like the internet. Even if unenforceable, I would still want copyright, a basic aknowledgment that what's mine is mine and what I make matters. I could go into more detail about that, but I won't here.

But, if forced to make the choice between the internet and copyright: I choose the internet. Sony, apparently, chose copyright.

There's this - The full story of Project Goliath and Hollywood's quest to control the web. To quote the opening to the set of articles comprising the story:
Other sources for info: Hollywood v. Goliath: Inside the aggressive studio effort to bring Google to heel and this one - MPAA’s plan to break DNS in the name of fighting piracy – exposed by the Sony hack

Basically the intent of Sony/the MPAA being to revive SOPA/PIPA through non-legislative means, and SOPA/PIPA being something the internet already got pissed off at a few years ago to the point of having an "internet blackout" to demonstrate what censorship of the web would be like with those bills, is unlikely to have forgotten about. I certainly haven't.

Oh, to throw some irony in there: Sony About to Get Sued For Pirating Music in The Interview. Maybe they're not such staunch defenders of copyright after all?

But hey, let's not put Sony through the grinder too much. Let's end this section on a positive note. ;) Official PlayStation Used Game Instructional Video (22sec). (That, too, I find relevant in its own way. That one I'd welcome you to read too much into it. =D )

"They seem not to give a damn, or even half a damn, that the CIA and the Pentagon have used them, and co-opted the film for an agenda far bigger than the stupid movie itself." - Larry Chin