Quote:
Originally Posted by Ignitionnet
Oh you're talking about censorship. Not the same as protocol shaping to be honest.
Sections of the Internet are censored for legal reasons, shaping is network management, nothing more. No-one is mooting wholesale censorship however it should be noted that many people demanding their 'rights' do so on media belonging to others.
There is nothing stopping 'the people' from publishing content however sooner or later you have to use a company's network, perhaps their servers too.
Shaping is not censorship anymore than an engaged tone on a telephone line is violating your right to converse. Blocking the protocols outright is censorship, this isn't happening.
The Internet is a collection of privately owned networks, alongside some state ones, linked together again mostly via privately owned interconnects.
You see where I'm going with this. It's a network run mostly to make money, unless every country in the world nationalises all their assets it will remain as such.
Working in the field for a decade has perhaps jaded me a touch as to the more spiritual nature of the interwebs  |
I actually see them as the same thing over the long term. I see traffic shaping as a step towards traffic prioritisation, hence corporations buying traffic, ISP's selling exclusivity to the highest bidder, the segmentation of the web and eventually the end of the global, 'free' internet as we know it. ISP's can own all the hardware and fibre they want, but they have no right over the traffic that goes through it as the responsibility they so wish to distance themselves from (i.e. copyright infringement).