Matt Stoller lies about site blocking

Matt Stoller has a post up at MyDD dated June 14 titled (with ironic accuracy) "Please lie to me about Net Neutrality" in which he gives the following as an example of unwarranted site blocking that shows the need for net neutrality regulations:

There's a pervasive myth that there has been no discrimination on the internet against content companies. That is simply untrue. For one, Craigslist has been blocked for three months from Cox customers because of security software malfunctions.

Back on February 23rd Authentium acknowledged that their software is blocking Craigslist but it still hasn't fixed the problem, more than three months later. That's a heck of long time to delete some text from their blacklist. And this company also supplies security software to other large ISPs.

Without net neutrality protections, cable and telecom companies will have no incentive to fix these kinds of problems. Already, it's quite difficult to even know that this is happening because they are quite easy to disguise.

However, Ray Dickenson, the VP of Product Management at Authentium, the company which makes Cox's software firewall, had already explained this problem in a post on MyDD back on June 9 when Stoller first brought this up, and it has nothing to do with a software "blacklist":

I'm SVP Product Management at Authentium, Inc. We make the branded security suites that many Internet Service Providers, including Cox Communications, offer to their subscribers. I'd like to take this opportunity to set the story straight on the Craigslist issue that some Cox subscribers have experienced.

In February, we started receiving support calls from users of our branded ESP security suite at ISPs like Cox Communications and Patriot Media. These users had problems accessing the Craigslist.org web site.
Our engineers investigated the issue and found a glitch in our firewall driver that made the Craigslist site very slow to load, or not load at all. (Technical details below)

We contacted Craigslist to learn why only the Craigslist web site was affected and also had our engineers fix the firewall driver. The fixed driver is in QA and will be part of a new release this summer. Our support team has been offering the beta firewall driver to customers who call in and are willing to try it. The support team also assists users uninstalling the software if necessary.

Authentium is dedicated to providing the best possible Internet experience for all users of our security suite, which appears under many brand names. We applaud the efforts of ISPs that go the extra mile to provide free security software to their subscribers and will continue our efforts to make the Internet experience safer and easier.

Technical details:
We found that the Craigslist.org web site sends a TCP packet with a zero-length window. A zero-length window indicates the server is experiencing congestion and cannot handle more data. Our firewall driver responds by sending data only one byte at a time, even after the server increases the TCP window size. This is the glitch we have fixed and are QA testing. Any changes to network drivers must be made carefully, tested thoroughly, and certified before general release.

Authentium's initial response to the Craigslist.org webserver is exactly as specified by RFC 793 (which describes TCP) about the proper behavior when a host to which you initiate a TCP connection specifies a window size of 0, as others have pointed out at the Save the Internet blog:

Flow Control: TCP provides a means for the receiver to govern the amount of data sent by the sender. This is achieved by returning a “window” with every ACK indicating a range of acceptable sequence numbers beyond the last segment successfully received. The window indicates an allowed number of octets that the sender may transmit before receiving further permission.

The bug here is that when the Craigslist.org host later attempts to increase the window size, the Authentium software fails to do so.

It's a bug in Authentium, but it's also arguably a bug in Craigslist.org, which also had the capability of offering a fix but has failed to do so. To characterize this as an example of discriminatory website blocking by Cox is dishonest, and to repeat the claim that this was caused by "text" in their "blacklist" after being informed otherwise is a lie.

Coming on the heel's of Stoller's YearlyKos admission of not understanding the issues and calling for personal vilification of his opponents, this makes a solid case that he's in way over his head and should not be relied upon as a source of information in the net neutrality debate.

UPDATE: Timothy Karr of Save the Internet has jumped on this bogus bandwagon on his Media Citizen blog as well as on the Save the Internet blog (already linked above with the "others have pointed out" text) and at the Free Press Action HQ blog. At the last source, Karr was clearly already informed of the cause of the issue, as he links to this fairly clear explanation from Authentium, in which the Authentium CEO, John Sharp, says that they immediately contacted Craigslist.org and made a beta fix available to their customers (including Cox customers) within a couple of weeks. For no reason I can see, Karr describes this by saying that "The CEO at the 'security software' company in question is equally opaque about the Craigslist blocking." What's opaque about the explanation, and why does he put "security software" in quotes--to suggest that this is malicious blocking?

Graph of Phoenix Housing Inventory

I plugged all the previous data into Excel and generated this graph:


I wonder what happened in December and early January. The trend is amazingly linear, otherwise.

When do we start considering Phoenix a buyer's market? Now? When inventory hits 6oK? When the trend shows clear signs it has reversed? As I said in the comments to the previous housing inventory post, I think I want to start making lowball offers when I get back there!

Josh McDowell helps discover Noah's Ark

Yet another rock formation has been misidentified as Noah's Ark by evangelical Christian explorers ("Arkeologists"). They apparently forgot to bring a geologist or archaeologist with them, but they did bring "some of America’s leading businessmen, an attorney who has argued several cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, and two leading apologists" and take some incredibly unimpressive photographs. The expedition was led by former Costa Mesa, CA police officer turned "international explorer and author," Bob Cornuke, who runs something called the BASE (Bible Archaeology Search and Exploration) Institute. I hope his ethics are better than those of former nurse-anesthetist turned international explorer and author Ron Wyatt, who found a profitable career by claiming to find virtually every possible biblical site and artifact. (Wyatt, a Seventh-Day Adventist, was best debunked in a book by his fellow SDA members Russell R. Standish and Colin D. Standish, Holy Relics or Revelation, a book I highly recommend.)

Ed Brayton has done a good job of dissecting the claims in the announcement article. As he notes, this is far from the first such claimed discovery of Noah's Ark. This one is in Iran rather than the usual location of Agri Dagi in Turkey. I actually give them credit for not looking on Agri Dagi (Mt. Ararat), since the Bible only says that the Ark landed in a region called Ararat, not a mountain of that name (2 Kings 19:37, Jeremiah 51:27).

For a review of some previous claimed Noah's Ark sightings, see my 1993-1994 articles from Skeptic magazine, "Sun Goes Down in Flames: The Jammal Ark Hoax" and "Update on the Ark Hoax".

Andrew Kantor changes his mind on net neutrality

USA Today technology columnist Andrew Kantor has changed his mind, and no longer supports net neutrality regulations:

Not too long ago, I was very much on their side. "Imagine you make a phone call to a friend," I wrote then, "but instead of hearing it ring, you get a recording: We're sorry, but the person you are calling has not paid Verizon to carry his or her conversations.

But I was wrong.

I did what's easy to do: I blew things out of proportion and borrowed trouble. As I learn more, I realize that Net neutrality — at least the way it's being touted today — is a bad idea.

It pains me to say it, because many organizations I respect are fighting for a law. But I'm not.

Kantor now says that net neutrality doesn't force Internet traffic into the slow lane, it prevents the building of a fast lane, and that there is little risk of telcos blocking competing services or content because of the principles in the FCC's August 2005 policy statement (the "four freedoms"). He concludes that

The most a Net neutrality law should say is that A) network providers must carry any legal data regardless of the content or who it comes from, and B) network providers must offer the same services at the same prices to any customer — i.e., they couldn't charge YouTube more for a connection than they charge Disney.

Hat tip to Richard Bennett's Original Blog.

Demonization of adversaries is wrong, Matt Stoller

Ed Brayton's Dispatches from the Culture Wars has an excerpt from an article in Christianity Today by Yale Law School Professor Stephen Carter, a well-known black Christian conservative who authored the book Confessions of an Affirmative Action Baby. In the article, Carter is arguing against the common demonization of the ACLU by Christians, pointing out that while he disagrees with the ACLU on the establishment clause, they are also a big defender of the free exercise clause and have consistently supported Christians in free exercise court cases:

More to the point, the ACLU is often right about the First Amendment's free exercise clause, taking on fights that others refuse. It might surprise some critics that the ACLU defends the free speech and free exercise rights of, well, Christians.

The larger point of the article, however, is to condemn the mode of argument that characterizes those who disagree as irrational, dishonest, or evil simply in virtue of that disagreement:

I am more concerned about a habit of mind that seems to be growing among my fellow Christians, both political liberals and conservatives. That is, we seem to mimic the secular world's conflation of disagreement with wickedness, as if not sharing my worldview places my critic outside the realm of rational discourse...

I've seen similar habits expressed by people on both sides of the net neutrality debate. For example, in Matt Stoller's presentation at the YearlyKos convention, he admits that he doesn't understand the relevant technical issues (and proceeds to demonstrate it by suggesting that "non-neutrality" will cause dropped calls, when in fact it's non-neutral QoS that will prevent them). He asserts that it is fun to beat up on "these bad people" and that it is very important that Mike McCurry be personally vilified. That's explicit endorsement of irrationality, of emotional demogoguery over fact and reason, and should be condemned by everyone in this debate.

Ed Brayton concludes:

But rational people, people who care about truth and accuracy, must fight this tendency. We must try and evaluate every claim using the same criteria. Does the evidence support it? Are the conclusions drawn from the evidence logical? Any claim that fails to meet those criteria should be rejected, regardless of whether it supports our agenda or not. Likewise, any claim that withstands that scrutiny should be accepted as valid, regardless of whether it supports our agenda or not. None of us will ever be Mr. Spock, but we should strive to evaluate all arguments as though we have no stake in the outcome. Some, like the STACLU crowd, make no attempt at all to do so; we should not emulate them.

I agree.

Douglas Ross's Network Neutrality Index

For those looking for a series of arguments in favor of network neutrality, blogger Douglas Ross has put together an index like mine of his postings on the subject. I've not read all of them, and have disagreed with most of the ones I have read (e.g., Ross thinks it's OK to ban QoS because it can't possibly work, even though it does work and is in use in major Internet backbones like Global Crossing's; we had an extended exchange in response to my list of Phoenix-area broadband options).

So check out his writings, and think critically. If you think he's got some good arguments for imposing net neutrality regulations, let me know.

Phoenix housing bubble update

It's been a while since I gave an update on the number of homes for sale in Phoenix--the inventory has continued to balloon since the last report on March 10:

3/7/2006 36953
3/8/2006 37487
3/9/2006 37626
3/10/2006 37531
3/11/2006 38011
3/12/2006 38184
3/13/2006 38169
3/14/2006 38003
3/15/2006 38197
3/16/2006 38574
3/17/2006 38602
3/18/2006 39074
3/19/2006 38972
3/20/2006 38822
3/21/2006 39159
3/22/2006 38982
3/23/2006 39043
3/24/2006 39271
3/25/2006 39381
3/26/2006 39504
3/27/2006 39817
3/28/2006 39784
3/29/2006 39765
3/30/2006 39948
3/31/2006 40192
4/1/2006 40177
4/2/2006 40182
4/3/2006 40012
4/4/2006 40050
4/5/2006 40332
4/6/2006 40739
4/7/2006 40612
4/8/2006 41124
4/9/2006 41393
4/10/2006 41018
4/11/2006 42266
4/12/2006 42327
4/13/2006 42257
4/14/2006 42561
4/15/2006 42592
4/16/2006 42775
4/17/2006 42874
4/18/2006 42523
4/19/2006 42840
4/20/2006 43017
4/21/2006 43236
4/22/2006 43385
4/23/2006 43502
4/24/2006 43697
4/25/2006 43344
4/26/2006 43427
4/27/2006 44024
4/28/2006 43886
4/29/2006 44022
4/30/2006 44290
5/1/2006 44229
5/2/2006 43900
5/3/2006 43966
5/4/2006 44162
5/5/2006 44422
5/6/2006 44094
5/7/2006 44575
5/8/2006 44777
5/9/2006 44609
5/10/2006 44898
5/11/2006 45097
5/12/2006 45356
5/13/2006 45502
5/14/2006 45619
5/15/2006 45697
5/16/2006 45705
5/17/2006 45675
5/18/2006 46064
5/19/2006 46189
5/20/2006 46049
5/21/2006 46734
5/22/2006 46753
5/23/2006 46965
5/24/2006 46856
5/25/2006 47133
5/26/2006 47225
5/27/2006 47582
5/28/2006 47591
5/29/2006 47633
5/30/2006 47722
5/31/2006 47542
6/1/2006 47187
6/2/2006 47191
6/3/2006 47848
6/4/2006 47877
6/5/2006 47979
6/6/2006 48218
6/7/2006 48106
6/8/2006 48365
6/9/2006 48579
6/10/2006 48870
6/11/2006 48889
6/12/2006 49040
6/13/2006 49132
6/14/2006 49237
6/15/2006 49052
6/16/2006 49435

My first report, last October, showed an increase in inventory from 10,748 homes on July 20, 2005 to 19,254 on October 2. We're now at a 459% increase in inventory in the just under 11 months.

(But see Einzige's comment on what counts as evidence of a housing bubble...)

New indecency fines signed into law

Bush has signed the legislation raising fines on broadcast "indecency." Adam Thierer gives the scorecard for First Amendment protections on various forms of media:

MEDIA PLATFORM / FIRST AMENDMENT STATUS
Newspapers = Full First Amendment protection
Magazine = Full First Amendment protection
Cable TV = Full First Amendment protection
Satellite TV = Full First Amendment protection
Movies = Full First Amendment protection
DVDs = Full First Amendment protection
CDs = Full First Amendment protection
Satellite Radio = Full First Amendment protection
Internet = Full First Amendment protection
Blogging = Full First Amendment protection
i-Pods = Full First Amendment protection
Podcasts = Full First Amendment protection
Video Games = Full First Amendment protection

… and then…

Broadcast TV & Radio = Second Class Citizenship Rights in Terms of the First Amendment

It's high time to remove the FCC's ability to regulate content on the grounds that somebody might find it offensive--it has become increasingly irrelevant. (Actually, I think Peter Huber makes a strong case for doing away with the FCC completely.)

Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI), chairman of the House Telecommunications Subcommittee, would like to go the other direction, and give the FTC the power to regulate video games for content.

The New Republic supports net neutrality, based on error

The New Republic's editors have come out in favor of net neutrality. As is all-too-common, their reasoning is based, at least in part, on a factual error:

Under the original rules put in place in 1934, telecommunications companies can't give preferential treatment to one set of outgoing calls over another by, say, offering static-free calling to one company's telemarketers but not another's. The same rules initially applied to the Internet. Telecom companies couldn't charge website proprietors to have their content sent to consumers more expeditiously. But, last August, George W. Bush's Federal Communications Commission (FCC) exempted telecoms that provide Internet connections from these restrictions, dealing a blow to both entrepreneurship and political discourse.

I've italicized the false statement. TNR has, like many others, wrongly inferred that rules which applied solely to telco telephony and last-mile networks have also applied to the Internet and Internet Service Providers, when in fact ISPs and backbone providers have been under no such constraints.

If net neutrality proposals were limited to maintaining Title II requirements for unbundling and interconnection for common carriers (which is part of the REFORM proposal advocated by Global Crossing, which includes other points which are far more important than net neutrality for fostering competition in telecommunications), or even adding cable providers into that category, I might support them.

UPDATE: I should point out that some Internet backbones have been or are owned by entities which are common carriers in virtue of the fact that they have owned and operated long-distance telephone networks. This includes MCI, Sprint, and Global Crossing (more accurately, Global Crossing Telecommunications, Inc.). However, the FCC has always held that common carriage requirements do not apply to Internet interconnection.

Eli M. Noam's 1994 paper, "Beyond Liberalization II: The Impending Doom of Common Carriage," appears to have been rather prescient. He argues that common carriage is not sustainable in a competitive environment, and looks at possible hybrid approaches that mix common carriage and contract carriage (I kind of like his "common carrier rights of way" approach, which advocates of open source will find similar to the GPL). He regretfully concludes that common carriage will go away and that the hybrid approaches are not sustainable.

Coulter's book, Godless, on evolution

Unsurprisingly (she used William Dembski as a consultant), her book's coverage of evolution is crap:

It contains the usual stock creationist crap presented at a rapid pace, full of the usual bald assertions of outright lies, intentional misinterpretations, and lots and lots of quote mining. Seriously, it looks like every paragraph contains multiple falsehoods or screwy manglings of science.

She claims Darwin's theory is "one step above Scientology in scientific rigor", that it is a "tautology", that there is "no proof in the scientist's laboratory or the fossil record", and the only reason it's still around is that "liberals think evolution disproves God."

That's all in the first paragraph of chapter 8, which focuses on evolution. Go ahead and follow the links up there; each one is to a short, simple refutation of Coulter's claim.

Now picture a whole 27 page chapter packed with the same nonsense. I could do a sentence by sentence dissection of this abomination, but I'd have to write nothing but Coulter exposés for the next month. Forgive me if I pass on that.

Not only is it wrong through and through, but Coulter is a plagiarist. This is the book that William Dembski thinks "will propel [their] issues in the public consciousness like nothing to date"—well, yeah. Let's propel the idea that creationists are dishonest and stupid right into everyone's consciousness.

(From Pharyngula.)