From: "Dan Sheadel" <dansheadel@gmail.com>
To: <DNSTransition@ntia.doc.gov>
Date: Mon, Jul 3, 2006 3:26 AM
Subject: How To Run The Internet

First, let the internet remain as it is, leaving net neutrality as-is, with
full and identical access to any and all websites. If the companies in
charge of the "tiered internet" decide they want to abuse their power, which
some of them will, having heard statements from the CEOs, it will be
devastating for not only the US citizens but global citizens as well. If a
major US based website gets crippled on the tiered internet, it would likely
move outside the US, and shift it's aim toward other markets. The premise of
the internet is that it's a cheap, if not free, way to communicate your
ideas with the world, and is the world's greatest medium for learning and
innovation. Removing net neutrality will destroy this.

Stop trying to over-regulate the internet. Yes, some people will be pirates,
and download illegal things. Most, just want the convenience of things on
their computer. I bring, for example, Sony's rootkits. Every person who
complained, was a legal, law abiding citizen with an original, purchased CD.
This, ironically, did NOT affect the pirates at all. This is pretty typical
of how anti-piracy measures go. It affects the legitimate users a lot, but
the pirates very little, if at all. Many companies, particularly the often
'victimized' music industry could very easily reduce the piracy issue, by
embracing the internet, and realizing that people don't download music
because it's illegal; it's because it's convenient. iTunes is a hit because
it makes it easy for non-tech savvy people to get music online. If websites
would simply house their own mini-itunes (and, the record company would
ALLOW this), and allow easy downloading and payment for music, then it would
be an instant hit, and render piracy virtually pointless.

Stop trying to use child porn as an excuse to threaten websites, and your
citizens privacy. Yes, it's bad, and yes, it's illegal. But THINK about it a
little. Setting age limits on Myspace. Neat concept. In practice? Think
about who sets the 'age' on myspace. The person who starts it. I know 13
year olds who have 16 as their age. I know a 18 year old who has 99 as their
age. Very effective method of stopping child predators, since obviously, the
age doesn't lie. All they have to do, is put down "13" as their age, upload
a bunch of pictures from some random kid's website, and all the regulation
in the world is useless. Sifting through months old search queries isn't
going to help either, since all you're going to find out, is that by
throwing in "child porn" in google, you get 1) a lot of news, and 2) a few
pornographic web sites. Perhaps stick to this, rather than threatening
online privacy.

Whatever you do, do NOT mandate a "fee based email". This will do one of
several things:

- eliminate most free email, if not all of it, since the mail service
will be extremely expensive to run.
- force many spammers to use instant messaging to reach their
"audience." if this takes off in in the same way that email spam does, it'd
be far more irritating, since. Yahoo has had this for a long time, thanks to
their online profiles, and it's insanely aggravating, since the bots pretend
to be real people until about the fourth message.
- force spammers to use bots to send their emails. Spammers already
use zombie computers to launch DDOS attacks. What happens when these zombie
computers receive a command to launch 5000 emails each? Especially, when
each email costs .04 cents? That's two hundred bucks. Who pays that?
Presumably, the zombie computer. Strictly speaking, did not send them, but
they had no knowledge of such, and should not have to pay the money. So,
instead, would you simply make the recipient pay? I'm not sure paying to
receive spam would make anyone happy either. Neither would appeals for money
erroneously spent on either method. This would cost any governing body a
fortune, trying to sift through requests for "I want my .04 cents back".

Simply put, this idea is not feasable, and impractical.

But, by far, the most important aspect of the internet, needs to be
neutrality. If the government kills net neutrality, is has not killed the
internet; it merely tied it up, and handed it to some of the greediest
corporations in the country, and then gave them a stick. The internet
should, and needs to be free.

Dan Sheadel