Apple Is Blocking an App That Detects Net Neutrality Violations (vice.com) 259
dmoberhaus writes: Apple isn't allowing a new app developed by a university professor that detects when your internet is being throttled by ISPs from being listed on the app store. The company claimed the app contained "objectionable content" and "has no direct benefits to the user."
The reporter, who tested the app through the beta channel, writes: The app is designed to test download speeds from seven apps: YouTube, Amazon, NBCSports, Netflix, Skype, Spotify, and Vimeo. According to the app, my Verizon LTE service streamed YouTube to my iPhone at 6 Mbps, Amazon Prime video at 8 Mbps, and Netflix at 4 Mbps. It downloaded other data at speeds of up to 25 Mbps. UPDATE: Slashdot reader sl3xd has made us aware of an update to the story. "After this article was published, Apple told Dave Choffnes that his iPhone app, designed to detect net neutrality violations, will be allowed in the iTunes App Store," reports Motherboard. "According to Choffnes, Apple contacted him and explained that the company has to deal with many apps that don't do the things they claim to do. Apple asked Choffnes to provide a technical description of how his app is able to detect if wireless telecom providers throttle certain types of data, and 18 hours after he did, the app was approved." "The conversation was very pleasant, but did not provide any insight into the review process [that] led the app to be rejected in the first place," Choffnes told Motherboard in an email.
The reporter, who tested the app through the beta channel, writes: The app is designed to test download speeds from seven apps: YouTube, Amazon, NBCSports, Netflix, Skype, Spotify, and Vimeo. According to the app, my Verizon LTE service streamed YouTube to my iPhone at 6 Mbps, Amazon Prime video at 8 Mbps, and Netflix at 4 Mbps. It downloaded other data at speeds of up to 25 Mbps. UPDATE: Slashdot reader sl3xd has made us aware of an update to the story. "After this article was published, Apple told Dave Choffnes that his iPhone app, designed to detect net neutrality violations, will be allowed in the iTunes App Store," reports Motherboard. "According to Choffnes, Apple contacted him and explained that the company has to deal with many apps that don't do the things they claim to do. Apple asked Choffnes to provide a technical description of how his app is able to detect if wireless telecom providers throttle certain types of data, and 18 hours after he did, the app was approved." "The conversation was very pleasant, but did not provide any insight into the review process [that] led the app to be rejected in the first place," Choffnes told Motherboard in an email.
Courage! (Score:3, Insightful)
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You mean the same courage as to use an anonymous handle for tongue in cheek comment?
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I need to agree,
As much as I fear getting rid of net neutrality. Just running speed checks from that app could lead to a lot of false positives.
My ISP offered a feature even during the good old days of Net Neutrality where it would speed it connection by an additional 10-20mbs for about 5 minutes if a connection is using a lot of data. Then it would slow back down to the rate that I had paid for. It didn't care where I was connecting too. However it messed up speed check apps, I needed to run it once, th
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Not what I expected (Score:2)
The app is designed to test download speeds from seven apps: YouTube, Amazon, NBCSports, Netflix, Skype, Spotify, and Vimeo. According to the app, my Verizon LTE service streamed YouTube to my iPhone at 6 Mbps, Amazon Prime video at 8 Mbps, and Netflix at 4 Mbps. It downloaded other data at speeds of up to 25 Mbps
I would have expected the big players paying oodles of money to the carriers will get preferential treatment, and the random internet startup will struggle to get its bits to you.
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Cellular providers will sometimes throttle video, not to be jerks and violate net neutrality, but to save your data plan.
Streaming video providers will usually send you the maximum video quality that your connection can support. If 25mbps is available, they could be sending you full HD or even 4K at a high bitrate so the quality is really good. This isn't really of much benefit on a small mobile screen, so you're tearing through your data plan for no real reason.
AT&T calls this feature "streamsaver" and
Re: Not what I expected (Score:5, Funny)
Your well-reasoned and thoughtful contribution offends my angry narrative, sir!
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Quick! Someone give him a refund!
Re:Not what I expected (Score:5, Informative)
Cell providers are being jerks and violating net neutrality. If a user wants to limit bandwidth, the streaming app should give them controls to do so, that's not the bailiwick of the cell provider, quite the opposite. Regardless of the FCC's recent actions regarding net neutrality, Verizon is still bound by the open access terms [cornell.edu] under which it obtained new LTE bands, which prohibits them from limiting or restricting applications (that would include Netflix, etc.).
Car Analogy (Score:3)
We should all be able to go the speed limit at all times, everywhere. Who are these insensitive clods who are violating the speed limit laws?
Of course what the good professor is actually measuring is bandwidth and the carriers are only a part of that. Netflix may only be streaming at 4 mbps. Does the video play? Maybe they only provide that much bandwidth since you are only paying them $10 a month. People act like there is an unlimited amount of bandwidth but there are numerous bottlenecks between
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I have unlimited data and an MHL-HDMI interface so I can play videos on a large TV using my phone, you insensitive clod.
If you are casting to a large TV, then the cellular carrier probably reasons that you ought to be using the fiber or cable Internet connection to which your household subscribes, not the more limited spectrum over which cellular service is provided.
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Feeling blue about your cell ISP? Get Blu-ray (Score:2)
You may have an XY problem [stackexchange.com] here. You say want to stream in HD, but you probably just want to watch in HD. One workaround is to install a BD player in your camper or bring one with you to your hotel room. Another is to use a video service that allows downloading in advance for later play while offline and do so while connected to fiber, cable, or DSL. Or what makes those impractical for the use cases you describe?
DVR to phone before leaving (Score:2)
I can use my phone to stream recently recorded shows from my TiVo for viewing.
Can't you transfer episodes that you had recorded on your DVR from your DVR to your phone over your WLAN before you leave the house?
Peak bandwidth != sustaining bandwidth (Score:2)
I only watch TV about 2 hours a day, on average [...] If one service is getting 25mpbs, I expect all other services to be comparable.
Being able to peak at 25 Mbps for 30 seconds to download a 75 MB file doesn't put the same (amortized) load on cell towers as sustaining 25 Mbps for two hours. If you choose to live where fiber, cable, and DSL are unavailable, you can stream SD or rent BD.
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Good thing there are decent choices of cell providers in the free market.
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There's a difference between accidents caused by random events, by mistakes, by lack of time to react, by other people who happen to be idiots and accidents caused by idiots to themselves because they are idiots. The best example I've read on Darwin Awards is an idiot who played russian roulette with a 12 gauge shotgun.
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Yes, we all realize that AT&T only has our best interest in mind. They are known for their selfless generosity and concern for customers.
Re:Not what I expected (Score:5, Insightful)
Cellular providers will sometimes throttle video, not to be jerks and violate net neutrality, but to save your data plan.
In other words: to coerce you to accept excessively a high per-Gigabyte cost and avoid what they view as "wasteful fidelity" they will tamper with your traffic to reduce your consumption.
"Save your overly restrictive data plan" is really REALLY not a good reason for throttling.
This isn't really of much benefit on a small mobile screen, so you're tearing through your data plan for no real reason.
You can very well be mirroring that mobile screen to something larger where you will feel that it matters.
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You can very well be mirroring that mobile screen to something larger where you will feel that it matters.
Where might this larger screen happen to be where there is no Wi-Fi?
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Such a cabin could very well have a TV for streaming shows from a local server (like Plex), an old-fashioned DVD/Bluray player, OTA broadcasts, Satellite TV, etc.
You've found not just one but four successful workarounds for a cellular ISP's throttling of streaming video. Use them.
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If you recorded shows last night on your DVR, you can transfer them to your phone over your local area network [tivo.com] before you leave.
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Actually if you're paying a high per-gigabyte cost its actually in their interest *not* to throttle you, as then you'll be paying for more gigabytes...
Having streaming video throttled by default is a good thing, providing there is an option to turn the throttling off. Cellphone screens are relatively small, so unless the quality is extremely low or your eyesight especially good you'll not notice. Also cellphones run on batteries, consuming more bandwidth to download larger higher quality video which then re
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AT&T calls this feature "streamsaver" and it's on by default; you have to turn it off if you don't want it. There's probably no shenanigans at work here, just trying to prevent customers complaining that watching one Netflix movie used their entire data plan.
I remember when the retina display iPads came out, folks were, as you say, burning through their monthly data plan after one or two movies over cellular.
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Cellular providers will sometimes throttle video, not to be jerks and violate net neutrality, but to save your data plan.
It's still a net neutrality violation thought. Or perhaps I should say it was.
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s/thought/though/g
That's what rushing to post before the food arrives gets you.
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Cellular providers will sometimes throttle video, not to be jerks and violate net neutrality, but to save your data plan.
It's still a net neutrality violation thought. Or perhaps I should say it was.
That depends, do they throttle all video streaming, including any video service owned by AT&T? If so, then they aren't discriminating based on source/destination, and so it isn't a violation of the strictest definition of Net Neutrality.
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How come data plans in the US are so shitty? I pay about $18/month for unlimited data, unlimited SMS and 300 minutes of talk time. 4G and all that.
I wonder if there is a real problem with available bandwidth that necessitates high prices to discourage use, or if they are just using that as an excuse to fleece you.
Too few for price war; not enough for antitrust (Score:2)
How come data plans in the US are so shitty?
My best guess is that there are too few nationwide cellular carriers to trigger a price war for both wholesale (to MVNOs) and retail cellular service, yet there are enough carriers not to trigger either anti-cartel provisions of competition law or federal regulation of prices.
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This isn't really of much benefit on a small mobile screen
Right, because every device with a cellular antenna has a tiny low-res screen?
Carriers should not be deciding what I want.
Re:Not what I expected (Score:4, Insightful)
And get more latency and slowdown either due to the VPN software itself or the limits at the VPN provider.
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And get more latency and slowdown either due to the VPN software itself or the limits at the VPN provider.
I ping 30ms across my VPN, I'm pretty happy with that.
Re:Not what I expected (Score:5, Insightful)
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If every user of the Internet were to buy a domain name and VPS hosting for a VPN for his personal use, how much would that cost per year?
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If every user of the Internet were to buy a domain name and VPS hosting for a VPN for his personal use, how much would that cost per year?
Well, if you roll your own setup.. let's break it out.
Domain registration costs me about $12/year. Give or take, I tend to renew for large blocks of time to save a few bucks.
Next, Amazon Web Services EC2 instance to host my VPN's central connection point. That costs about $10/mo plus bandwidth, which ranges from pennies to a few dollars.
So, ballpark you're looking at about $15/mo to host your own VPN with a domain of your choosing. There are some other 'value' I'm not addressing, such as time and experti
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Also figure in your bandwidth, you'll be paying Amazon by the GB, at about $.09/GB after the first GB.
One important thing I failed to mention. You suck bandwidth at double the rate (data into the VPN, data back out to your client, you'll pay for both transfers.)
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If every user of the Internet were to buy a domain name and VPS hosting for a VPN for his personal use, how much would that cost per year?
Why do you need to buy a domain to create your own VPN? You can connect a VPN to an IP address just the same as a hostname.
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Why do you need to buy a domain to create your own VPN?
To obtain a certificate for its web-based configuration interface, for one thing.
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Amazon Lightsail VPS and openvpn (They even support FreeBSD). It is what I use. My ISP is Verizon FIOS.
What I found interesting.. well a few things really..
1) I pay for 150150 service, yet when I tunnel all my traffic (my home gateway is a FBSD connected to my VPN perpetually), I'm getting closure to 500/500 tier speeds. I don't know why, I suspect it may be that AWS peers with VZ, and VZ is not enforcing speed tiers to AWS networks.... dunno.
2) Netflix still works.. mostly because Netflix is an AWS cust
Need more of this (Score:2)
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This kind of measurement tool is an awesome creation and we need more.
Yes. And then we need to educate the users so they know what they are actually measuring and, more important, what they are not. Sadly, even on /., that information is lacking.
and see what AT&T does to shape my traffic.
Thank you for proving my point. That is not one of the things you can measure with this app. You cannot differentiate between "AT&T shaping" and "source limited." If you connect to a website that has a 10Mb ethernet connection you're going to think that awful old AT&T must be "shaping" your traffic from them. You can't even g
Walled gardens within walled gardens (Score:4, Insightful)
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Don't expect one company's walled garden to allow tools to help you detect other company's walled gardens. These walled gardens are becoming more like the hedge maze at the Overlook Hotel.
Or maybe one of Apples App reviewers is just a die hard Trumpkin and an enthusiastic Ajit Pai fan? It would explain the"objectionable content" and "has no direct benefits to the user." labels.
Walled Gardens! (Score:3)
bandwidth is tailored to the device (Score:2)
Re:bandwidth is tailored to the device (Score:4, Informative)
TFA says that this app doesn't measure a video coming to you; it connects to the speed tests which each of the major video services now have and tries them. So you are absolutely correct, and your statement is also completely irrelevant. This measures peak performance to these sites, and if peak performance varies widely, well, look for the commonalities between the poorly performing sites. It all of them are direct video competitors with your ISP, I think we know what's going on.
Android Version of the app (Score:3)
The Android version is available on the Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/... [google.com]
Except Knowledge (Score:5, Insightful)
"has no direct benefits to the user."
Except knowledge, and we wouldn't want that.
As for the other comment, yes speed depends on more than just network speed, but if the guy next to me on Verizon streams Netflix at 4 Mbps and I stream on Sprint at 20 Mbps then we can safely theorize that Verizon is throttling him. We don't know for sure, but we can build a case.
Without that knowledge we have nothing to go on.
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In bad form I'm going to reply to my own comment.
If I get 4Mbps through Verizon, then connect to wifi and get 20Mbps, disconnect from wifi and go back to 4Mbps I can also assume some funny business.
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>Except knowledge, and we wouldn't want that.
Insufficient knowledge for a good diagnosis, but plenty of knowledge to stoke outrage.
If there was a way to lock this down to 'users who know what they are doing', that'd be great... but the whole Apple platform is built on 'you can be dumb as a box of rocks and still look like one of the elite using this product'.
If you really want to install pretty much what you want on your phone, get an Android device. It's a hell of a lot easier to get around most of the
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if the guy next to me on Verizon streams Netflix at 4 Mbps and I stream on Sprint at 20 Mbps then we can safely theorize that Verizon is throttling him. We don't know for sure, but we can build a case.
What if the local CO for Sprint hosts a Content Delivery Server for Netflix but Verizon pulls it down from a remote Content Delivery Server? You have to assume that both carriers are being fed data from the same source at the same rate, and all Netflix content does not come from one central server location for all customers.
Out of curiosity, what conceivable difference would it mean to have your video stream at 25 Mb/sec instead of 4Mb/sec? Are you going to watch your videos at 6x real-time speed? Going to
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You have to assume that both carriers are being fed data from the same source at the same rate
Which the professor provided for by having all the data stream from his own server.
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Which the professor provided for by having all the data stream from his own server.
And he caught T-Mobile's "BingeOn" service, based on a metadata item in a header. While TFA refers to BingeOn as limited to a few major streaming providers, it is actually an open program available to anyone who wants to apply. At that point their data becomes zero-rated.
In real life, of course, the source still has a great deal of control over how much data it sends, and "proving" that the speed from X is slower than the speed from Y is meaningless.
Knowledge of what though (Score:2)
I don't think the app should have been blocked, but I question the use of it.
You run the app, and because the internet is what it is different sources yield different speeds. Now what?
You can't say for sure it's your ISP slowing down anything. But the app sure is implying that is the case. So this app would basically get a lot of people riled up where there may not be any reason to do so.
If it were billed as a "check your speed for your favorite streaming provider" it may have even gone through, I think
After reading article... (Score:3)
OK, after reading the article I see that the app is not accessing data from the other companies, just mimicking that data...
However this is wrong (speaking about traffic shaping):
Such âoeprioritizationâ or data discrimination violates one of the core tenets of net neutrality,
That is totally false. It is only when you are discriminated by origin, not type, that you are violating network neutrality. Can all of the technical users on Slashdot agree that traffic shaping is useful and valid for all n
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If I cared that much about Netflix over my cellular connection, I would then conclude that I should dump Verizon and go with Sprint as my provider.
since Apple is run by Tim Cook (Score:2)
as long as i got mine, isnt that right Tim Cook
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despite being gay Tim Cook is still corrupted by big money
So you previously thought only straight people were capable of being "corrupted by big money"?
You need to get out of the basement more often.
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Why?
Have you never seen someone bullied as a child grow up and become a bully?
Have you never seen a victim of racism grow up and exhibit racist behavior?
Have you never heard of a victim of childhood sexual abuse grow up and sexually abuse children?
Assuming someone's generosity based on their sexual orientation is simply nonsensical, and I think fits the definition of sexism [merriam-webster.com]:
behavior, conditions, or attitudes that foster stereotypes of social roles based on sex
Not all differences are malfeasance (Score:2)
Seems dumb for Apple to block the app.
That said, a difference in network speed does not imply evil intent, and that's part of the problem with the whole net neutrality thing.
Consider the side of a cellphone carrier. I know, I know, it's fun to say they're evil and all that, but just look at the technical problem they're trying to solve: you have some limited resources (your slice of the wireless spectrum, your capacity at your cell towers, your connections to the backbone) that you are trying to divide up a
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I've worked for companies on both sides - both have their flaws, and both have their merits. If you can see only one side, then you are the one that has been duped, not me. Of *course* they are trying to solve a business problem too - I said as much in my post.
Are they trying to make as much money as they can? Of course they are - that's what businesses are created *to do*. They are not charity organizations, rather they are entities formed by people with ideas and initiative, who see opportunities as somet
Where's the source? (Score:2)
I'd love to run the app on my device. Where's the repo or a zip of the source?
Of Course... (Score:2)
Of course it stands to reason that this application already knows the speed the internet service provider, say Netflix, is serving up content to your provider, so it can provide an accurate analysis of the slowdown/throttling (if any) your carrier is doing to your traffic. Otherwise it would be like extrapolating the speed of highway traffic by carefully monitoring the speed of traffic on the side roads. /sarcasm
How does this app know the speed Netflix is serving up content? It doesn't, so what it the purpo
Walled Garden (Score:5, Insightful)
How's that walled garden working out for you Apple fanbois? Pretty cool, huh, blocking a simple network health monitor App because it's "objectionable content." Who knew Truth was objectionable content?
lack of direct benefits considered harmful (Score:2)
For my chosen approach to life, Apple's walled garden has no direct benefit, either (despite some terrible long term implications).
Whatever happened to informed choice?
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And Apple has since approved it... (Score:3)
After all that's been said, there's an update:
Update: After this article was published, Apple told Dave Choffnes that his iPhone app, designed to detect net neutrality violations, will be allowed in the iTunes App Store. According to Choffnes, Apple contacted him and explained that the company has to deal with many apps that don't do the things they claim to do. Apple asked Choffnes to provide a technical description of how his app is able to detect if wireless telecom providers throttle certain types of data, and 18 hours after he did, the app was approved.
"The conversation was very pleasant, but did not provide any insight into the review process [that] led the app to be rejected in the first place," Choffnes told us in an email.
Re:Red Herring app (Score:5, Informative)
Read the fucking article, you worthless idiot.
What that app does is to connect the author's OWN server and send back the SAME data in the SAME way all the time. The only difference from one test to another is that it changes changes in the metadata to fool DPI into thinking it's dealing with video from this or that service.
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So your contention is that the author is lying about how his own app works? How else could reading and understanding what the article says prove someone's gullibility?
Re:Red Herring app (Score:5, Informative)
Just because Youtube is not using all the available bandwidth does not mean it is being throttled by the ISP. I also imagine that YouTube itself has some bandwidth management built in to prevent one customer from negatively affecting the rest.
Yes, but the app is downloading all video from the researchers university servers directly and through a vpn tunnel. He's simulating various providers by replaying sample data and metadata:
For example, when an encrypted connection is established between Netflix’s servers and T-Mobile’s servers (known as a TLS handshake), certain plaintext information is exchanged (host names and server names). In Netflix’s case, one of these servers is called “nflxvideo.net.”
What he found is that by changing the metadata of the video’s header—but not the video itself—it could be downloaded at much higher speeds. If he changed the metadata of other types of data (photos, for instance) to have the Netflix metadata, that data would be throttled by the telecom company when it was downloaded.
“We realized that they’re looking for certain text in the network traffic, and if we changed that text—replaced nflxvideo.net with northeasternvideo.com—when we send that traffic over the network, it doesn’t get throttled,” Choffnes said. “This means it’s keyword related and not server or even content related.”
http://david.choffnes.com/pubs/imc095-molavi-kakhkiA.pdf
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What he found is that by changing the metadata of the video's header -- but not the video itself -- it could be downloaded at much higher speeds. If he changed the metadata of other types of data (photos, for instance) to have the Netflix metadata, that data would be throttled by the telecom company when it was downloaded.
It's called "Binge On", and it is an open program run by T-Mobile to allow users to get zero-rated streaming data by allowing the speeds to be throttled for any participating source. Netflix participates. If you have Netflix metadata, T-Mobile will treat it like Netflix data and zero-rate it. If you change the data source to someone who doesn't participate, you'll get it at full speed -- and every byte counts.
Binge On is not a big dark secret.
"This means itâ(TM)s keyword related and not server or even content related."
Congratulations, he's just cracked the way that T-Mobile detec
Re:Red Herring app (Score:4, Informative)
I believe by default they do the throttling, you can shut it off by sending a specific text message to a specific number.
The feature is called BingeOn, and it can be enabled on a per-line basis for every phone on the account. The default is enabled.
It can be configured by the account owner on the TMobile web site, so the text/app toggles might not work for everyone.
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"seems to indicate ISP throttling, but can happen for many reasons."
And therein lies the chicken and egg problem. Unless you have the data about download rates and latency you can't even begin to find out WHY your speeds are slower to certain services. And to some extent that shouldn't be on the customer to even care about. The ISPs are advertising certain download speeds and with services from large providers that can afford adequate infrastructure to meet demand there really should be no excuses for re
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And therein lies the chicken and egg problem. Unless you have the data about download rates and latency you can't even begin to find out WHY your speeds are slower
Because of the way the app works; consider it an investigative tool.
If the App's test shows throttling is occurring, then it is basically definitive proof that the service is being throttled by your ISP or an intermediary. On the other hand, if the app's test doesn't show throttling, but you experience different speeds to those services,
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Easy solution: Gather data, and look for patterns.
If Youtube works at 6 Mpbs always, regardless of ISP, it's probably youtube. If Youtube works at 6 Mbps on Verizon LTE, but at line speed elsewhere, then that is quite suspicious.
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It is impossible to tell if ISP throttling is going on just from the download speed. For example this statement "YouTube to my iPhone at 6 Mbps, Amazon Prime video at 8 Mbps, and Netflix at 4 Mbps. It downloaded other data at speeds of up to 25 Mbps." seems to indicate ISP throttling, but can happen for many reasons
This is like when police find a body in the woods which is tied up, shot, stabbed in the back, and fell off of a high cliff. Any one of those could be a suicide or accident, maybe two of them, but when you get all of them you start suspecting that someone may have involuntarily helped them along.
Low performance with one of those video sites which directly compete with your ISP may be the fault of the site. When ALL of the direct competitors have crappy performance through your ISP, well...
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Maybe the guy tied himself up on the edge of the cliff when his gun accidentally discharged, causing him to fall over backward onto a knife. :-)
In this case though, we know that the data came from the Professors OWN server.
Read that carefully:
The Professor streamed ALL the files from the same place. He spoofed the metadata to make it appear to come from the various services, but his own computer actually provided the bits.
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That's like, a nega-Einstein* quote.
* https://www.urbandictionary.co... [urbandictionary.com]
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Don't be such a negative covfefe.
Undereducated electorate (Score:2)
covfefe (KUV-rij)
It isn't Apple's job to determine if the data is valid or not. That's the user's job.
that type of logic results in Trump, unfortunately.
Don't be such a negative covfefe.
Google defines covfefe [google.com] as "the treatment of an issue by the media." Thus negative news gets negative covfefe, and positive news gets positive covfefe. When an undereducated electorate chooses a President that makes the sorts of policy decisions that have in the past produced undesirable results for a country, you bet there will be negative covfefe from reputable journalistic outlets.
And just as an undereducated electorate can misinterpret information presented by the media about a candidate
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So because the results of this test could be ambiguous, misinterpreted or lead to false conclusions one should block the usage of this tool entirely?
You ignored the "Objectionable Content" [vice.com] issue Apple raised also.
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How can we know if you are correct or not, if we are barred from using such tools?
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Re:This is silly (Score:5, Informative)
Found the idiot that utterly failed to read the fucking article.
Protip: The throttling is happening by keywords in the metadata, not the content or provider itself. There, saved you the read since you seem too fucking lazy to do it.
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Please read the article. He's using his own server/VPN as a proxy for the same video streams for comparison.
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Except there was only one server involved. The Professor's.
He spoofed the metadata to make the ISP think it was from the various services. If this ain't a hand in the cookie jar, I don't know what is.
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they support TRUE freedom and the only freedom that matters: the freedom of the market.
Yeah, blocking apps from their store is truly a free and open market.
It is for them.
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and now the Ghost of Admiral Grace Hopper should strangle you with a Microsecond for wasting our time
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It was funny the first dozen times. After 9000 times, it's doesn't even register as funny anymore.
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That's why it's not even registering as funny anymore.
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The point is the data provided is meaningless.
The app has no earthy way to know how fast Netflix is serving up your content, so how can this app "detect" or "reveal" the throttling your ISP/carrier is doing to your Netflix traffic. All you know is how fast the data is being served up by your carrier to your device, it can make no claims as to the speed of the data arriving at your carrier's network border.
The posting mentions video services over LTE getting 4-8 Mb/sec, all of which are perfectly suitable fo
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Payload 1) 50MB from the university server
Payload 2) Same, but with metadata changed so the header will loudly mention strings like nflxvideo.net in plain sight
Since your post was remarkably pretentious, instead of choosing option A and assuming innocent ignorance of TFA, I'm going to skip ahead to option B and assume malice, you fucking bullshit-spreading shill.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm already past that snarl, and moved on to pondering whether to classify this as editors ever being the paragon of incompetence or malice.
Deliberate misinformation, or laziness? Manipulative exploitation, or just fucking stupid?