From Slashdot today

[Leo Mauler]

--- On Thu, 10/9/08, Billy Crook <billycrook at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thu, Oct 9, 2008 at 10:33, James Sissel
> <jimsissel at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > "For all their incessant bickering in the first
> > two presidential debates over conflicts of interest 
> > and government regulation, PopMech columnist
> > Glenn Derene is puzzled that the candidates have 
> > yet to be challenged on a vital issue directly 
> > related to both those topics: Net neutrality. John
> > McCain and Barack Obama have stated elsewhere their
> > opposing views on the issue, with McCain being 
> > opposed to Net neutrality and favoring light 
> > regulation of the Internet, while Obama is in 
> > favor of neutrality and seeks Government 
> > involvement. In any case, since there is no standard 
> > accepted definition of "network neutrality," until
> > the candidates elaborate on their positions (which 
> > they both declined to do for this piece, nor anywhere 
> > else so far, for that matter), "both sides can make 
> > a credible case that they're the ones defending 
> > freedom of innovation and open communication.""

> Probably a better way of enforcing network neutrality 
> is to encrypt all communications (say, using IPSEC) 
> to the point, where ISPs are *NOT ABLE* to tell content 
> apart, and to use anonymity networks like TOR so ISPs 
> are *NOT ABLE* to tell who is connecting to what.  Time 
> is ticking though.  Software and users need to act fast 
> to set a precedent of being untrackable and untraceable 
> before ISPs set a precedent of inspecting and controlling 
> all traffic.

Encryption takes extra processor cycles, requiring more powerful computers and quite likely all brand new computers.  I'm a little skeptical about how "fast" anyone could change the entire Internet to an encrypted network requiring all brand new computers, when we are in the middle of a financial and credit crisis, where no one will be able to get enough credit to replace all their computers, and even those with good paychecks may find their employers unable to meet payrolls due to having no line of credit with their banks.

The tinfoil hat crowd might point out at this point that the current situation seems a little too ideal for preventing the population of the U.S.A. form implementing just such an "encrypted Internet" scheme.  Since corporations are essentially in control of Congress, and they are also the ones who caused the current financial and credit crisis, it could be argued that the end of net neutrality could have been one goal of a deliberate financial and credit crisis.

However, the financial and credit crisis which would prevent an overall conversion of the Internet into an encrypted network by the end users, most likely will delay the "untrustworthy" ISPs as well, hence "acting fast" is only "fast" relative to the resolution of the financial and credit crisis.  Tracking systems take extra processor power too, and most ISPs don't currently have universal tracking capabilities.  They can do spot checks if a member of law enforcement gets a warrant, but they currently do not have the resources to check everyone's traffic all the time.

The financial situation which prevents individuals from upgrading all their computers to encrypt all their traffic, also prevents ISPs from upgrading their computers to track all their traffic.