Net neutrality now
Posted by Greg on June 8, 2006
For those who wonder what the big deal is, it doesn't get much more blatant than this:
Jim soon arrived and said the problem of access had been going on since late February. It had something to do with the security software that Cox isusing from a company called Authentium.Cox has been collaborating with Authentium since April 2005 to develop the security software suite.
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.
Craigslist has approached Authentium several times to get it to stop blocking access by Cox internet users but it has been unresponsive. Jim wasn't aware that Cox had its own classified ads service. "That changes things, " he said.
This situation does not look good in the context of the net neutrality debate. This is exactly the kind of scenario that many people are concerned about, that the cable companies and the telcos will make it difficult for their internet users to access competing services.
Hat tip: MyDD and by all means Call Congress
Cox Communications said
Cox does not block access to any legal website and Craig’s List is no exception. The problem lies with how the Security Suite software interprets Craig’s List’s initial packet connections, which results in an extremely slow connection.
Authentium — the company that designed Cox’s security software — is aware of the problem and their engineers have modified the firewall driver by creating a beta version that resolves the issue. This version will be part of the next release of Cox High Speed Internet Security Suite and will be available to all Cox High Speed Internet users later this summer.
Greg said
This may be so, but you understand how this looks – especially in the context of the ongoing ISP debates. It would behoove Authentium – and Cox – to prioritize this issue.