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33C3 preroll music
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Herald: “On the internet
you decide what you do, right?”
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This is a question that I found on
your website RespectMyNet.eu.
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And well, I don’t know what you
think, it sounds quite plausible.
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But the answer that they give is:
“Maybe not!” So, who that is,
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who actually decides what
you do on the internet and
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what consequences that has,
and what you can do against that –
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these two men will tell you now.
They are Thomas Lohninger
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who fought against data retention
in Austria – and successfully –
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and he has been very active
in that politics ever since.
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He is here with Christopher Talib,
Campaign Manager for LaQuadratureDeNet,
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the French NGO fighting
for civil rights. Welcome!
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Together they say: Make
the Internet neutral again!
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Please give them
a warm applause!
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applause
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Thomas Lohninger: Thanks, everyone!
Is the microphone working? Yeah, great.
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So, first I have to say
something for that title,
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if the slides could come up?…
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Okay, we don’t have slides so far.
Christopher Talib: Yes we do!
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Lohninger: So. “Make the internet neutral
again”. When we decided to have this title
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for our talk this was of course
before Donald Trump became elected.
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Most of our talk will be about how to
enforce net neutrality, how to really
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keep the internet free and open. But
of course we also have to talk about
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what will happen in the US. We both worked
on the savetheinternet.eu campaign.
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This common effort of various NGOs
around Europe started three years ago
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when the Commission proposed a very
disastrous law on net neutrality
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that would basically abandon the
principle. And we followed this law
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throughout the legislative process on
all stages, and then even through,
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with the regulatory implementation.
And this…
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you can all see on savetheinternet.eu
there’s now an archive page. Because…
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let’s talk a little bit more about this
campaign. What is unique here is
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that we really open-sourced every line of
code that we wrote for this campaign.
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Including the tools that we used
for contacting your representatives,
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the Members of the European Parliament
as well as the regulatory agencies.
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And here you see the traffic graph because
we also have visitor statistics from Piwik
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throughout these three years. And there
you can see that we had huge success
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from various players around Europe.
From the Netherlands, from… a huge
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shoutout to the Reddit community, they
were awesome! And also change.org,
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netzpolitik.org, and Alexander
Lehmann helped us a lot.
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As well as Firefox which ran a snippet
for savetheinternet in the last parts
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of the campaign. And in the final stages
of this fight for net neutrality in Europe
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we really brought the protests to the
streets. There were demonstrations
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in Barcelona, Riga, Bonn, Brussels
and Vienna. And this was really
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a group effort. At the end this coalition
grew more and more, and we had 23 NGOs
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from 14 countries that joined us
in this. And, ultimatively, we
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achieved almost half a million submissions
to BEREC, the “Body of European Regulators
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for Electronic Communications”. And this
is really a historic number. Because
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all previous consultations of the regulators
in Europe had a maximum of around
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100 comments. So, no, in all that process
they had so much public interest
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and engagement. And this really changed
the landscape within the regulators
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because suddenly they were observed by the
public, and before that they were basically
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hiding behind some processes, and
not really having to engage with
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their own constituency. If you look at
the submissions by country you can see
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that Germany has the largest share.
This is of course because the debate
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here in Germany is a little bit
more nuanced and widespread
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than in other countries. But still we also
had the UK and France, and Spain and Italy
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that contributed a lot through this
campaign. But I also, being an Austrian,
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want to point out that a few small
countries disproportionately contributed
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with submissions. Austria, Sweden, Denmark
and Belgium really kicked ass, and that’s
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probably because they had very good NGOs
that, although most of them only run
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with volunteers could really mobilize in
their local language to get the word out,
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and get people engaged for net neutrality.
So. We now have this law.
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And we also have the regulatory
implementation. So what does it
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actually say? What type of net neutrality
do we have now in Europe
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for half a Billion people?
It is no longer possible to just
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block or censor content based on
commercial reasons. So you can
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no longer prohibit users the use of
VOIP, or messaging, or file sharing
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in the Terms of Services. There can still
be blocking for legal reasons. If you have
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a law, if you have a Court order. But an
ISP can not arbitrarily start blocking
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parts of the internet. This is clearly
prohibited. We have a new right.
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We have a ‘device freedom’ now. That means
that you can connect any type of device
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to your internet connection. And your ISP
can no longer charge you e.g. for using
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your phones internet on your laptop,
tethering. That’s really cleared (?) and
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absolutely clear. Also on “specialized
services”, I’m particularly happy
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that we reached this result because this
was maybe 60% of the whole debate
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in the European Parliament and throughout
the legislative process: what should we do
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with “specialized services”? And
originally, they were intended to be
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the loophole for net neutrality, to
circumvent the whole net neutrality
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by just making some service
a specialized service. But now we really
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limited this danger to something that is
handleable, and now a specialized service
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can only be something which could
technically not work over the open internet.
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And you can see this clear here, I mean,
that’s a picture from the video
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that Facebook shows you when you have
your birthday. And I found this so telling,
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because this power plug with a Facebook
sign is exactly what a specialized service
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in the bad reading would be. It is
no longer a universal connection
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that allows you to use every device
with this network. Instead, it’s just
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for one service. And if we go down that
road we lose the universal character
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of the internet which allows us to do
everything with it. Every invention,
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every idea on equal footing.
With this model it is one Facebook plug,
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one Google plug and so forth. Another
important issue that is still ongoing,
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and not as clear as the previous ones is
Zero-Rating. Zero-Rating is the practice
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of exempting certain services from
your data cap. So you have your 2 GB
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but Whatsapp does not count towards
those 2 GB. The new rules say
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this has to be handled on a case-by-case
basis. So it’s quite dubious to see
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how this will play out. We have a few
rulings now, from Austria, Sweden
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and one from Hungary.
But this is really an ongoing process.
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What is clear is that you can not technically
discriminate stuff with Zero-Rating.
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So you cannot, say, after you used up
your data cap and the rest of the internet
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is blocked, you can still use the zero-rated
application. This is clearly prohibited.
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But about the Zero-Rating itself
– it’s an ongoing process.
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Traffic Management – the last issue –
is the day-by-day operations of a network.
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So what do you do when you have a
congestion, when there is too much traffic
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and the pipe is not big enough, how do you
handle these? And we have a principle
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that says Traffic Management has to be
application-agnostic, so everything
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has to be treated the same,
but you can have exceptions,
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for class-based traffic management, based
on Quality-of-Service characteristics.
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But the burden of proof here lies with
the ISPs. If the ISP wants to manage
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their traffic they have to really have
a justification why this is necessary
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and in line with the new law. And
we will closely monitor how ISPs
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make this transparent and how NRAs
will handle this. We’re not really happy
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about the result on this one,
but it’s still a workable text.
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And now I’m gonna
hand over to my colleague.
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Christopher: Thank you Thomas.
You hear me well? Okay.
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Basically, RespectMyNet is
a grassroot tool we use for campaigning
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for net neutrality. It was built to try
to see what kind of infraction
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and violation you could see on net
neutrality. It’s an old tool, it has already
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a few years. We rebooted it
for the last campaign for the BEREC
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that Thomas told you about. And, basically,
what it does… what we will use it now
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is to try to see how ISPs and operators
are going to implement net neutrality
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regulation in Europe. So, you know
what we have it’s a law, we have,
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as Thomas could say, different concepts
that allows good things and also
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bad things. However, the question is that,
to know how those things are going to be
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implemented. So what it is now: We’d
like to crowdsource the search
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for net neutrality violation.
Basically, this tool allows you to input
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and to see if there are net neutrality
violations, or in your country,
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or by your operator.
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It could have crowdsourced documents
of all types of net neutrality violation
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in Europe. And also it could be… we have
a “Me, too!” button that allows you to say
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if you experienced this as well. And
so you don’t feel alone in front of your
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internet connection, having problems
and wondering if this is your connection,
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or if this is a contract-based or general
complication from the operator.
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You could see that if other
people already have it.
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But crowdsourcing most of the net
neutrality violations is not enough.
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What we’ll do if all those violations,
when you just say: “Ah, they’re doing
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bad stuff, well.” As you say in
French: “That makes a good leg.”
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But yeah, that joke, that cannot
be translated, really. laughs
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Basically, we will be using that to fix
those violations. And to arouse people
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to actually see… that’s… pinpointing
and to notice all types of violations
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that allows you to fix them. When
the BEREC will review the regulation
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on net neutrality, and he will do that,
periodically. We can go and arrive
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with huge documents, saying, there are
problems here.. here.. here and there.
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So, I’m already skipping in front, of my
clicking ‘Next Slide’. And it’s a huge
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documentation, and in our activist world
of internet where everything is very,
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very quick, and we are very quick on
new information, it's hugely important
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to have good documentation and to
remember what happened before, and
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so it does not happen again. Especially on
net neutrality, as this campaign has been
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ongoing for several years now.
The second thing that’s interesting
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for that type of tools is to allow telecom
regulators to be accountable. So e.g.
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French National Regulation Agency really
likes this tool because they can see
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what private companies are doing more or
less behind their back. To give an example:
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Belgium Telecom operators, e.g. Belgacom
or Proximus waited for the publication
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of the net neutrality regulation. And when
they saw that Zero-Rating was more-or-less
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accepted but only will be blocked
on a case-by-case decision
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they published and they issued a lot of new
contracts on subscription with Zero-Rating.
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So e.g. you have that one also in Germany,
if I recall well, that you can use
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your data caps on your mobile device
until a certain amount. But when you
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reach that amount everything is down-speed
except Whatsapp. And that’s seen
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as a net neutrality violation. And
that’s a really good example of
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what Zero-Rating is. And that actually
should be illegal. And that’s why we have
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RespectMyNet. It’s fairly easy to use and
very low cost of time because when you see
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what issues you have on your computer
and you can check it out if you have
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a violation. Usually you can see that
already in your contract. And that’s why
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we created a fairly easy form.
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As you could understand this is a very
complicated issue and that involves
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a lot of different elements, especially
when there are elements from law,
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there are elements from telecom regulation…
But we try to make it as simple as possible.
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And so you can see the different points
on country, type of operator, the contract
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you have, is it a fixed or mobile line you
have, and also the type of discrimination
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you can see. Here you have just Zero-Rating
because that would be the biggest type
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of discrimination we will experience in
the next years. However, you still have
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throttling, class-based,
contract-based etc.
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When you input that kind of
discrimination on RespectMyNet.eu,
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behind the scene on the backstage we have
a team that will review cases, and to see
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if there is enough information to use that
as a good case. E.g. if you just tell us:
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“My internet is slow”, that is not enough.
That’s why we try to make enough questions,
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enough place for you to describe, to give
as much information as you could
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to develop that. And that have to return
on the web page. And after that
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we gathered all that information which is
no personal identification information,
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that were just identification on the type
of cases. RespectMyNet.eu is a tool that
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has been ongoing development because
we’re trying to use it for something
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that it has not been programmed for. And
now we’re using it (?) to be fixed. E.g.
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to have a fixed type of sign flag,
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let’s say, on that it is searching
a violation. We are going to develop
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linguistic admin groups because e.g.
I don’t speak German, and when you have
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an input from a German speaking
it’s difficult to understand what it is.
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Especially when it’s linked to the contract.
And we’re trying to develop visualization
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of cases, so if you are a graphic designer
or data visualizator, Affissionador (?) you’re
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welcome to help us. Basically,
RespectMyNet, as everything most of us do
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it’s free like in Free Speech and
like in free beer. It’s easy to use,
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it’s crowd-sourced database. So if you
like databases come play with us
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and really get involved with that because
there is a tremendous amount of work
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on a subject that does not involve
terrorism which lately very scares.
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We have everything of the information on
our Git lab. You have the address here
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at git.laquadrature.net. You’ll have,
anyway, that on the front page
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and you have information on our wiki,
it’s wiki.laquadrature.net. Now, we’ll
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speak now on the future thing,
and I’ll let… this thing.. to Thomas.
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Thomas: Thank you Chris. So, how can we
use this tool? How can we use RespectMyNet
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because we now enter a stage
on net neutrality as well as with
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the new general data protection regulation
in Europe where we have quite good laws
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but now we have to deliver them to the
people. Because it’s now of much value
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if you have privacy in principle but your
data actually is in the hands of someone else.
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And the same with net neutrality:
it doesn’t matter if you are not allowed
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to block services when, in fact, your
internet is restricted by your ISP.
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And what we will do, particularly as
epicenter.works is our organization
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we have the high priority to really work
on delivering net neutrality to the people.
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There is this concept of strategic litigation
which is well in place in the U.S.
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The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
as well as the Electronic Frontier Foundation
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pick their cases really litigate for
fundamental rights in a strategic way.
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And we want to apply these concepts now to
net neutrality. And we’ve already done that
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in one case. We looked at the violation of
an Austrian mobile operator, 3/Hutchinson
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and dated exactly this type of Zero-Rating
that I explained earlier as clearly prohibited
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where you have this one graph [curve],
which is the violet one, which is
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the public broadcaster in Austria,
and when you reach the data cap,
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the 2130 seconds, it goes down to
a flat line. But free mobile TV service,
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their in-house television service,
continues to run without interference.
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So that’s a classical technical
discrimination between applications
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which is clearly prohibited. We submitted
a case, it was successful, they cancelled
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this type of violation for all new
contracts and they changed the landscape
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of all their contracts. Because they could
no longer give their own services
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a competitive advantage, they
quadrupled up to 17 times the amount
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of volume that you can buy with this operator.
And this is not a singular phenomenon.
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We have similar cases in the Netherlands
as well as with Slovenia. Once an ISP
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is no longer allowed to give preferential
treatment to their own service
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they start giving more volume to all
their subscribers which is, of course,
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a really good thing. But, as I said,
Zero-Rating is one of the biggest problems
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that we have and if you want to put it in
numbers: ca. 40% of all internet providers
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in Europe currently zero-rate at least
one application. So this is really
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an endemic problem that you can find
in almost every network and country,
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and so we really have to do something
about it. Because there are drastic scenarios
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that are in front of us. Mark Suckerberg
announced two times already that he wants
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to bring his walled garden, called ‘Free
Basic’, previously ‘internet.org’,
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also to Europe. He recently also announced
that he wants to bring Free Basic
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to the U.S. and in the U.S. we
have quite a hard time ahead.
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Donald Trump is not really a fan of net
neutrality, from the few comments that
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we could analyze so far. And if you look
at the three people that he appointed
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to his Transition Team for the regulator,
the FCC in the U.S., there is
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a quite horrible outlook. Jeffrey Eisenach
as well as Mark Jamison and Roslyn Layton
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are hardcore telecom lobbyists. And you
can really get a picture of what’s coming
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in the U.S. if you look at the paper
“Beyond net neutrality” from Mark Jamison
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and Roslyn Layton from June of this year.
What they propose here is to basically
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replace all net neutrality rules with
a multi stakeholder concept.
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But they have a very unique interpretation
of what ‘multi stakeholder’ means.
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They only limit this multi stakeholder
group to the 20 biggest industry players.
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They explicitly say: “No civil society, no
consumer protection, no scientists”.
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So it’s basically the industry making their
own rules. They also propose new barriers
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for every type of ex-ante regulation
of the FCC. So that’s basically
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putting net neutrality in the bin
in the U.S. which would also risk
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their competitive advantage that the U.S.
has right now as the power house
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of all startup innovation. If this really
comes through then only the startups
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that partner up with existing monopolies
have a chance to compete.
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In Europe we also have a quite
worrying proposal. Part of the legacy
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of Guenther Oettinger. He proposed in
September of this year a new regulation
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for BEREC. Who here knows what BEREC is?
Hands up!
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Oh! Actually quite a few, that’s good.
BEREC is the umbrella above the European
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regulators for the internet. And it’s an
agency that has done quite a good job
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00:22:03,919 --> 00:22:09,320
on various occasions. They are voice of
reason, they have quite a good model
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00:22:09,320 --> 00:22:15,070
to really incorporate different views and
what the Commission is proposing
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00:22:15,070 --> 00:22:22,209
with this new law is basically replacing
this agency, making it into an independent
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00:22:22,209 --> 00:22:28,320
legal personality, and having that complete
control on all levels from the Commission.
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So in this law you can find the Commission
writing itself into this independent agency
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on many, many occasions. And
the most obscure outcome of this is
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the Executive Director as well as the
quite powerful Board of Appeals
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they will be chosen by regulators, but only
from a list precompiled by the European
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Commission. And that’s quite
a communistic tradition of democracy.
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And we have to follow this dossier
closely. It is now entering
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the legislative process in the EU and if
this would go through as it was proposed
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this would basically mean that the agencies
in task of enforcing net neutrality
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are under complete power grab of the
European Commission which has proven,
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00:23:13,909 --> 00:23:18,179
times and times again, that it is
mostly interested in industry policy
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but not really in the citizen’s interest.
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For all of that we need you to put
the violations that you come across
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in your daily internet experience into
RespectMyNet.eu as well as write to
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team@epicenter.works because we
are also very interested in learning
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00:23:37,210 --> 00:23:41,009
about the violations that are out there.
And about really finding partners
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in various countries before we can submit
cases to the regulators in that country
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00:23:46,710 --> 00:23:52,070
and really keep the internet free
and open. You can put it like that:
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with this new net neutrality law we
now have a tool box to really keep
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00:23:55,389 --> 00:24:00,379
the internet open. And with RespectMyNet
we have a crowd-sourced todo list
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of all the violations that we have to get
rid of. Thanks for your attention!
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And as a last word: we were previously THIS
organization, now we are THIS organization,
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we changed our name. Thanks!
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applause
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Herald: I think we have time for a few
more questions. So please step up
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to the microphones if you have
one and I’ll call your number.
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Nobody so far, is there
a question from the internet?
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00:24:46,240 --> 00:24:51,100
Also not. So you answered all open
questions exhaustively. That is great.
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00:24:51,100 --> 00:24:52,830
Christopher: No, there’s a question there…
Herald: There is a question?
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00:24:52,830 --> 00:24:55,490
Oh, up there! Well then, number 5.
Please, go ahead!
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Question: Hi, my question as an IT guy is:
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do you think about automating the
process to file these complaints?
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00:25:11,759 --> 00:25:18,280
So, I’m thinking about people who run
out [of] their quota per month and,
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00:25:18,280 --> 00:25:26,340
say, can easily start an app which checks
about 50 different services to see
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which service is performing good,
and which not, and automatically
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00:25:30,029 --> 00:25:35,619
do a complaint on your side?
Something like that?
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Christopher: If I understand well your question
that if we are planning to automate
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the system of inputting subscriptions…
input in[to] RespectMyNet?
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Question: Yeah!
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Christopher: The thing is that that would only
cover a certain type of violation.
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It won’t e.g. – don’t think in what
I understood – it won’t be able to cover
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e.g. contract-based violations.
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But that could be an idea, why not.
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Thomas: Maybe, if you go to RespectMyNet.eu
you’ll find a list of the measurement tools
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00:26:09,580 --> 00:26:14,739
that are out there right now. The software
that you can use on your own computer
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00:26:14,739 --> 00:26:20,350
to test if your internet connection is
open and neutral. But most of the software
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00:26:20,350 --> 00:26:27,320
is abandonware. Sadly, it has not been
updated in quite a few years. And then
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00:26:27,320 --> 00:26:33,159
we need more developers to actively engage
in those software tools. And I hope now
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00:26:33,159 --> 00:26:38,429
that more people will do that because
the threat in the U.S. is quite real and
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00:26:38,429 --> 00:26:44,679
we need better software. Automated testing
happens as part of some Bittorrent clients
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e.g. which upload their data to
Measurementlab. And there are
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some programs like that but
none really on a wide scale.
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Herald: Okay. So, the next one is the
person on microphone no. 3, please.
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Question: Yes, I have a question regarding
the regulation to reform BEREC.
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Are you planning to fight this regulation,
and if so, and if not, are there
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00:27:12,909 --> 00:27:17,140
any ways to fight it for the rest of us?
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00:27:17,140 --> 00:27:23,299
Thomas: Thanks for being eager! Yes,
we are now… this is just the beginning
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of this dossier. So it has been
proposed September 14, 2016.
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00:27:30,590 --> 00:27:34,789
And now the Parliament and the Council
are just slowly starting to work on it and
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00:27:34,789 --> 00:27:40,259
it’s part of a much bigger package of
legislation called the Telecom Code.
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00:27:40,259 --> 00:27:46,139
And we are in ongoing conversations
with the legislators and the various
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00:27:46,139 --> 00:27:51,809
political parties to see what is the best
strategy. And if we think that there is
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a reason to really have a campaign then
we will have one. But right now it is
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too early to say.
Question: Thanks!
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Herald: Okay, thank you very much! And
the next person on microphone no.3!
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Question: Thank you very much for
an excellent talk. For Savetheinternet
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there was a lot of national NGOs active.
And with this proposed power grab of BEREC
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how can we at a national level help
support the telcom.. tel-regulators nationally
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to save the net neutrality?
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Thomas: The best thing to do right now
would be to speak with your telecom
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infrastructure ministry, whoever is
responsible of this in the European Council
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because they are the ones that are now
forming their opinion. And I know from
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quite a few countries where this is really
an open situation, so they are welcoming
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input from citizens. And they, of course,
speak with the Members of the European
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Parliament from your country. They are
the ones ultimatively voting on this.
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I’m not aware if we already have
a Rapporteur on that but there will be one
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soon, and…
Christopher: On the Telecom package?
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Thomas: Yeah!
Christopher: Del Castillo.
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Thomas: Del… Oh my god. laughs
The worst Rapporteur that we could
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possibly have. It’s the same that
we had for the net neutrality law.
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But speak with your local ministry and
your Members of the European Parliament.
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That’s the right answer for that. And
I hope that also a few countries and
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as well as the regulators will see this
power grab as what it is. Because the
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Commission is not really in the position
to insert itself on all levels of government.
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That’s just the wrong approach.
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Herald: Okay, there’s time for one last
question. Please, a short one! No.4.
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Question: Thank you very much for the
talk. I was wondering, do you think
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it’s possible to actually convince telecom
companies to be on our side, so to say,
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00:29:53,080 --> 00:29:58,629
and to get rid of all of those Zero-Rating
things, and convince them that
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net neutrality can be a good argument for
customers. Or do you think the only way
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is through litigations
and going to courts?
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Christopher: I think, both.
The problem with telecom operators is
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that you go against their business model.
Zero-Rating can increase their sales,
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they’re increasing their quinta (?) percentage etc.
and net neutrality can not, or at least
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not in the way they see it. There is
two things: on one hand you have
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customer protection, on the other hand you
have private profits. So I think we’ll be
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very welcoming any type of arguments, of
advocacy that could link both, and saying
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that we’re making a better world, but
also we’re contributing to capitalism.
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So, that’s a tricky one. But,
you know, we can discuss it.
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Thomas: But it’s doable. I mean there
are a few ISPs that are fierce (?)
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pro-net neutrality advocates. Because
they’ve realized that net neutrality
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is good for their business model. Because
this open platform creates the demand
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for the only product they really have,
which is internet access.
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About… it is really a question of their
understanding of their own business model.
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And for the most part, they would
either cannibalize the revenues
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of other companies that run on their
network, instead of just being mere pipe.
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But please try to convince them.
We do as well.
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Question: I will.
Christopher: If you want to discuss more,
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we’ll be around the tea house of
LaQuadrature upstairs, so
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you’re welcome there.
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Herald: Thank you very much,
Christopher and Thomas.
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applause
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postroll music
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