The Internet is changing for the worst.

No, this isn’t a rant about how there are too many emo kids posting a bunch of useless fucking photos on “art” websites.  This post is about deep packet injection and traffic throttling.  Don’t get me wrong,  those emo kids still piss me the fuck off…  Why the fuck is THIS photo available as a print on deviantART? (especially for $149?!?!?!?!   YOUR KILLING ART [and you need to comb your hair]).

Back to the real topics at hand, lets start with deep packet injection.  “What is deep packet injection?”, I hear you ask.  To sum it up, DPI is the act of inserting information into an open network connection without the knowledge of the server (the technical thingy that hosts the website you visit) and in most times without the consent of the client (your computer and untimely you).    Now that you kind of know what it is, you might be wondering why its bad.  Well,  deep packet injection allows the person (or internet service provider) to place code or advertisements into a webpage you view.  This could be advertisements, cookies (for tracking a users internet usage),  or even information manipulation.

DPI raises a lot of concerns about copyright, privacy, and net neutrality.   Companies like Phorm already implement DPI technology and are trying to work on deals with ISPs to provide targeted advertising to end users…  This means they do it without YOUR permission.    Why is this bad?   Lets just ignore the fact that Phorm is the new name for a company called 121media, a spyware company.    Lets look at it from a content providers point of view…

Most websites that provide free content generate revenue through advertising.   This means that a large number of people actually click on the ads (like Google adsense) displayed on pages,  these clicks give the content provider money to provide more content (HOORAY).   Lets say you run a website,  you’ve spent a lot of time and money building up your website and content…  you’re starting to get hits and the money is starting to roll in,  you might even break even with the cost of your investment soon.    Along comes packet injecting ISP and all of a sudden 30% of your Canadian visitors (lets say Canada is your biggest demographic) are victims of packet injection.  This ISP starts inserting its own ads into your website and people start clicking those ads instead of yours,  now your ad revenue drops by 25% because the ISPs ads are getting more clicks.   The ISP is modifying and making money from your website without your permission.   Now your site looks ugly,  30% of your users see a website with twice as many ads and they loose interest.  All of this happens without you giving permission to a 3rd party ISP and without the end user agreeing to their ISP doing this.

Some of you might be thinking some kind of bullshit like “they serve the internet, they can do whatever they want”.   Well you can shut the fuck up,  you don’t deserve to use the internet you dumb shit.    You see,  for any normal person to do widespread packet injection would most likely land that person in jail if they were caught…  say for instance if I decided to do some widespread packet injection that added “Rogers Communications can suck my heat seeking moisture missile until it blows” in big bold letters on every website, I’d go to jail for hacking.    If Rogers does it (and they have been doing DPI), nothing happens to them.   Why the fuck should a cooperation be allowed to do whatever the fuck they want and the only punishment be either a cease-and-desist from a court or a fine…  The people that make these decisions should be put in fucking jail!   The people that run a cooperation need to be held responsible for the actions THEY take,  not gain automatic immunity because “the cooperation” as legal entity did it.

Fuck, its 1:40 AM and I havnt even touched traffic throttaling (Bell Canada) and DNS Hijacking (Rogers).  Oh well,  I guess that means I have topics for another day…  my readers (all both of you guys) will have to wait.

Cable TV Sucks, you’re getting ripped off

Have you ever had a point in your life where you realize your getting ripped of BADLY.    The ripping off is kind of similar to sex with a vacuum,  it seems like a great idea at first…  hell, it might even feel great for a short period of time.   The vacuum I’ve been fucking is Shaw Cable,  and I’ve finally reached that point where the vacuum has sucked my balls into the tube and wrapped them awkwardly and painfully around my dick.

It all started with the purchase of my first HDTV,  I had this great new technology and very little HD content.  Longing for a constant source of crisp and visually pleasing content I decided to buy my first HD cable box.  It felt good at first,  I was able to watch two shows I cared about (Late Night w/ Conan O’Brien and Heroes) and a bunch of other crap that I didn’t care about.   About 99% of the TV I’ve watched over my past year and a half with Shaw Cable has been standard-def programming and any of the HD channels (and their HD channels should NOT be called HighDef).  Without getting into a bunch of technical mumbo-jumbo I’ll just put it this way:  Shaw compresses the SHIT out of their channels,  this reduces the quality of the channels to the point that it looks worse than a DVD.  Their OnDemand service is expensive, unreliable, and flaky (sound a lot like every relationship I’ve ever been in, ever).

Here is a quick list of the shit i’ve gone through with Shaw Cable over the past year and a half:

• Macroblocking (the signal drops and the image turns into a bunch of random boxes)
• Temporary Audio Dropouts (the audio drops out randomly for a few seconds,  this happens A LOT)
• Extended audio dropouts (this happens less frequently,  but when it happens I have to change the channel and back again or restart the digital receiver)
• ShawOnDemand giving me the wrong movie (I’ve ordered ShawOnDemand a few times and had the wrong movie start to play….  NO, I DONT WANT TO FUCKING WATCH TMNT AGAIN!)
• ShawOnDemand HD Movies are expensive (anywhere from $6 to $10 for a fake HD movie,  the quality is nowhere near as good as HD-DVD or BluRay [Fuck you BluRay, HD-DVD was a better format] )
• Terrible User Interface (Both the channel guide and the ShawOnDemand menu are terrible.  They’re about as slow as a shit coming out sideways and there is no easy way to search for shows or movies…  The shawondemand.ca website is slightly better than the PVR menu system, but its still like trying to open a door without any arms)

You’ve probably guessed by now that I’m slightly unsatisfied with my service.  It wouldn’t be a bad service,  if it were free… but unfortunately, its not.   My bill for this month is about $162.  This bill is for Shaw Cable, Shaw Internet, 3 OnDemand movies, and about $7 worth of extra one-off programming.  Shaw tries to organize the bill to make it look like your getting a deal: “Entertainment Bundle: $110″, “Internet Service: $5″ “Digital Service: $17″… the list goes on.  Hold up a second…  Internet service $5?  Holy fucking shit I’m getting cheap internet!  What Shaw is doing here is shitting in my mouth and calling it a sundae.

Shaw tries to make it looks like I’m getting a deal by saying I’m getting internet for $5, but in reality half of the Entertainment bundle covers the cost of internet.  To top it off, they are charging me $17 for “Digital Service”.   Most people would overlook this, I overlooked this at first.  Having Shaw charge me for “Digital Service” is like me paying to have sex with an fugly chick with crabs.  By making the switch to digital, Shaw is able to push more channels to their customers (because of video compression, digital TV takes less bandwidth than analog TV).    Thanks to me choosing to use a service that in the long run makes it easier for Shaw to provide me with content,  I get to pay them more… this is ass-backwards,  if anything they should be charging analog customers more.

My time with Shaw Cable is coming to an end,  I’ve put up with Shaw because it’s nice to have something to watch when I get home from work.   Thanks to Apple’s TV/Movie downloads and Revision3’s amazing programming I can get cheap or free content when I want it (and I don’t have to worry about getting my cocknballs sucked into the vacuum that is Shaw).

Shaw,  you are quickly becoming irrelevant as a TV content provider.  You have nobody but yourself to blame.  You’ve provided a terrible service and you screw your customers by charging them an arm and a leg (especially your early adopters).   Think about this when your looking towards the future…  Shaw executive you are old,  you think that your target demographic thinks like you… they don’t.  The new customers you will be getting in the future will mostly consist of young adults, people that have just moved out of their parents house.  They know how to acquire alternative content, they want the latest and the greatest, and they are A LOT smarter than you.   If your provide an unreliable service at a high cost they will go elsewhere (Hulu).

It’s time for this bitter man to pull his swollen genitalia from the vacuum of Shaw.  Apple, Revision3, and hopefully Hulu (its not available in Canada yet) will be the melted butter I’ll pour down the vacuum tube to make pulling out less painful.

– Angry Canadian