Hollow, because China's still got a national content firewall, which pretty much precludes access to naked folks and Tibet's Wikipedia page, or whatever it is that the government wants blocked. Hollow, because lots of Chinese citizens don't own PCs, and depend on internet cafes for access. Hollow, because it sounds like this drawdown was due to logistical concerns, and doesn't reflect a change of philosophy in the government, which keeps hatching more and more plans to keep "true things" (and evidently, "sexting") from its citizens:

The government recently proposed a requirement that all users of online chat rooms and bulletin boards use their real names when posting comments, a move that would stifle the sometimes-freewheeling debate on many sites. Until now, government censors have played a cat-and-mouse game with anonymous Internet users who posted comments that flout approved positions.

That's mildly terrifying, for Chinese e-people! [NYT]

First, potentially explicit images and video content will now be coming from a separate single domain, explicit.bing.net. This is invisible to the end customer, but allows for filtering of that content by domain which makes it much easier for customers at all levels to block this content regardless of what the SafeSearch settings might be. This makes it much easier for filtering software to block unwanted content if SafeSearch has been turned off.

In addition, we will begin returning source url information in the query string for images and video content so that companies who already use this method of filtering will be able to catch explicit content on Bing along with everything else they are already blocking for their customers.

So no, it won't affect your ability to get some bada-bing in the privacy of your own home, but your company or school will be able to filter all of it easily. Kudos to Microsoft to think about those who care about these things without affecting those who don't care. [Bing]

Even though the number of people dissatisfied with something in polls is usually higher than the actual percentage (dissatisfied people are more likely to complain), it's really interesting that that many residents think this is an infringement on their rights. I guess getting your mug on record as being a camwithher viewer is more tangible evidence of the internet crackdown than sites being blocked? [Times Online]

On the bright side, it's good that your torrents aren't getting slowed down, but on the other hand, "legal" applications like Netflix or Amazon will be affected as well. This probably won't be a big deal to all that many of you, as Comcast says the throttling only occurs during periods of congestion, and in total will only impact 1% of users. (It's likely that many Giz readers are in that 1% of bandwidth hogs though.) In any case, you'll still have to watch out that you don't run over the 250GB monthly cap, or else your net will become disconnected entirely. FAQ below:

Why does Comcast manage its network?

Comcast manages its network with one goal: to deliver the best possible broadband Internet experience to all of its customers. High-speed bandwidth and network resources are not unlimited. Managing the network is essential to promote the use and enjoyment of the Internet by all of our customers. We use reasonable network management practices that are consistent with industry standards. We also try to use tools and technologies that are minimally intrusive. Just as the Internet continues to change and evolve, so too, will our network management practices to address the challenges and threats on the Internet.

All Internet service providers need to manage their networks and Comcast is no different. In fact, many of them use the same or similar tools that Comcast does. If we didn't manage our network, our customers would be subject to the negative effects of spam, viruses, security attacks, network congestion, and other risks and degradations of the service. By engaging in reasonable and responsible network management, Comcast can deliver the best possible broadband Internet experience to all of its customers.

How does Comcast manage its network?

Comcast uses various tools and techniques to manage its network, deliver the Service, and ensure compliance with the Acceptable Use Policy and the Comcast Agreement for Residential Services available at http://www.comcast.net/terms/subscriber/. These tools and techniques are dynamic, like the network and its usage, and can and do change frequently. For example, these network management activities may include identifying spam and preventing its delivery to customer e-mail accounts, detecting malicious Internet traffic and preventing the distribution of viruses or other harmful code or content and using other tools and techniques that Comcast may be required to implement in order to meet its goal of delivering the best possible broadband Internet experience to all of its customers.

Does network management change over time?

Yes. The Internet is highly dynamic. As the Internet and related technologies continue to evolve and advance, Comcast's network management tools will evolve and keep pace so that we can deliver an excellent, reliable, and safe online experience to all of our customers.

In March 2008, Comcast announced that it will migrate to a new network congestion management technique before the end of the year. (See more FAQs about that in this section.)

How will the new technique work?

The new network congestion management practice works as follows:

If a certain area of the network nears a state of congestion, the technique will ensure that all customers have a fair share of access to the network. It will identify which customer accounts are using the greatest amounts of bandwidth and their Internet traffic will be temporarily managed until the period of congestion passes. Customers will still be able to do anything they want to online, and many activities will be unaffected, but they could experience things like: longer times to download or upload files, surfing the Web may seem somewhat slower, or playing games online may seem somewhat sluggish.

The new technique does not manage congestion based on the online activities, protocols or applications a customer uses, rather it only focuses on the heaviest users in real time, so the periods of congestion could be very fleeting and sporadic.

It is important to note that the effect of this technique is temporary and it has nothing to do with aggregate monthly data usage. Rather, it is dynamic and based on prevailing network conditions as well as very recent data usage.

Will the technique target P2P or other applications, or make decisions about the content of my traffic?

No. The new technique is “protocol-agnostic,” which means that the system does not manage congestion based on the applications being used by customers. It is content neutral, so it does not depend on the type of content that is generating traffic congestion. Said another way, customer traffic is congestion-managed not based on their applications, but based on current network conditions and recent bytes transferred by users.

How does the new network management technique impact me and my use of the Comcast High Speed Internet service?

With this new technique, most customers will notice no change in their Internet experience. The goal of congestion management is to enable all users to have access to a fair share of the network at peak times, when congestion occasionally occurs. Congestion management focuses on the consumption activity of individual customer accounts that are using a disproportionate amount of bandwidth. As a result, and based on our technical trials of this technique, we expect that the large majority of customers will not be affected by it. In fact, based on consumer data collected from these trials, we found that on average less than 1% of our high-speed Internet customers are affected by the approach.

How often does Comcast expect to use this technique?

Based on market trials to date, Comcast expects that select portions of the network will be in a congested state only for relatively small portions of the day, if at all.

During these trials, Comcast did not receive a single customer complaint that could be traced to this new congestion management practice, despite having publicized the trials and notifying customers involved in the trials via e-mail.

Comcast will continue to monitor how user traffic is affected by these new congestion management techniques and will make the adjustments reasonably necessary to ensure that our Comcast High-Speed Internet customers have a high-quality online experience.

Can you give me some “real world” examples of how much bandwidth consumption would be considered too much? For example, how many movies would I have to download to be affected by this new technique?

Since the technique is dynamic and works in real time, the answer really depends on a number of factors including overall usage, time of day and the number of applications a customer might be running at the same time. First, the local network must be approaching a congested state for our new technique to even look for traffic to manage. Assuming that is the case, customers’ accounts must exceed a certain percentage of their upstream or downstream (both currently set at 70%) bandwidth for longer than a certain period of time, currently set at fifteen minutes.

A significant amount of normal Internet usage by our customers does not last that long. For example, most downloads would have completed within that time, and the majority of streaming and downloading will not exceed the threshold to be eligible for congestion management. And the majority of longer-running applications, such as VoIP, video conferencing, and streaming video content (including HD streaming on most sites) will not exceed these thresholds either.

The point of the technique is to deliver the best overall online experience possible. The technique should help ensure that all customers get their fair share of bandwidth resources to enjoy all that the Internet has to offer and that includes surfing the web, reading emails, downloading movies, watching streaming video, gaming or listening to music.

How will customers know they are being managed?

We are exploring ways to create new tools that will let customers know when the management is occurring. In the short term, our efforts are focused on transitioning to the new technique as soon as possible.

We believe this sort of congestion notification should be an Internet standard and have been discussing this issue in technical bodies like the Internet Engineering Task Force. We believe the use of Internet Standards for such a real-time notification is important as applications developers can write for networks beyond the Comcast network. However we are planning to develop a capability that may enable a customer to see if they were managed in the past, though this is not yet ready for testing.

Does this technique apply to both Commercial and Residential services?

Yes.
How is this announcement related to the recent 250 GB monthly usage threshold?

The two are completely separate and distinct. The new congestion management technique is based on real-time Internet activity. The goal is to avoid congestion on our network that is being caused by the heaviest users. The technique is different from the recent announcement that 250 GB/month is the aggregate monthly usage threshold that defines excessive use.

Is Comcast Digital Voice affected by this technique? What about other VoIP providers?

Comcast Digital Voice is a separate facilities-based IP phone service that is not affected by this technique.

Comcast customers who use VoIP providers that rely on delivering calls over the public Internet who are also using a disproportionate amount of bandwidth during a period when this network management technique goes into effect may experience a degradation of their call quality at times of network congestion. It is important to note, however, that VoIP calling in and of itself does not use a significant amount of bandwidth. Furthermore, our real-world testing of this technique did not indicate any significant change in the quality of VoIP calls, even for managed customer traffic during periods of congestion.

What about Fancast.com and streaming video or video downloads? What will happen to them?

During periods of congestion, any customers who are using a disproportionate amount of bandwidth – no matter what type or content of the online activity (for example, it does not matter if the content is coming from a Comcast owned site like Fancast.com or not) – may be affected by this technique.

Our technique also has no ability to determine the applications or protocols being used or the content, source or destination.

Does Comcast block peer-to-peer ("P2P") traffic or applications like BitTorrent, Gnutella, or others?

No. Today, Comcast does not block P2P traffic or applications like BitTorrent, Gnutella, or others as part of its current network congestion management technique.

It is important to note, however, that the current network congestion technique, which will be replaced by the end of 2008, may on a limited basis temporarily delay certain P2P traffic when that traffic has, or is projected to have, an adverse effect on other customers' use of the service. We do this because, in certain situations, that type of traffic consumes a disproportionately large amount of network resources.

Does Comcast discriminate against particular types of online content?

No. Comcast provides its customers with full access to all the content, services, and applications that the Internet has to offer. However, we are committed to protecting customers from spam, phishing, and other unwanted or harmful online content and activities. Comcast uses industry standard tools and generally accepted best practices and policies to help it meet this customer commitment. In cases where these tools and policies identify certain online content as harmful and unwanted, such as spam or phishing Web sites, this content is usually prevented from reaching customers. In other cases, these tools and policies may permit customers to identify certain content that is not clearly harmful or unwanted, such as bulk e-mails or Web sites with questionable security ratings, and enable those customers to inspect the content further if they want to do so.

The scariest scenario is invasive "packet filtering," where companies look at what you're downloading and punish you for perceived misconduct. Comcast was the poster child for BitTorrent throttling before getting cozy with it to avoid an FCC smackdown, and AT&T infamously broached the idea of filtering its entire network for copyrighted content. Beyond packet filtering, there are two potentially more widespread ways big ISPs can try to bring down the Torrent mad: "Caps," already used by local ISPs such as BendBroadband and Sunflower, are set amounts you can download each month. Anything over that, like cellphone plans, means overage penalties. "Throttling" is the ability of the ISP to, any given moment, put the brakes on your connection when you're being too much of a resource hog. Here's where the ISPs stand on the tactics above and your pipes.

AT&T

We have said consistently that AT&T will not allow itself to become a policeman or enforcement agent on the Internet. We have also made clear that there is nothing inherently wrong with P2P applications like BitTorrent, which are advanced, and legal, technologies that are used and welcomed on our network... We do not block or degrade any P2P application to manage network congestion. At the same time, we feel that any company involved with the Internet should be concerned about illegal activity, whether it is identity theft or intellectual property theft, and should be prepared to cooperate in legal means of addressing such problems while protecting fully the privacy of our customers.

Update: AT&T wrote in with an additional statement: "We can't give you details on our specific network management techniques to handle times of high-volume" citing similar reasons as Time Warner, "but those techniques don't include degrading or blocking traffic."

Comcast:
Here's the statement we got pre-BT chumminess, though we now know that Comcast is moving to a more management style that'll temporarly slow all traffic, whether it's cracked copies of Final Cut Pro from your favorite P2P or YouTube, to a drip during congestion:

We have a responsibility to provide all of our customers with a good Internet experience and we use the latest technologies to manage our network so that they can continue to enjoy these applications. During periods of heavy peer-to-peer congestion, which can degrade the experience for all customers, we use several network management technologies that, when necessary, enable us to delay—not block—some peer-to-peer traffic.

Comcast is not currently using or testing any filtering technologies. We agree that copyright owners have a right to protect their content. We work well with them under existing law and will continue to work with content owners to find solutions to help support their efforts around piracy. We cannot speculate on what AT&T is doing or how its technology works.

Speakeasy
They got back to us after we went to press, but here's what they had to say on network management: "Our position on this is that [we] attempt to manage our network to account for peak usage so that we do not need to throttle bandwidth of customers pending applications in order to keep our pipes unclogged." And on content filtering: "Speakeasy does not currently do any content filtering, and at this time we have no plans to filter content."

The Takeaway
Since BitTorrent became a rallying point for net neutrality advocates (and caught the attention of the FCC) ISPs have made a show of stepping back from P2P hampering to shield themselves from both nerd backlash and FCC Chairman Kevin Martin's steely gaze. Verizon and AT&T, for instance, both pointed me toward their corporation-friendly "P4P" file-sharing development initiatives for more effective downloading (at an unknown cost), and Comcast has touted its R&D with BitTorrent.

All of that's a pretty effective smokescreen for moving to more hardcore capping and throttling, allowing them to cry "We treat all traffic equally, neutrally even!" while nuking all of your traffic without prejudice. Most people downloading the hugest amounts are probably not paying for all that content. And note that everyone except Verizon left themselves plenty of hedge space on the issue. Time Warner says it doesn't talk about it because it's afraid others will use it in marketing; well, Verizon is kinda sorta using their total lack of filtering as an underground marketing thing already, which is especially effective when coupled with FiOS's insane speeds.

Even with ever-higher speeds, bandwidth will remain an issue for ISPs as they try to cram more and more HD content down pipes you're using to download movies, swap music and other increasingly bandwidth-intensive applications. So more management is going to go hand and hand with more bandwidth, make no mistake.

But it doesn't have to be a bad thing, if they're smart about it. They make a genuine movement to smarter protocols and management techniques that don't hose anyone's broadband (like that P4P stuff, if it's really open), but instead help everyone squeeze every last bit out of it as efficiently as possible. We can only hope.

As a bonus, a local filter would defeat encrypted torrents, since you've gotta decrypt 'em, at which point the filter would kick in. Sherman is a smart cookie though, and knows people aren't just gonna sign up to have their machine lojacked:

"Why would somebody put that on their machine? They wouldn't likely want to do that, they'd do that when it benefits them such as for viruses and so on and so forth...it could be enforced at the modem or put in by the ISP."