The Electronic Frontier Foundation has released Switzerland, an open source software tool for testing your ISP's net neutrality.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Part of EFF's "Test your ISP" project, Switzerland is an open source, command-line software tool designed to detect the modification or injection of packets of data by ISPs. Switzerland detects changes made by software tools believed to be in use by ISPs such as Sandvine and AudibleMagic, advertising systems like FairEagle, and various censorship systems. Although currently intended for use by technically sophisticated Internet users, development plans aim to make the tool increasingly easy to use.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin will try to get the FCC to approve an order to Comcast to stop throttling P2P downloads and to provide details about its current and planned network management practices.

Read more about it at: "Comcast Loses: FCC Head Slams Company's P2P Filtering," "Comcast Ordered to Stop BitTorrent Traffic Interference," "FCC: Comcast Broke Rules, But Will Not Face Fines," and "Internet Users Stop Comcast, Net Neutrality Win on the Horizon."

Spurred on by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s efforts to fight child pornography, Sprint, Time Warner Cable. and Verizon will block significant numbers of Usenet news groups.

Regarding the Verizon ban, Declan McCullagh points out that only 8 of 1,000 Usenet hierarchies are being kept, and "That means not carrying perfectly innocuous—and, in fact, very useful—newsgroups like symantec.customerservice.general, us.military, microsoft.public.excel, and fr.soc.economie."

Read more about it at: "alt.blocked: Verizon Blocks Access to Whole USENET Hierarchy" "ISPs: We're Limiting Our Own Usenet Groups, Not Blocking Others" "N.Y. Attorney General Forces ISPs to curb Usenet Access" "Verizon Offers Details of Usenet Deletion: alt.* groups, Others Gone"

Vuze has issued a report (First Results from Vuze Network Monitoring Tool) analyzing the network management tactics of ISPs.

Here's an excerpt from the report:

We believe that there is sufficient data to suggest that network management practices that "throttle" internet traffic are widespread. At a minimum, more investigation is required to determine whether these resets are happening in the ordinary course of business or whether they represent the kind of throttling practices which target specific applications and/or protocols, harming the consumer experience and stifling innovation.

Read more about it at "Study: All Major Broadband Providers Disrupt P2P," "U.S. Senate Committee Tackles Net Neutrality Today," and "Vuze Says Some ISPs Abuse TCP Resets; Data Not That Clearcut."

Comcast and Pando Networks have announced that they want to create a P2P Bill of Rights and Responsibilities. The announcement was greeted with skepticism by some net neutrality advocates.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Comcast Corporation and Pando Networks, Inc. announced today they will lead an industry-wide effort to create a "P2P Bill of Rights and Responsibilities" (BRR) for peer-to-peer (P2P) users and Internet Service Providers (ISPs). The two companies plan to collaborate and engage with industry experts, other ISPs and P2P companies, content providers and others to set a framework for the BRR that can serve as a best practice. The purpose would be to clarify what choices and controls consumers should have when using P2P applications as well as what processes and practices ISPs should use to manage P2P applications running on their networks. For example, P2P users should have the right to control their computers’ resources when using P2P applications.

In addition, Comcast and Pando plan to conduct a test of Pando Network Aware™ P2P technology on Comcast’s fiber-optic network. The purpose of the test will be to capture and analyze the data flow associated with downloading a file using Pando’s P2P application. These tests, along with tests Pando will conduct on a variety of other ISP networks, including cable, DSL, fiber and wireless, will measure things like performance, speed, distance and geography as well as the bandwidth consumption impact to the ISP. Comcast, Pando and the P4P Working Group plan to publish the results of these tests so other ISPs can benefit from understanding how P2P applications might be optimized for traveling over different types of networks in different environments and geographies.

Today’s announcement builds on Comcast’s March 27th announcement to collaborate with BitTorrent and the broader Internet and ISP community to more effectively address issues associated with rich media content and network capacity management. It also builds on Pando’s recent announcements of its P4P test results which demonstrated Pando’s ability to reduce network congestion and speed content delivery by routing P2P traffic more effectively across cable, DSL, and fiber broadband networks.

The Pando test will provide additional data to help Comcast migrate to a protocol-agnostic network management technique by the end of this year. The arrangement is yet another example of how these technical issues can be worked out through private business discussions and without the need for government intervention.

Read more about it at "But Why Do We Need a P2P Bill Of Rights in the First Place?"; "Comcast Calls for 'P2P Bill of Rights'"; "Comcast Loves File Sharing, Honest!"; "Comcast to Spearhead Creation of P2P Bill of Rights"; "Comcast Wants to Be the Net's Judge, Jury, and Executioner"; and "Public Knowledge Calls Comcast-Pando Proposal 'Ludicrous'."

Canadian ISPs that rely on Bell Canada for data lines faced a new challenge starting on March 14th when Bell Canada began to implement a traffic shaping policy aimed at limiting P2P bandwidth utilization on their lines. The ISP's are up in arms about this policy, but Bell Canada says that:"Our agreements with wholesale ISP customers clearly include provisions regarding our rights to manage our networks appropriately to the benefit of all customers."

Read more about it at "Bell to Play Traffic Cop on Internet Bandwidth" and "Canadian ISPs Furious about Bell Canada's Traffic Throttling."

As other ISPs try to reduce and shape P2P traffic, Verizon has taken a different tack: investigating how to improve throughput with the new Proactive network Provider Participation for P2P (P4P) protocol. In tests with file sharing company Pando, use of P4P boosted performance between 200 and 600 percent.

Read more about it at: "Goodbye, P2P! P4P is Coming" "Verizon Embraces P4P, a More Efficient Peer-to-Peer Tech" and "With Eyes Open, Verizon Peers into the Future."

After an Israeli court ordered ISP providers to block HttpShare, a torrent search engine and link-only site, traffic sharply increased as a result of news coverage. The site now has a banner that says "Big Thanks to IFPI that bring us alot traffic!"

Read more about it at "'IFPI Advertising' Boosts Visitors to Blocked File-Sharing Site," "IFPI Gets Israeli ISPs to Block Hebrew Peer-to-Peer Site," "IFPI Pressure Forces ISPs to Block Another File-Sharing Site," and "'Year of Filters' Turning into Year of Lawsuits against ISPs."

EMI, Sony, Universal and Warner have taken Ireland's biggest ISP, Eircom, to court to force it to stop illegal music downloads on its network.

Read more about it at "Eircom Taken to Court over Illegal Music Downloads" and "IFPI Takes ISP to Court to Impose Music Piracy Filter."

Under a bill in the Utah legislature (H.B. 407), Utah would certify a qualifying ISPs as a Community Conscious Internet Provider (CCIP). The designation would be renewed annually.

Among other provisions, a CCIP ISP must "prohibit its customers by contract from publishing any prohibited communication"; "remove or prevent access to any prohibited communication published by or accessed using the Internet service provider's service within a reasonable time after the Internet service provider learns of the prohibited communication"; "maintain a record for two years following its allocation of an IP address of the IP address, the date and time of the allocation, and the customer to whom the IP address is allocated"; and "cooperate with any law enforcement agency by providing records sufficient to identify a customer if the law enforcement agency requests the information and supplies reasonable proof that a crime has been committed using the Internet service provider's service."

Prohibited communications are either pornographic (Section 76-10-1203) or harmful to minors (Section 76-10-1206) as determined by Utah law.

Read more about it at "Proposed Utah Bill Would Give Special Designation to ISPs That Block Porn" and "'This ISP Has Been Rated 'G' By the State of Utah'."

The Australian government is ready to proceed with testing an ISP Internet filter that aims to eliminate digital pornography. Customers who do not want a filtered Internet connection will need to opt out. Federal Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has said that the government's previous $85 million PC-based filter program, the NetAlert program, had "clearly failed."

Read more about it "ACMA Report Finds Little to Support Conroy's Enthusiasm for ISP Filtering," "Australia Moving Ahead with Plans to Erect ISP Porn Filters," "Net Filter at Test Phase," and "Web Porn Software Filter a Dud."

It is highly unlikely that open access would have emerged if the Internet did not exist. The Internet makes the low-cost worldwide distribution of e-prints and other digital documents through institutional and disciplinary repositories possible, and it significantly lowers the cost of publishing, which makes open access journals possible. Open access in a print-only or proprietary network environment would require significant subsidies. The relative cost of providing open access on the Internet is trivial.

It would be a mistake to assume that the Internet will remain as we know it. With the rise of digital media, powerful interests in the music and film/television industries have become alarmed about file sharing of their content, and they have lobbied legislatures across the globe to stop it through restrictive copyright legislation and technological measures.

Since open access doesn't deal with popular music, film, or television, why should open access advocates care? The answer is simple: restrictive measures are unlikely to make fine-grained distinctions about content. New copyright measures won't exempt scholarly material, and new Internet traffic shaping or filtering technologies won't either.

Open access materials won't be limited to simple text documents forever: digital media and data sets will become increasingly important. These files can be large and increase network load. Digital media files may include excerpts from third-party copyrighted material, which are utilized under fair use provisions. Will filtering and traffic shaping technologies exclude them or will they be the inadvertent victims of systems designed for an entirely different purpose?

Even simple text documents will be governed by restrictive copyright laws and subject to potential copyright filtering mechanisms.

For example, the Tennessee State Senate is considering a bill (SB 3974) that would require every higher education institution to "thoroughly analyze its computer network, including its local area and internal networks, to determine whether it is being used to transmit copyrighted works" and to "take affirmative steps, including the implementation of effective technology-based deterrents, to prevent the infringement of copyrighted works over the school's computer and network resources, including over local area and internal networks."

You'll note that the bill says "transmit copyrighted works" not "transmit digital music and video works." Does this mean that every digital work, including e-prints and e-books, must be scanned and cleared for copyright compliance? That is unlikely to be the real intent of the bill, but, if passed, it will be the letter of the law. Why couldn't academic publishers insist that digital articles and books be vetted as well?

Net neutrality and digital copyright legislation are issues that should be of concern to open access advocates. To ignore them is to potentially win the battle, but lose the war, blind-sided by developments that will ensnare open access materials in legal and technological traps.