While not exactly in the arena of what is meant by “Network Security,” I just couldn’t resist commenting on the failure of the U.S. House of Representatives to include Net Neutrality in the COPE (Communications Opportunity, Promotion, and Enhancement – H.R. 5252) Act here. (story)
So why would I post this in security? With telcos given the option of giving bandwidth priority to some sites or content types without penalizing them, and with the possibility of telcos charging customers extra fees to access certain sites (as in sites that are on another carrier’s backbone connection) the security risk I see is to the free exchange of information. If AT&T gets a bug up their butt and decides that any content on Verizon isn’t as important as content on AT&T networks, they could throttle those links, effectively cutting their customers off from Verizon customers, and vice-versa. Then it is a simple matter to charge a “net long-distance” fee for customers to get some of that restricted bandwidth.
Will it happen that way? I don’t know. I would hope not, but given the behaviour of the telcos over the past few years I wouldn’t put anything past them at this point.