Internet Service Providers are keen to portray images of happy families sharing a loving moment over their desktop computer or well-heeled executives grouped around a modern laptop agreeing on the latest corporate strategy, but whereas these ISPs go to so much trouble to promote the positive elements of their particular service, there are a number of negative ones they would rather keep hidden
10 Things Your Internet Provider Really Doesn´t Want You To Know
Privacy – Most major web browsers these days offer a facility for “private” browsing -sometimes known as “porn mode” – which instructs your browser not to keep a record of the sites you have visited or search terms you have used. Your Internet Service Provider however has designated you an IP (Internet Protocol) address, and the sites you visit can record that information – which is subsequently freely available to any parties with a legal interest in requesting it (divorce attorneys and the FBI for example!).
Your ISP also has the facility to track and log where you go on the internet and what you do when you get there, and it is well chronicled that the FBI are pushing for legislation that these records are maintained for a minimum of two years. Thereafter, even though your partner may not be aware of what you have been up to all night – the feds will!
The ACTA Factor – The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement is a proposal currently undergoing negotiation which will effectively create a world-wide agreement on what you can (and more importantly what you cannot) access from your computer. Although on the surface ACTA appears well-meaning and responsible, it fails to make a distinction between organized piracy for criminal profit and voluntary fellowships promoting innovation, information and free expression.
Operating under the guidelines of ACTA, Internet Service Providers will be forced by government legislation (sponsored by the Motion Picture and Recording Industry Associations of America) to cut off a subscribers´ Internet connection if they are suspected of belonging to an “illegal” file-sharing organization. ISPs will effectively become “Copyright Cops” with their arms twisted up behind their backs by the big corporations to make sure this agreement is enforced, or face legal action and financial sanctions.
Speed – The service speeds advertised by Internet Service Providers are the “maximum” speeds at which a download speed is provided to your computer. The only way to actually get the maximum speed is to move next door to the ISP server, as the further you are away from the exchange, the weaker the strength of signal. The fact that many subscribers do not notice that their speed of service is not up to scratch is because most people infrequently download large files or programs, and so the Internet Service Providers get away with it.
If you ever upload files to the Internet, you ought to be advised that upload speeds have nothing to do with velocity in the other direction, and your ISP will provide an upload service equivalent to a quarter (if you are lucky) of what you might be getting from your download service. Paying more for a premium, allegedly speedier service is just a waste of money.
Speed Test Web Sites –You may have tested the speed of the Internet connection provided by your ISP, and found it more or less to be what they promised. What you may not know is that Internet Service Providers can identify when you are connecting to a speed measuring platform and initiate a “bandwidth burst” – effectively increasing the speed of your service by up to five megabits per second. They cannot maintain it for very long, but sufficiently for you to fall for the trick and believe that they are providing the service you are paying for.
The only way that you are going to catch them out is to locate every subscriber to your ISP and get them to connect to an Internet speed test site simultaneously. Hopefully the speed test site does not crash because of the volume of traffic trying to access it!
Bandwidth Throttling. Many ISPs engage in the practise of “throttling” bandwidth to control upload and download speeds when they have more subscribers in a certain area than they can cope with. Internet Service Providers may only have a (say) 10 Gbit total capacity within a certain location. They want to maximize the number of subscribers who can share the “pipe”, so will reduce or “throttle” the service so that when it does hit top usage, subscribers do not notice a major slow-spot.
Peak time traffic, when more people surf the internet, is most commonly between 6.00pm and 11.00pm (local times). During these periods capacity is stretched and often exceeded, however the service will not get much faster after midnight – because your ISP does not want you to know that it can!
Spam – Internet Service Providers could stop spam emails if they really wanted to. Fact! ISPs could talk to Email Service Providers – the likes of Google and Yahoo! – and work together ban those people who fill up your email inboxes with junk and prevent productivity in the office. The ESPs claim they cannot do it alone because of the anonymity of the Internet user. The ISPs will not do it because spamming represents some of their best business interests.
As a token gesture, some ISPs blocked Port 25 for outgoing mails to other networks, but that just created a tailback of mail traveling through the ISP filters, and did not really help anybody. In the same way as if you drive irresponsibly you are banned from driving your car, you should have your right to an internet service removed from you if you are a persistent spammer. The ISPs know who they are, yet refuse to do anything significant about it.
IMAP – IMAP, or Internet Message Access Protocol, is a far more versatile method of sending and receiving emails than POP3/SMPT – but how many Internet Service Providers tell you how to configure your computer for IMAP? With IMAP default settings, when you receive an email it is downloaded onto your computer via your email client (Outlook, Thunderbird etc) and the original stays on the ISPs server. Furthermore, when you send an email from your PC or laptop, with IMAP the sent message stays on the server as well.
The greatest advantage of IMAP is if you use multiple computers – say a desktop at home and a laptop on your travels. Then, whenever you receive or send an email, the ISP server synchronizes your email clients so that the message you sent from your laptop will appear on your home computer should you need to access it later. So, why don´t the Internet Service Providers want you to know about IMAP? Resources. They do not want to store your emails for posterity on the hard drives of their servers. They want your emails off their servers and on your PC – now!
Limited File Sharing Access – This has nothing to do (yet) with the ACTA Factor mentioned above, but more with saving ISP resources at “exchange points”. Exchange points occur when you want to access a web site beyond your provider´s network, and you have to cross over (exchange) onto the network which hosts the web site from which you want to download.
Internet Service Providers keep records of how much traffic they exchange – kind of like a balance sheet – and companies sending a surplus amount of traffic onto other networks have to compensate the other networks with cash. Therefore, it is in the ISPs best interest to limit you (wherever possible) to file sharing web sites within their own network. They will not tell you that when signing you up!
Modems – Modems all do the same thing. They convert and carry digital data in waveform from A to B and back again. So, if my computer and your computer speak the same language, why does my computer require a different modem from yours? Blame my ISP! By inserting different chipsets into the modem (or router), Internet Service Providers can make their modems incompatible with any service that you may wish to change to in the future. It also means that when you do choose to change, your new ISP can charge you extra for a new modem that you cannot get from anywhere else – and charge you whatever they like!
One other small trick is that the AC/DC converter in the plug will burn out every two years or so. You will not be able to tell that is what is wrong because all the lights will be out on the modem, and all you know is that you are receiving no power, and hence no signal. Rather than tell you to get a new adapter plug, your ISP technical support will send you a replacement modem after you have spent ages trying to explain the problem (see below) and once you have paid $25 to cover the shipping costs of a minute piece of electronic gadgetry.
Premium Rate Support – Internet Service Providers are keen to advertise that they have a 24 hour a day, 7 days per week support service and that it “only” costs $1.20 (or thereabouts) per minute to call them. Knowing that few technical issues that take less than twenty minutes to resolve, the ISPs are onto a killing with their premium rate support services, and it is a trick – like all the others mentioned above – that you need to be aware of before you agree to pose for one of their loving family portraits or use your workplace as the backdrop for a corporate Internet-provider-sponsored piece of marketing.
All images supplied by www.freeimages.co.uk
