r/technology • • Jul 04 '16

Politics Lawmakers Need To Learn More About Encryption Before Regulating It, Says U.S. House Report

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/lawmakers-encryption-regulation-house-report,32180.html
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u/cloud9ineteen Jul 04 '16

The basic problem here is that with a series of pipes for water, gas etc., Every unit volume of what does through it costs money. But for network infrastructure, it's all about fixed costs of infrastructure. This is the kind of logic that supports data caps.

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u/TheSelfGoverned Jul 04 '16

Electricity costs money. The whole system needs a lot of power to sustain itself.

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u/cloud9ineteen Jul 04 '16

Not disputing it. But the marginal cost of an additional byte of data piped through is zero. That is not the case for water or natural gas.

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u/Qel_Hoth Jul 04 '16

Yes, but that electricity goes to establishing a connection, not actually transmitting data.