Anyone wondering about the web’s biggest dangers should check out Carolyn Duffy Marsan’s new article in Network World.

Remember those cyberattacks on Estonia this spring that wiped out government websites and almost brought the country’s banking system to a standstill? That wasn’t even full-fledged cyberwarfare. It was accomplished through ordinary though well-coordinated denial-of-service attacks. (Feeling safe?)

For the U.S., the article points up two lessons. First, as the article notes, U.S. businesses “are better positioned to defend themselves against similar DoS attacks because the United States is so much larger than Estonia and has a more robust network infrastructure.”

True enough. Regardless of the type of attack, network redundancy is crucial to keeping the data flowing. Anything that interferes with network deployment – net neutrality, for example, with its mandated expenses and endless court challenges – will necessarily make our network infrastructure less resistant to attack.

Second, this article illustrates yet again the need for packet management on the network. To be blunt, when DOS, spear phishing or polymorphic virus attacks are unleashed, a bit is definitely not a bit on the network – no matter how frequently or earnestly the net neutrality proponents make that argument.

Even though America spends about 15 percent of GDP on healthcare, much of the system unfortunately brings to mind Dr. Hackenbush instead of Dr. Huxtable. Is anyone surprised that the percentage of U.S. healthcare costs allocated to “administration” is about twice Canada’s rate?

So with huge costs and rampant inefficiency, there’s an obvious need for expanding telemedicine and healthcare networking, right? Wrong – at least according to the inevitable consequences of net neutrality.

The U.S. Internet Industry Association just published this interesting essay (PDF) on the problems that net neutrality would cause for the healthcare industry. It notes:

“American consumers should not be forced to accept a ‘one-size-fits-all’ broadband service that places critical medical monitoring and health care on the same footing as music and video downloads or non-critical communications.”

Worse, net neutrality would essentially put courts and the federal government in charge of deciding which new applications could receive any sort of prioritized treatment by a broadband carrier. That’s hardly reassuring for those desperately in need of treatment that could be provided through the marriage of telemedicine and a broadband pipe.

Add the chairman of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce to the list of voices urging Congress not to tie the Net down in pointless net neutrality. Writing in the Austin American-Statesman, Massey Villarreal states:

“[N]et neutrality advocates [are] basing their case on hypothetical scenarios based on snippets of news quotes…. Legislating on such flimsy evidence is sure to yield dangerously imprecise results that could unintentionally block the kinds of new innovations that continue to add new value to the Internet.”

While some try to position net neutrality as a Democratic cause, it is worth noting that in Maryland, California, Maine and other states, opposition from organized labor and other party stalwarts has sunk net neutrality efforts.

And his piece is also a timely reminder that in last year’s Congressional vote on net neutrality, more than half of the combined Black and Hispanic caucus members opposed it.

You can read the full Op-Ed here.

There’s no question that, during the live webcast of a recent Lollapalooza concert, AT&T made a mistake. Artistic expression is a staple of Internet content and shouldn’t be silenced. Period.

But let’s be clear: This incident has absolutely nothing to do with net neutrality. Nothing. Zero. Zilch.

From a technological standpoint, the mistake here involves a website owner making a stupid edit to the content on its site. This is a legal right guaranteed by Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act. By contrast, net neutrality involves blocking or degrading the web sites of others, not infringing on the rights of a web site operator to decide what to carry on his or her own site.

NetworkWorld’s Johna Till Johnson is definitely not being evil with this cool blog on Google:

“Google wants net neutrality? Great! Virtue begins at home. Let the company first propose federal regulation of all search engines to ensure ‘neutral’ rankings of search results, and to guarantee that information isn’t getting concealed (or revealed) for political purposes. Let’s see Google regulate itself — then we’ll consider regulating its competition.”

The interesting thing about Johnson’s Google critique is that when it comes to data management on the network, she gets it. Only a few weeks ago, she posted a column on the problem of applying yesterday’s “dumb-pipe” approach to todays’ Internet, writing:

“The lesson of the Internet (and of free-market democracy, at least so far) is that more freedom is generally preferable, even at the cost of limited performance guarantees. But ‘generally preferable’ doesn’t mean ‘true at all costs’….

In network terms, the network should be dumb enough to permit freedom, but smart enough to stay functional under stress. In other words, add just enough intelligence to keep the ‘net functional, but not so much that it breaks.”

That’s a pretty good summary of what the net neutrality fight is all about. The “bandwidth glut” from earlier this decade has disappeared faster than the latest Lindsay Lohan movie. With network operators reporting 60 percent annual data growth, there isn’t any choice but to add a limited amount of network intelligence to keep the web functioning properly.

Sure Google objects, but as Johnson notes about Google’s commitment to neutrality:

“Try Googling Google, and you may notice something surprising: very few negative comments on the company pop up. Odd, no?”