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I also divide by 10 because it's just quick and simple. Then, if I am getting worse than that, I know that something is just wrong. 768kbps / 8 = 96KB (in a perfect world). So if I don't see AT LEAST 77KB, then something is REALLY wrong.

Lastly, what tools are you using to measure your speeds!? When Verizon put the fiber into the house, we started measuring throughput using their website. The speeds were horrible! NO ONE was happy. But part of the problem was that I quickly threw a dumb box together so that I didn't have to have Verizon technicians in my bedroom to see my daily PC (nor install any software on it either). Once I ran the same website based test on my daily PC, the speeds were there. Between 4500kbps and 4900kbps for my 5M line. And I run those test every so often. The results are truly all over the place.

You can try the Verizon Infospeed Testhere, although I suspect they will check for valid Verizon IP addresses.

I also use DSLReports Tools to monitor my line a bit more independantly.

Finally, the real deal is when you start downloading ISOs anyway. That's when you find out what your line CAN be like. To that end, I've never been happy.

Considering the mention of speed tests in the OP, I assume the OP knows of the site, but for those who don't, you can find out who is providing higher quality service in your area at DSLReports. No one offers exactly what they claim their bandwidth is, but with enough looking around, you can find out who comes damn close.

My ISP posts their speeds to marketing (7 Mbps for standard), and then sets the equipment to ensure that customers get those actual speeds (7.5 Mbps). I consistently get over 7 megs down, and their high-end techs hang out at broadbandreports to respond to any really tough network issues and user challenges. They get it, and I wish that more ISPs were the same way.

ISP: http://www.cogeco.ca/
BBR Forum: http://www.dslreports.com/forum/cogeco

Don't join someone like Verizon or Comcast. Join someone like Speakeasy or (what I use, highly recommended) Sonic.net. Check out DSL Reports before signing up.

Go here. There are discussions about free versions. Definitely search andd read the FAQ since this is a common question.

Broadband Reports/DSL Reports' security forum has a discussion about this. Even legit XP owners, including myself, are complaining.

Look at TechCentral's article for screen shots and results of this nag stuff.

I wonder if MS is going to contact ISPs with DMCA for those who pirated their products. It's very scary. I have heard and seen pirated software users with this before. An example: VisualRoute -- http://www.google.com/search?q=visualroute+dmca

Just look Here for more info:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url= /library/en-us/dns/dns/dnsquery.asp

Also you can defeat a Host file by simply changing the priority of lookups using the registry, more here:

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,15900699~da ys=9999~start=20#15902844

I have optimum online too and the great thing about newsgroups is that your not sharing the files out to other people. You see optimum doesn't cap you for downloading they cap you when your uploading to much. I don't know how speeds are in your area but downloading from newsgroups I can pull about 13-14Mbs and I can do this all day and night and optimum could care less. What optimum does care about is the uploading and thats when they notice you.

I'm not sure if you follow broadbandreports at all but the capping discussion has been going on for years
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,15784791/

Well, if you know, don't just say "I know", enlighten us. Not saying I dont believe you, I just have no idea what kind of different we're talking about.

I pay $59.94 for cable internet, cable internet by itself (without cable tv) was quoted to me as "$61"

I've recently seen speed of.. well it's saying 300Kbps right now.. I don't actually believe that (maybe caching something, like it does..)
My estimate of a closer average peak is 128Kbps. Average speed is probably 30Kbps (of course, there's also http://www.dslreports.com/ , if you want a less "uhhh.. I /guess/.." answer about that point)

et tu?

Not quite true. The DVR has it, the remote don't.
You can add a 30 second skip to Comcast DVR remote :)
Is quite handy.
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,11973771~mo de=flat

re: http://www.dslreports.com/stest?loc=1

Actually if they are rewriting 60% of Windows, it's a Good Thing(tm) and Windows Vista may just turn out to be significantly better than Windows XP. Now if only they relax on the DRM, change Activation so it's more similar to Adobe's schene (allowing for deactivation and transfer of licenses, etc.), and make it easy to replace the desktop and skin, I just might go back to Windows for personal machines.

Nope, the phone and vid DOES NOT come out of your 15/2, it's separate. There's a good discussion on it here. Cheers, Ed T.

Unfortunately, there are NO magic utilities that will wave it's magic wand and *poof* out pops a list of the 10 recommended steps to ultimate gaming perforgasm.

It's called trial and error, and it takes time to figure things out for yourself.

Don't try the all encompassing, single pass, benchmark utilities as they are too general.

#1 - Memory - It's been repeated here multiple times - Gaming takes memory - I won't play on a gaming rig with less than 2GB RAM. Disable virtual memory (as stated earlier as well) - try downloading TweakXP from totalidea - it has some nice memory tweaking settings that take the guesswork out of things.

#2 - Benchmarking / Tweaking / Re-benchmarking...

SiSoft Sandra (as mentioned earlier in this thread) is a good start. It has several modules, which can be run individually.

Go through your memory benchmarks - tweak settings in the BIOS (if they are available for tweaking), then re-run - DOCUMENT your changes, 1 change at a time - it's time consuming as hell, yet it's the only way to truly know what changes caused what differences in performance.

Run the disk benchmarks, tune the cache settings in the registry, re-run the disk benchmark, then re-run the memory again to see what impact having changed the disk cache has on memory performance.

Networking - if you are using a motherboard, with an embedded network interface, and it's not a hardware (ie seperate chip) implemented network interface - replace it with a card - software based network interfaces, running from chipset/cpu ruin system performance.

Places like http://www.dslreports.com/ under the tools section have some decent tools for examining your system settings, and suggesting changes to optimize throughput.

Playing with QOS settings may also effect network performance.

#3 Video - what games are you planning on playing, what refresh rate does your monitor support?

If your monitor only supports 60hz refresh, then it doesn't do a lot of good to go out and get that 80fps monster video card (unless you plan on replacing the monitor). The only place this isn't true, is in the digital realm of LCD monitors, where the faster you can refresh the image, between syncs, the better off you are.

Monitor - if using an LCD, what's your black to black / white to white delay? Replace the monitor if it's over 8ms - as that may introduce ghosting while playing. (I personally use a Viewsonic VX922 - with 2ms black to black / white to white - it's awesome IMNSHO)

HTH

Your best bet is to go with Speakeasy if that is what you're looking for. They are pricey, but they don't block any ports, only work with static IPs, and you'll get the speed you're paying for. I enjoy their One-link package @ 1500/384 with their VOIP offering for just under $90/mo after all taxes/fees. I'd stay with them if I could afford it. My plan is to go with Earthlink cable and use Skype or the Gizmo Project for voice.

From the site, the fastest synchronous connection you can get is T1 speed for $300/mo. Unfortunately, we aren't S. Korea or Japan with broadband value just yet.

Sure it does. I work for a company (who everyone of you know and have heard of) who does all their level 1 and 2 technical support through an outsourcer. I would honestly say that the biggest hurdle in our organization to providing good support is the company we outsource to. Why?

Mostly because they seem to have their own interests at heart. They've shortened training, they pay people like 8.50 starting wage, and their attrition rate is way over 200%. Its kinda depressing - as soon as they get someone good - like 8 months to a year our he/she leaves to a better job. Seems to me its a lot of wasted money on the little training they do. These are not simple programs just anyone can sit down and start using either.

As far as their own interests are concerned - they rather give people wrong information, or shuffle calls in some other way to get rid of people to make their own stats look good. I know this because I personally play clean up for a lot of these mishandled calls. I've apologized a lot for the way these customers have been treated more than once.

Check this classic post on dslreports I worked at the US company that did msn tier 3 support (I think still does it - just in Canada now) - and I can tell you with conviction that all of this is true.

Mentioned at Dslreports.com

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/72293

This text and link was ripped off word for word from a Broadband Reports Post yesterday:

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/72112

$23 is a full $10 higher than the new AT&T/SBC DSL 1.5M/384K package now it looks like: http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/71751

A 45Mbps fibre connection to my house would be nice. (I don't live in PA, but wasn't 45Mbps promised to everyone nationwide, funded by the pile of extra taxes and fees on telecom services?)

This Broadband/DSL Reports forum was recently opened for helping people with infected systems. Its FAQ is informative as well.

Actually I've gotten so used to not having the systray icon that I don't often run it (and I'm not keen on adding much to system startup), but it's nice to have when I'm feeling paranoid and running XP (redundant? ;).

If you look around, you might find something similar for whatever hardware you run.

I doubt Google will do that. There are other search engines, and switching search engines is much easier than switching ISPs.

If Google decides not to service Bellsouth's customers, some people will switch to a different ISP, but how many? Not everyone online uses Google, most people I know uses Yahoo. And even if some people decide to switch, who will they switch to? Cable companies are staying quiet on this issue, but they haven't exactly spoken out against it.http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/71240

Also, if Google decides to lock out Bellsouth's customers, they will lose out on advertising revenue. Investors won't like that. Bellsouth OTOH probably won't mind. They are already working with yahoo on co-marketing of DSL service. So this will be a boost for their partner, Yahoo. And because it's Google locking out Bellsouth's customers, not Bellsouth locking out Google, who do you think the bad publicity will fall on?

I have the latest test files created from version 1.17 both OFFLINE and ON-LINE as well as zip files for the last two prior releases 1.16 and 1.14 located here: http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,15188688#15 188722 They can be used for testing, also there is an patch NOT supported by Microsoft for those running Windows 98 here: http://www.nod32.ch/en/download/tools.php It should be noted that these files have been used for many days and are safe for testing.

http://www.dslreports.com/speak/print/default;1512 1004

There's an excerpt of our chat in that post too.

The first, higher speed, is "a good thing": A faster connection is always nicer though as many have pointed out the limits are often at the server-end, not the client end. Also the entire ISP model is asynchronous, assuming that we'll all be good little consumers and never be transmitting anything but the occs'l email and requests for more packets, not having our own servers or sending our own audio or video streams.

This is pretty much not what Tim Berners-Lee was thinking when he first developed his World Wide Web, and what he and others have been trying to rectify ever since. Indeed it is contrary to much of the intrinsic nature of the internet architecture where all peers are inherently considered equal and it is all superficially one big dumb network with the clever bits innovating at the edges. Unfortunately this is also pretty much contrary to what ISPs and media companies would very much like everything to be; just another variation of the centralized broadcast model where they plug in a pipe and you get to choose ABC or Disney (oh, they're the same!)

The second topic, monkeying about with what, where, and how packets get transported, is a creeping phenomena that is indeed slowly taking hold. A good early example is the TOS for many of the 'unlimited' wireless digital data services from cellphone companies:

Verizon EDO Terms-of-Service
Unlimited NationalAccess/BroadbandAccess services cannot be used (1) for uploading, downloading or streaming of movies, music or games, (2) with server devices or with host computer applications, including, but not limited to, Web camera posts or broadcasts, automatic data feeds, Voice over IP (VoIP), automated machine-to-machine connections, or peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing, or (3) as a substitute or backup for private lines or dedicated data connections.

To borrow a line from HHGTTG:

"Ah," said Arthur, "this is obviously some strange usage of the word 'unlimited' that I wasn't previously aware of."

Already many ISP's block ports, typically port 25 to either stop email spamming or prevent customers from using 3rd party email servers. Also port 139 is often blocked, so Windows users don't accidentally share the contents of their hard drives to the online world. However many go on to block (or significantly degrade traffic on) ports for unambiguously self-interested reasons, such as p2p, or increasingly vendors with whom they compete. One well known example is Telus in Canada who black-holed traffic to a union website (and several thousand other websites unfortunate enough to be co-hosted with it) during a strike. Another is Rogers, also in Canada, who are apparently currently messing about with traffic to/from Apple's iTunes websites.

VOIP is the big target these days. Already several rural US ISPs have had their hands slapped for trying to block it. The ISPs were extensions of the local rural phone companies, heavily Federally subsidized, who'd gone into the data business (also often Federally subsidized). However when their customers stopped making analog calls and started making cheaper VOIP ones they tried to put a stop to this loss of revenue / increase in traffic. Ultimately they were denied this but the issue is one larger and larger ISP's are taking up. BellSouth's chairman and others have increasingly been making their own noises along these lines, and this could indeed be the big flash-point w

He will pay for the rocket with stolen money. I was charged in november by Amazon for a book I did not order and it was shipped overnight $27 charge overall for a 10.95 book. I found it came thru my Amazon store which I had setup just a few weeks before. I called and spoke with someone who said no problem to refunding my money but I would have to pay the shipping since it wasn't their fault. It was a good thing this guy was at the end of a phoneline... I had to inundate their email boxes - any email link, after getting no reply from their regular customer service email but after 5 weeks I did get a full refund. Google: Amazon credit card fraud. This link is similiar to what happen to me. http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14782168 Click on link there http://www.complaints.com/directory/2004/december/ 21/18.htm I was lucky because others are still waiting for their refund. I guess they weren't as mad as I was. I kept saying in my emails that they committed credit card fraud, which they did.

1) EULAs are "king". Once you agree to them you have little to argue about unless it is extreme or unusual circumstances (like the EULA violating your fundimental rights, etc).

Not true, as stated a while back, EULA's can only be taken so far. If you make outrageous statments in a EULA, a higher governing body has the power to state that your EULA is invalid.

IE: the case between RetroCoder, makers of Spymon, and the makers of Ad-Aware. Where:

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/69400 Surveillance/spyware software vendor RetroCoder, makers of Spymon, have buried a provision in their EULA that bars the use of adware detection software to detect it. As such they're now threatening legal action against anti-spyware vendor Sunbelt Software for investigating, labeling, and then detecting their software as spyware. Sunbelt dev Alex Eckelberry has posted his opinions on the matter over at the Sunbelt blog. It's an interesting legal wiggle, but one Retrocoder is very likely to lose.

Ok, your Fedex example kind of misses the point, so you're right, you are missing something.

The ISPs want to control the internet traffic based upon the content of that traffic. It would be like you going to Fedex and asking to buy overnight air service for a box of chocolates, but them telling you that they don't ship chocolates overnight by air, only 3-5 day by ground. Actually, that's a perfect example, because a box being shipped can be likened to a packet being transferred. The ISPs want to "look inside" these packets and determine their priority depending on their content.

One ISP in Canada (Rogers) is already doing this: http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,15033490?r= 946
Users of bittorrent report that the speed shave been throttled back to dialup-like speeds. Now keep in mind that there are many legitimate uses for bittorrent, such as Linux ISO distribution for example. But if you set your bittorrent to listen on port 1720, a port commonly used for H.323 videoconferencing, your speeds will pick back up again. They want to give priority to certain kinds of traffic and deprioritize other kinds of traffic, and they want to do it at their own whims.

Soon it won't be port-based traffic reprioritization, but protocol-based, or even content-based. Downloading something that isn't in line with the morality of the CEO of the company that provides your internet access but which is perfectly legal to download? Tough, you're throttled!

Do you see why this is bad, now?

Rogers High Speed Internet (http://www.rogers.com/ is already doing the following:

- Throttling back Bittorrent speed to the point that it as well as some other P2P services are unusable (http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,15033490). As a side effect, it's affected iTunes (http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14747626) and XBox Live (http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,15038493) usage.

- Killing off their Newsgroup servers as of the 15th of this month (http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14769820)

- Creating and enforcing bandwidth limits(http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,1448 8371) although they do so selectively.

And all of this without letting their users know up front. Lovely. This is what you Americans have to look forward to.

Rogers High Speed Internet (http://www.rogers.com/ is already doing the following:

- Throttling back Bittorrent speed to the point that it as well as some other P2P services are unusable (http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,15033490). As a side effect, it's affected iTunes (http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14747626) and XBox Live (http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,15038493) usage.

- Killing off their Newsgroup servers as of the 15th of this month (http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14769820)

- Creating and enforcing bandwidth limits(http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,1448 8371) although they do so selectively.

And all of this without letting their users know up front. Lovely. This is what you Americans have to look forward to.

Rogers High Speed Internet (http://www.rogers.com/ is already doing the following:

- Throttling back Bittorrent speed to the point that it as well as some other P2P services are unusable (http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,15033490). As a side effect, it's affected iTunes (http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14747626) and XBox Live (http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,15038493) usage.

- Killing off their Newsgroup servers as of the 15th of this month (http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14769820)

- Creating and enforcing bandwidth limits(http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,1448 8371) although they do so selectively.

And all of this without letting their users know up front. Lovely. This is what you Americans have to look forward to.

Rogers High Speed Internet (http://www.rogers.com/ is already doing the following:

- Throttling back Bittorrent speed to the point that it as well as some other P2P services are unusable (http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,15033490). As a side effect, it's affected iTunes (http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14747626) and XBox Live (http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,15038493) usage.

- Killing off their Newsgroup servers as of the 15th of this month (http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14769820)

- Creating and enforcing bandwidth limits(http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,1448 8371) although they do so selectively.

And all of this without letting their users know up front. Lovely. This is what you Americans have to look forward to.

Rogers High Speed Internet (http://www.rogers.com/ is already doing the following:

- Throttling back Bittorrent speed to the point that it as well as some other P2P services are unusable (http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,15033490). As a side effect, it's affected iTunes (http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14747626) and XBox Live (http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,15038493) usage.

- Killing off their Newsgroup servers as of the 15th of this month (http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14769820)

- Creating and enforcing bandwidth limits(http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,1448 8371) although they do so selectively.

And all of this without letting their users know up front. Lovely. This is what you Americans have to look forward to.

"Say I'm a hacker, right? And I notice a bug in some open-source code and I notice a bug in MS' new version of IE.

Okaaay.

"Now I'm a good person, but I don't have access to the IE code."

So, why don't you just *report* it to them?

"So I can fix the open-source code, but all I can do about IE (or any other MS product) is tell them and hope they'll fix it but many don't since MS doesn't see them as a problem.

So quit bitching and just tell them about it. If they sit on it, release a POC on the net after 45 days or so. This is a rather flawed argument anyway because it is based on the presumption that A) and open source project would WANT your fix, and B) Open source dev teams never downplay vulnerabilities, abd C) Big coporations allways downplay vulnerabilites. The same ego that leads big corporations like Microsoft and Oracle to downplay vulnerabilities leads OS developers to do the same thing. The Mozilla dev team has done it multiple times since the release of Firefox 1.0.

"The only way to get them to fix it would be to prove to them that it IS a problem. "

The like I said, be nice and report it. If they ignore you force them to act by releasing a POC on the net.

"Why?" [would linux become a target if everyone used it on the desktop]

Because Malware authors today are in it for the money. There is a ton of money to made on owned machines, and peoples' idientities. Weather the dominant platform has a Window a Penquin or an Apple for a mascot means nothing to the people who are out to make money.

"Do you really think that if "a bunch of ignorant people used Linux" we nerds would switch over to something else, just because the average user is now using Linux?

Perhaps. If everyone's grandma started using Linux, it would become a haven for malware, and thus not as appealing as other good free OSs like FreeBSD or Solaris.

"There'd still be the same number (if not more) of contributors to Linux, so we'd still get problems fixed at the same speed or faster."

The speed at which problems get fixed is irrelevant when you throw ignorant users into the mix. Look at some weblogs, and you'll notice that a large percentage of firefox users are still using version 1.05 or earlier, a version for which remote code execution exploit code was released a few days ago. What do you think would happen if 70-90% of web users used Firefox? Do you think adware distributors who are out to make money on ad revenue not target firefox users because it's an open source app? There are remote code execution exploits for earlier versions of firefox too, and many users are still using 1.0. Firefox users are supposedly 'savy' web users yet they continue to click around the net using exteremely vulberable versions. The fact is, many people don't update their software like they should because they simply don't know any better. A recent linux worm is still out in the wild despite the fact that it exploits a couple of fairly old vulnerabilities and the worm itself is over a month old. I run awstats on one of my webservers and updated it at least a month before the worm came out, but it's pretty obvious that many other people didn't.

"And Windows is "in the crosshairs" (so to speak) because of its gaping security holes."

What "gaping security holes" are you speaking of? Do you mean the two months patched vulnerability that the newest windows worm exploits? How exactly are worms like this for linux any different? Windows is in the crosshairs because that's where the money is at.

Yeah! Let's drive all of the ignorant/apathetic users of Windows over to Linux. Then we can read about Linux worms that infect the millions of unpatched linux boxes.

Here you go. Not the best of transcriptions, but something you'll be able to read at your own pace :) http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,13967511

you are correct as i used the wrong letter as per this article:
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/55799

When I purchased the "new" WRT54G, version 5, I expected a router that would at least have better performance than my old, reliable Pentium-II firewall running Windows 2003 and Routing and Remote Services.

Boy was I wrong. Many sites, such as: http://www.tmobile.com/ http://www.realtor.com/ and http://www.gamespot.com/ all had great difficulty loading. It turns out a **LOT** of other people are having the same problem with the Version 5 WRT54G.

My longstanding issue was finally escalated to Linksys Customer Support (you will be escalated to Customer support after dealing with Technical support). At Customer Support, they RMA'd my v5 router, and replaced it with a v4 router. I demanded that they replace it with a v4 router, and I noted that a *LOT* of people on this bulletin board are having the EXACT same problem.

I have literally spent hours trying to solve this problem on the v5 router. As soon as I plugged the v4 router in, my problems were solved!

Of course, Linksys being a company that enjoys wasting their customers' time by not even admitting a problem, you will be forced to pay for shipping charges. No matter that the item is clearly flawed by engineering defects to begin with. I will never, ever, consider buying a Linksys in the future. What a mistake I made thinking they were a premium brand. The fact that they are going to sell a version that finally works as it should, under a different model number and at a higher price, rather than fix the WRT54G Version 5 tells me that they are not interested in providing a quality product. I hope their strategy blows up in their face!

Yep. I'm not sure if I was on some kind of blacklist, but Roger's would drop about 10% of the my openvpn UPD packets and bittorrent downloads were severly hampered too. This caused my VoIP conenction running over the VPN to continually drop packets causing enough audio problems that the service was unusable.

Roger's is evil for doing this. They are controlling who their customers can connect to, much the same as if they blocked or distorted telephone calls to Telus.

Am cancelling my rogers account and going with DSL within two weeks because of this. Tech support is denying everything and customer service us just as much in the dark. See http://www.dslreports.com/forum/rogers for more info

The alternate reality that the reporter is that they are pretty much trumpetting the Press Release by Taanta Gupta at Rogers. Check out this thread on DSLReports Toronto Star Article (original is subscription only) which their reporter pretty much did the exact same thing. And the guy at The Star is normally pretty good...

I am 100% sure you are wrong, Shaw's capped at 512Kbit/s up for residental plan, and 1Mbit/s up for Xtreme.

Also, check here for Broadband reports FAQ, as well as here for maximum speed tests reported by users.

I was very surprised when the phone company told me I couldn't have DSL. Also pissed off since I had specifically called and asked the phone company if I could get DSL before I signed the lease for this apartment. But I went to dslreports, and it says I'm 13195 feet from the CO, which is right around the limit.

Next time I move I guess I'm going to have to look at this map first.

Same topic with same wording was posted on broadbandreports.com earlier today: http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/65821

I thought about the same issue myself. Then I remembered Carnivore.

I still haven't seen many arguments on the net for what happens when a city full of grandmas and newbs have 5+Mbps symmetrical connections and unpatched versions of (you name it) and become a bigass DDOS net.

The internet will handle that just fine I'm sure. Ask the folks in Tokyo where 40/12 Mbps was cheap a year ago. American "broadband" sucks. The American cable/telecom monopolies have been dragging their feet intentionally. They can afford to since they have no competition. Just look at what happened THE DAY AFTER the Supreme Court guaranteed cable companies continued monopoly status with the Brand X decision.

So to sum up, good for Louisiana. Screw the cable and telecom monopolies.

As far as I'm aware, no other spyware removal application has promoted Claria products in this fashion.

what like adaware and pestpatrol did with WhenU? ;)

http://www.dslreports.com/scan and other places will probe your machine for you. Most web-based scans don't do a complete job, but if you have a friend online he can "attack" you on every port.

You know the drill -
start your server
config your firewall to let port through
probe yourself

and pray your server doesn't have any security holes or if it does the bad guys aren't probing you at the same time.

After probing yourself, be sure to turn on your firewall.

I noticed some routing issues earlier today. Specifically, at least one alter.net (MCI)router is unresponsive and RSA's website is un-reachable/-traceable/-pingable. However, the unresponsive router is not listed on dslreport's Router Watch page. I was curious if anyone knew if this Pakistan issue was causing problems for some US sites.

No need to reinvent the wheel.
http://www.dslreports.com/

That's a very common problem with Netgears. So common in fact that there's a class action lawsuit against Netgear about it - http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,12918191.