Slashdot Mirror
VPN Clients Not Allowed On Residential Service
wayn3 writes "ComputerWorld reports here that two of the major cable companies have language in their terms of service that VPN clients are forbidden for "residential" class, forcing clients on their "business" offering which is at twice or more times the cost of residential service.
Has any been bit by this, and do those companies consider SSH a VPN client? This would stop me from telecommuting since my company would not be able to afford the business service."
I do it anyway. what are they going to do, cut me off?
I mean, you're using the connection for business purposes, you should be willing to pay for that. If your company can't afford it, then tough. It's not rocket science. Not only that, if you require 24-7 availability of your systems, you can always install a modem or two and connect that way.
If you require internet access for work, then you get a work account. If you require it for home, then it's a home account.
Hell, if you work from home, get the damn work account, then deduct the cost from your income taxes.
Seriously, who here runs a VPN that doesn't connect to their office? I can't really see a use for a VPN besides connecting widely distributed corporate offices and internal networks, which is most certainly deserving of business-class rates.
Is your company running tools written by ma
That said, I don't think this is fair. I also don't think it is fair when a company *cough*Verizon*cough* offers "full Internet service* but then blocks ports on the router and outlaws servers in the TOS. If all they want to sell is a watered down, "just look at the pretty pictures and don't do anything technical" service that's within their rights--but then say so on the label.
Hate trolls? Troll 'em back...at home!
The obvious question is "what classifies as a VPN?" A VPN is a Virtual Private Network which usually is constructed using a secure IP layer such as IPsec. While it is easy to scan for IPsec usage (it has it's own protocol number - even as TCP and UDP has), it is much harder to scan for other types of VPN solutions.
Even encrypted HTTP, HTTPS, can be used to build a VPN-similar type of thing (think "VNC"). Since HTTPS is used to encrypt on-line banking traffic, e-commerce sites and such, they cannot just stop everyone from using HTTPS.
Furthermore, since the data (by definition) is encrypted, it is impossible to peek at the data to determine if a data stream is "a VPN" or just some other HTTPS transfer.
The conlusion is that they will have huge problems trying to enforce this.
Girard said cable business-class service "is not any better than residential, yet they charge you more."
Imagine your phone company doubling your bill because they analysed your calls and decided you made a call to the office!!
I buy bandwidth. What I do with the bandwidth is nobody's business (obvious exceptions included..)
Backward%20compatibility%20is%20over-rated
What if I'm not using a VPN but just doing research on the web for work? Are the cable companies gonna stipulate that you can't do anything for a business from home, even browsing the web?
--"Karma is justice without the satisfaction"
Their TOS are terrible, and getting worse every rev. They have always had a 'no servers for the use of others' policy, and I've always run sshd because it's a server for my own use. On the last rev they disallowed 'any servers at all', which I didn't take seriously because IRC is broken without ident. Besides, technically ICMP could be considered both client and server, and the whole freakin' net is broken without it. Finally, my sshd is for my use only, and is configured and firewalled that way.
Also on the last TOS update they disallowed sucking feeds on their mostly-broken newsservers. They really don't know what they're doing, because in the grand scheme of things, they're just pushing those people to a sucking feed on an external newsserver, and eating their head-end bandwidth. Besides, an off-hours sucking feed would probably be more benign, and I'd be happy to adjust my cron setup to cooperate.
AFAIK they have no anti-VPN wording in their TOS, but IMHO that's only because they aren't clued in to its existence to forbid it.
IMHO, Adelphia wants to be in the 'TV for your computer' business.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
I can. I have family in the area, some with broadband of various kinds. If we shared files more (which will probably happen in the future), it would be nice if we could be hooked up on a VPN so we could just drag and drop to various locations, rather than emailing. It would be simpler and it would take up less bandwidth (one copy vs one upload + one download).
Hate trolls? Troll 'em back...at home!
As long as people are complacent and accept these kinds of bully tactics from their providers, they really have no standing to complain about it later. Don't like the fact that your cable company wants to be your net.babysitter, and tell you what you can or can't do on the Internet?
Well, rewarding this kind of arrogant big-brother attitude by giving them even MORE money for business-class service is certainly going to encourage a change for the better, wouldn't it? Or, perhaps, you should tell them to shove their port filters, and their DHCP garbage, up their network interface, and switch to someone else who does indeed provides real internet connectivity.
People really need to vote with their feet, and stop agreeing to put on their Internet provider's straightjackets. There are ISPs who will sell you a residential class DSL service, with a static IP address, and let you run servers. That's real Internet connectivity.
to determine if you're using a VPN client, you can always implement something like this.
Hey, is HTTP based, so how would they tell the difenrence ?
What ? Me, worry ?
"This would stop me from telecommuting since my company would not be able to afford the business service."
If you are TELECOMMUTING then you ARE a business customer. The only difference is that you aren't PAYING as a business customer.
Everyone can argue about if there should be different "classes" of service, but that is the business structure the Providers have chosen.
There will be people posting here "I use VPN but not for business." With those people I agree: Simply claiming the using VPN makes you a "business" customer is unfair.
But in the case where you ARE using the service as a business but want to only get charged the residential rate:
Quit your whining and stop being cheap
A business has the right to charge you the rates they see as fair and you have the right to not use their convenient service and start driving to work.
---"What did I say that sounded like 'Tell me about your day?'"---
I personally use VPN on my cable line for access to my home box from school. The thing is that I Have firewalled out the rest of the world from accessing the ports the VPN Server uses for it's little Java client web server and the acctual server, Except for the place I am comming from. So unless my Cable provider does some strange thing with spoofing addresses they can't really see them. What they can't see can't hurt them. I am lucky enough though to not have either one of the "C" Cable internet companies so I really don't have to worry that much.
(Score:0, Interesting)
Here's the point: Business usage (phone, cable, whatever) CAN be more costly to the provider because these users will scream louder and demand quicker restoration of service when something goes wrong (line failure due to snowstorm, flooding, you name it). They also threaten to sue for lost business revenues due to the company's failure to restore said service in what they think is a timely manner. Residential customers don't bring that baggage.
So, they don't really care if you USE the line for business, because you won't be able to file suit as in the case above -- according to the TOS you weren't supposed to be using it for that purpose anyway. BUT, if you want them to treat your service as an essential component of running your business, you have to pay business rates...which is not wholly unfair IMHO.
It's not funny till someone gets hurt.
The ZoomTown (god I hate that name...) service in Cincinnati doesn't have this clause, but the way they've configured their NAT for residential clients "breaks" many VPN clients. The upgrade is, as stated in the article, about twice the cost.
SSH works fine, though, and a clever tunneling setup can bypass their silly MAT trap in a lot of cases.
-- Minds are like parachutes... they work best when open.
Well, probably the same way they can filter http and https: by origin and destination ports.
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
I'm a grad student. The resources at the university I attend suck (the gta office has 1 computer in it, a 486 with windows 3.1). If I want to do work I have to either go to one of the big labs (big, not quiet, lots of people, can't get stuff done) or use the small physics lab which isn't equipped worth a shit. The solution? My home machine, which is a $400 alpha running linux. I ssh from the physics lab and do whatever programming I need to do, or check my email, or whatever. End result, if you classify ssh in the vpn category and expect me to pay 10x what I pay for connectivity then you are a fool. I don't have any options here - I've tried to get real machines in the gta office, even ONE machine that's worth a crap in there - it's a lost cause.
I invesigated Comcast cable a while back, as I'm out of range for DSL. Their terms of service were, in a word, unacceptable.
I suspect that you could get away with practically anything as long as nobody complained and you didn't generate too much traffic.
Oh, as to their "business solution"? DSL. Not an option. Near as I can tell, there is no such thing as "business class cable" Internet.
No high-speed internet for me. Sigh.
Welcome to the Turing Tarpit, where everything is possible but nothing interesting is easy.
>>A business has the right to charge you the rates they see as fair and you have the right to not use their convenient service and start driving to work. This is valid so long as the business in question isn't a monopoly, such as Time-Warner or one of the Baby Bells, for example. Those rates are regulated because the state has agreed to give them a limited monopoly. If you don't have much choice in broadband connectivity, then I'd argue that they do not have the right to raise prices willy-nilly as suits their suits.
"No, no, no. Don't tug on that. You never know what it might be attached to."
They've all but said that outright. They don't sell bandwidth. They sell a high speed web surfing experience.
This should no longer surprise anybody here. Let's get over it.
My Heart Is A Flower
that has been there from day one. Excite is the ones forcing the issue and always have. Look at AT&T's TOS now that they sluffed off the leeches called excite. servers allowed, linux specifically mentioned and unofficially supported (as in they'll tell you the ip information instead of saying it all has to be dhcp or we'll kill you or the funny, the dns servers ip address is prepriatory information I cant tell you.)
I'm sure comcast and cox will get a clue when they also fling excite the bord later next year.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Why should that matter? Do you pay more for bus/train/toll because you are going to work, instead of to the movies?
You should pay for the service you're getting: bandwidth, IP address and quality of service. What you do with it is non of the ISP's bussiness.
...richie - It is a good day to code.
I have had two different cable providers so far (comcast@home and Adelphia - I moved from Philly to Pittsburgh) and they both have these clauses. With both providers I used VPN to "dial-in" to work, and I have run servers (FTP and Web) - although not full time. They can't block the ports because there are other (legitimate) use for them.
I think they put these clauses in their contract so that *IF* you abuse of your priviledges, they have the rights to pull the plug. And even then, the only way they'd know is if everybody on your block complained of piss poor performance, and they decided to start investigate who is sucking all the bandwidth.
I have never gotten a call, email or letter from the providers complaining about this. I am not going to worry about it.
Why does it matter? The way I see things in an ideal world, when I purchase a network connection from an ISP, it shouldn't matter how I use it. If my ISP started to regulate my network activities to that extend, I'd go find another ISP with no bullsh*t.
Skiers and Riders -- http://www.snowjournal.com
There is no identifiable difference between what I telecommute to do and what I do for home use except that what I do for home use requires a tremendously larger amout of bandwitch. I don't browse newsgroups at work. I don't pull ads off of Adcritic at work. I don't browse around to see what neat and new things are out there. In short, my business use ties up a hell of a lot of bandwidth than my play use does. The original reason for business class phone lines was to pay for the extra quality of service that should you have a problem with your phone line, they would attempt to fix it faster than anyone else's residential line. However, the quality of cable does not change for the increase in price. As an Excite@Home customer, the way I have been treated is just ridiculous. To think that I would pay more for no change in service is stupid, at best. This is why I think that DSL is going to win in the end, which I didn't think until recently. Cable has totally overloaded itself.
My two cents,
Chad
Bel, the mostly sane.. "Of course I can't see anything! I'm standing on the shoulders of idiots." -- Me
The choice is not using a different company. The decision is use broadband from THE company servicing your community under THEIR terms or revert to dial-up service.
*IF* you're lucky, you can "choose" between the monopoly cable company's service and the monopoly phone company's service. If you are REALLY lucky, you can get DSL from a CLEC or COVAD reseller. If you are insanely fortunate, you can get wireless service or your buddy next door has a T-1 you can tap into.
I live a few miles from AOL, mci/worldcom/uunet, and many other MAJOR data centers. Yet *my* choices are: Cable modem, overpriced IDSL service, ISDN, or modem. People living in spitting distance of the main MCI center can't even get my limited selection.
There is no choice, the broadband providers are well aware of that fact, and they are determined to keep it that way.
No, but do you get charged more if you go to a movie and you're a business person as opposed to a student? Students pay less at movies then someone who works... even though you're both going to see the same movie.
The situation is the same. Residential people are less willing to spend money on internet connectivity and they are charged a lower price to entice thier usage of the system. business are willing to pay more and are charged accordingly.
god, i forget what the term is, but there's an economics word for this. old people and students get discounts in the real world, non-workers get discounts in the virtual one. annoying, but fair.
--
RumorsDaily
Plus they recently added a nationwide dialup service. 10 hours / month for free, 99 cents an hour after that. In the past year I've had only three memorable outages and one was at 1am.
Do this make me sound like Scott Case's bitch or what?
OK,
Well how about if you provider is the only game in town(and please name the town with more than one cable system available to any random house)...you can't get DSL, and the Provider has these stupid clauses...and they only offer residential grade service, no business grade...frnakly I would pay more for a business grade line if the charges were reasonable say $100/MO, and it offered me, lower latency, higher bandwidth/throughput, and I could legitimately run the things I want too(really I just want my DNS, and Web ports back)...
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
what's wrong with this picture?
higher prices and customer harm are signs of a real monopoly...
>What exactly classifies as business use
I'll say that when the service goes out for an hour, any you say "shoot, guess I'll go iron my socks for a while and call support if it isn't back up when I'm done" then you are not a business customer.
If the service goes out for ten minutes and you are on the phone right away screaming at them to restore your service RIGHT NOW because every minute that goes by you are losing money, then you are a business customer.
To use Earthlink's dial-up service from a cable account requires extra hardware. You need a rusty iron pipe to shove up your ass long enough to reach the nearest POP so an Earthlink employee can ram it farther into your behind. If you try dialing up away from home you better hope it isn't a period longer than about 18 hours total because they will begin the fourty dollars a minute charges. I mean this is understandable since your account in linked to a cable modem and you tying up a POTS line is wasting their service availability. Just don't use your dial-up for too long away from the safety of your cable modem.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
After reading about this kind of shit on a daily basis, I'm so happy I'm with Cablevision. It looks like they are the last decent broadband ISP in the country. Grok this: download speeds between 3000-5000 kbps, uploads around 900kbps, and I'm talking peak time. Semi-decent tech support. Formally they don't allow servers but from what I hear they won't enforce it unless you generate enormous amounts of traffic. They are cool with Linux and other esoteric OSes (they won't provide support, but hey, who needs OS support). It's DHCP, but my IP stayed the same for the last 6 months. And all this for $30 if you have their TV package ($40 if you don't). I'll tell ya, if you're in NY, NJ or CT it can't get any better....
If con is the opposite of pro, is Congress the opposite of progress?
Jennie Moyer, a spokeswoman for Philadelphia-based Comcast, said her company "does not support VPN residential services," adding that teleworkers or their companies can purchase Comcast Pro service, which supports secure VPNs, at a cost of $95 per month compared with $39.95 per month for the residential broadband service.
Are they automatically changing your monthly rate because they detect you using a VPN? I didn't see that. Just don't call up and ask for help getting you VPN to work with their service unless you are willing to pay.
Did I miss something? This doesn't seem as bad as the write-up implies.
That's right. Internet access is a product and I want to pay for the product. The product in this case is bandwidth and quality of service.
I'm willing to pay for that. Why should I pay more, for using less as a typical VPN/bussiness user, that some teenager who stays all day on Gnutella downloading videos?
...richie - It is a good day to code.
The problem here is that most people who use VPNs to connect to their workplace aren't telecommuters, but people who need a file or to check mail or something simple on an infrequent basis. Relatively few people truly telecommute (i.e. work from home most or all of the time). This more expensive business use, as well as actually running a business (servers, whatever) should cost more. But it seems unfair for someone to have to shell out the extra dough so they can check their mail from home.
Obviously there are secure ways besides VPNs to implement this functionality, and eventually I think we'll see a move towards these. The question remains how will the enforce this prohibition? And if it's allowed on business connections, does that mean they'll support it, too?
See, the real issue here isn't "no you can't do that here," but that certain types of users call with certain kinds of questions, and this allows those answering the questions to segregate the questions so the right people can answer them. IP/SEC traffic requires certain very specific protocols and ports to be opened which may not normally be open on a standard ISP network. Most legacy hardware, and much current hardware doesn't support IP/SEC, so it cannot work. Your cable modem/router probably doesn't, unless it's high end or very new.
By prohibiting this activity on their "home" networks, they need not burn cycles explaining why "you can't do that, it just won't work," while really saying "our hardware can't handle it." The latter unfairly casts a negative shadow on an ISP who simply didn't design their network to handle this traffic, and perhaps doesn't see that as being cost effective to do.
So this is another attempt to cover themselves for not providing any sort of support for VPN, including enabling the funcationality on their hardware. It's like their not supporting more than one machine in your house, or not supporting linux on their cable network. It would cost them way more to do it right than it's worth. They aren't doing anything wrong, though they're not doing anyone any favors, either. They aren't likely to tell you to stop, just not to ask for help. IP/SEC may never work on these networks, but other VPN-like items will probably fly under the radar.
The policy says
In reality I have and continue to use ssh for unix connectivity without hearing a thing from them. I've used pptp in the past when I was forced to work on Evil Empire(tm) OSes and that worked fine. I've got some GRE stuff running now between Cisco boxes on cable modem and that is fine as well.
The only thing they really watch for here is overall transfer volume. Use a gig a day every day for a week and you'll get The Phone Call. Other than this monitoring they don't have the time, energy, or hardware to observe/filter anything else.
I'd say go ahead and use it as you see fit
I am very easy to get along with, but I don't have time to waste being nice to people who are being stupid. -Theo
The model no longer applies. First, there is no valid regulation. This is evident from the unilteral change clauses in TOS, which essentially say, "We have the right to screw you at will. Pay up or go away." Second, the private companies in question have no intention to subsidize anything. They are simply squeezing what they can from who they can. We no longer have regulated public telcos.
What we have is a cartel of rapists. In the best of all worlds, competition would come to the rescue and drive all of the greedheads out. In this world a small number of private interests have been given control of access to publically built networks and do not allow competition. The variable TOS are proof of their dishonesty and the high cell phone, long distance, cable and local phone bills you pay each month are the result.
What the fools don't realize is that regulation can return and that it can be made reasonable. They think they have been given this magic tollbox that they can squeeze and squeeze. The electric utility deregulation effort should sober them up. That they are pulling tricks like this shows that they are total fools. In time the public will get fed up, just like it did over Ma Bell's policies. People's expectations will change.
All that being said, I'd love to see the cable companies ban M$'s brand of bandwith hogging "VPN". Their tools are so sad. The IT folks tried one of those "services" on my machine a month ago. It was so slow that it was unusable. Bandwith capping would do this, as the goofey stuff uses megabytes of useless tranfers each second. The dinky little cable gets clogged up fast when people start using that trash.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Are you sure this isn't just their way of not supporting your VPN? There are similar requirements that you use Windows or Mac OSes, Netscape/IE and these rules are simply to shield tech support from alternative OS/browser questions but I've never received a notice to shut off my Linux systems running SSH, CIPE, Apache (not on port 80), FTP, etc....I also don't call their support and ask how to configure httpd.conf...
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
The real trouble here is the arbitrary application of a fee with no real value in return.
In some cases, yes you are right about VPN being a business activity. In many other cases there are home users that can take advantage of VPN access when their employer is not funding it, or provides a nominal kickback that is = to a $20/mo dialup fee. Or perish the thought, you run a VPN host at home so you can grab stuff off your personal machine when away.
I can agree with them nailing bandwidth hogs with a surcharge or higher (expensive) class of service. When I get tier 1 access from a GSP, I pay for volume and service level - and they don't care what the content is. I don't think it unreasonable to pass those charges down within reason.
Sure the phone company charges a higher business rate. But wait! they will put in a bare-bones 2nd line for $10/mo. That often gets used for fax (or dialup for broadband challenged). What they don't give you is a commercial level of service. Go figure.
Airlines charge higher business fares. Maybe because business travelers want to book at the last minute and make 6 itinerary changes during the trip. Cool... you get that extra service for a fee. If I plan a business trip in advance and get a restricted fare, they don't just upcharge because I used my corp AMEX. I just get the cheap fare and get upcharged if and when I need extras like last minute changes.
You Get What You Pay For - just don't charge me extra for crap I'm not using!!!
ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
I have comcast, and I dont see this written anywhere in the TOS, and Ive been looking at them for a while. I'm reading them here, and I see nothing about VPNs or that I interpret as VPN usage.
Ive been looking at these TOS for a while, becuase a whole lot of crap has been going on with comcast lately. Here are some of the email I've recieved from them lately.
They are changing mail services. This means my address changes from user@mediaone.net to user@comcast.com (or comcast.net, cant remember). No prob, EXCEPT the new addres becomes active Dec 29th, old address is deactive Dec 31s. This means we have 3 days to make the udate to all our online accounts, subscriptions, mailing list, etc. and what 3 days do we get? Sat, Sun, New Years Eve. If I have a problem making this update for one of my accounts, good luck finding someone to help, since most companies will be closed these 3 days.
Furthermore, until mid Jan, we will only have 1 comcast email address. What about those of us now that have 2 or 3 address. We only have 1 until mid Jan. I have an email, my wife has an email, some families have kids with emails. I guess someone in the household get left out in the cold for half a month (luckily for me/my wife, I've already transitioned to my own personal domain with email, so its not an issue for me, but Im sure it is for MANY, MANY people). They wont get email in that time, and what happens when they try to switch over one of their accounts in mid jan, and the system tells them "to confirm your update, we have send an email to your previous address. Please click the link in that email to complete your update".
What else have they told me lately...oh yeah. They send me an email all about how some home pages are going to change, something really minor. Then, burried 5 paragraphs down, they mention that, by the way, there will also be a new acceptable use policy effective Jan 1st, 2002 which "includes new information on several subjects, including use of bandwidth". Are they going to charge us for excessive downloads or uploads? I tried to look up these changes at the URL I posted above, but I see nothing about bandwidth. It says what I can/cant do, but nothing about how much of it I can do. Im puzzled. Are they getting worried about wireless neighborhood area networks?
What else...oh yeah. Im getting a new modem mailed to me that I have to hook up by end of year. According to them "This new modem will prepare your computer for upcoming Comcast High Speed Internet product enhancements including improved reliability and new features". I talked with some people, and came up with rumors that they are decreasing our upload speed to 128Kbit. I currently get 250Kbit up, and I know people that get almost 400Kbit up. I looked on their site, and nowhere do they mention upload speeds anymore, except on one pricing chart, they list the serivice as "1.5/128K" (1.5Mbit down/128Kbit up). Im afraid this new modem is their attempt to "upgrade" my upload speeds.
Oh, yeah, I almost forgot about the letter I got through postal mail last week...price goes up $5.
YEAH COMCAST!!!!!!
Here in NYC many apartment buildings offer RCN and AOL Time Warner cable.
god, i forget what the term is, but there's an economics word for this. old people and students get discounts in the real world, non-workers get discounts in the virtual one. annoying, but fair.
The "economics word" is "price discrimination". And under the Robinson-Patman act, it is sometimes illegal.
ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
The Constitution doesn't guarantee you Fair, it guarantees you (and AT&T) Free. Fair is a socialist concept.
Actually, the constitution doesn't guarantee AT&T free, Dartmouth v. Woodward did that when it granted natural personhood to corporations. But you never hear conservative originalists braying about that one, do you?
Plus, the constitution grants the government the right to regulate interstate commerce and the right to provide for the general welfare. That includes fairness in commerce, Mr. "everyone I disagree with must be a commie".
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
Anyway, as a residential user who mainly uses his broadband connection to work from home I could not agree with you more. As a matter of fact, I could not agree with you at all. If it were not for the ability to control my servers remotely over my broadband connection then I would not HAVE a broadband connection. I don't do anything else online to justify the $50/mo expense. I hardly think I'm alone, and I doubt my provider would push this issue, either -- UNLESS I made demands for support ...or...*ding*
- [Lights On]
...try to sue my ISP for damage to my business becaue of some outtage or other service interruption.My bet is that these clauses exist only as a defense from support requests / lawsuits.
What stresses their service more: CNN video streaming or SSH connections to my servers?
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
What little chance I had of sympathizing with the "no business use" restrictions of residential service vanished once I realized that residential service is ALL there is.
The places that talk about the restrictions on residential service seem to imply that just by paying more, one can sign up for a "business class" service that is essentially the same as residential service but without those restrictions.
Unfortunately, that's not the case. Business class service (except briefly for some of the areas served by Cox cable) over cable lines does not exist. It is a strawman that cable ISPs use to pretend that their restrictions on "business" use are somehow rational. This is a re-occuring thread in various @Home newgroups.
Hopefully having an article in ComputerWorld will produce more explicit explanation from cable ISPs about what exactly they mean by business use.
Consider that a common Comcast@Home commercial shows someone auditioning for an acting job halfway across the country through an @Home webcast. If that's not allowed, I smell a bait-and-switch lawsuit.
Umm, this is the dumbest idea I have ever seen...
.doc, modify it locally, and then push it back again as you save.
1) Bandwidth prohibitive. Term Server and Citrix are better than VNC, but the bandwidth requirement is still insane
2) "All you're sending is keystrokes, mouse movements, and video refreshes.." oh, is that all, that doesn't sound like anything important. Your argument I suppose is that with all that junk/noise going through, what could they possibly get? One thing is the keystrokes are easy, just grab packets that go in one direction and you have the video separated from mouse/keyboard events. All those passwords you type are suddenly in clear view. Since the downstream is essentially just video, then it's not too difficult to extract the sensitive information you are viewing. If telnet is insecure, this is even worse...
Using VPN is a very clean, efficient, and secure solution. Traffic is entirely encrypted, and the connection is transparent. Unlike what you suggest, VPN only sends what traffic is actually needed to be transferred between client and server, i.e. smb, nfs, http, ftp, whatever. For example, if modifying a Word document, you are *constantly* sending traffic back and forth, all of it somewhat sensitive with Term Server. With VPN, you pull down the
You really need to think things through before making a suggestion like this again. If I ever interviewed you for a sysadmin position, you would be turned down in a heartbeat based on this alone....
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Really, I hope you are right but I'm afraid they are all a bunch of greedheads looking to stick it to you every way they can. Find me the words, "public interest" in any of the contracts.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
I have colleagues who have worked on rolling out VPNs for telecommuters, and this has been their biggest headache. The problem comes from cablecos that restrict VPNs or servers but don't offer a service which allows it, at any price. Some block port 500 (as well as 25 in both directions, and 80 incoming) to enforce their ToSes, which just adds to the cost of troubleshooting and support.
I understand the rollout for a major US company has been stalled for the last two years because there is no @work version of @home in most markets, and now there is even less @home. About 30% of their employees were on cable systems who blocked ports, or randomly cut off accounts without warning. Negotiations were tried, and failed, since the cable companies just didn't have the business acumen to understand money being waved under their noses. They had settled on @home as the only viable service, and didn't want to build the extra reliability/stability necessary for @work, even if the margins were higher.
The other problem is that for the few cable companies who offer a business rate, the ToSes still don't allow VPNs or servers, nor do they offer Service Level Agreements or static IPs or allow NATing. About the only thing they offer is money back for when the service is down.
Until every cable (and DSL) company is forced to offer a TRUE business class of service, with acceptable TOSes, static IP (or multiple static IPs), no firewalling of any kind, etc, companies are going to be forced to use residential service for their telecommuters. Its just the state of broadband today, it may take years to shake out given the level of corruption of politicians in the US and the EU.
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
Dialup providers have been doing that forever (q.v. Prodigy, AT&T)--sending out warnings to people whose usage seems "excessive." They just didn't tell customers that they were using a two standard deviation test :).
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
They block port 80 from the outside world. Other than that, I, like you, am happy with their service.
Um, this is my sig.
Plus, the constitution grants the government the right to regulate interstate commerce and the right to provide for the general welfare.
You complain about being tarred with the socialist brush, but you make the classic liberal mistake of conflating "promote the general welfare" with "provide for the general welfare?"
Comapines often have rules that sound a little absurd, but are there to cover them. In this case I expect the reason has to do with lawsuits. IF you are using an internet conenction for bussiness uses, and it breaks, you are going to be more pissed off, and posibally sue them for lost money (the law provides for that). Well, if they are going to be open to that kind of liability, they want mroe money per month from you to cover for it. You pay more for better service as a bussiness because you need it. So the reason they prohibit this on a home account is so that if you ARE using it to do bussiness work, and you loose money because of an outage, they can say "well, the contract said you shouldn't be doing this, you need a bussiness account for that".
I'll give you another example, here are some selected acceptable usage policies from the dorms at my university:
"The provision of network services from user computers (e.g., BBS, Chat, DHCP, DNS, FTP, IRC, NNTP, POP2/POP3, SMTP, Telnet, WINS, etc.) is prohibited. Users who have a bonafide academic need to provide such services from their personal computer must have prior written authorization from ResComp administration prior to activating any such service(s) on the ResComp network."
According to this literally, you can be busted for having a personal FTP server to access your stuff from a lab. Do we bust people for this? Hell no, the reason for the policy is so that if someone is running a huge website from their dorm room and eating up bandwidth, we can make them stop. Many Linux users in the dorms have a number of personal servers on their computers and I've never seen any of them busted (I work for Network Operations).
"To conserve server resources for all users, pop mail clients (e.g., Eudora, Netscape Messenger, Outlook, Outlook Express, etc.), if set to automatically retrieve mail from the server, must be set to retrieve mail no more frequently than every thirty (30) minutes. Users may manually retrieve mail as frequently as they wish."
No, you won't get in any trouble if you set it yo 10 minutes. The purpose again, is just a CYA incase some moron sets it to once every 30 seconds or something.
"The residential network may only be used for legal purposes and to access only those systems, software and data for which the user is authorized. Sharing access to copyrighted software or other copyrighted material (including MP3 files from copyrighted music media and digitized video from copyrighted motion pictures, etc.) on the network is prohibited."
Makes sense, but some take it to mean that we police the network. We don't, and I'm sure plenty of this goes on. This policy is in there so if you do it, the RIAA/whoever whines about it, we can shut down the network conenction and refer you to this section of the code.
"Under no circumstances may users give others access to University systems."
Again, not a nazilike policy. If someone is in your dorm room and you have a remote X session open to a CS server or something, and you let them compile something on it, noone will know or care. IF you do something stupid like give out your login to said system, you'll get in trouble.
The rules sound a little stupid and strict at time because we want to protect ourselves from potential lawsuits and problems. I suspect these rules are for the same reason.
Yes, Comcast does offer a business-class service. See the Comcast Business Communications site for more details. We have the Comcast business-class service. It works. We have discussed Comcast internet access issues extensively on CTDATA.com.
-- Dave Aiello
I've got AT&T Broadband in New Hampshire, and I recently found out something interesting. Apparently, AT&T has different TOS restrictions for different states/areas. In other states, the subscriber agreement specifically forbids servers of any kind. In NH, it simply says "it is the sole responsibility of the customer to keep their machines secure, including configuring any servers they choose to run."
:)
I found this out when I mentioned servers while talking to a tech support guy, and he told me that servers were prohibited. I challenged him to show me the clause in the agreement that said this, and he pointed me to a web site. On the site, it asks for your zip code, and you get a different version of the agreement depending on your location. He was looking at the Massachusetts version, and I was looking at the New Hampshire one. Apparently he hadn't been aware of the distinction either until then
-- Brett
Having briefly worked as tech support for @Home, allow me to show a brief glimpse of why providers may want to do this.
An inordinate amount of cable internet support calls are VPN related. If you thought that clueless people having trouble connecting to their AOL email was a tech support nightmare, you've not seen anything until you get someone unable to connect to a VPN. A typical call would go like: "Dammit, why can't I get online!" After asking a few questions and running some tests it's made clear that the connection is fine, and they're able to connect through their desktop machine, just not their laptop. "Okay," I'd say, "It's probably just an error in the settings somewhere." I'd then proceed to describe how to open up the relevant controls in NT4 (it was always NT4...) "What? Are you kidding?!" they'd scream "This is my companies laptop and we're not allowed to touch anything on it!!!!!" "That's a problem, then," I'd say. "You'll have to have your sys admin check the settings for you then." "You're fucking kidding me! I'm in Redmond, WA and the company is in Denver! I work from home!"
The story was always the same: dumbass company gives employess laptops so they can work from home, and told them they had to get a broadband internet service, but didn't configure the machines for even DHCP or give the employees the admin passwords to configure things. You'd get that call about 20 times a day.
I'm so fucking glad I'm back in research. :)
"Business" lines are usually sold to brick-and-mortar businesses, e.g., a pizza shop, because they tend to use the phone far more than most residential customers. This requires more resources (switches, physical lines), and they are charged more. By the time a business has a PBX, the lines may be use constantly.
But then modems came along - and the telcos had to beef up their switching equipment because evening residential usage jumped way up. That's why there was a short-lived proposal for a modem tax. But the telcos eventually figured out that selling second (and third lines) for modems, teenagers and other heavy users was more profitable than that tax, and a lot less politically explosive.
Nowadays, I doubt many telcos care about home business use - during the day there's excess capacity in the residential areas since they're currently designed to handle everyone getting online in the evening.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
My wife has a VPN for her work. While I do not expect to get "support" from the cable company fo r it, I do have enough knowledge to set the dang thing up. Also, my wife using what is essentially a terminal emulation program, uses almost ZERO, to very little bandwith when working. If I did pay for business in my area, while the service would not be better I would get some benefits such as a static IP and I would be allowed to run a server. I do believe that this is a bad policy. I bet that even their own workers probably break policy when the login to work from home to fix things (I bet that they get free service, but I would also bet that they don't get business class service for free). Too many people PAY for their own service so that they CAN dial up to work at home and at a decent speed too. I get free dial up at work, but because it's too frickin slow I pay alot more so I don't have to use the dial up (which was free for me you know). I would rather pay for my own rather then tying up my landline. Cable companies should put their enforcement efforts towards badwidth abusers and not folks just trying to read their work e-mail from home using a VPN.
If they do want to charge a bit extra to allow use of VPN's and work uses other then running a server at home I would not mind that in the least but I don't need to run a server at home. I don't NEED(or want) a static IP. I am actually happy with service as it is. I would pay say 5-10 extra just for the ability to do this, but not twice as much! Personally, I don't think they have to worry about folks using VPN's much cuz it just doesn't cause others to slowdown.
In fact, if you think about it, people telecommuting usually do it when you are at work also. Isn't during the day slower for them then say the hours between 7pm and 11pm??? They are using the network when it's NOT busy! They are not the cause of the slowdowns in prime time!
Gorkman
We have posted a number of articles about our experience with Comcast internet access on our Web Site. Our latest article talks about the ComputerWorld article and our experience with both the business and residential Comcast cable modem services. Basically, we think that people who are serious about VPN use need the QOS guarantees and 24-hour tech support that Comcast offers to business users.
-- Dave Aiello
And if cable companies and phone service providers were in free competition I would have no objection to your argument. Unfortunately most cable providers (in the US, at least) operate under monopolisitic contracts granted to them by state and local governments.
My choice in purchasing has been curtailed. In return, the cable companies are supposed to adhere to the terms of whatever contractual agreement was reached, under the oversight of those same goverment entities. In practice, however, the only consequence for ignoring their obligations, presuming whoever's in charge even catches on, is an occasional fine or strongly worded letter. There are exceptions, but the whole arrangement pretty much sucks.
And from what I hear DSL service isn't much better. Outside of cities or in areas with older lines availability and service is spotty at best, and the local telcos are generally not anxious to assist the competition in competing with them.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I guess I'll be making a phone call tonight! If they offered static IP's or a block of address space, they would be even better. Has anyone had any luck doing this?
Um, this is my sig.
That's something solved by language such as "VPN access not supported", not by expressly forbidding it. Not supporting a certain service is a sign of limited human resources, whereas not allowing smacks of money grubbig.
-
Go somewhere else. I went shopping when I was looking for DSL. Of about 10 ISPs I looked at, Speakeasy's web page was by far the most clueful and had the least odious terms of service. I pay them a hefty hunk of change each month for static IPs and 768 both ways. They stay out of my hair and have one of the most clueful tech support lines I've ever talked to. About the only thing they say I can't do in the TOS is run a porn site, and I'm willing to abide by that. If I want to set up www.livegoatporn.com, I'll lease a T1 to do it.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Oh, goody, someone just finished reading Atlas Shrugged...
If you don't like the way Company A sells their bandwidth, don't purchase from Company A.
How about, if I don't like the way Company A sells their product, I rescind the government granted right-of-way that allowed Company A to dig up countless miles of public and private property to bring their product to me?
Fair is a socialist concept.
So is eminent domain, but without it we wouldn't have any cables (or utilities) reaching our homes at all. If we're already granting corporate monopolies based on one socialist theory, why stop there?
Actually, there has always (for the 3 years I've had a cable modem, anyway) been this kind of language in the ToS, at least @Home's. It's been a while since I read it, but IIRC it's worded vaguely enough that you are technically verboten from using "residential class" cable modem hookups for ANY business purpose. I'm sure they do that mostly to hoodwink the gullible into upgrading their connection to "business class" if they want to do so much as check their work e-mail via Outlook Web Access.
I am of the opinion that since I'm paying for the connection, I will use it for whatever I Goddamned well please, within reason, and @Home can go f themselves. If @Home is too incompetent to keep their mailservers running reliably, or their irc server running at all, they sure ain't gonna catch me.
~Philly
> Why waste your time with VPN???? Use Term Server or Citrix
As if those are a quick drop-in solution--run the install and you're set. Using Terminal Services etc implies a fundamental architectural change in the way IS deploys applications. It's not something you do on a whim. OTOH, VPN access is pretty much a no-brainer add-on. IS installs the equipment, does the requisite security etc testing, and then employees simply access the same LAN resources that have always been there, just from home.
-
How about, if I don't like the way Company A sells their product, I rescind the government granted right-of-way that allowed Company A to dig up countless miles of public and private property to bring their product to me?
Ok by me. Go for it.
In case you don't know, your standard, Microsoft software-based VPN solution makes an initial connection over TCP port 1723, then sends all encrypted traffic in IP:47 (Generic Routing Encapsulation?) packets. Completely seperate from your normal, TCP/UDP web games/https/ftp traffic.
GRE is used for pretty much nothing but PPTP / software VPN, and it's easy to filter at the router. They don't need to packet sniff to see if you, personally, are trying to use a VPN. They just block the lot.
-EvilMagnus
I'm just saying that completely discarding VPN in favor of Citrix/Term server is stupid. Yes, the bandwidth isn't as bad as VNC, but it is still not as efficient as VPN approaches. Yes, it is useful for applications where your client lacks the hardware or software to run an application as good as through Citrix, and therefore can be used well *in conjunction* with a VPN, but by itself, not the most efficient/useful solution. You can have VPN running on the corporate router and provide a transparent tunnel through the firewall to privately addressable hosts with RDP and Citrix on them, which is a much more secure solution than sticking your RDP/Citrix boxes outside the firewall...
Additionally, RDP isn't very cross-platform, though Citrix and X11 are... Of course Windows X servers are not typically that great. When you can access smb/nfs natively, then you can pick whatever local OS/Application you want to modify the data, and are not just stuck with whatever is installed in the Citrix/RDP/X box.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
I know it may not be possible for your area, but hell, there are plenty of ISP's that do allow VPN, even AOL! My company has quite a few clients that access our systems via VPN so we let them know ahead of time: "if your ISP doesn't support VPN, switch!" And let them know why you switched, too. It won't be long until they get it through their thick skulls that singling out certain ports to charge access to isn't going to work.
[pink beam of light]
I researched business class offerings for Charter Communication's broadband offerings about a year ago and found the prices to be absolutely excessive. For business services, they were offering 256K d/l and 128K u/l for almost $150/month!
I bet if you check into the offerings by Comcast and Cox under business you'll find similar types of pricing schemes. It is absolutely outrageous. The local representative I talked with tried to convince me that I get a higher quality of service since problems with business customers are resolved with higher priority than residential customers. Unfortunately, in practice, this doesn't hold true.
In the two years I have been using cable broadband, the only outages I have experienced were outages that took place with equipment in NOCs, not problems with equipment on-site or in the 'last mile'. So priority would have done no good whatsoever - they'll fix the problem that is affecting thousands of subscribers just as quickly as they would if some of those subscribers were business customers (which I'm sure they are).
I presented this to the local rep and started getting attitude - why did this guy get defensive? Maybe he's used to dealing with types that can't call his company on their policies. I believe I certainly did.
Why pay between $150 and $250 per month for 256k-512k/128k service via cable when the local telco offers non-shared business class DSL at 768k symmetrical for less than $100 per month?!? I presented the local rep with those hard numbers and he gave me the lines about long waits for installing DSL ... which is why I would pay $50 to $150 a month more for the length of the service, so that I could be up and running in one week vs. two to three weeks? I think not.
Incidentally, the local telco hooks up business DSL far faster than is average in the DSL industry - I experienced two DSL hookups in Chicago (both residential) via Covad (local 'last-mile' was Ameritech, go figure) and found the waits and lack of service (status reports) unforgivable. Locally, however (Madison, WI) a business DSL line was installed at the same time that phone service was installed (new office) and the DSL was active by our move-in date (2-3 days later)- no problems there!
I think what's wrong with the outright ban of VPN by either policy or blocking is that the cable companies are making decisions on what is and what is not appropriate residential Internet usage. VPN can and is being used for non-business purposes.
These cable clowns won't give up until they turn broadband into a product that nobody wants. Why not get it over with and block ALL the ports? For $39.95/month you get port 80 unblocked. Then they could have a list price for any other port you might want unblocked. That would achieve their objective of bandwidth conservation, as well as reduced calls to the help desk! I would think it would be fairly easy to support a network if all the data were eliminated.
If some data still remains on the network after phase one of the plan, they move on to phase two, where you pay per hop. At the basic rate of $39.95, the maximum hop count is five. If you pay for "expanded basic" it goes to ten, and "business class" is unlimited (at least for the first three months)!
These guys would license the number of mouseclicks and keystrokes if they thought anyone would pay. I think it's all part of a huge conspiracy to make dialup service more attractive.
All joking aside, the real issue with VPN has nothing whatsoever to do with bandwidth. It is more about controlling the availability of ports and access to IP addresses that might otherwise be blocked. Carried to it's logical conclusion, you get a few people with commercial high speed connections and unrestricted access -- then a few thousand cable customers using VPN to circumvent access restrictions by the cable company. It still has nothing to do with bandwidth, because in an unrestricted environment this type of VPN would be unnecessary -- you would still have the same packets going to the same destination (probaby via a more efficient route).
If these guys have any brains, they are fearful of a P2P like utility that might facilitate the exchange of quasi-public VPN logons, which would create a "Massive Rogue Virtual Network" (MRVN). In the pefect nightmare scenario, we throw in a bunch of house-to-house 802.11b users that eventually hit a residential cable modem "gateway" that allows entry to the MRVN world. Of course, all of this could be solved with reasonable pricing and fewer restrictions, but they're not that smart.
I have just about had it with their incessant "dumbing down" of the service. As time goes by, broadband costs more and more while it delivers less and less.
Nothing, they get more money, so they could care less about what you do with it. They are just trying to get people to pay more money. Just like with WinXP, they are trying to get it so the "professional" edition is truly an upgrade to the "home" edition in every sense of the word. For 2k vs. ME, it wasn't the case as 2k wouldn't some apps designed for ME, so an upgrade isn't as popular as MS would like... Same principle here, you can get relatively good service for a good price, but for the niceties not used by common internet users, you pay a premium. VPNs are a target as the most widespread use of it is telecommuting, i.e. using your connection to earn profit, and the carrier wants a slice of the pie, whether they are entitled to it or not. Same deal with the ISPs prohibiting servers, they are afraid you'll set up an e-commerce site or a few banner ads and profit from selling services that the ISP is really providing. The more enlightened TOS say that while you are permitted to use servers and VPN, you must only use it for non-profit purposes. VPN is harder to know what the traffic is, so a blanket ban is more popular, though not more justified...
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
My thinking is that if I should be able to have a menu of services to choose from and I should be able to pay mostly a la carte for those services. Right now if I got a cable modem I could get "home service" or "business service" which leaves me no room to get what I really want.
What would be ideal is if they provided a deal where you pay say $40 a month and get certain minimum specs and perhaps some restriction on what you were allowed to do with that connection. But if I'm willing to pay another 40 or 50/month, I should be able to get a static ip address or two, some better upstream bandwidth, and freedom to do what I want.
The problem right now is that there's no fine gradients in the system. Either you are paying $40/month with irritating TOS, bandwidth caps, etc, or you are paying $150/month+ for "business grade" service which I really don't need.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
I have Pacific Bell DSL AKA SBC Internet.
Just spent 10 minutes TRYING to find an "Acceptable Use Policy" or something similar.
It's just NOT THERE... Really, it seems, they don't *care* what you do with your Internet Service! Basic rate is $50/mo, Biz use starts at $65. (I subscribed to a plan they no longer offer, a single static IP for $50/mo)
I know, I'm in bed with that evil monopoly, Pac Bell, but Hey! This is COOL! I've run my own DNS/Web/Mail/Proxy/NTP/etc Linux server for 2 years without a hitch. No complaints, nothin' - and reliable bandwidth to boot.
I *LOVE* these guys! (Even if they ARE an evil monopoly)
-Ben
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
This has been covered and discussed before but now I must ask another question.
If I use SSH on my own machine (or SSH to a shell account) do I get kicked?
One thing though I've noticed is that on Road Runner I've been getting kicked off from my Windows machine because it's using the cable modems USB feature to connect. I could see how easy it is to send a signal to the cable modem that simply says: "Turn Off"
Otherwise, VPN is something that has been not allowed on High Speed access for long now. My other question: How do they know what you are doing?
I seem to get 'kicked' while either accessing binary news groups or ANY filesharing service.
Get your Unix fortune now!
This reminds me of a situation I was in about 20 years ago. I was looking to upgrade the memory on an NCR mini. NCR was telling me it would cost $5000, so I was looking for a third-party/used vendor. Eventually I found one which would sell me the board for $2000. But, fine fellow that he was, he told me that usually NCR had shipped the computers with memory maxed but had set the DIP switches to a lower setting and not documented how to change the settings. Ten minutes later, I had my memory for $0. Our local NCR rep was mad, but the contract was clearly in our favor.
An ISP provides customers bandwidth. They don't have to tell you how to use it most effectively or efficiently; they can even attempt to deny service to certain protocols. But if you or your company is able to use that bandwidth in ways that the ISP didn't envision, all they can do is go away grumbling. The fact is, it's their infrastructure that makes it all possible. So they either have to do some re-engineering or realize that innovative customers will always be ahead of the curve.
I know for a fact that MSN doesn't and they're one of the biggest DSL ISP's.
'course I haven't actually READ the subscriber agreement... Ignorance is bliss.
U.S. Democracy: born 7/4/1776, died 12/12/2000 R.I.P.
They spend at least twelve million dollars a month on salary, yet they won't spend twenty thousand a month to conform to the terms of service of broadband services for their telecommuting workers? I realize that paying employees is closer to the heart of the company, but if they can't afford the spare change to work telecommuting properly they should just not support it as an option.
Even Slashdot wants to hide some things
Not exactly, what's happening is that all the little 15 year old hackers in a neighborhood are getting togeather and sharing a single account between several residences. They are using the maximum throughput of the modem and paying only 1/10th the price. It is specifically because of this growing practice that AUP changes and in the future software changes will be made to make this impossible. THANK YOU 15 year olds!
I agree if it were all within your house, that's ok. But neighborhood lans are all the rage these days and they are using high bandwidth and paying very little for the priviledge. Get enough of that going on and you'll REALLY see the cable modems go bye bye.
It's the same reason you can't share your cable TV with the neighbors. I mean why not? The signal is there, who cares how much of it you use? Inside your own house? No prob. Share with the neighbors? They're stealing.
Contrary to popular belief, coding is not all free blow-jobs and beer. Those things cost MONEY!
You are paying for membership in a variable-sized pool of people who are sharing a downstream channel and an upstream channel, with the downstream channel having much more bandwidth than the upstream channel.
This difference in speed between upstream and downstream is part of the way cable works. They allocate frequencies below a certain point for the upstream, and frequencies above that point for the downstream. That certain point is constrained to being below the frequency of the lowest television channel, and places an upper limit on the upstream bandwidth the cable company can support. For downstream bandwidth, they can add more by simply using another TV channel (at the cost of being able to offer one less TV channel).
Much of cable company policy is aimed at dealing with that limited upstream. That's why most cable companies limit individual cable modems to 128 kbps upload speed, and that's why they limit servers.
You might think that limiting upload speed would be enough...why not let people try to run any servers they want, and let the 128 kpbs upload cap limit them?
The reason is that a couple hundred people saturating their 128 kbps slice of the upstream is enough to saturate the aggregate upstream.
When an upstream gets saturated, bad things happen to the downstream. TCP can't get ACKs through, and download speeds go way down.
This is why DSL tends to be more friendly to servers. Although DSL is shared, just like cable, the sharing starts on the ATM connection from the DSLAM to your ISP, not on the connection from your home to the DSLAM. The place where you have a speed difference between upstream and downstream with DSL is between your home and the DSLAM, and that part is not shared.
If I buy their "business service" is my cable is routed through "special" switches on a more reliable and fault tolerant network than my "residential service?" All they really want is a reason to charge more money for the same service.
"Stop whining!" - Arnold, as Mr. Kimble
However, they do claim that one of the advantages of DSL over cable modems is that some cable modems don't allow VPN use. So PacBell Internet has claimed in marketing literature that they allow VPN usage.
Pings already blocked, both in /proc and the firewall. For that matter, sshd only listens to places I might connect from, and that's also done both by config and firewall.
Because of the news TOS change, I've moved from leafnode to noffle, and have changed things around to make its behavior act like a conventional news client. And it stinks. I've seen leafnode wrapper scripts that give finer control to its downloads, and I may try that with noffle. At the very least, I still get the cache, so I can look back.
They can't find me by scanning, but that's not the point. I'm really trying to stick by the spirit of the TOS, yet not turn into an inet luser. I have ssh crammed down as tight as I can make it, and still have it *usable by me.* I'm working at tuning down my news cache to as 'interactive-like' as possible, and still get acceptable news response. (Right now it's interactive-like, but not acceptable.)
I just hope they don't get a clue about VPNs. There's been the discussion about business use. But my VPN use is occasional, normally my bandwidth is dominated by personal use. If the ratio were the other way around, I could see the requirement to get a business account. But the moment you get the Company to spring for it, they want to see Cost Justification, and you have to forswear your family even when at home.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Likewise, if there's no technical limitation or increased impact by you running a vpn as compared to any other allowed service, then I don't think they can force you to switch to business. Well, they can force you, but I think the FTC or some state authority might have something to say about it.
Too big to fail? Does that make me to small to succeed?
Also, check if your NAT box has firmware upgrades available - several products such as Linksys originally shipped without VPN-transparency, but have later firmware you can flash-upgrade to add the capabilities.
As the economy tanks, you can expect some stupid and greedy employers to say "aha, we'll put the screws to our workers, get rid of perks, and make them show up at the office at 9:00 or treat them like that Neo guy". You can also expect some smart and greedy employers to say "aha, I need to get the most possible work out of my employees so I'll make it easy for them to work for ME anytime, anywhere, any way they can" and some extra-smart, extra-greedy employers to say "aha, in this economy I need all the productivity and creativity I can squeeze out of the few employees I can afford on my limited venture capital and annoyingly-low sales revenue, so I'll try treating them like *real*human*beings* and act like I respect them and spend the budget I can scrape up on productivity enhancers like fast network connections and good coffee and extra disk drives instead of $1000 chairs, especially since enticing them with stock options is a lot harder than it used to be." Of course, any manager, from the dumb to the extra-smart, will try to get around greedy cable-tv-company restrictions on applications :-)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
The main reasons they don't want VPN-like things are
Because what you need most are Lots More Customers.
* Some of the business-class cable or DSL services actually do offer better-for-business service - better help desk response time or service quality, for instance, and in some cases higher bandwidth, plus obvious business-related services like more flexible billing, and bundled email and web services. It's tough for cable modems, though, because the fundamental service-scalability models behind the $40/month cost assume that It's Just Television, so the number of installation/repair technicians and trucks and help desk people assumes that if the service goes out on a snowy Friday night, you can read a book or talk to your kids or something and they'll fix it in the daytime after the storm's over and maybe credit you a few bucks or make HBO free for the next week. For a business client, you can put up with dial for a couple of days or read a manual or something, but actually providing business-server-class service isn't realistic; you'd have to provide a lot more trucks and technicians to make repair times much shorter.
Disclaimer: This is just my personal opinion, not my employer's, and it's Friday after 5:00 and I'm not wearing a suit, so don't bug them about it.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks