Security Focus on Cable Modem Uncapping

Anonymous Coward writes "Cable modem uncapping allows broadband customers to boost their bandwidth to 6 or 7 times what they're paying for, by spoofing their modem's TFTP client into downloading a hacked DOCSIS configuration file. Kevin Poulsen at SecurityFocus reports that a new underground program called OneStep makes the process easy and fun for the whole family. Broadband companies are cutting off the uncappers that they catch, but things could get out of control soon."

Comments

Fun? Yes. Legal? Questionable

[ObviousGuy]

Just because technology allows you to do something, does not mean that it is also legal.

Is there anything like this for DSL?

[dirvish]

Uhhh, the subject speaks for itself. I think I will stop speaking now...

Re:Is there anything like this for DSL?

[BravoXL]

I don't think so as that cap for DSL is controlled at the switch and not the modem as far as I know. But I could be completly off base here.

Re:Is there anything like this for DSL?

[jawtheshark]

As far as I'm informed, Cable is a shared medium as for xDSL isn't. This means that with your cable modem you get the full bandwith unless you "restrict yourself".
DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) is not a shared medium: you are the only one that uses it up to the switch. So the switch is responsible for cutting you down. Client side security (okay, capping in this case) has never been a good security.
Anyway, even if I am wrong (which I doubt), I wouldn't uncap my DSL modem. Okay, I have the lowest possible rate where I live, but it's enough for all our family member to surf simultaneously at acceptable speeds.

Re:Is there anything like this for DSL?

[proj_2501]

You are correct.

To be more specific, each cable modem in your neighborhood receives and sends all data that goes through your neighborhood.

Each cable modem has a timeslice to pay attention to data being sent to it. When receiving, there are multiple way of multiplexing, be it giving each modem on the network a timeslice to send a burst, or frequency division multiplexing

Re:Is there anything like this for DSL?

[grahamm]

Why does the restriction have to be at the consumer end? Could the provider not restrict the traffic rate to each IP address (or sub-net) passing through its routers?

Re:Is there anything like this for DSL?

[arivanov]

First: No. Same goes for the Euromodem Cable standard which is also ATM based.

Second: It should not work on properly designed DOCSIS Cable Modems either. A cable modem should not accept tftp uploads and config from anywhere but its cable interface which is not available to the casual hacker.

Third: It will not work on properly configured newer DOCSIS 1.1 and later networks either.

Here is why:

First: In DSL the speed is largely controlled by the DSLAM. Some modems do some minimal QoS and capping but it is hardly ever used. No need to.

Second: design fault. Typical of telco manufacturing. No comment needed. Can be fixed by a single software upload which the provider can trigger on any software upgradeable modem. As a result it will no longer be possible to uncap it.

Third: You can hog bandwidth in an unlimited fashion only on a DOCSIS 1.0 and incorrectly configured newer networks. DOCSIS 1.1 introduced the concept of a transmit map. The cable modem termination system tells you when you can transmit and when you cannot (it can also slice bandwidth exactly on per consumer/application basis). As a result a properly configured 1.1 or newer network should have no need for CPE capping. Of course, US has a boatload of non-docsis proprietary networks so dunno about these.

Re:Is there anything like this for DSL?

[Economist]

I had a friend here in Belgium who was able to connect to his provider multiple times over his *DSL modem. Every connection had a seperate IP-address and was capped, but if you are smart enough to get some load-balancing done over those connections, that shouldn't be too much of a problem.

Probably this was only a flaw in the provider's setup though, and it wouldn't work on every provider.

Re:Is there anything like this for DSL?

[Anonymous Coward]

---
Second: It should not work on properly designed DOCSIS Cable Modems either. A cable modem should not accept tftp uploads and config from anywhere but its cable interface which is not available to the casual hacker.
---

Not if the config directs said modem to look at its own flash for the config.

Re:Is there anything like this for DSL?

[Michael O-P]

Well, no, not specifically, but if you're running windows the default settings may be slowing you down. Go to DSL Reports where they have a number of tweaks and tools to optimize one's DSL connection.

Re:Is there anything like this for DSL?

[Yakko]

Rate caps are programmed in at the DSLAM, in most cases. No amount of twiddling the CPE will get those removed.

The interfaces for various CPE are different, but similarly limited -- some accept tftp config files, but many are hard-programmed from the ISP/CLEC. About the only thing that can be changed is the VPI/VCI that your ATM end talks on, and you'll be kinda in a world of hurt if you alter that.

Re:Is there anything like this for DSL?

[alexo]

Question:

My cable modem is a Motorola CyberSURFR and, as far as I know, not DOCSIS compliant.

Is there any way for me to find out my cap values?

Thanks.

lovely

[zAmb0ni]

and they will be totally suprised when their cable company cuts them off at their knees:

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,3155491~r oo t=attbi~mode=flat

Cable Modem Uncapping...

[Anonymous Coward]

is like uncapping a coke bottle. You get access to the beverage, but you also release some bubbles. If you don't understand the comparison, well neither do I.

Re:Cable Modem Uncapping...

[Jonny Ringo]

And the bubbles being released represent data, but bubbles can hurt you tounge if you drink it to fast.

So please don't steel bandwith over cable.

huh?

Re:Cable Modem Uncapping...

[Anonymous Coward]

Is like a box of chocolates.. you never know what your're gonna get.

Re:Cable Modem Uncapping...

[Anonymous Coward]

Spork nut squirrel see spam blue rut

Re:Cable Modem Uncapping...

[Anonymous Coward]

where is the link to the program. I think this is a big fairytale, so keep it up :)

Re:Cable Modem Uncapping...

[Anonymous Coward]

exactly! and sometimes once you've got the cap off if you really examine you realize that you've won another beverage... and the added responsibiltiy of more bubbles.

Dang, that was a fast /.ing

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyway, here's a mirror

caps on uploads

[ebmedia]

The download isn't too bad, what I pay for my motorola surfboard cable modem and charter pipeline access isn't unreasonable, but the upload is ridiculously low... it's capped at 15k or something, while I'm paying for 128 uploads. I'm gonna do this while I still can (before sommmmebody gets sued) :)

Re:caps on uploads

[mike_g]

it's capped at 15k or something, while I'm paying for 128 uploads

15k is exactly what you are paying for. The speeds that describe your line are in kbit/s, and 128kbit/s turns out to be 16kByte/s.

m

Re:caps on uploads

[NightHwk1]

remember that 128kb means 128 kiloBITS .. which is equal to 16KB (kiloBYTES)

you are indeed getting what you paid for.

Re:caps on uploads

[scott1853]

I have Adelphia and I've been bugging them about this and several techs keep telling me that the actual cap is at the head end. Anybody know if this could be true or not?

I've looked at the modems config screens and it shows Downstream: 717MHz, and Upstream: 33MHz. Could it be double-capped?

Re:caps on uploads

[rzbx]

So you pay for 128 you say? Is that 128 kilobits per second. Funny, if you convert that to kilobytes per second you get 16. Is that not about what you get? Learn about the difference between bit and byte. In Europe they count gasoline volume by liters and not gallons (so, NO, their gas is not cheaper). Sure the numbers look good, but it all depends on the units.

Re:caps on uploads

[nocutename]

Ummmm. That sounds like the modem is telling you the RF frequencies that it's using for forward and reverse data transmission. That's NOT your transfer speed.

Re:caps on uploads

[Jucius Maximus]

"Europe they count gasoline volume by liters and not gallons (so, NO, their gas is not cheaper)."

In fact this makes it easier to hike gas prices. In the united states if they rasie the price by 8 cents per gallon, people will get very very angry. In Canada if the price goes up by 2 cents per litre people mutter under their breath the the gas price went up. In fact just this morning I drove by one gas station with the price was 65.9 cents/L and the one 50 m down the street was selling for around 68.5 cents. This is typical.

But most people fail to notice that 8 cents per gallon = (approx) 2 cents per litre.

Re:caps on uploads

[scott1853]

Ummmmm, doesn't the frequency directly translate into maximum transfer speed. For example, the faster a signal cycles, the faster the data can be sent since data is sent on a per cycle basis, not a per second basis.

Re:caps on uploads

[nocutename]

Not in this case. The 717MHz / 33MHz are the carrier frequencies used for the QPSK modulator /demodulator, but they do not represent the amount of bandwidth allocated to you. DOCSIS uses a combination of QPSK modulation and TDMA multiplexing because you've got several people transmitting / receiving on the same physical medium. So it's not the same thing as analog dial-up. You can read the DOCSIS 1.1 Radio Frequency Interface specification here

Re:caps on uploads

[fwr]

Yes,

Use your favorite snmp tool, and with the DOCSIS-IF-MIB loaded do something like:

snmpget -m all 192.168.100.1 public docsIfQosProfMaxUpBandwidth.0

and

snmpget -m all 192.168.100.1 public docsIfQosProfMaxDownBandwidth.0

My modem is set for 256K up and 3M down. From what I've been hearing in the rest of the discussion this does seem on the high-end.

But Adelphia service still sucks. What I do is make sure that I call support and create a case every time the cable modem is down, and schedule to get someone out here. They typically say that it will take a WEEK to get someone out here, so I make them give me a week's worth of discont on my cable bill. I know that the problem is NOT on my end and that the cable modem will come up within a few hours to a day or two at the most, but it's not my fault if they can't figure out what is wrong with their Cisco 7200UBR routers or their headend equipment. Hell, I even offered to create a case with Cisco for them under my contract, but the people you get on the line are basically entry-level phone people and really don't know their ass from a hole in the ground and apparently are so stupid that they can't even transfer you to a level 2 or level 3 person. Believe me, the most frustrating thing is being an experienced network management specialist and having to deal with idiot ISP support people who simply read off a check list and schedule for an on-site visit if that doesn't work (i.e., no real analysis of what is going on)...

Re:caps on uploads

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, dick, get a clue.

Re:caps on uploads

[fwr]

Oops, I thought you said the techs said the cap was at the high end, not the head end. Still, that's what my modem replies to via SNMP, and I stand by my other comments.

Re:caps on uploads

[scott1853]

I do have to bug them about account credit at this point. I never cared if it was down for an hour, but it's been mostly down for the last 2 weeks and several calls have gotten me nowhere. After calling the local office today, they said that 1 of the 2 CMTS units is down and they'll need the weekend to get it working again.

A new virus...

[ImaLamer]

Now virii will be spread by:

REAL!!!_cable_modem_uncapper.exe

and not:

cable_modem_uncapper.exe

Re:A new virus...

[Lord Bitman]

Why bother with a virus? I think it would be funnier to see a real cable modem uncapper be spread. Thousands of users download and install them innocently, alongside their crappy BOOST software and everything that opens multiple connections. The combination will push their bandwidth to its limit, and then.. heh, well it would be better than a virus. Virii can be gotten rid of by loading a backup. AT&T is much more bitchy than that.

Re:A new virus...

[Anonymous Coward]

Repeat after me - the plural of virus is viruses. Has this not been commented on enough times that someone in the 200000 range doesn't know?

Re:A new virus...

[Tarquin Sidebottom]

Well given the destructive mentality of the average virus writer, expect to see the I Love My Modem (to go really slow) Outlook virus, and the resulting porn withdrawl symptoms when everyone wonders why they're only getting a download speed of 56k!

Re:A new virus...

[foobar104]

I'm on a crusade. I intend to post a comment like this one whenever I see anybody use "virii." Please don't interpret this comment as either endorsement of or disagreement with the parent post. Moderators: with your help, we can wipe out "virii" in our lifetime!

The plural of "virus" isn't "virii." There is no such word. The plural of "virus" is "viruses."

Here's a good explanation from cdknow.com, quoted here in its entirety because the people who most need to read this won't click on a link.

The correct English plural of virus is viruses. Please consult any good dictionary before making up words.

For the purists, in Latin, there is a rarely-used plural form:

virus, viri (neuter)

(Forms: almost always restricted to nominative and accusative singular; generally singular in Lucretius, ablative singular in Lucretius)

The point of this is that even in Latin the form "viri" is rarely used. The singular form is used in most every instance. (This is from the Oxford Latin Dictionary.)

So, when considering the Latin: "virii" is incorrect and "viri" was almost never used.

Despite the fact there was little use for the plural form, there is another reason why "viri" was rarely used. The most common Latin word for "man" is "vir" with "viri" being its plural in the form used as the subject of a sentence. Thus, since "men" as the subject of a sentence would be used far more often than "venoms" (virus means venom) the "viri" word was most commonly seen as the plural of "man."

Bottom line: Don't try to make up words using a false Latin plural form. Since the word virus in its English form is now used then the English plural (viruses) should be used.

More plural-of-virus resources:

perl.com, the canonical and exhaustive source
The alt.comp.virus FAQ
Jonathan de Boyne Pollard's Frequently Given Answer
Merriam-Webster's "Word for the Wise," January 20, 2000.

Re:A new virus...

[The trees]

That should be obvious from the name of the file. If '!' is a logical negation, then REAL!!!_cable_modem_uncapper.exe would read: "REAL NOT NOT NOT cable modem uncapper", or simply "REAL NOT cable modem uncapper", which is not unlike the ingrish that all virus writers seem to speak.

Re:A new virus...

[Anonymous Coward]

Please, learn the proper English plural of the word 'virus.'

There's no need to be making up words in hopes of sounding smarter. You only end up looking silly.

Re:A new virus...

[Vespillo]

Can you tell us the proper plural of penis now?

Easy to catch

[CmdrTaco (editor)]

I've been reading the forums at DSLReports for a while now, and even found the software to do the uncapping myself. But, the stories about people who successfully uncapped their modems are always the same; the speeds were great for a couple days, and then BAM! No more internet connection.

It is awfully tempting to look at the benefits, but with cable being the only high speed connection in my area, I'm not willing to risk losing the service. Going back to 56k would just be torture. It doesn't matter how many people do this uncapping thing, as long as people realize that it could result in their broadband connection being terminated, their will never be enough to convince ISP's that maybe it shouldn't be a terminable offense.

I know ATTBI is planning on releasing a tiered pricing system for different speeds, so what I find more likely is that they will start charging you the rate for which you have uncapped yourself to. Could end up being pretty pricey if you've placed yourself in a business class service.

Re:Easy to catch

[ender81b]

I don't really understand why people bother. I have Road Runner (in nebraska) and I can get 255 kbytes/second.. which happens to be faster than a T-1. I guess I just might be lucky in the fact that RR isn't capping me + not many people on my node. I know some people in a neighboring town who use Cox cable and they can barely get 56k sometimes.

You are right though - it just isn't worth losing service over especially if you can't get DSL.

Re:Easy to catch

[Anonymous Coward]

Most people I know are pretty satisfied with the download speeds, its the upload speeds that stink. 15KB/s is not broadband, no matter how you look at it. I could (almost) get that six years ago when I had ISDN. I understand they're trying to cut down on servers over their network, but they could at least raise it to 20KB/s or more so I can stream MP3's from home wherever I'm at.

Re:Easy to catch

[xpurple]

How right he is. How fast do you need? Unless your a warez d00d, or constantly grabbing gigs of pr0n why all the speed?

Oh, and Shhh about my DS3 :)

Re:Easy to catch

[ender81b]

That's odd. I can get 60kbytes/sec U/L also.

Re:Easy to catch

[Anonymous Coward]

er.. I guess we have different ISP's. At 60KB/s up, you really do have nothing to complain about!

Re:Easy to catch

[ImaLamer]

Download speeds aren't the problem.

I think we all assume that the download is maxed or we don't care.

It's the limited upload speeds that people want to get around. Now I know that the uploads are sometimes limited to reduce 'network collisions'... but low upload speeds are screwing real users.

You don't need to be hosting pr0n or warez. What if you want to put up a password protected mp3 server so you can listen at work, etc.

Remote desktops in XP - X11/VNC for linux users... there are real reasons.

Browse over to freshmeat and check out all the cool ass servers.

Re:Easy to catch

[quietlysubversive]

I don't think that ISPs would be legally allowed to charge someone for something they didn't subscribe to.

If they add in a clause in the user agreement that hacking speeds is an implicit subscription, then they would be sanctioning all attacks on their system.

Re:Easy to catch

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Don't forget video conferencing. Being capped at 15KB/s limits you to some pretty ugly video quality. I want to use my cable modem to do video conferencing with family and friends around the country. Right now it is one step away from intolerable and usually not worth the effort.

Re:Easy to catch

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Got a link to info about ATTBI's plans? I'm a customer and want to know if I ought to be looking at DSL alternatives.

PS - anyone else think the name ATTBI is just a little suggestive of a bit of kink?

Re:Easy to catch

[Knightmare]

Screw something that complex.... with it capped at 15kbps If I am maxing out the download stream or getting close to doing so. I can't ssh somewhere and be productive... because there isn't enough upstream left after all the acking of the recieved packets to have an interactive session. And if my roommate decides to request a webpage from a website while i am playing quake, forget it.. it's all over.

Re:Easy to catch

[tomstdenis]

Not really.

I mean if you go into a shop and steal/break things you have to pay for it even though there was no subscription/contract.

If you hack their servers and steal service you'd better pay for it when caught.

Tom

Re:Easy to catch

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/business/0402/11c able.html

Re:Easy to catch

[Old Wolf]

Solution to this: if you are capped at 15k, then install a Linux machine, do NAT on that and route everything straight-through your DSL modem, and then set it to hold the traffic at 14.9k and to give lowest priority to file downloads.

Re:Easy to catch

[the_2nd_coming]

hey...I know......

if you want more bandwidth durring peak times, just hand out CDs with this on it to eveyone in your area that has a cable modem...then they run it and get knocked off and you get the whole pipe to yourself :-)

or they just turn off the service in your area since there is not enough subscribers to support the network.

Re:Easy to catch

[Anonymous Coward]

My cable provider(insightbb) made some very vocal promises before taking over for excite@home. One of the promises was that they would not cap the modems. Well, they capped the modems. I wonder what sort of legal footing they would have to cut off service toone of their users who uncapped their modem?

Re:Easy to catch

[cornjones]

i don't know who your cable provider is but 15k/sec sux. i can generally get between 40-60k upstream w/ time warner nyc and on a good day I can hit much, much higher.

my video conferencing works great.
ej

Re:Easy to catch

[jandrese]

That's not the problem. There is plenty of bandwidth to go around (at least on my loop, we were getting phnominal rates before Comcast came and capped us), the problem is the 1500/128 bandwith cap in this area. That's more than a 12:1 D/U ratio! It only takes one person trying to do video conferencing, uploading a file, running VNC or whatever to max out the upload and cause horrendous performace for the entire network. Remember that TCP backs off when it sees loss, and even if you are only using a faction of your download you will start loosing ACK packets at the modem and your download will slow down to a crawl.

I wouldn't complain except that Comcast offers no "power user" service with a more reasonable upload cap (like 384 kb or so) and I live 17km from my nearest CO. I don't understand why Comcast doesn't offer tiers of service like many DSL providers, they could make a fortune off of their artificial scarcity of bandwidth and their monopoly in this area.

Re:Easy to catch

[the_2nd_coming]

they cap the entire node!!! WTF are they on crack, they should just cap the frige modem then people would not have the problems you discribe..sheesh what morons.

Re:Easy to catch

[rohdem]

The problem is, even with tiered pricing, they still don't offer shit for upload speeds. Charter offers four levels 128/128, 256/128, 768/128, and 1500/384. You have to spend like $80 a month to get 384 up.

Re:Easy to catch

[Jobe_br]

A very, very large percentage of cable broadband providers cap upload at 128Kbps (kilobits/second) which translates to a maximum of 15KB/s upload, in typical practice. While I've found this to be perfectly fine for things like SSH and such to remote servers, you really notice the cap when you need to upload large images (design comps for clients to view), PDFs (can be 1MB or more with placed hi-res, 300DPI images/artwork) or send an attachment via email that is a bit large (like a zipped Access .mdb file, ~500-600K: sending is not instantaneous by any means). Synchronizing large sites with multiple developers through Dreamweaver or other CVS type systems can be time consuming as well.

I wouldn't mind uncapping my upload to be 512Kbps instead of 128Kbps, but like the original poster, I'm not going to risk being banned. The 1.5Mbps downstream I get is still far better (and cheaper, still) than DSL in my area. And with my reverse path amplifier, I have practically no downtime from the bad cabling in my apartment complex.

Re:Easy to catch

[Jobe_br]

I've found that in my situation, maxing out the upload (say having to upload a multi-meg file to my Rackspace server) is worse, as it prevents me from being able to load *any* web pages ... without it feeling like I'm on a 14.4 connection!

Re:Easy to catch

[Grax]

I am in Nebraska, using Cox cable, and getting plenty of bandwidth. dslreports.com/stest reported me at 3000 kbps (375 kbytes/sec) download and 287 kpbs (36 kbytes/sec) upload.

Re:Easy to catch

[nil_null]

Well download speeds aren't the problem I think (I'm assuming that's what you were talking about). I have Roadrunner and max out at 300 kbytes/s, I don't even know if its capped. But my upstream speed maxes out at 30 kbytes/s. These people are more concerned about changing the upstream caps, not downstream. You won't see me uncapping my modem like an idiot, though, since you basically lose your service a few days later. And 30 kbytes/s is pretty decent anyways. I'll get business class if it ever becomes an issue.

Re:Easy to catch

[Anonymous Coward]

low upload speeds are screwing real users.

Bullshit. High upload speeds are expensive.

Apparently when you say "real users" what you really mean is "poor users". YAC -- yet another commie.

Re:Easy to catch

[ender81b]

It just depends on where you are. Cox doesn't set a limit on how many people can be on a node so in some places you can get upwards of 50-60 people on a single node. This only happens in a few places in the city (where my friend was) but it is a common problem when you get more than 7-8 people.

Re:Easy to catch

[pio!pio!]

The problem is that when I signed up with ATTBI it was 1500/128 D:U but about 2 months it changed to 500:128 D:U, but the kicker is THEY DIDNT TELL US AT ALL and expect us to pay the same price.

We complained a zillion times and they finally send a tech out to help. They charged us $50 for that and ITS NOT EVEN OUR FAULT, it's THEIR fault.

Now that I hear they are thinking about tiered priceing, I have a feeling that capped us as a test. The icing on this foul cake is that When one of us is downloading, the thers are left w/ horrendously slow internet (pinging yahoo yields 1000ms) When we were 1500 down, even if someone was dl'ing we would get decent net speeds.

Also I think UDP packets are getting dropped because when we ping a counterstrike server we get an ok ping, but when we try to play it's like > 3000 ms

Re:Easy to catch

[Dock]

There's a document somewhere that describes how cable systems work, I wish I had the URL but if you search about I'm sure you can find it. I ran across it trying to find the technical limitations of cable systems to see how fast a dark system would go. If you do the same you'll find that most cable systems can have a very limited upstream capacity, something around 10mbit or something that really constrasts to the downstream limits. You can't give people what you don't have.

If you asked them to do so, you'd be in an even worse situation where you ask the capable company simply not to over-sell their ability to provide good service. But what do you have then? A company losing money. If they limit their customers so everyone has good speed, they only have a fraction of customer base they have now, they can't afford it, then nobody gets anything.

One fact remains: never trust the client

[jukal]

The way the bandwidth limiting has been done in these modems, is completely similar to telling 5 year old kids to take only one candy, and then go yourself watch football to another room (or as a fin, Icehockey) - when you return after the match you can be sure that there is no candies - or bandwidth - left.

IMHO, the operators were just asking for this. NEVER trust the client.

Re:One fact remains: never trust the client

[RollingThunder]

Actually, I like this. It gives the abusers enough rope to hang themselves, and they evidently ARE catching them.

This means you get to easily identify, then remove, the buggers who are screwing your bandwidth distribution and forcing you to spend tons in extra capacity. A minor short-term risk for long-term gain.

I have to say I also don't mind that some warez d00d may just finally learn that yes, there are consequences to your actions, even on the Internet.

Re:One fact remains: never trust the client

[jukal]

>This means you get to easily identify, then remove, the buggers who are screwing your bandwidth distribution and forcing you to spend tons in extra capacity. A minor short-term risk for long-term gain.
This means, you can easily get rid of your customers? I mean, in private households, who would you quess is the leading marketing power pushing the buy DSL button? The Kazaasses, I would quess. Even though it's dad or mom who pays it, it might be the immature 13 year old w4r3z d00d who the ISP can thank for the sale :)

So, no - the long term plan is not to use a weak solution and ban your customers, instead the long term plan is to fix it.

Re:One fact remains: never trust the client

[Squash]

I work at a cable company, and I stress this exact point. It is a silly way to cap bandwidth in the first place, and it was crazy to ever be adopted. Maybe this is why Docsis is only an ad-hoc standard?
The bad part is, the method of enforcing speeds employed by most (I stress MOST, you bet your ass that my methods aren't so easily fooled) cable operators has the same problem. They want to get your speed by SNMP query to your cable modem. Which again puts the trust in the client. While I haven't seen any SNMP faker hacks, I'm sure that they aren't too far behind. Another silly note is that most of those guys are comparing your speed to a list of approved speeds, not to a list of what customers bought what. This includes thier Business lines, which run over the same gear. You won't be able to sneak through with a 2meg/2meg pipe, but a 1.5meg/768k is a service they probobly sell, and would get right through thier checks.

The control method that you will see soon is called "shared secret", and is an encrypted passphrase-type method. Basicly, your cable modem gets a config file that has a key in it, which is basicly a signature of the bin file. It then generates a new passkey based on those two items, and send it to the CMTS. The CMTS verifies that it got a correct passkey, and then lets you connect. The encryption they used is junk, though, and there are efforts underway to break it. This is yet another dumb method that will only work for a short while!

What I will say is that there is a better way, and it is 100% effective. Your cable modem doesn't just "make up" a speed and magicly work, it has to register its rates with the CMTS. This is where the speed is truly controlled. While it isn't likely that Cisco will have a good method for capping individual users at the CMTS level, they are nice enough to tell you what speed someone is registered at. This is the method that I am using, and I *am* comparing speeds against what customers are paying for... So if you live in a town where you can get Imo's pizza, the square beyond compare, this is your warning! :)

On the flip side, once an abuser is identified, the info gets sent to marketing, and who knows what happens from there. We don't just pull the plug on abusers (yet).

Re:One fact remains: never trust the client

[battlemarch]

St. Charles, MO ?? (thanks google)

Re:One fact remains: never trust the client

[afidel]

Hopefully marketing will realize there is a market for a residential service with a higher upload cap! I need more than 128kb/s for streaming my mp3 collection since I have it VBR encoded @~200kb/s avg. I would also like to allow my work pc to vnc/ssh/term service into my home pc's, this will work but will be extremely crappy over 128kb/s. Note that none of these are business uses and I can deal with residential service guarentees, but I want more bandwidth on the upload! Standard Docsis rates are almost 12:1 D/U, my usage pattern on dialup is only about 5:1 and most of the stuff I would do with broadband would push it to 4-3:1. When I need massive amount of sustained bandwidth and service guarentees I pay for, hence my 6Mb/s burstable to 7.5Mb/s ATM circuit(s) at work, but cable co's aren't commercial ISP's, they are residential ones, they should offer a decent residential service.

Re:One fact remains: never trust the client

[Anonymous Coward]

I've brought up this point as well, and it is something that is being looked at for a future service (at least in my region). Our top-end offering is 1.5m down and 384k up (which would be more then enough for your use), however I feel that there is a market for something even higher. Maybe 2 meg down, 512k up. Who knows, I'm sure exact numbers would be pulled from market research etc etc...
With that said, less then 10% of our customers subscribe to the top level service.

--- BUT ---

If this type of thing interests you, you should find an email address for someone who matters at your cable company, and tell them that you would be willing to pay a premium rate for a premium service! Dollars will drive the product offering. Right now, all they want to do is compete on level ground with DSL. Customers need to prove there is a market if they go beyond that.

Re:One fact remains: never trust the client

[afidel]

Hehe, unfortunately my cable service is from Adelphia. They took over the local cableco soon after I moved into my apartment 2 years ago, and said they would have digital service and cablemodems rolled out "real soon", will it's now 22 months since they made that promise and they just installed some of the physical infrastructure that they need to even contemplate moving to digital! If they can't even see fit to offer me ANY service I doubt they will ever see a response from them on premium service offerings. I already pay them $80/month for their full blown cable package and would gladly pay them $150 or so for cable+premium cablemodem+2 line VoIP, but I doubt they will ever offer it even though they have a tradition clec and long distance service!

Re:One fact remains: never trust the client

[Anonymous Coward]

They're te ones using the excess bandwidth that the others have to pay for to cover the costs. I'm sure the ISPs are actually quite happy to get rid of these customers.

Once they're all gone, I'm sure broadband prices will come down *snicker*

Re:One fact remains: never trust the client

[ImaLamer]

They're te ones using the excess bandwidth that the others have to pay for to cover the costs. I'm sure the ISPs are actually quite happy to get rid of these customers.

Once they're all gone, I'm sure broadband prices will come down *snicker*


And broadband will be gone... no customers.

I know someone in my family that uses the same BB service to just check e-mail... I guess I can go all out? In your world you still think it's wrong.

Hell, I was sold on an unlimted, unmetered connection. I know b.width costs $$$, but I'm paying what they wanted me to. They should have prepared for "THE WORST CASE SCENARIO"...

Property vs Service

[Anonymous Coward]

The article states the hack was done by changing files in your cable modem. Your cable modem.

They provide the service, I'll provide my equipment and make the decisions as to how I use it thanks.

Re:Property vs Service

[Anonymous Coward]

The modem is usually leased from the cable company, not bought.

Re:Property vs Service

[tarzan420]

So if i own my cable modem, and i uncap it. my ISP won't cut my service? I don't think so.

Re:Property vs Service

[anshil]

Well actually my cable modem doesn't belong to me, it's leased and owned by the serive provider. Which holds true for I guess 99% of people.

Second just something belongs to me daesn't mean I can do everything _with_ it I want. I can do everything _to_ it, but thats a differnt thing (and also not always true (i.e. animals))

Look I've a hammer here, so can I do everything with it I want to? (i.e. hammering your windows?)

Re:Property vs Service

[Anonymous Coward]

Well if they're providing the service in the form of bandwidth from the NOC onwards, then you should pay for that.

Trying to justify theft of your ISPs bandwidth by saying "Oh but I own the modem, so I can change the configuration as much as I want!" is such a poor argument its pathetic. Is this what we've come to, a complete me me me, mine mine mine! culture, where no-one wants to pay for anything? Yeesh...

Re:Property vs Service

[Anonymous Coward]

you are an idiot

Re:Property vs Service

[redgekko]

True, you are within your rights to do whatever you want to the cable modem itself if you own it... HOWEVER, the moment you attach it to a leased cable line, you are most likely violating the provider's TOS/AUP/FAP/EULA that you agreed to be legally bound to when you subscribed.

Here's another example: you may own your telephone handset, AND it may even be legal to modify it for the purpose of phone phreaking (maybe...DMCA?), but once you plug it into a live phone jack, you've surely committed a crime.

Summary: It's not about how you handle your equipment, it's where you have permission to stick it.

Re:Property vs Service

[plumby]

You probably own your own car. Does this mean that you are allowed to drive as fast as you want?

I suspect that technically they couldn't do anything to you for fiddling with the modem - like you say, it's yours. However, if you then use that modem to get more bandwidth than you are paying for, then that's probably theft (or something - IANAL).

Re:Property vs Service

[Anonymous Coward]

Try appplying the same reasoning to your computer. If it was sold as is with all mods forbidden would you be happy? If you own it you should be able to change and modify it (within the law - think building regulations, road safety etc) to suit your needs. If you do choose to modify the equipment though then your provider should spot it and bill you/terminate contract accordingly.

Re:Property vs Service

[Anonymous Coward]

i see that others have stepped up to the challenge of deconstructing your brain crushing logic.

that leaves me with the fun part:

YOU ARE A DUMBASS!!!!!

Re:Property vs Service

[The_Rift]

That's like saying you can drive your car round built areas at 100 mph simply because you own the thing.

Re:Property vs Service

[innocent_white_lamb]

I'll provide my equipment and make the decisions as to how I use it thanks.

Indeed. You own your car. You are free to modify it as you choose, but if you modify it such that it's no longer "street-legal" then don't complain when the licensing authority refuses to allow you to drive it on public roads.

Re:Property vs Service

[Grax]

You're free to do whatever you like to your cable modem. And they're free to disconnect their cable from your modem.

This isn't like stealing cable or descrambling the movie channel. If one person uses more than their share of bandwidth there is less for the rest.

Re:Property vs Service

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not about how you handle your equipment, it's where you have permission to stick it.

Freudian slip?

Re:Property vs Service

[DarkEdgeX]

I was about to say the same thing-- that just looks so wrong taken out of context.

Re:Property vs Service

[tomstdenis]

Wrongo. You're connecting to their service so you have to connect the way they want.

Same thing with phones. You can't open your phone up [even if you own it] and hack it to make calls free or something.

Have you even read a TOS before?

Tom

Re:Property vs Service

[Gordonjcp]

Doesn't work that way. Consider this: The government provide the roads. I pay the government to provide roads, and they keep up their end of the bargain by giving me nice, long, straight motorways to drive on. However, the conditions of use, as it were, state that there's a maximum speed limit of 70mph on the motorway.

Now, the government doesn't supply the car. I went out and bought the car. I have a Citroen, you may have a Ford, or a Vauxhall, or whatever you like. They're all *capable* of going faster than 70mph, but if I get caught doing that, I get a speeding fine, and points on my licence. I can't argue that "I bought the car, I paid for it, so I'll use it any way I want".

Re:Property vs Service

[Gordonjcp]

Ooooh, that could very well become my new sig...

Re:Property vs Service

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I think the same way.

I owned the diesel fuel and the nitrogen fertalizer. I owned the truck. Why should I be sitting in jail for using MY property how I SAW fit.

If I want to mix up some Amphor, and blow up a truck that I own, why should the feds have the right to arrest me.

As soon as I get out of prison, I am joining the montana militia. They seem to have a clue. They aren't going to let silly rules, or even ethics, get in their way of taking what they want.

Re:Property vs Service

[Anonymous Coward]

Summary: It's not about how you handle your equipment, it's where you have permission to stick it. That's what the judge keeps telling me. :|

Re:Property vs Service

[DaveWood]

I pine for the good old days (of 1997 or so) when I could say this and it would be true. Too bad congress took the right to modify and reverse engineer away from us, because we might use it to threaten the intellectual property of a few big companies.

If it were particularly easy to do this sort of thing, how long do you think it would be before tinkering with this kind of equipment would be illegal too? Or even talking about it, for that matter? Because why make it just a civil matter between business and customer when the goverment can join the party!

It's amazing how proactive the government can get with your rights and freedoms when a big corporation's monoply- I mean, revenues might be threatened. You see, when two individuals or two businesses disagree about how their business relationship is working out, they have to pay for their own day in court. But when it's business vs. consumer, the police suddenly don't mind lending a few billy clubs.

I think if we take the DMCA to it's logical conclusion (since if it's a good law, surely not only copyright deserves that level of protection), we should be setting up "Federal Speech Centers" for citizens to visit before they write or say anything, and everyone can take a number and stand in line and step up to the counter to ask the Federal Department of Speech employees if what they're thinking is OK to talk about, to insure that no one else's government-sponsored "rights and freedoms" get "threatened." I mean, what's the sense in waiting until someone actually comits a crime?

We don't need a Department of Actions Performed in the Privacy of the Home, because it'll be cheaper to just put cameras in every room.

Re:Property vs Service

[Anonymous Coward]

Summary: It's not about how you handle your equipment, it's where you have permission to stick it.

It always comes down to that, doesn't it? At least I have a hand.

Re:Property vs Service

[Betaman]

Yeah, but I have been told repeatedly by my cable modem provider that I cannot under any circumstances use a router because that's stealing internet access. They want me to pay an extra 5$ per computer simply because I want more than one computer connected. If I have 2 computers or just one downloading at full speed, I'm stil using the maximum bandwidth of my cable modem. What do they care if it's split between 1 comptuer or 30 of my computers? Just because some TOS/AUP/FAP/EULA agreement I supposedly signed (or rather I clicked "agree") says I can't have a router, doesn't mean (A) I should follow it, and (B) more importantly that they are in the right. I could make a EULA saying if you read this you have to send me 10$. It's wrong, and you know it and won't follow it, and probably will still read the message.

Re:Property vs Service

[Anonymous Coward]

"I think if we take the DMCA to it's logical conclusion (since if it's a good law, ..."

Please learn the difference between it's and its.

Re:Property vs Service

[Anonymous Coward]

What---do you mean we haven't yet reached that level of government interference in our lives? I thought it happend a long time ago

Re:Property vs Service

[rhombic]

When I had ATT broadband install in seattle, my computer was down (blown HD). He just left the software (@Home crap). The service order paper had the host ID, so after he was gone I popped that into the router (that he never saw). Hooked up the laptop (also never seen). Router's great, and guess what? I NEVER clicked their stupid TOS agreement. Never even saw it. So how could they bust me for breaking the TOS? Fun stuff.

Re:Property vs Service

[Betaman]

That's all well and good, but now with ATT Broadband they give you modems that have to authenticate with thier servers. If you DON'T run the stupid software your modem drops it's internet access after 1 day. I called them up and they said, "You need to register your modem before access is re-established." So I had to click the TOS/EULA whatever agreement, install their damn software, and use their damn proxies.

Re:Property vs Service

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a HUGE difference between a federally funded thoroughfare where a study has been conducted to determine the maximum safe driving speed during normal conditions which is made into law by allowing the magistrate that the thoroughfare is in to set these speed limitations and a privately owned ISP connecting you to the Internet.

One is a private company providing you service to YOUR cable modem and IS NOT responsible for anything past your co-ax jack in your modem.

The other as I said is based off of taxes, legislation, safety studies, etc..

As it was stated in one of these threads. If they company RESPONSIBLE for the connection set it up properly, this would not be an issue.

Is Microsoft liable for the fact thousands of hackers exploit their software security holes?

Re:Property vs Service

[Anonymous Coward]

What happens when everyone gets forced to do 25mph on the highway, when they all could be doing 100mph? People got so fed up with the speed limit here in Phoenix that the cops said the average speed on one road was 20 mph over the 55mph speed limit. They can't catch everybody, and the cable company can't get rid of everybody.

Re:Property vs Service

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a Citroen, you may have a Ford, or a Vauxhall, or whatever you like. They're all *capable* of going faster than 70mph

When you say that your Citroen is *capable* of going 70mph... are you talking about free-fall or jet-assist?

Re:Property vs Service

[Physics Dude]

Registering the cable modem has nothing to do with installing a router. The router is on the LAN side of the cable modem and justs looks like a single PC to the outside world. You have to register your modem with them for them to do the provisioning for their network, but that doesn't in any way stop you from installing a router.

At least when I got my connection, the modem registration was done before provisioning. You didn't even have to have a computer connected for any of the setup process.

I never installed ANY of the ATT broadband software. In fact I never even took the disk out of it's envelope. I just said "I don't want/need that software. I'll set things up myself". The install tech, who couldn't comprehend that you could use the service without their software, just took my word for it because he obviously didn't know much about the system. (It looks like they hire all high-school grads at minimum-wage.)

I have about 8 systems on my home network - all with full-time high speed access. :)

Those Linksys routers are swEET! :)

Re:Property vs Service

[Gordonjcp]

You're the_antiroot, aren't you? Or someone else off a certain irc channel on OPN...

OK, though, just in case you're not, it's one of the bigger ones - a bit bigger than a BMW 5-series. Here in the developed world, we can run our cars on petrol with a decently high octane number, unlike the US which has to make do with 80 RON pish.

Re:Property vs Service

[gerardrj]

The issues aren't the same though.
The speed limits on public roads are for safety (Ie.. keep the fastest drivers within 20MPH of the slowest drivers). The bandwidth limits are much more akin to limiting the number of cars, or number of vehicle occupants on the roadway at any given time.

Bandwidth limitations are not for safety, nor are they there to maximize utilization for customers as a whole.

The networks are built out fully symetrical to my understanding. That means that from the backbone connections throug the HFC node connections, the upstream and downstream bandwiths are identical at any given point. Ex: at the backbone of my ISP, there is a DS3: ~44MB/s in both directions. At the HFC node 200 yards from my house, the bandwidth is probably 50MB/s in both directions.

If you follow the rule that on average, 80% of your bandwidth is downstream, and 20% upstream, you'll see there is NO need for lower downstream limits. In fact, they should put lower limits on the downstream to ensure more even bandwidth utilization.

The only reason most of these companies are limiting upstream bandwidth is because they are afraid of customers running P2P servers that will allow pirated content to be transferred, and the cable companies don't want to be involved in that.

My cableco actually disabled certain common P2P ports from traversing the cable network. This of course does not in any way limit HTTP (port 80 or otherwise), FTP, Gopher, NNTP, chat, Hotline or most any othe method of exchanging software.

So.. because some people may potentially set up servers to exchange illegal software on a network completely capable of handling the load, I'm restricted in my ability to transfer large video files to a remote server, or have high quality video conferencing with my friends and family.

All that said, I am graced with a cable ISP that has remarkably few political restrictions in place in the EULA/customer agreement/TOS. I do still wish they would raise the artificially low upstream bandwidth caps.

Re:Property vs Service

[gerardrj]

For those paying attention, I meant to type Mb/s, not MB/s in the previous post. I WISH I had 44MB/s downstream :)

Re:Property vs Service

[jx100]

uh, isn't there less energy in gas with a higher octane level?

Re:Property vs Service

[Gordonjcp]

Actually, in another post I asked if cable modems could be used as a point-to-point link. It turns out that they can't, because they use a different modulation system for transmitting than for receiving. This allows the relatively small "transmitter" in the CM get a decent signal up the wire to the head-end, but at a lower data rate. You can screw symmetric bandwidth out of a normal CM, but in practice it's not a good idea.

I doubt that cable modem service providers deliberately limit bandwidth to limit P2P file sharing. If they wanted to do that, they'd block port 6346, as you say. I don't see how this restricts you from transferring files to a remote server though. You could use FTP, or better still SCP to copy it. I can mount NFS shares on my machines at work on my home machine through my CM, and copy files backwards and forwards quite happily.

On the other hand, the upstream bandwidth has to be paid for somehow. If you buy a fat pipe that costs £500 per week to run, giving 2M, then you resell that to customers at 512k each, you can work out their usage and see how many people you can have on that one pipe and still get a good average. Say, for example, 10 people. You need to get £50 per week per person. If one person cracks their config file and pulls the whole 2M all at once, your other customers will get poor service, which they won't pay for. The one guy getting 2M is only paying 1/10 of the cost of the line, so you're paying for the rest.

Re:Property vs Service

[Betaman]

Registering the cable modem has nothing to do with installing a router. The router is on the LAN side of the cable modem and justs looks like a single PC to the outside world.

I am not an idiot, I know how a router works. The point, if you had bothered to read the original message, was that the TOS /EULA does not allow routers. Yes I can use a router, and yes I do. The agreement however says you can't have one without paying them 4.95 per computer per month. My orginal point was that sometimes TOS/EULA etcs may say something is wrong, but that does not mean you should follow it.

You can choose to not install their software, and you can register the modem over their website, but doing so forces you to still click an "I agree" button after 56 pages of crap where they mark out exactly what you can and cannot do.

Re:Property vs Service

[gerardrj]

But the dat pipe the ISP purchased IS symmetrical in all probablility. If they were performing bandwidth limiting to be certain that all customers got a fair share they should put lower limits on downstream (to the home) throughput.
If 80% of traffic is from ISP to CM, then why does that path have the higher limit?

As far as the signaling, the QAM symbol size is not a limit of technology, but, again, of the asymetrical nature of most users. I'm pretty certain I've seen CMs that can do QAM 256 in both directions.
It's a combination of the signal rate and the symbol size that affect speeds. According to the specs, upstream communication at 16QAM can be accomplished at up to 2560 Ksym/sec. If I've done the math correctly, that's about 4MB/s upstream capability. Hence, the caps have nothing to do with bandwidth limitations or ditribution, and everything to do with politics.

Re:Property vs Service

[rhombic]

Or you can have the service tech call in the modem and get it provisioned over the phone... cable modems always have to be registered at the home office; otherwise you could just but a cable modem, plug it in, and have it work.

In case of the inevitable /.

[Gunsmithy]

Here's some mirrors. Real ones. Mirror 1 Mirror 2

Oh wonderful

[olman]

This is just great. And I thought our cable service was overloaded as it was. Never to worry, thought, they do send cease&desist nastygrams to everyone who exceeds an arbitary download quota as it is. In any case, you'd think it'd not be that difficult to monitor the bandwith usage per node and ..

Actually this reminds me of the a**wipes who used to download pr0n with threaded ftp clients from within the student network. We had a shared 512kbit line and you can see where this is leading to. Ditto for download managers with "segment" support. I fully realize I'm using making the download even slower for everyone else by using Getright to have 4 independent connections.. Some people are just more equal than others, dammit!

Re:Oh wonderful

[ImaLamer]

I fully realize I'm using making the download even slower for everyone else by using Getright to have 4 independent connections.. Some people are just more equal than others, dammit!


The optimal use would be to find mirrors.

I often download my linux iso's in Windows because I like Getright so much. It can usually find mirrors around the world and I can get an iso in about 45 mins - something almost impossible when new iso's are released.

Re:Oh wonderful

[Jarl]

If you don't want to boot to windows, GetRight provides a web frontend to their mirror archive:
http://filemirrors.com/

Re:Oh wonderful

[csmiller]

Or use wget which can do most that GetRight can, but without the GUI. It is avaiable for most POSIX-compliant UNIX boxes. The only feature it lacks (at present) is the ability to download different sections of the same file from different mirrors, but it does do resume-downloading, recursive gets, etc...

Re:Oh wonderful

[ImaLamer]

I know very well about this application and I thank you for pointing it out to other readers.

There are also a DOS and Windows versions :)

[I have become used to get right since i would thrash my linux box and then get a newer version of whatever distro I was using. It's a home/hobby thing.]

Re:Oh wonderful

[hummassa]

prozilla can do it all.

Re:Oh wonderful

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, their quota must be extraordinarily large -- I was on @home and maybe 6 days/week I would have d/l'ed more than 8-10 gig (newsgroups, etc)... never got a nasty gram...

shrug.. YMMV ne?

Cool hack guys

[ez76]

It just goes to show what's possible when a generation of clever minds is continually frustrated by their inability to develop a digital descrambler for the Playboy channel.

Re:Cool hack guys

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats why you hack directv and steal playboy digitally

Re:Cool hack guys

[Anonymous Coward]

I had it for about 5 months when you couldn't even buy Playboy channel 24/7. It cost $8 per four hour block. But not for me - that box was unbelieveable. 11 ppv channels too.

Then I moved, dammit :/

Like it matters...

[zAmb0ni]

Give me something that I can actually use like...

A program that will cap my CS ping at 10ms.
A program that gets rid of my horrible packet loss.
A program that gives me reliable service without downtime every other day.
A program that will uncap my 1GB/mo limit on usenet download
A program that gives me customer service who knows what they are talking about.
A program that gets rid of my horrible Comcast service and gets my old (more reliable, lower priced, higher bandwidth, more featured) Mediaone service.

Re:Like it matters...

[Anonymous Coward]

wouldn't trading one to another suffice? you could write a program that dropped all pings over 10ms.

Get a better server

[Anonymous Coward]

You're 404 already

Re:Get a better server

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, are you using Opera?

Re:Get a better server

[Shut the fuck up!]

Cause it ain't 404

Re:Get a better server

[Anonymous Coward]

No, OmniWeb. Does that make a difference?

Capped cable

[Apocalyptic Cowbird]

Unless you're severely capped (at around 512kbps) I don't really see an issue with it. Most sites I go to I can only get around 70-100 kBytes/s on a download. This is far less than the 1.5Mbps cap usually put on the modem. Going to my ISP's download test site (which is connected by a fat pipe) I got 400kBytes/s, or 3.2Mbps. Basically, the chokepoint is mostly at the other end, not at the home user's end. When websites all have huge pipes running from them then maybe this will be an issue, but until then it's probably a moot point.

Re:Capped cable

[semeniuk]

You're right about websites, because they rarely have 'the big pipe' ... but newsgroups are a different story.

I easily hit the top advertised speed for my DSL service when I'm downloading from usenet ... and the more bandwidth I have, more educational material I can download from newsgroups (and there's tons of educational material there! :-))

Re:Capped cable

[csmiller]

These easiest way to get the most out of your 'educational' newsgroups is to get a reader like Pan, which lets you download all new articals+bodiess in all subscribed newsgroups with one command. You can then go and get a cup of tea, or whatever whilst it is busy....

Re:Capped cable

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah but what if your broadband isp's newsfeed doen't carry the ^ahem^ eductional newsgroups?

Re:Capped cable

[Anonymous Coward]

Then Pan won't do you any good.

Re:Capped cable

[AlgUSF]

The problem with your ISP's test site is that it is on the same network. Cable networks have "gateways" to the internet, and the problem with Road Runner in Tampa/St. Pete is that they don't have that many gateways per neighborhood, and sometimes it can get worse speeds than a 56K modem. That is why I switched to DSL, it is a always reliable connection, and I know no one is hogging my share of the pipe.

Only appears to apply to Moto. Surfboards

[tempest303]

(note: I work for a cable ISP)

This vulnerability only exists in Surfboard modems. RCA, who has a HUGE market penetration, especially since they're cheaper, smaller, and better featured (for ISPs anyhow) than the competition, are *not* vulnerable to this, and can't be "uncapped."

I'm really surprised I haven't heard more about what other ISPs who have rolled out more Surfboards plan to ask *Motorola* about this. Couldn't they just turn off the damn ethernet port for the duration of the initialization sequence?

Re:Only appears to apply to Moto. Surfboards

[Anonymous Coward]

RCA modems can be uncapped, you just dont know how and mabey for good reasons.. -DerEngel of TCNiSO.com www.SurfboardHACK.com

Re:Only appears to apply to Moto. Surfboards

[tempest303]

Well almost anything is possible, it's just a matter of equipment and know-how. RCAs just can't be uncapped through the ethernet port, as it refuses to look for the file on anything but the cable interface.

If it was anything less than next-to-impossible, why wouldn't there be a hack utility out there for it? RCA's got huge market penetration, there's certainly incentive and a user base.

Besides, that's where MD5 "shared secret" comes in. :P

What goes around...

[redgekko]

I can't wait to read the next Slashdot article entitled "Cut off by Cable, It's Just Not Fair", in which everyone bellyaches about their newfound understanding of the "cable monopoly" definition.

Think about it... even if it did get "out of control"... cable providers could simply restrict bandwidth further up the line (someone please explain why on earth it would be delegated at the modem in the first place???).

Anyone remember years ago when the same thing happened with DirecPC's service?

Re:What goes around...

[Todd Knarr]

It's capped at the modem to prevent saturating the bandwidth on the cable between the modem and the head-end. There's only a finite amount of it, and if they didn't control it from the modem you'd end up in the same shape as firing up a 50-megabyte download via FTP over a modem and then trying to play Counterstrike while the download was saturating the line.

And for those thinking that uncapping's good because you get the speed, think about this: what's going to happen when that little kid down the street uncaps his modem and starts running a file-sharing server sucking up 99% of the bandwidth, leaving you trying to compete with him just to read your e-mail? What goes around, comes around.

Re:What goes around...

[Anonymous Coward]

They could just as well cap the bandwidth at the head-end. Rarely are there any transfers between people on the same segment.

Re:What goes around...

[Anonymous Coward]

since cable is a shared medium, there's no way to limit bandwidth per device. You can limit a particular nodes bandwith across an upstrean router, but there's too many ways around that, and it's just simpler at the cable modem.

Think of it this way, 5 boxes on a 10Mbit hub. FTP a 12GB file between two of them, and see how much bandwith you can use between the other three. People may say that its uncommon for users on the same segment to be active at the same time, but so what. I NEVER want my connection to get bogged down to 56K. I'll gladly take a reliable 1.5Mb/128Kb than one that fluctuates between 3Mb and 28.8Kb all the time. Death to Telecomm, Long live Datacomm!!

Then they Should Provide Faster Service

[Mike Mentalist]

In the UK, the fastest commercialy available broadband is ADSL - 512 down, 256 up.

I have cable, which is 512 down, 128 up. The upload is a bit stingy really, and can cause a bit of lag when playing online sometimes, but often it is ok. I play Halo online on my Xbox, and whilst it is fine with two or three players, anymore than that, and it lags BADLY. Halo wasnt designed for online play, and is a real bandwidth hog.
This is the service I pay for, and so that is the service I get - I have no excuse for using any sort of hack to make it faster.

My ISP, Blue Yonder, are currently doing trials for a 1mbit line, but they dont know if the upload is going to be increased yet. This is really annoying, as I only really want a faster upload - 512 down is fine for me.

Surely this hack shows that there is a market for faster broadband in general?

Re:Then they Should Provide Faster Service

[Anonymous Coward]

correction: NTL do a 1mb down 256 up service now for ~UKP50 per month.

Re:Then they Should Provide Faster Service

[jantheman]

Actually, The fastest is 1Mb up/256Kb down - via NTL (cable).
But - IIRC - it's actually 1000kb up.

Their 512/128 offering is really 600/128 though.

Re:Then they Should Provide Faster Service

[blacksmith]

In the UK, the fastest commercialy available broadband is ADSL - 512 down, 256 up.

Not true any more - ntl now offer a 1mbit service for £50/month.

The main problem with ntl is wondering whether they'll still be around in a month, now they've gone for Chapter 11.

Re:Then they Should Provide Faster Service

[Anonymous Coward]

You can get 2mbit ADSL. I'm not sure if any ADSL providers are offering it branded and priced for the home user. It tends to be listed as business connectivity, but that's because it is targeted at business - there is no restriction on getting it for the home. There is a lower contention ratio (20:1 instead of 50:1), and you tend to get an ethernet router instead of a USB one, but the costs are rather high so only home users with money to burn are likely to go for this option.

Re:Then they Should Provide Faster Service

[Anonymous Coward]

Haven't NTL split up their US & Euro operations ?
I believe it's so they can still make ca$h in UK etc to prop up the mother ship...

The Register had a piece on it.

If they do go belly up our local council uses them for it's data/phone services which would be interesting.

Re:Then they Should Provide Faster Service

[Anonymous Coward]

Here in holland:
8mbit down, 0.5 mbit up. 100gb/month data limit
99 euro..
Be jealous :)

Re:Then they Should Provide Faster Service

[Richard_at_work]

Erm, im on a 2mb down 256k up dsl link at the moment, within the UK. Bought it from Demon Internet.

Re:Then they Should Provide Faster Service

[Anonymous Coward]

DSL's speed is mostly limited by distance from the telco's CO. In a previous life, I worked at a company that provided DSL service (among other things), and lived less then a mile from the CO. I was set at 8meg down, 5 meg up.
The reason you see all the 1 meg down/256k up style services is because that is what 99% of residential broadband customers want.
These days I work at a cable operator, and have 2 meg/2 meg cable service. Cable is structured differently, with nodes and node combining into upstream circuits, and the upstream bandwidth is purchased based on the residential numbers.
On the flip side, most cable operators (as well as DSL operators) are willing to work with you in getting a premius service. You just need to call thier Business Networking department, and be prepared to pay for what you get. Residential access is sold at commodity rates. If you want more, you'll be suprised at the rate of scale on the price. However, if it is important to you to get 512k or 768k or whatever upstream, you will pay it. its still much cheaper then a T1.

Re:Then they Should Provide Faster Service

[titaniafq]

2Mbits/sec is the fastest DSL you can get (an Pipex are around the cheapest at 140 UKP / Month) and NTL (spit!) is trialing a IMbit/sec cable link, but NTL are shite and are about to go bust.

We have a NTL Dialup account (free with the TV) and its shit, disconnects are random, their DNS servers hardly ever work, so would I have broadband from them? No.

Seeing as my Pipex 512Kbs connection is fast and currently connected at 576Kbs I am happy.

Oh and don't you just love NTL's 128Kbs broadband connection!!! What?

Ok, I am getting of the soap box now.....
...
OUCH!
BANG!

...There!

See ya

By the way, Halo lags because the Xbox is shite...try a GameCube with DSL or even better Counterstrike!!!! Yeehaw

Re:Then they Should Provide Faster Service

[Nakago4]

hrm.. last I checked GameCube still didn't have either an ethernet adaptor or a modem available, as well as no games that support network play, so DSL with a GameCube would be kind of impossible.

Re:Then they Should Provide Faster Service

[slug359]

Nope, Easynet provide 8mbit DSL (downstream that is)
and I think 2mbit upstream.

Admittedly it does cost around £3,500 a year.

Re:Then they Should Provide Faster Service

[mountain_penguin]

yes they should i am on NTL braod band 64K service (i kid you not) we switched this from the dialup (which was shitty) as it was cheeper and always on now have a server connect to the internet 24/7 and its worked constantly for almost a year the only downage ive had were to change the ip masqing server
and whne an ehternet card got hit by lighning in my house last week apart from that the service has been great on the other hand the tv sucks
it often shoes artifacs and stops for a couple of seconds before resuming. I would love to be able to get the raw mpeg stream off the cable but hey ill have to wait.
I am thinking of trying this in a few weeks to see if it works however i wll only up it a little bit perhaps to 128

Great ...

[Pacer]

... now something is going to be *done* about it.

What you get for distributing neat hacks in "for dummies" packaging.

Way it goes I guess. Every decent scam has a half-life that's a function of popularity.

Pacer

Re:Great ...

[Gibbys Box of Trix]

Every decent scam has a half-life that's a function of popularity.

Except Fastrack p2p.

Re:Great ...

[Anonymous Coward]

exactly. this is enticing nonsense. i would think that the the network admin(s) should be able to see this sort of thing occurring. maybe when they start getting calls by your bandwidth deprived neighbors? or maybe they're just slack n dumb...
can anyone tell me why b/w limiting is performed on the rented hardware instead of one hop up the line?

i wish i could have done this

[negativethirsty]

but no, i canceled by horid "broad band" cable service outright. Maybe these people were merely seeking those "lightning fast, always on" service they were promised in the first place. Unless you have the rare ubercable, just do yourself a favor and get dsl.

Uncapping

[Dante_H]

Yeah, I uncapped my cable modem (in the UK, on Blueyonder) for a period. 500kbyte/sec transfers were fun, but then when I had a power cut I had difficulty respoofing the modem with the configuration file. Apparently the cable company disabled the process of the modem getting the file.

A friend of mine, who also uncapped his modem but for a longer period received a letter from the cable company saying "Someone in your household has illegally attempt to modify one of the devices supplied by Telewest. Please desist or your service will be permanently withdrawn" or something like that.

My cable connection ocassionally gets uncapped for random periods, and I don't notice until I start downloading something (e.g. larger driver file) and get 300kbyte/sec.

If more information was available for customers to see how much bandwidth cost the ISP, then perhaps our expectations could be realistically scaled. Is having an uncapped 3 hour period between 2am and 5am feasible? I could simply schedule large downloads for that period. At present, I may as well just download at peak times, which probably is more irritating to the ISP receiving calls about slow web pages, or somesuch.

Re:Uncapping

[arivanov]

First :
It is slightly different because Telewest modems are suplpied by Telewest are property of Telewest and you are only leasing them.

So you have actually tampered with telecommunications equipment belonging to the telco which in the UK as elsewhere may lead to a very fat fine.

I am amused by the fact that they only kindly reminded you not to be stupid.

Second:
Your suggestion for gradual QoS and limits polices is nothing new. It has been done in the past (it was casual pricing strategy/practice in 1994-1998). I have recently discussed it with some of my collegues (disclaimer none of us works for a CableCo or DSL provider at the moment) but the overall opinion was that there is no economical drive for such a policy manager. The only way such drive will appear will be to introduce differential prime time/prime bandwidth pricing. In other words abolish flat rates. Otherwise there is no economical reason for developing such software.

Overall: if you want to manage your downloads smartly do not ask for dumb pricing.

Re:Uncapping

[Dante_H]

I am amused by the fact that they only kindly reminded you not to be stupid.

Firstly, they didn't remind me anything at all. I had an uncapped period for roughly a week or so, with no ill-effects to my service (some construction worker cut a cable near my street which interfered for a day or so, but obviously that was unrelated.) My friend was warned, but this may be due to excessive usage which they picked up on (40GB in downloads over roughly two days), or whatever system they use to detect it. I am fully aware that the Cable Modem is not my property as when I moved they billed me £480 for the modem (they cancelled the charge, but it was for some kind of insurance that if the box went missing I would have to pay)

Secondly, I'm not sure if you can categories individuals who uncap their modems as "stupid". I managed to download far more than I would have normally, with no ill-effects whatsoever. How is this stupid? There appears to be reoccurent fantasy about illegality regarding such matters. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure it's within their legal right to prosecute, but the chances of it being worth their while is another matter. If nothing else, if I was prosecuted for such matters then I would simply assist every Telewest customer in existence to uncap their modem.

I agree that different pricing schemes would probably have to exist to allow non-peak time downloads or somesuch. The point is, nothing like that exists with Cable (in the UK, yet). While I can choose from a dizzying array of TV Channels, I have one option when it comes to "High Speed Internet" on cable - yay or nay. I will probably switch to 2Mbit ADSL soonish anyway, so it's not that relevent. When it comes to pricing, consumers cannot really be blamed for demanding/expecting "dumb" pricing, or speeds, or anything. There is precious little information which is readily available (as I stated).

To explain what I mean for I'll use an analogy. I am currently employed (call centre scum, etc). I have reached a certain level of service length, which means that I should be entitled to some kind of pay-rise (or at least appraisal). However "due to economic uncertainty" this appraisal/pay-rise has been delayed until further notice. Now, my employers may be being perfectly reasonable. They could be hameoraging money every single day, or they could of course be "conning" me, and are infact awarding the top managers massive rises (I doubt it, but still). The point is, I don't know, and can't easily find out (yet). I basically have to trust my employers. Similarly, we are told that expecting 512kbit/sec all the time is unrealistic. Perhaps it is, but all I have is the word of the Telco's. Isn't one of the features of the free-market supposed to be that we act upon "near-perfect information" rather than just blind trust?

If I could see how much by ISP was paying for bandwidth, and their network status (in terms of bandwidth % used, then perhaps I could either (A) Reduce my expecations (B) Use my bandwidth at more appropriate times if necessary) For now, I'll just leave my cable modem downloading at 60kbyte/sec all day every day from various Public FTP sites. Why? Because like the telco's "there's no incentive for me not to"

Re:Uncapping

[Old Wolf]

A local fellow is currently coding up code for allowing uncapped DSL through an ISP, but with pro-rata rate limiting (eg. if you've downloaded 20Gb this month, and joe has downloaded 10Gb, and the isp's bandwidth is maxed out, then joe's traffic will get twice the priority thaty ours does). Sounds like a good idea to me

Re:Uncapping

[arivanov]

Individuals tampering with telco equipment property of the telco are stupid.

Reasons:

First it is illegal. Almost anywhere in the world you are violating both laws dealing with property as well as telco regulations. Under both you are legible for both fines and jail terms. You may get some leaway due to the lack of precedent for cable equipment or internet equipment being treated under the telco regulations but this is for a time. This unfortunately is not a game where the user wins. I am not saying that I like it or not I am simply stating the facts.

Second: it is trivial to catch. The bandwidth limit is a parameter which can be polled using SNMP by the telco on regular intervals. I can scribble a perl script to do it in 5 mins. I would not expect someone in NTL to do this (noone with brains left) but there used to be people in Telewest capable of doing it in about the same time (or a bit more). In btw: to the extent of my knowledge that is what ATT does. So all cappers get caught. No exemptions.

This is a typical Darwin Award scenario. Everyone of us does something else illegal from time to time. Speeding is a good example. I break the speed limit from time to time. Everyone does. But I do not do it right in front of a speed camera which I know to be always loaded,perfectly operational and checked by the police for catch at regular intevals.

Re:Uncapping

[dohcvtec]

within their legal right to prosecute
They'd probably just pull the plug on you without batting an eyelash. They don't have to sue you to do that.
I would simply assist every Telewest customer in existence to uncap their modem
Yeah... if you do that then they might have to go ahead and pursue legal action, but probably to sue you rather than prosecute.

Re:Uncapping

[Dante_H]

This is a typical Darwin Award scenario

Erm no, the Darwin Award is to do with people risking their lives...unless you are claiming that Telewest are sending out death squads.

More seriously, not all users are caught (I am proof of this, although I have no doubt I would have been caught eventually, the point is I wasn't caught). Secondly, I would bet 99.99% of the time on a first offence Telewest merely issue a written warning. Taking people to court over a one-off "infringement" is going to be costly at best.

Re:Uncapping

[shepd]

>eg. if you've downloaded 20Gb this month, and joe has downloaded 10Gb, and the isp's bandwidth is maxed out, then joe's traffic will get twice the priority thaty ours does

Just look at how popular that strategy has made DirecPC.

If you're doing this, its basically suicide for your service. That local fellow would be a top notch worker for DirecPC though -- if I were you I'd suggest he applies there for a job!

Re:Uncapping

[codingOgre]

Gosh, I guess I am lucky living in Columbus, Ohio where my Time Warner service is usually between 200-350k/sec, anytime!

Re:Uncapping

[Dante_H]

Gosh, I guess I am lucky living in Columbus, Ohio where my Time Warner service is usually between 200-350k/sec, anytime!

Shut it. Here (London) from a decent site I can get 55-60kbyte/sec. To be fair, this is pretty consistent, so when I last rebooted my machine it'd been up for four days my received btytes amount to 17 gigs. A friend of mine on an NTL connection outside of London in the North get's 70kbyte/s consistent. Also random info, I think my provider (Telewest) is partially owned by Microsoft.

Re:Uncapping

[Old Wolf]

I thought DirecPC was this thing where they gave away free PCs to everybody and then wondered why they didn't make any money?

They may be good hackers,

[Darby]

but they can't make a web page worth shit.
Text sprawled all over other text and images.
Bleuch.
Yes, I'm using Mozilla,
Yes it *is* standards compliant.
So yes, it is their code that sucks.

Re:They may be good hackers,

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks fine with IE, no visual errors and very clean. Get a different browser.

Re:They may be good hackers,

[Anonymous Coward]

look crap in opera too..

In related news...

[ComaVN]

It's possible to use an ORDINARY kitchen knife to get loads of cash from almost anyone! It's indeed fun for the whole family, get your 12 year old to hold the knife against the throat of a random person in a quite street, and shout "GIVE ME ALL YOUR MONEY" in his face.

C'mon people, you have (well, I have at least) a legally binding contract with your isp that you do NOT try to alter any settings to the modem without their consent.

It's been said before, but it doesn't seem to sink in with the slashdot crowd: Just because you can doesn't mean you are allowed to.

Re:In related news...

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone thought it was obvious

Re:In related news...

[hypergreatthing]

In other news...

Contracts aren't worth their salt anymore.

Your isp can require you to drink the blue koolaid on their contract, doesn't mean you have to listen. You pay for service already, don't you? Besides, the worst they can do is to cut your service.

Re:In related news...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's MY knife, I should have the right to do anything I want with it as I PAID for it

More info on security focus

[MoceanWorker]

This article talks about how a 21 year old software engineer, networking specialist was able to uncap his modem via the ATTBI service

I, myself, used to work for a cable company who's run into situations like this (i'd rather not say who), and have yet not done anything to prevent this from happening in the future

Re:More info on security focus

[Anonymous Coward]

21 year old and a software engineer... I'm still laughing.

I've seen this before..

[skilef]

..here in Holland. A fellow UPC-customer wrote a program called FuckUPC; uploadmax was uncapped and went from 16KBps to 300KBps! UPC applied a patch and doesn't seem to work anymore. So maybe the fun is over before you know it. If a lot of people are going to use it, providers will find out in the end. As far as I can see, the program is basically the same as FuckUPC(?):

-ARP your own IP adress with MAC of cablemodem
-ARP private IP (10.10.10.1) with MAC of cablemodem
-Set your gateway as 10.10.10.1
-Redefine routing table (netmask 255.255.255.0)

Seems pretty straightforward..

Re:I've seen this before..

[Zappa]

Yes, it seems to be the same.
At least here (Austria) UPC had big troubles with broadcast storms resulting from people using this stuff and they updated the modemfirmware.
A second change the current firmwarerelease brought was the deactivation of the bootrequest on the LAN-Side wich also was a source of tuned connections.

Best regards

TOS, what TOS?

[Anonymous Coward]

After @Home folded, did anyone else get a new Term[s] of Service? I did read the fine print for @Home, but ATT's TOS make an internet connection worthless. I didn't think of a cable modem as simply a web download device....and the speed sucks now too. Then again, 56k is hell.

Re:Hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Well I haven't tried cable modem uncapping, so I wouldn't know.

No cable means another phone line...

[doorbot.com]

I've had DSL from Pacific Bell for over three years, in fact since it was first offered here in San Francisco. At the time I was looking for a more pleasant browsing experience, and perhaps, a bit of nostalgia with regards to my days in the UCSD (Warren) dorms.

But now, the glamour of the internet has faded, and I'm just happy to surf without needing to worry about someone trying to call me on the phone. Going back to a modem wouldn't be the end of the world, but being able to surf while I'm on the phone is a huge advantage.

Of course, having that grandfathered-in static IP is nice too, especially because PacBell doesn't seem to care if I run a server over my DSL line.

Re:No cable means another phone line...

[Anonymous Coward]

I lived in the UCSD Warren dorms too... :)

What year?

Re:Hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot the CowboyNeal option.

Re:Fun? Yes. Legal? Questionable

[Anonymous Coward]

yea and leeching mp3's isn't legal either but who gives a f if its legal or not?

How does the cable company find out?

[Anonymous Coward]

So how does the cable company find out? Are they monitoring my connection - I don't like that very much!

Re:How does the cable company find out?

[Anonymous Coward]

void DetectIllegalUsageThread(USER u, int Speed)
{
if (Speed > MAX_BANDWIDTH)
{
NotifyAdmin(u);
}
return;
}

Re:How does the cable company find out?

[Anonymous Coward]

if (Speed > MAX_BANDWIDTH) { NotifyAdmin(u); }

Note, please, the use of brackets even though there is only one line of code to be executed if the tested condition is true. I highly recommend this technique as its consistency makes it the only truly readable way to write C code. What do you guys/gals think?

Re:How does the cable company find out?

[Anonymous Coward]

It allows additional functional LOC to be inserted without having to add brackets. Very handy. And visually consistent.

When the experts (Bezier) say that one of the most common bugs in C is the assumption that the code is still within the code block, I think it's time to make those brackets mandatory in the coding shop.

On your home projects, who TF cares how you bracket your code.

Re:How does the cable company find out?

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed. When dealing with code blocks, one of the worst things you can do (IMHO) is this:

if(foo){
do_stuff();
call_function();
if(bar)
call_another_function();
};

On a big code block its even worse. Which block did that end bracket belong too again?

Just to make it more fun, people who use this style tend to use a mixture of spaces, tabs and different tab-stops. You can never match the end of the block to the start!

Re:How does the cable company find out?

[Anonymous Coward]

in order to be consistent i do the opposite
if (a) b, c, d, e, f, g;

Re:How does the cable company find out?

[chez69]

if you use a proper editor like emacs, you look and see which bracket it is matched to.

funny answsers.. silly questions.....

[phunhippy]

>>>>A program that will cap my CS ping at 10ms.
Doesn't matter, I'll still nail you with my leet desert eagle skillz!

>>>>>A program that gets rid of my horrible packet loss.
install new network cables :)

>>>>>A program that gives me reliable service without downtime every other day.
OH now that was a funny one!

>>>>>A program that will uncap my 1GB/mo limit on usenet download
How much porn can u look at? I mean .jpgs are small man!

>>>>>A program that gives me customer service who knows what they are talking about.
That would drive the cost of the service up! imagine these companies having to pay intelligent and skilled people to answer the typical question they receive... which any phool getting paid 2 bux over minimum wage can do from a FAQ sheet :)

>>>>>>

OT: Toshiba PCX1100U

[ImaLamer]

My local cable co has given me a Toshiba PCX1100U for access. The thing is a great and nice, it can even connect to the USB ports if you own a Windows machine, making the need for a NIC.. well un-needed.

So I got an idea one day. I plugged my USB cable into the modem and a second PC (I use the NIC on #1) since I don't have a router/hub. It worked great. Both computers worked at full speeds. While they could send data directly through the modem to each other I thought things would be fast (like having a hub) - of course not. [a trace showed that the traffic went to the hub only]

The upload speed of 40K was still the max. ;-(

My point is though that once my ISP noticed I was doing this (gnutella on one, misc servers on the other) and getting the max they turned it off (i guess - it won't work for shit now.)

Re:OT: Toshiba PCX1100U

[edrugtrader]

ImaLamer... Exactlly.

i C0/\/nect3d al1 |\/\y wind0z3 b0xen with Us|3.

if you bought a router, or ran the second computer behind the first one, how would that be any different? i have no idea what you are claiming you did.

Re:OT: Toshiba PCX1100U

[Pastey]

Well, I believe that what he's saying is that by connecting both his machines this way instead of using a hub/switch he got around the standard 128kbps upload cap.

At least I suppose that is what he's saying - he didn't actually say what his cable company's upload speed policy is.

Re:OT: Toshiba PCX1100U

[dohcvtec]

It sounds like what you did was equivalent to connecting a hub to the ethernet side of an ethernet-only cable modem. In other words, the second PC (on the USB connection) probably used DHCP to get its OWN IP from the cable co. You can pay a monthly fee to have a second IP address (of course they want you to have one for each computer in the house) but you just grabbed one without asking.

Re:OT: Toshiba PCX1100U

[ImaLamer]

Sorry, I wrote the comment in a rush.

I hooked up a second box - yes a Windows box considering there is no way to use the USB function of the cable modem.

The second box got the maximum speeds ( 250K down, 45K up ).

My cable access is paid for by my roomate.

I can't afford a router/hub or even another pair of NICs.

This only worked for a certain amount of time.

The cable company "turned off" the USB function from what I can tell since it won't work at all now.

If I used a router or a hub my computers would all share the bandwidth.

Yes, this is all off topic.

Re:OT: Toshiba PCX1100U

[ImaLamer]

No no no....

I am allowed two IP addresses no problem.

I was getting full bandwidth on both machines.

With a router or hub I would share.

I wasn't fully taking advantage of it at first - at first I was using for in house file transfers only - backups, etc... but then my evil side came out.

Re:OT: Toshiba PCX1100U

[TheDick]

Well, it pulls a second IP (using a MAC address that is one less than the HFC MAC ID, for example 009083123456 becomes 009083123455) and shouldn't get a whole nother set of bandwidth, but should fight for bandwidth with the other machine as if were both on a hub. Really, All you managed to do was pull a second IP for a while. I don't know of ANY way to turn off the USB function of the CDM, as far as I know, it can't be done. Its just a nic, with a MAC address.

Re:OT: Toshiba PCX1100U

[TheDick]

Its nothing like using a router, its everything like using a HUB. Its essentially a second ethernet port on the modem, except it uses USB. If you were getting your traffic contract max on both simultaneously, well, I think you might of been stoned.

Re:OT: Toshiba PCX1100U

[ImaLamer]

No. I was buddy.

That was the whole point of this thread.

Both machines got 40K up and 250K down.

Changes in speed

[MiTEG]

I've posted this before, but I'll post it again. I, and many other customers of ATTBI I am sure, feel the great disservice is the fact that ATTBI has the gull to increase the rates while also decreasing the service speeds. From memory, here is what the service essentially has been (innacuracies may occur, but the basic premise is true):

February 2000- 3.5 Mb/s down, 1.5 Mb/s up- Price= $49.95/month
January 2001- 3.5 Mb/s down, 128 Kb/s up- Price = $49.95/month
January 2002- 1.5 Mb/s down, 128 Kb/s up- Price= $59.95/month

I can understand how some people would be upset enough to risk losing their account in order to get faster speeds, but I am not one of them. Sure, I have the option to switch to another broadband company, but when AT&T has a monopoly on high speed connections in my area, I'm must endure what they force upon me or otherwise have a very limited connection speed.

Re:Changes in speed

[Anonymous Coward]

Two weeks ago, I heard reports from people in Washington that their AT&T upstreams had more than doubled.

Two days ago, I (in Portland, OR) noticed the same thing. I now get around 30K/s up, sometimes faster, sometimes slower. And, best of all, when I'm uploading now, the rest of my connections don't turn to complete crap. I do notice a little latency increase in ssh sessions, but it's nowhere near as bad as it used to be.

So it seems that they may have uncapped upstream altogether?

Maybe it hasn't happened for you yet, but I bet it's coming...

Re:Changes in speed

[Sc00ter]

What?! I worked for MediaOne (and this is what became ATTBI) in 2000. They never had speeds that fast.. they had (and I still have as a ATTBI customer) 1.5Mb/s down and 384Kb/s up.

Re:Changes in speed

[CuervoM5]

I know... my max upload on Adelphia service (it was formally @home - then ATTBI) is 128kbps ... so its the same equipment

they keep giving us broken promises about giving us a little more than this pathetic near modem speeds)

arrrrrg

Re:Changes in speed

[dbCooper0]

Close to the same thing here: I recall 2.5 Mb/s down and 256 K up. A friend only 2 miles away was getting over 4 Mb/s down before Excite@home pulled the plug. Now it hovers around 1.5 Mb/s :-((

Still, I can't risk the chance of being disconnected.

Re:Changes in speed

[Anonymous Coward]

.. you have 0 kbps assured upstream with ATTBI.
if you can upload, that's your upload bandwidth. "we" don't care if it's .5k/s. lucky you. like whoever said lots of times. get adsl.

Re:Changes in speed

[Anonymous Coward]

This is exactly what ATTBI did. Cut the service, up the rates. Not to mention the service outages.

Re:Changes in speed

[Anonymous Coward]

This was @Home, not MediaOne. I have to tell you, downloading from my home server at work at 150KB/s + was goddamn sweet.

Why

[daniel2000]

Why make anything adjustable from the consumer end that can affect profitibility???!!! Its a broken secuity model (which may lead to a broken business).

Re:Allows? Not really, it's a bug

[kapzer]

The Motorola scheme is based on a bad implementation that should never have passed certification in the first place. Read Cable-Modems.Org for some slightly more in-depth/serious information.

the wider the exposure. the faster the reaction

[Anonymous Coward]

as this story becomes better known, by site writing stories like this, so too will the providers become faster to retaliate. Seems like the limits that I have aren't that bad. The only time I see a problem is in the uploads; having never hit the upper download limit yet.
Are folks who get cut off for life surprized?? They sign an agreement; then break it. While your defending that action remeber Microsoft stole 3.1 from Apple, they misused JAVA (after signing an agreement; and just about eveything else they have was lifted or bought from someone else. I don't hear anyone here defending those actions; so why defend theft of services?? Duh.

Re:The Genesis of Trollaxor

[gazbo]

I trust you're going to submit this as a story to Trollaxor.com once the site is back up and running on a new server?

Hard numbers

[millwood]

Most of the sites out there that explain how to uncap your modem refer to a piece of software that I wrote a few years ago (for another, legal purpose). We (my company) decided to leave the software up because it is useful to our customers, but we can see that we get about 300 downloads a week, most of them referred from uncapping sites.

Looks like a lot of people are doing this.

Re:Hard numbers

[Anonymous Coward]

and your site is....

His name is Kevin Poulsen.

[Nastard]

His name is Kevin Poulsen.
His name is Kevin Poulsen.
His name is Kevin Poulsen.
His name is Kevin Poulsen.
His name is Kevin Poulsen.
His name is Kevin Poulsen.
His name is Kevin Poulsen.
His name is Kevin Poulsen.
His name is Kevin Poulsen.
His name is Kevin Poulsen.

I suspect that I'll be the only one to find this funny.

Re:His name is Kevin Poulsen.

[Anonymous Coward]

Tyler Durden also finds this amusing.

Re:His name is Kevin Poulsen.

[rsklnkv]

you are breaking the first rule

Re:His name is Kevin Poulsen.

[huntdwumpus]

You apparently consider yourself to be hipper than you actually are. (It is funny though, but yes, we ALL get it.)

Re:His name is Kevin Poulsen.

[Nastard]

I didn't say no one would get it, I just said I didn't think anyone else would find it funny.

detection by service provider

[Eric Smith]

The article suggests that service providers detect this by querying the modem at the customer end using SNMP. If that's true, a better[*] hack would be to modify the firmware to uncap the bandwidth regardless of what the MIB variables say. In other words, let it report back via SNMP exactly what the service provider sets the cap to, but have the modem disregard that variable.

People have done much more amazing hacks than that on DVD players, such as the Apex AD600A, despite the use of a non-standard microprocessor. Hacking the firmware of a cable modem should be quite simple by comparison.

That's the sort of reverse-engineering I used to do quite often, but now I get little opportunity due to the DMCA. It doesn't seem like service provider or cable modem vendor can use the DMCA to ban reverse-engineering of the cable modem, since the features in question aren't involved in copy protection. But the trend seems to be to sue first and try to justify it later.

Eric

[*] Better in the sense of being less detectable. I'm not suggesting that doing this is legal or ethical.

Re:detection by service provider

[Cato]

Ultimately, the provider can always monitor how much bandwidth you are using by looking at its own routers - you can't spoof this. Search for 'Cisco NetFlow' for one example of how to do this.

By making it more expensive for them to detect cable modem uncapping, you are probably just going to encourage them to disconnect uncappers rather than just warning them.

Re:detection by service provider

[Pastey]

That's good to know Cato. But you know, that brings to mind a question I've been asking myself off and on for a few months now:
if they can easily monitor something like bandwidth usage on a per-customer basis, why the heck can't they also scan for other violations/problems like code red?

I live in the midwestern U.S. (Ohio) and have Time Warner's Road Runner service. To this day I'm still seeing a large number of code red attempts on my router logs - greatly reduced from when it first hit of course, but still quite a few. When I spoke to RR's customer service back when CR first hit (and brought the entire RR network to it's knees) I asked them why they didn't just monitor for the bug and either cutoff or contact anyone with an infected machine. They told me they didn't have that capability.

Now granted, this was just a customer service flunkie, but I still remember thinking, "What the heck?! You guys can't track this sort of thing on your own network?" Apparently he may have been correct, given the number of CR attempts I'm still seeing.

Any idea what the real story is?

Re:detection by service provider

[Znork]

That one's simple; of course they can check who's got Code Red. The problem is that it will be the regularly-paying low-bandwidth-use Average Joe and his or her kids who basically couldnt fix it even if they knew they had it. It will also be a significant percentage of their customers.

Either they'll have to cut off 20-50% of their customers or they'd have provide technical assistance to that number of people... neither option of which will be palatable to anyone wanting to actually not go bankrupt immediately.

If it annoys you, set up a webserver to answer the code red infection attempts by shutting down or wiping the offending machine. Or pop up a warning for the poor suckers on their display with a pointer to where they can find a cleanup patch, if you're a nice person. It's not very complicated and I think you can find example cgi scripts by searching on google a bit.

Re:detection by service provider

[e-gold]

Couldn't RR employ the same automated solutions you mentioned, without reliance on nice people to educate their admittedly clueless customers, or am I missing something?

Of course, the problems won't end until these same clue-impaired people learn how NOT to promiscuously click every unexpected arriving attachment, misconfigure machines, etc., but it still seems like the network owners could more easily detect and squelch something like Code Red.
JMR

Re:detection by service provider

[digitalsushi]

if they can easily monitor something like bandwidth usage on a per-customer basis, why the heck can't they also scan for other violations/problems like code red?

just cause i am counting cans doesnt mean i can read the labels :)

Re:detection by service provider

[jandrese]

Since when did they offer any warnings before disconnecting you? The various anecdotes I've seen say that they just cut you off permanently no questions asked.

Re:detection by service provider

[austad]

Actually, you can turn off snmp on the outside interface on the thing. Read the docsis spec, there's a MIB you can set which will let you turn off all snmp on the outside interface. Plus, 3com sharkfin's let you modify this MIB using the public community string, at least with the old software they did. I haven't tried it with the new software.

In any case, you're bound to get disconnected if they see anything funny. And if cable modem is your only option, you probably don't wanna mess with it unless you don't mind going back to a modem.

Re:detection by service provider

[Betaman]

People have done much more amazing hacks than that on DVD players, such as the Apex AD600A, despite the use of a non-standard microprocessor.

I wouldn't call getting into the service menu of the Apex AD600A an amazing feat. It was simply done by using a key combination, no hacking. There was a AD600A-2 which had a "fixed" menu-- maybe that is what you are talking about? Since they are nearly identical, I don't see how it would be easier to hack the AD600A-2 over a cable modem since the correct code was already available from the AD600A.

Re:detection by service provider

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't seem like service provider or cable modem vendor can use the DMCA to ban reverse-engineering of the cable modem, since the features in question aren't involved in copy protection.

It doesn`t matter if the futures you hack are involved in copyprotection, afterall there are always some protection mechanisms (like screws) preventing you from getting the firmware in the first place. if you do get the code out of there and copy it to your pc, lawyers argue you already broke the copright laws, and you had to "circumvent the copyprotection" (screws,rotl13 whatever laywers and the jury cant brake or understand is the legal premise here) so there you broke the dmca. And when you distribute the code needed to upload new firmware this code has to cirumvent the copyprotection again (copyprotection-circumvention device) and the firmware you upload is likely still based on the copyrighted origial code so.... There goes the eff again defending everybody whose site links to a site which previously had a story regarding this feat of engineering....for distibuting circumvention devices

rembember in the eyes of a jury you are an evil hacker and you are just lucky becouse they didn`t catch you hacking the sewer system (they do that you know I saw it on x-files) becouse obiously you want on world domination (even the one you call god admitted this *in public*) through flooding everybodies toilet and stuff. You didn`t look to face the jury when you where questioned so obiously your anti-social as well and the proseqution figured they should point out that it was extremely difficult to get in your protected pc (it boot and says lilo: so it must be asking for a password or something) the where able to prove through internet taps you reguarly (every 7 minutes to be precise) visit "hacker sites" like slashdot

And on the subject of reverse engineering and hacking firmware, remember when someone hacked a sony minidisk to play mp3`s simply to avoid the copy protection in the upload software ;-) He released to software and called it "pony" but I cant find the interview on how it was done anymore, guess its still on freenet along with decss ;-)

Re:detection by service provider

[Grishnakh]

And if cable modem is your only option, you probably don't wanna mess with it unless you don't mind going back to a modem.

You also don't want to mess with it if the only DSL provider in your area uses MSN for their ISP. Trust me on this one.

Re:detection by service provider

[Anonymous Coward]

If it annoys you, set up a webserver to answer the code red infection attempts by shutting down or wiping the offending machine. Or pop up a warning for the poor suckers on their display with a pointer to where they can find a cleanup patch, if you're a nice person.

This has been all over vuln-dev and incidents mailing lists for the last few days. Yes, it can be done. Is it a good idea? Probably not. Warning them is one thing, but wiping their machine could get you jail time.

Re:detection by service provider

[salsashrk]

why the heck can't they also scan for other violations/problems like code red?

They can, and I do. Here you go:

Cisco Code Red Blocking

Re:detection by service provider

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry, but at this point anyone still running a CodeRed box does not have the technical savvy to figure out what in the hell happened -- and noone's going to bother to figure out why such a clownfuck's winbox crashed. Format it properly and there will be no retribution. Fuck'em. They need to be off the fucking net.

Re:detection by service provider

[Eric Smith]

I wouldn't call getting into the service menu of the Apex AD600A an amazing feat

Nor would I. But that's not what I'm talking about.

Despite using a very non-mainstream microprocessor (a modified MIPS-X, which is NOT the commercial MIPS, but rather the predecessor developed at Stanford), and the almost complete lack of publicly available documentation and development tools for that processor, people have managed to disassemble the code and make some serious modifications and enhancements.

They've added region switching and disabled Macrovision in later firmware releases that do NOT contain the secret menu. They've also disabled the UOP bits, which are those horrible bits on the disc that prevent you from fast-forwarding through FBI warnings, studio logos, trailers, etc. And they've even added an on-screen machine code debugger.

That's the amazing hacking I was referring to. Pressing a few buttons on a remote to get into a secret menu is definitely NOT a clever hack.

Re:detection by service provider

[fferreres]

The need only look at peak speeds. If you ever get past a limit, you are toasted.

The best way to get arround this would be to have some the gateways do the QoS, so that certain IP would only get what the "internal record in their servers" say the guy can use.

Is this so difficult? You could do it with a Linux box like a celeron 500 easily i think. No need for a monitor either.

Re:detection by service provider

[Anonymous Coward]

Message to docsis standards committee: Add MD5 hash of firmware image to snmp download done by hardware methods not accessible by changes to the firmware image. This should stop hackers from modifying the firmware image because the can't spoof the hardware generated MD5 hash.

Re:detection by service provider

[Rakarra]

Do you have any links for this? I've been trying to find firmware upgrades for the horribly buggy AD-600A (something that can fix the frequent playback freezes), but Apex doesn't offer any upgrades at all for that model, at least not through their web site.

Re:Fun? Yes. Legal? Questionable

[Anonymous Coward]

And just because something is illegal, doesn't mean it's wrong...

Americans, in particular, seem to have trouble with that one. Brainwashed, the lot of 'em...

You can't successfully legislate morality!

Re:Allows? Not really, it's a bug

[JPriest]

This is true, You can't use this same method with RCA modems because they won't accept or request the TFTP config file from the CPE (LAN) interface. On top of that, this can only be used with a cable service provider that is not using BPI. Most US cable providers (not AT&T) are using BPI anyway.

ISOs?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wtf are ISOs? Like, International Standards Organisations? Whatever you've been smoking, I want some.

Re:ISOs?

[Anonymous Coward]

A file containing a CD image

Re:ISOs?

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably called and ISO because of the ISO9660 filesystem.

Goatsex warning

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't follow parents link

Why is this possible?

[fredistheking]

Why don't they just limit the traffic on the router on the providers end of the cable? Or is the problem just between users sharing the same actual cable line?

---

Re:Why is this possible?

[Anonymous Coward]

If we live on the same cable line and I uncap my modem and proceed to serve files like it's going out of style, you'd be sitting at home wondering why it feels like 1994.

Try this first!

[Anonymous Coward]

Get a 56k modem and try doing all the work you normally do for one month on it.

Now go back to your cable and it's much faster!!

Seriously though, due to a change in geography my internet speed has gone from 300/150 to 5k a second. I'd kill just to have the normal cable back. Using the hack just screws the cable company and other customers which will just lead to everyone getting screwed at a later time.

The truth

[Anonymous Coward]

SecurityFocus and all those "security" related sites are a bunch of lamers.

GET A JOB, a real one. Those people are pieces of shit that need to eliminated. Kill'em!

Re:Fun? Yes. Legal? Questionable

[Gunsmithy]

Just because technology allows you to do something, does not mean that it is also legal. Holy crap! I just figured out how to take the protective plastic cap off of the cable modem. Now I can finally surf the internet at high speeds, instead of relying on Carrier pigeons!

The only question is

[Afty0r]

Which 'networking infrastructure professionals' decided to trust the clients?

you may own the modem but...

[Sorcerer13]

do you own the coaxial cable that they laid down that services you and other cable users? I'm not saying ou would be wrong to do it. I mean, if I had a cable connection, hell yeah I'd "uncap" it! But, you still don't have the rights to the bandwidth the company provides, just a portion of it, legally.

Do ISP's know about QoS yet?

[melloncollienet]

Surely the ISP's should use QoS on their access-routers, or rate-limiting, or some other feature to POLICE the traffic rather than relying on the client to shape the traffic.

Re:Do ISP's know about QoS yet?

[T-Punkt]

Nice idea, they would be lucky if they could. But they' can't effictivly limit the upstream of a single customers over a shared media like cable. They could of course simply drop packets on their side but the cable would still be clogged up.

That's why uncapping cable modems is immoral: If you unlimit your rate you are stealing bandwidth from other users on your cable segment and lower the quality of their cable service.

Re:Do ISP's know about QoS yet?

[grahamm]

Why can't they limit the upstream? I am connected via a Radio LAN connection to the ISP. They provide limiting in both upstream and downstream direction so that we only obtain the bandwidth we pay for.

Re:Do ISP's know about QoS yet?

[T-Punkt]

As I wrote, they *can* limit the upstream by dropping packets on their side of the cable. But this is no QoS as this doesn't stop extranous packets sent from "uncapped" cable modems entering the cable and flooding it - it wouldn't help the cable modem users on the same cable segment which are nice netizens and stay in their limit.

Re:Do ISP's know about QoS yet?

[melloncollienet]

but then surely tcp (an assumption there), would realise that packets are getting dropped (assuming it was congestion), so then would reduce the transmit rate until packets did get dropped - before tring to raise again. QoS on the downstream should be configurable without too much hassle. If the access-route drops packets over the upstream limit then there is no real benefit of uncapping your cable modem, except that moment of time while the policing+QoS functions of the router kick in.

Re:Do ISP's know about QoS yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

until packets did get dropped

or until packets didn't get dropped

Re:Do ISP's know about QoS yet?

[T-Punkt]

Well, this does work somewhat. I know it since we are in the same situation: We have a uplink that is shared between ~150 users and try to make it usable for everyone everytimes but manage that only partly because we control only our end of the line.

One reason that it does only partly work with tcp because when one or more packet is just dropped the tcp stack won't notice it immediatly, instead it waits for the ACK from the other side. This is good, because if the sender's window is "empty", i.e. it has send all packets the window size allows it to send, the tcp stack will keep quite for a while. But after the wait timeouts it will send all those packets starting after the last ack'd packet again - which makes it worse. Clever TCP stacks could theoretically now dynamically adjust their window size so that it's exactly as long as the "longest allowed burst".

And of course there's the ICMP source quench message the router could send to tell a host to throttle the packet flow, but sadly this is not a MUST in RFC terms which means it's not often implemented and the message is just ignored.

And if someone ping-floods you or does some other kind of DOS you have of course no chance to prevent him from flooding the link from your side.

To make it short: You can't really achieve QoS
through a link if you control only one side of it.

Re:Do ISP's know about QoS yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

QOS

ATTBI can remotely change/reset modem bootfiles and thus QoS's. powercycles can also be issued remotely. if your modem's losing synch, and you've got an enemy who's a tech, now you know why. ;P

Uncap it just a small amount

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if it would be possible to uncap the cable internet just a small amount of what is possible. If it's possible to speed it up 5-7 times, try just twice as fast instead. Maybe then you wouldn't get caught, or could blame the speed increase on a problem with the ISP.

Re:The Genesis of Trollaxor

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod this guy up! The best story i've ever read on slashdot! and is somewhat related to uncapping cable modems.

Don't bother trying this...

[Rogerborg]

Unless you want to see how easy it is to produce convicing and very elaborate documentation of a fundamentally flawed exploit.

For those who won't bother reading the link (most of you), the exploit is this:

• DOCSIS Cable modems TFTP a file from the ISP to tell them what speed they are capped at (true)
• You can produce a docsis file (using the docsis project at sourceforge) that tells your cable modem to run at whatever speed you like (true).
• You can set the NIC IP on your PC to match the ISP's TFTP server, and set up your own TFTP server to serve your own docsis file (true).
• If you reset the cable modem, it will look on the PC side for the TFTP server, and user your docsis file (bzzzzt, false).

It looks really pretty until this last point, where it enters the realms of fantasy. The people who wrote the docsis spec aren't idiots. Cable modems will not look on the ethernet side for a TFTP server. TFTP'ing is done just after the cable side network discovery (so you have to have the cable side plugged in when you reset) and the modem knows which side is cable and which is ethernet. No, pinging the modem's ethernet IP from the PC doesn't help. It's just not that stupid; it knows that it has two interfaces, and it knows which one is which.

So go ahead and try this. You won't damage your modem, because it will simply ignore your TFTP server. What will happen is that you'll spend a couple of hours following the steps, getting all excited, then getting increasingly frustrated as you just can't get that last step to work. Rest assured, you're not doing anything wrong, other than following the instructions of a delusional wannabe hacker with a tiny amount of network knowledge and a real problem dealing with reality.

Re:Don't bother trying this...

[sl956]

The people who wrote the docsis spec [cablemodem.com] aren't idiots. Cable modems will not look on the ethernet side for a TFTP server.

The people who wrote the docsis spec aren't idiots, but the people who implemented it in some cable-modems are : some motorola cable-modems are looking on both sides (cable and ethernet) for a TFTP server. Yes it's stupid... but they do.
I tried it 6 month ago (when my provider switched to DOCSIS), with great success.
Nethertheless I don't do it anymore : capped cable is better than no cable at all...

Re:Don't bother trying this...

[Anonymous Coward]

You claim that cable modems can determine which interface is which. That is probably true. It would be a very poor design if it couldn't.

However, I recall reading somewhere that when a Linux application binds to a certain interface, it is actually binding to the address of that interface, and so if a packet comes in on the wrong interface but with the right address, it will appear to be coming from the correct interface. eg. a program only accepts connections from eth0 (which is 10.0.0.1/255.0.0.0). A packet comes down eth1 (which is 192.168.0.1/255.255.0.0), but with an IP address of 10.0.0.2. The packet appears to be from eth0, even though it isn't. (I could be mistaken about which OS the interfaces worked like this in).

My point is that it is possible that some cable modems may use faulty interface logic. Stories of people who have uncapped their modems (and then gotten busted for it) seem to suggest that some cable modems are trickable.

Re:Don't bother trying this...

[Loiosh-de-Taltos]

The SURFboard modems check both sides. The Nortel CM200's and RCA 105's up to the 235's (with USB, yay) also hit the ethernet if they cannot reach a CMTS across the cable.

Interestingly, The CM100 (BayNetworks by Nortel) does not make that mistake.

Re:Don't bother trying this...

[Rogerborg]

• motorola cable-modems are looking on both sides (cable and ethernet) for a TFTP server. Yes it's stupid... but they do

Yes, that's right, because they bring up the ethernet interface before they've brought up the cable side, negotiated the frequencies, been told where to get the docsis file, and received it on the cable interface.

No, wait... actually they don't, as can easily be veried by pinging one as it comes up and noting that it doesn't go live on the ethernet side until after negotiating on the cable side.

Also, providers don't "switch to DOCSIS". DOCSIS modems will do squat unless there's a DOCSIS compliant cable network for them to get their info from. That's another reason why this is just hackers mouthing off (or getting very, very confused): until a DOCSIS modem has been told what file to get and from where (from the cable side, after negotiating frequencies), it won't try and get it, nor will it forward packets.

Incidentally, it's true that Surfboards will bring up the ethernet interface eventually, but only for the limited purposes of acting as a DHCP server on a LAN, and only after cable side negotiation has failed.

Re:Don't bother trying this...

[anshil]

However if I set my NIC IP to the some address as the TFTP server, from where will the modem of my neighbour load it's config file down? It are 50/50 chanches that it takes my config file, from where should the modem now which PC on the cable-"lan" side is from the Service Provider, and which spoofes from the ISP? If a lot of people together are spoofing the ISP's TFTP server with an unlimited DOCSIS file, chances are good for everybody to run unlimited.

Re:Don't bother trying this...

[Rogerborg]

• The SURFboard modems check both sides

And in the absense of any references, I'll just flatly assert that my Surfboard 3100 doesn't even bring up the ethernet side interface until it's brought up the cable side, been told what docsis to get and where to get it from, and pulled it in on the cable side. Exception, if the cable side fails, the ethernet side is then brought up purely for the purposes of serving DHCP to a LAN, but in this case, the cable side is down and it won't forward packets.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a network engineer, and I fully accept that engineers do make idiotic mistakes like bringing up and checking both interfaces. But I'm saying that in this case, I've never seen it happen, nor have I seen any credible documentation (other than hacker optimism and unfounded assertions) that there are any DOCSIS modems out there that actually do this.

Got references?

Re:Don't bother trying this...

[sl956]

Also, providers don't "switch to DOCSIS". DOCSIS modems will do squat unless there's a DOCSIS compliant cable network for them to get their info from.

Taht's why when a provider switch his network from CDMA to DOCSIS, they have to replace the CDMA cables-modems of their clients by DOCSIS cables-modem (they have done it in some european cities e.g. Paris some months ago).

Incidentally, it's true that Surfboards will bring up the ethernet interface eventually, [...] only after cable side negotiation has failed.

That's why you have to temporarily unplug the cable before trying to fool the cable-modem.

but only for the limited purposes of acting as a DHCP server on a LAN,

That's basically untrue : be it a on purpose or a design flaw, the Motorola SurfBoard 4100 do try a negotiation for obtaining a config file on the ethernet side if the cable side negotiation has failed.

Re:Don't bother trying this...

[Sc00ter]

My 3100 didn't work, but I know people with 4100s where the hack did work. Had to do with my firmware version. I know it works, I know people that have done it.

Re:Don't bother trying this...

[avdp]

Worked for me. Although I did not keep my modem uncapped (I just don't do uploads often enough to make it worth the risk of getting caught) I did keep it long enough to verify that the "hack" worked.

Re:Don't bother trying this...

[micromoog]

Christ, what kind of stubborn egomaniac are you? Just because it didn't work in your single test of a single modem, you're making the broad assertion that it doesn't work for anyone, that SecurityFocus is full of crap for carrying the article, and that all the first-hand accounts in this thread are lies.

If you're really a network engineer, I hope you're never in charge of my quality of service . . . your stubbornness blinds you to any new information comflicting with your own assertion.

Just admit it. Either your test was flawed, or there exist other configurations that you're unfamiliar with. You don't know everything.

Re:Don't bother trying this...

[ReelOddeeo]

providers don't "switch to DOCSIS".

Mine did. They began upgrading the system all over town. Vastly improved. Many new services. They started gradually switching sections of town over to DOCSIS. There was a window of time in which you could use both the old ugly Zenith modems or the new SurfBoard modems. But by a certian date you had to bring in your cable modem and replace it with a DOCSIS modem. Unfortunantly, I had to change all of my static IP's at the same time.

Re:Don't bother trying this...

[Anonymous Coward]

Such a cynic.

FYI, find your CMTS headend's IP address (from SNMP or the modem's web server), set the ethernet interface of your system to that IP, and ping the modem from that interface *AS IT IS COMING UP*. The result will be that you seed the modem's ARP table with the CMTS IP pointing to *YOUR* machine's MAC.

Re:Don't bother trying this...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, wait... actually they don't, as can easily be veried by pinging one as it comes up and noting that it doesn't go live on the ethernet side until after negotiating on the cable side.

Except it DOES! Your system's IP address has to match the CMTS IP address though. It is trivial to bring up a second IP address (matching the CMTS) on the same interface in either NT or Linux, and ping the modem through that IP as it's coming up.

You're standing outside, and it's bright and sunny, so you conclude that it cannot be raining ANYWHERE. Interesting.

Re:Don't bother trying this...

[chainsaw1]

Perhaps, but this info may lead to something else...

The cable modem must do more than simply bridge coax to ethernet to respond to SNMP, etc. And the fact that it has a MAC address implies that the coax signal is converted to ethernet somewhere between the cable modem's controlling software and the ISP (i.e. well before it reaches the ethernet port on the backside of the modem that heads to your PC).

Would it be possible to find the 8 wires in the PCB in the modem that carry the converted ethernet signal before it hits the modem firmware?

Re:Don't bother trying this...

[Anonymous Coward]

The guy is either an idiot or a troll.

Or both.

Re:Don't bother trying this...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah.. you got a point... However,

The exploit will work perfectly if you:

a) Set a protocol analyzer on your PC and capture the ARP which do transverse the cable modem into the PC side of the network. The purpose of this is to find out the IP address of your modem (probably some 172.168.x.x/16 or 10.x.x.x/8 network)

b) Once you have this, you can go over to your neighbours house, change the IP address of their computer to fall within this range. Setup the TFTP and BOOTP server on his machine. Make sure your new uncapped config file is being served through his software.

c) Go back to your house and force your modem to reload the new config file (reboot modem). If your neighbour's modem answers faster than the busy ISP's servers for TFTP/BOOTP, then you can get your neighbour to upload you the new file.

d) When done, reverse roles and uncap your neighbour's modem...

e) if you really wanna have fun... leave your server running for a while and wait till all your neighbours reboot their modems and uncap them all! Wo-hoo... careful with this last one. Your bootp broadcasts can also be seen on the ISP side, so this wouldn't be the brightest thing to do for any length of time.

This hack has been around for aaaaaaaaaaaages.. since DOCSIS 1.0 anyway...

Cheers m8 and happy hax0ring.

Anonymous COW

Re:Don't bother trying this...

[DarkEdgeX]

Thanks for your opinion on the matter. I think I'll take Security Focus' article on this to be accurate and realistic however, in light of the fact that THEY'VE had a reasonably long life making accurate reports whereas you, whom I've never even HEARD of, appears to just be posturing in a public forum.

Unused bandwidth can never be recovered...

[weave]

I understand the rationale for caps but I wish it was implemented with a bit more imagination and skill. Cable modem bandwidth usage has peak and off-peak hours. At 6am on a Sunday morning it's practically dead while Tuesday at 7pm it's heavy. So why can't they uncap or raise the cap during off peak hours so someone that wants to download three ISOs of redhat 7.3 could program their box to grab it early Sunday morning? All that bandwidth they are saving during off peak hours is wasted. It's not like they can apply it back during peak usage.

This would also encourage off peak usage. It'd be far better to squeeze out that 2 gig download quickly when it has no real impact on others versus taking hours due to a cap during peak.

I'm guessing you just can't reprovision the cable boxes that quickly and dynamically everywhere, but damn, it makes sense and I still don't understand why caps aren't implemented using some QOS type service at the head-end anyway...

Re:Unused bandwidth can never be recovered...

[DarkEdgeX]

Just like ISP (and cable and phone and hosting service) "setup fees", things like this will never get implemented because. Sure, it costs the broadband provider NOTHING to uncap the bandwidth during dead periods, but so few people will actually benefit from it (or complain enough to implement it) that it's not worth their time.

I still picture the little old lady who uses a terminal to enter in all my information at the cable company, then presses an 'Enable Service' button, getting paid $175,000/yr for her services (clearly she makes a lot of money if I can be charged a setup fee that's $20-40!). (PS: Yah, not all places charge setup fees anymore, but those that do have just as little justification for it as companies in the past have.)

Re:Unused bandwidth can never be recovered...

[weave]

I've gotten some e-mail basically saying this would be useless because most users aren't savvy enough to know how to shift their usage around, but by the cable companies own admission, the bulk of bandwidth is used by a small portion of subscribers. I put it to you that these same subscribers are the ones who would know how to shift their usage around via programattic means.

Given half a chance, I don't believe most of us geeks are unreasonable. And if variable bandwidth caps were instituted that were raised or lowered based on demand, just like the compression level on a CDMA cell signal is manipulated based on cellular tower usage and capacity, you'd start to see a lot of tools written that would make shifting of bandwidth around available for average users too...

Re:Unused bandwidth can never be recovered...

[n-baxley]

I can think of two arguments against this. I'm not sure of the merits of either.

1) The won't remove the caps for non-peak hours because it will be exploited by DSL and other broadband competitors. You've already seen the ads where they talk about people getting up during the middle of the night just to get a decent connection. It would only be worse for the cable companies if they themselves made it easier to get online late at night. Another example is the cell phone company, I think it's voicestream?, who lords thier "no peak hours" policy over other cell companies. Establishing peak and non-peak times is admitting the fact that they can't handle the desired bandwidth. By having one cap, they can claim that the cap is perfectly fine for any _reasonable_ user.

2) The other thing I could see is that if you uncap the service between 2 and 5 AM say, then your system suddenly becomes overloaded during those hours. You haven't fixed the problem, you just shifted it. I'm not nearly as confident in this argument, but maybe it has some merit.

Re:Unused bandwidth can never be recovered...

[warpSpeed]

That "setup fee" probably also covers the cost of buying or developing the program (and the hardware) that presents the enable button to that data entry person, and allows for the "quick" activation of the accounts. It will go to general overhead as well as a salary.

Owning a very small ISP, I agree with your first paragraph, the larger the comapany the more complacent they seem to be/get. I have to make the extra effort for each customer. It only takes one screwup and you lose a cusomer. The larger companies figure that the ROI for setting up something that takes care of a limited number of customers is not worth it, but they are wrong. You never know who is going to help or hurt your buisness in the future. Treat each customer right and one of them may bring in more buisness to you (and be loyal), treat one wrong and they may single handedly giving you are bad reputation by bad mouthing you to anyone who will listen.

Somewhere along the line the corperate bean counters get in the way and forgot that the customer is the one paying the bills.

Re:Unused bandwidth can never be recovered...

[ZiZ]

I've gotten some e-mail basically saying this would be useless because most users aren't savvy enough to know how to shift their usage around

For most users, there are four main things they do on the Internet:

• Browse the web, read email, and other low bandwidth activities
• Download music, game demos, patches, and other time-displaceable high-bandwidth activities
• Play games, video-conference, and other medium-bandwidth but latency-dependant activities
• Watch 'streaming content' and other stupid^H^H^H^H^H^Hhigh-bandwidth non-time-displaceable activities.

So, the only thing that really could be strongly impacted by an easy-and-straightforward method of shifting around your usage would be the second activity, and the average user has already proven their willingness to install random, suspicious software...Why don't the cable companies provide some high-quality, cross-platform (hah! like that'll happen) software that grants you uncapped (or more-uncapped) downloads of things you let the software schedule the downloads of for later?

Re:Unused bandwidth can never be recovered...

[Anonymous Coward]

The other problem is that the speeds are downloaded into the modem itself. In order to have flexible time like you suggest, each modem would need to re-download from the company's TFTP server. Although TFTP is somewhat lightweight (some DOCSIS cable-modem config files are less than 100 bytes), the network congestion and server impact on opening up bandwidth during a certain time would be huge.

Consider this. A cable company with hundreds of thousands of customers decides to implement this function with automatic reboots of the modem (to initiate the TFTP function) at ... say ... 2 AM.Suddenly at 2 AM the traffic and TFTP server gets pummelled by hundreds of thousands of TFTP requests within a few minutes. Unless we're talking about a SunFire 10000 server, that server is going to die a horrible death.

The only other choices are for the customers to reboot their modem at 2 AM to get a new TFTP file or to have other types of throttling software in place. In either case, the option is to greatly inconvenience the customer or try to factor the incredible logistics required and overhead lost to perform this kind of bandwidth restriction. (Bandwidth throttling software takes CPU cycles, too.)

As far as I'm concerned, a tiered pricing structure is the best choice as long as it is tempered by reason, particularly the times during which the bandwidth is used.

The guy in this article talks about doing this: http://www.bityard.com/article.php?sid=238

This is why the DSL companies need to get off their asses and start getting DSL installed everywhere. With cable companies pulling this kind of crap, DSL could clean up as long as they don't start playing the same game.

Re:Unused bandwidth can never be recovered...

[trl]

yeah, that *sounds* like a great idea... but what happens when the whiney bitches that are currently droning on about caps become accustomed to not being capped during certain hours... suddenly the cap is not 'raised' during the off-hours, but rather, it is 'lowered' during peak hours (in their minds, at least)--then the next front page story on slashdot will be about the injustice of lowered caps during peak hours.

open source pirates are scum.

[Anonymous Coward]

you cheapskate "free as in beer and speech" open source buttholes don't seem to understand the concept of paying for a service. You bitch night and day about how the RIAA is constantly ripping you off by charging money for music THEY distribute and THEY package up nicely. You bitch because you have to pay for goods and services that normal people don't seem to mind paying for. You feel that copywrited goods should be pirated for no good reason. Your sick fucking mentality carries over to bandwidth? "More bandwidth for the masses!," a pathetic battlecry. You're intent on uncapping a capped service you pay for, then like a pig try to steal more. You're fucking pirates. You're imposing on services you havn't paid for. Feel ashamed, because music and bandwidth theives are the scum of the earth. You don't pay for the services you steal, and your pathetic open source salaries are apparently your justification for this piracy. Really, most people think you're scum. Pirating music, movies and bandwidth is unethical and makes me look down upon every open source advocate I come across. Pls die

Re:open source pirates are scum.

[Anonymous Coward]

hey, just because something is unethical, wrong or unlawful doesn't mean that it's going to stop. when everyone does it, changing the behaviour of all of them is not anymore feasible. this doesn't justify going with the stream but the fact is that world is changing and you need something more than just good will to prevent it. good luck.

Creepy stuff

[RebelWithoutAClue]

Anyone else find this rather creepy ? Submitted the previous comment without a subject. Whoops. Found at the bottom of http://www.iscentral.org/~tcniso/main/oneStep.htm On a final note, the server install is approximately 23 megabytes (what the heck ?), and we have put some extra security features in. Since we know you should be online when you try to run the software, every time the software is started up, it will use a unique software key to download a special authorization pack from the website. The software must have this pack in memory before it can properly run. The unique key is generated from your hardware MAC Address and must have that same address to be able to function. All keys will have to be created by a special generator. This will also allow us to only let others use this software when we want them to, incase we need to shut it down or to upgrade. Server should upgrade easy. I have put a lot of time into this software and am very glad its finally a reality.

Re:Creepy stuff

[gamorck]

This is probably because his program appears to be a .NET program and those 23 megs include the .NET framework which is required to run those kind of apps.

J

Broadband addiction?

[wackybrit]

From a pitiable 56kbps AOL dial-up somewhere in suburban Colorado, 19-year-old Myko Hein would like to tap out this sad, regretful message to the powers-that-be at his former cable Internet provider, AT&T Broadband: I was wrong. It'll never happen again. Please take me back.

Is that not the most heart-wrenching shit? No, really. How pathetic is that? *wail* I have no bandwidth, take me back or I'll die!

Still living with a 56k modem here.

Re:Broadband addiction?

[Anonymous Coward]

Once i was blind
now i can see

try using broadband for a month and see if you can still live with your 56k

salad tossing service thieves deserve to die.

[Anonymous Coward]

you cheapskate "free as in beer and speech" open source buttholes don't seem to understand the concept of paying for a service. You bitch night and day about how the RIAA is constantly ripping you off by charging money for music THEY distribute and THEY package up nicely. You bitch because you have to pay for goods and services that normal people don't seem to mind paying for. You feel that copywrited goods should be pirated for no good reason. Your sick fucking mentality carries over to bandwidth? "More bandwidth for the masses!," a pathetic battlecry. You're intent on uncapping a capped service you pay for, then like a pig try to steal more. You're fucking pirates. You're imposing on services you havn't paid for. Feel ashamed, because music and bandwidth theives are the scum of the earth. You don't pay for the services you steal, and your pathetic open source salaries are apparently your justification for this piracy. Really, most people think you're scum. Pirating music, movies and bandwidth is unethical and makes me look down upon every open source advocate I come across. Pls die stpd fcks

Re:salad tossing service thieves deserve to die.

[Anonymous Coward]

My goodness, you are such an accommodating young moron!

Thanks so much, once again, for so unselfishly giving me the opportunity to suggest, nay, DEMAND that you take a well and truly frozen aluminum baseball bat and, yes, brutally ram it right up your ass.

You silly boy.

Bye now!

Hey, good story

[LOTR Troll]

claim responsibility, we're curious!!

--Weenus

FIGHT! Cable Modem Uncap!

[Anonymous Coward]

EVERY SITE I WILL FIND WITH THE UNCAP SOFTWARE WILL BE ABUSED BY ME.
i will make you sooo much traffic u never had before.
but thats not all.
i will send you page to the bsa.org the police and all cable providers.
so, have fun.

Re:FIGHT! Cable Modem Uncap!

[duncangough]

yeh, wicked.

onestep == vapourware

[sh0rtie]

Ok after sniffing around IRC (including the said hackers channel) and various boards this secret "underground" program the securityfocus guy quotes doesn't exist , its vapourware.

what does exist is a kludge of tftp servers,query utils and glorified DOCSIS editors that with 20minutes and a *lot* of messing about you can change your config settings and then only until the ISP check your modem (automated) via SNMP , deny this and your cut off, accept it and it will detect your hacked config and cut you off...permanently
so you are screwed either way.

not to mention that most of the cable modem companies are using MD5 hashes to validate the config files integrity (MIC (Message Integrity Check)), other than a severe hardware hack your not going to crack much with this verification.

i came accross tco-iso's website quite a while ago and after a few visits over the months it seemed to of ground to a halt when they realised that MD5 was involved, they even mentioned the possibility of brute forcing the hash which raised a smile from a few of us.

They point to their IRC channel for files but the *only* files that exist are just mirrors of the files their site links to, no "onestep" or 30mb files and certainly nothing special in the files (other than someone knows how to use a hexeditor on PD software)

some people dont understand how uncapping really works but i think speedguide's article seems to sum it up nicely.

Re:onestep == vapourware

[Anonymous Coward]

DerEngel
After getting so many negative comments, All I have to say is this, OneStep does exist, and becuase everyone knows I have too much time on my hands, It does support MD5 Authentication.. How this is done may only be a well guarded secret. But I guess you have to see it before you believe it? How will I distribute it and when? Me and Byter will still amaze you all, or a select few..

Re:onestep == vapourware

[wolf-]

So, because "you" aren't l33t enough to find it, it is vaporware? Get over your ego.

Re:onestep == vapourware

[Anonymous Coward]

I haven't heard that "denying" the SNMP will get you disconnected, it certainly hasn't with my ISP.

But regarding your tco-iso's observations, I would say that "quite a while ago" may be too long ago, since as off "not too long ago" it works just fine with the MD5 stuff. Mileage will vary from one ISP to another but it seems that all the major ones are covered...

Re:onestep == vapourware

[Anonymous Coward]

Some ISPs do actively probe modems via SNMP to pull various statistics... Power levels, signal/noise ratios, many things you can only get this way. These are extremely useful pieces of information, and eventually all the Cable operators will be probing it.
The trick is to fake it, not to block it.

Re:onestep == vapourware

[btellier]

Secrets, eh? You better have some pretty serious anti-disassembly tricks up your sleeve because me, IDA and some free time will post your BS secret all over the 'net if you don't.

Who the fuck do you think is going to download this dumbass program if there's no source? You've got a 30 meg program with NO SOURCE for something that, by all indications, could be written in perl with a couple command line switches in 1000 lines?

How hypocritical is a guy who writes illegal programs to modify your cable modem so you can download more information but DOESN'T INCLUDE SOURCE HIMSELF? Fuck you and the mom you rode in on.

Re:onestep == vapourware

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like he did a hell of a lot more research than you or the article poster did!

Shared media.

[jawtheshark]

Yes, indeed...
Cable acts like a "real LAN". As far as I'm informed I heard of instances that people forgot to lock the Samba protocol for the cable interface which results in the fact that other cable users could see their computers in the "Network Neighborhood" with all the open shares. I just say: "Ouch".

To be more specific, each cable modem in your neighborhood receives and sends all data that goes through your neighborhood.
Does this mean I can get all the pr0n that my neighbour downloads? :-)
Thanks for the extra info about the timeslices, didn`t know that.

Wow that's pretty stupid

[Lumpy]

Pretty cool hack but really stupid to use. If anyone thinks that the cable company isnt watching for out-of-bandwidth or anything that looks strange then they are as the title states.... pretty stupid.

The cable company drives around your city and neighborhood with sniffers looking for illegal cable tv hookups, something that costs them ZERO dollars... the cable signal is already there, they dont lose money with someone stealing it. Stealing bandwidth, that they do see as a dollar amount..

If they will spend millions to snif out morons that steal the cable signal or HBO, you are sure that they are spending as much effort, time, and resources sniffing out for this stuff... hell they already watch for cloned cable boxes and cable modem boxes (Yes Johnny, you can get cable modem service for free, just buy this modified cable modem!)

It's just like real hacking, if you do it from your home then you are really really stupid....

Perhaps...not sure.

[jawtheshark]

Okay...good question.. I'm not an expert by any way, but let me try to make a guess.

I suppose that it is possible to track the IP addresses of the customers (do cable come in different speed-rates as xDSL does? Because then it gets a bit more complicated). So for downstream it seems possible to me...in theory.
However upstream, I fear that there is no way to control it. Yes, the switch will block the outgoing packets, but you're flooding the complete bandwith of your neighborhood anyway which results in slower performance for your neighbours.

As I said: I'm no expert and don't know much about congestion control.

Re:Perhaps...not sure.

[Anonymous Coward]

The head end can control bandwidth the same way. DOCSIS is a bad standard. Bandwidth control should not be placed on CPE.

Reaping the fruits of greed

[varn_ix]

Well, this is what you get if you are greedy. Instead of quietly opening the valve a bit more,
say, by a half (a fifty percent increase in performance is not bad by any standard, yes?),
they push for the skies. Skimming off the top goes unnoticed (or even tolerated) far longer
than just taking it all.

Hawaii doesn't need it

[Anonymous Coward]

Here in Hawaii, I frequently get 500k/s - 1.1Mb/sec downloads and 50-200k/s uploads on RR.

Another name for uncapping is...

[Mike McTernan]

...theft. Taking bandwidth for which you haven't paid is theft.

Re:Another name for uncapping is...

[Anonymous Coward]

Problem is that many folks have paid for the bandwith only to have it lowered and then the price raised. Not condoning this software, but surely not condoning what ATTBI has done either. Hardly seems legal at either side...or at least not very fair. But such is life and such is the game of monopoly.

Myko the tragic

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not saying what I did was right, I'm simply saying, that if you're going to moosh everyone together in a group, you better make sure you don't fit the criteria as well. If you download a commercial artist's music, and don't own the CD, ideally, you're stealing. If you're using Adobe Photoshop 6, and you didn't pay the 450$, you're stealing.

Earth to Myko -- some of us DO pay for all of the music we listen to, and DO pay for all of the software we use.

I realize it may be hard for your little ego-centric mind to contemplate the idea of not being entitled to something simply because you want it, but welcome to the real world.

Forgive me if I don't shed a tear that you're "suffering" without broadband and can no longer pirate software, MP3s, and jack off to porn as quickly as you used to be able to with your cable modem.

PS After seeing your views here, it is clear you were portrayed far too sympathetically in the artical. You're disingenuous and manipulative.

Public enemy ?

[Mathness]

The work of a dangerously unemployed U.S. coder

Excuse me while I wet my pants and scream like a little girl.

They are a menace to society, I tell you. They should all be locked up.

Just the thought of unemployed, and least off all dangerous, coders, makes me break out in a cold sweet. Oh the horror.

Featured before on /.

[exedanni]

Interestingly enough, this was featured on Slashdot before on January 6th

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=25797&cid=28 07 731

Nobody seemed to give much of a damn back then, but I know I did ;)

The tragedy of the Commons

[barberio]

Broadband internet useage is turning out to be a real life demonstration of the tragedy of the commons for some.

For those who have not studied Sociology, I'll summarise.

In a village, there is a common patch of land. General consences decreed that the land was free for any to graze their animals on. After a while, many people decided to graze as many animals as they physicaly could on the patch of land. Eventualy the commons becomes a muddy barran field due to over grazing. (Note, actualy, in large scale, this can, and has, turned grassland in to wasteland and even desert.)

The point is, many people have been saying 'Its the Internet, you paid for a connection, you have the right to use it to the full!' for so long. (ref, countless slashdot articles) Now people belive that bandwidth restrictions are artificial, that the cable companies are just trying to get as much money as they can. (Actualy, the Cable companies rent bandwidth in turn from companies which did speculative investment in laying high bandwidth cables. So if they need to increase bandwidth, they have to pay more.) This results in people asuming they have a right, and even a moral obligation, to take as much bandwidth as they can and 'share stuff'.

As another example, it would be wrong to take up two seats on an airliner when you only bought one ticket.

This scam is the equivelent of forgeing an airline ticket. Crude, and likely to end you up in hot water.

Re:The tragedy of the Commons

[stinkydog]

As another example, it would be wrong to take up two seats on an airliner when you only bought one ticket.

Is it still wrong to take 2 seats if the airline reduced the seat width from 18" to 9" to save money while still charging the same price? I am afraid I would have one asscheek in each seat.

Cable and cable modems are not the commons. They are monoplies run by companies trying to extract maximum profit for minimum work. I do not want to say that bandwith theft is correct, but there are two sides to the coin, and I have a hard time feeling sorry for the 'poor' cable company.

At one point I asked Time Warner to provide free internet service to a community center located in a neighborhood where the median income is $2000 below the poverty line (2000 census). They declined, not because it would be a precident (they provide it to facilities in other communities) but because they were so used to screwing our community they did not feel the need. So much for the commons.

SD

Re:The tragedy of the Commons

[barberio]

Which part of 'Bandwidth is a limited resource' and 'The companies have to pay more to get more bandwidth' did you fail to understand?

Sure the companies may suck, and may do bad things like that. But claiming that theft is of bandwidth is deminished in this way is going to backfire and potray those of us looking for 'internet fredom' as swindlers. As I said, the 'Hack the Planet' mentality is doing much more damage than good.

Re:The tragedy of the Commons

[barberio]

I'm dyslexic. But I do enjoy people constantly correcting me on things I have no hope of changing. Thank you.

Please feel free to code a spell checker for slashcode if you want.

Re:The tragedy of the Commons

[stinkydog]

Which part of "the companies will screw the customers anyway they can" did you miss?

Bandwith is limited by infrastructure and bandwidth fees and the company's goal is to spend as little on each as possible. As these are monopolies, unless someone (the government, a class action suit, hackers etc.) force people to take a look at what is happening, things just get worse. I would be very curious what percent of the cable fees actualy go to bandwith vs. profit.

Theft of bandwith is not right, I agree, but abusive monopolies like cable companies are not right either.

Monopolies do not equals Commons

SD

Re:The tragedy of the Commons

[bhima]

Yes, I'm Dyslexic too.
Slashcode really does need a spelling checker!
or maybe just leverage the one in the installed office product.

Re:The tragedy of the Commons

[m0i]

As another example, it would be wrong to take up two seats on an airliner when you only bought one ticket

Did you ever got bothered by anyone when you took the free seat next to you along with the one you were currently on? I don't think so. It's there, it's available, why not using it if you feel the need to? It's not exactly the same with bandwidth because there's a direct associated cost which is not the case with the free seat (it's likely it will travel with you whatsoever ).
Anyway, I think people just need to be explained things to accept the restrictions. Capping actually helps them having a better service overall, by protecting them from their abusing neighbours. I won't say that I don't find the up speed at 128kbps to be a bit slow, but I used to have 28.8k up so, why complaining in the first place? More is better?

Re:The tragedy of the Commons

[1in10]

Oh come on, the so called "tragedy of the commons" is a crock of shit.

Library books are free for all to borrow, but people don't all go there and borrow as many as they can just because it's open to anyone for free.

Water from a public drinking fountain is free, but nobody sits there all day filling up bottles of water just because it's free.

Besides, the "tragedy of the commons" is usually used as an example of why government control of something is bad. Yet in this case the connection is owned by a private company, and you're still crying about the "tragedy of the commons"?

If it wasn't for the shared backbone you wouldn't have an internet connection at all. I find nothing tragic about having this sort of "commons", it's an enabling device for crying out loud!

Re:The tragedy of the Commons

[foobar104]

As these are monopolies...

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Re:The tragedy of the Commons

[foobar104]

That's funny. When I post to Slashdot, I get client-side spell-checking right there in the text box.

Of course, I'm using the best web browser on the best platform, so your mileage my vary.

Re:The tragedy of the Commons

[jhunsake]

Those are board games right?

Re:The tragedy of the Commons

[stinkydog]

As per Merriam Webster Online:
Main Entry: monopoly
Pronunciation: m&-'nä-p(&-)lE
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -lies
Etymology: Latin monopolium, from Greek monopOlion, from mon- + pOlein to sell
Date: 1534
1 : exclusive ownership through legal privilege, command of supply, or concerted action
2 : exclusive possession or control
3 : a commodity controlled by one party
4 : one that has a monopoly

Let me know who else can provision a cable modem in a single cable provider community and I will retract my statment. Most communities have a local monoply for cable services. Aggregate these communities together and you have monopolies.

Unfortunatly, the FCC say that communities can not regulate broadband in the same manner they regulate cable. I will go a step further to state that most cable companies provide internet as an unregulated monoply in their respective communities.

My mother lives in a community with a large cable company and a city owned cable provider. The cable company is much more customer oriented and price competitive as they do not have a monopoly.

Re:The tragedy of the Commons

[barberio]

"Library books are free for all to borrow, but people don't all go there and borrow as many as they can just because it's open to anyone for free."

Check your Library card. Most public libraries limit the maximum amount of books you can take out. And they have fines for late returns.

"Water from a public drinking fountain is free, but nobody sits there all day filling up bottles of water just because it's free."

But when piped water was new, they did just that. It took a lot of teaching to get our curent social stigma of wasting water that comes from a tap.

"Besides, the "tragedy of the commons" is usually used as an example of why government control of something is bad. Yet in this case the connection is owned by a private company, and you're still crying about the 'tragedy of the commons'?"

Er... So, because I dont use the argument in the traditional role, its wrong? And, I seriously think you have the wrong end of the stick there with your given usage too.

"If it wasn't for the shared backbone you wouldn't have an internet connection at all."

Yes. And no. Networking is more complicated than that these days. But I'm not saying a shared escential resource is inherently wrong. (Apart from single point of faliure, but thats a diferent argument all together)

"I find nothing tragic about having this sort of 'commons', it's an enabling device for crying out loud!"

Uh huh? And your point was what exactly?

The 'Commons' example is for an *Uncontroled* and *Unmetered* limited availablity resource. I dont understand how anything you've said is relevent to what I said.

Re:The tragedy of the Commons

[Anonymous Coward]

No harm at all taking up 2 seats on a plane that's only half full.....tho moving up to first class from cattle class doesn't work since there's a fare difference

Re:The tragedy of the Commons

[Trishkabob]

Monopolies do not equals Commons

However, a monopoly is required for the most fair distribution of a common property. And bandwidth is a "natural" monopoly, i.e. no matter how much you deregulate it, everyone's still gotta pull from the same resource. This will not change until there are truly separate competing networks, not running on the same wires.

Of course, this assumes our society values the fair distribution of common property.

This doesn't mean that those running the monopoly-service will do so in the interests of those provided with the service. Private companies have no accountability to their customers in a monopoly (deregulation only helps where it is not a natural monopoly). An example of deregulation for natural monopolies is the California electricity market debacle.

This (accountability) is why, while not terribly efficient, government agencies manage monopolies with greater fairness than private entities. Non-profits and co-ops also assure more even access and distribution.

Note that our democratic political process is an example of this: not very efficient (authoritarianism is the most efficient at running a state), but allows most people to be included (somewhat) in the process.

Re:The tragedy of the Commons

[Ziviyr]

it would be wrong to take up two seats on an airliner when you only bought one ticket.

Okay, that makes sense. Unless the plane was underbooked and the seat next to you is empty. Then what? Why not take advantage of it? Stretch out! It costs the company nothing and inconveniences nobody!

Everyone is assuming its always tapped out. If it isn't then whats wrong with that (and why the hell aren't the companies already offering you that extra seat on underbooked flights? They shrink your seat when it suits them, are they too lazy to make the seat scale both ways?).

Is this whole conversation is a red herring?

[gilgongo]

But what *IS* bandwidth really? Why should it be regarded as a scarce resource that needs policies like capping and off-peak usage incentives in the same way as say, oil, gas or rail transport?

I'm not a specialist (please pipe up - no pun in tended - if you are) but are not the costs of providing more bandwidth just faster switches, routers and some other (relatively) trival things? If so, is it not just an infrastructue investment issue, AKA an artificially-restricted resource designed to milk consumers of money?

I'm tempted to say this whole thread is a red herring blinding us to the real issue here: fighting for the right to have as much bandwidth as we want!

G

Re:Is this whole conversation is a red herring?

[cornjones]

this is a very interesting point. yes, this is somewhat of a "simple" investment issue. there are a few technical limitations that I will talk about first though.
the newest fanciest cisco still has certain bandwidth limitation. it can only process so many packets in realtime. of course if you throw a bunch more cisco's (or bay or whatever) into the mix then the capacity goes up.

there are actual line speeds that are a limitation. ie, each pipe can only handle so much.

there is the inevitable obselesence of all things computer. a "fat pipe" a couple years ago is no longer sufficient for much of anything.

each of the above can be solved by "just" an infrastructure investment. but this investment is often in the millions and billions (gadzillions?) of dollars.

who is going to pay for it. I would love to see another Interstate highway type influx of money from the government, oh wait, everybody keeps bitching about lowering taxes AND balancing the budget so we can't do that.

business has been doing it and we get what we give. they are spending lots of money and the expect to make it back w/ a return on investment. this means we pay lots of money.

whether the costs required to set these things up are justified...... well, cisco et al do seem to charge a pretty high rate for their hardware, all us tech types think pretty highly of ourselves and charge alot of money, actual laying of cable and such gets into union involvement (read, lots of money and 10 times longer timeline than it should be)

were money not an issue we could all have (virtually) unlimited bandwidth. let me know when you return to my planet where money, sometimes unfortunatly, is a big issue.

ej

Re:Is this whole conversation is a red herring?

[Wesley Felter]

A large router costs as much as a house. Many ISPs are losing money or barely breaking even as it is, so I don't think there's any kind of artificial scarcity here.

Re:Is this whole conversation is a red herring?

[Tazzy531]

Bandwidth is considered a commodity. Maybe not to you, but that is how it works at the root of the internet. Basically, these companies like Qwest lay out lines and sell the bandwidth, not the connection to the top level ISPs, then they resell it to the lower level ISPs, who then sell it to you. At the top level, bandwidth is sold like a commodity. You pay as much as you use and you can resell the unused portion to another top level one.

So in other words, ISPs have to pay more to support users using more than they are allotted. The rate that top level ISPs pay are variable vs a flat rate that they charge to lower level and to you the user. This is partly why they cap it. Now you might ask, why don't they buy more bandwidth? The ISP market is not that lucrative. When people charge a flat rate (ie ISPs or food buffets) they are banking on people that use less than they are allotted to balance out for the users that use more. Because their costs increase but their income stay the same.

To read more about it: go here

Cheap point-to-point line potential?

[Gordonjcp]

OK, how's this for an idea?

The config file is uploadable through the ethernet port, and seems to be able to specify the upstream and downstream frequencies, along with the maximum bandwidth rates etc. What would happen if you joined two cable modems with an F-to-F connector cable, and send config files to them so that the receive frequency of one was set to the transmit frequency of the other? And, how far from each other could they be? I know that the sub-headend that supplies my cable modem is only about 1/4 of a mile away, but I'm sure they work over a greater distance.

Any thoughts?

Re:Cheap point-to-point line potential?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry dude, no way is this going to work.

DOCSIS cable modems don't work point-to-point in that way, in order for them to function at all they are required to interact with a CMTS ( Cable Modem Termination System ), not to mention the fact that the downstream and upstream modulation schemes are sufficiently different ( 64 / 256 QAM vs QPSK/16 QAM ) in DOCSIS 1.x networks for this to be a non-starter.

Go check the DOCSIS specs at Cablelabs for a bit more detail on this. They are available for public download, you should check our the RFI ( RF Interface ) document first.

Re:Cheap point-to-point line potential?

[Gordonjcp]

Yep, I read up on them. Bugger.

That would have been sooooo handy.

Re:Cheap point-to-point line potential?

[thalakan]

Not possible. Cable modems (according to Cisco, who quotes the DOCSIS spec) are not capable of demodulating the upstream frequencies, which are in a lower frequency band than the downstream frequencies (where upstream and downstream are from the cable modem's perspective). They're only capable of transmitting on the upstream frequencies. In order to look at what's on the upstream frequencies, it appears you need a uBR or cable-modem headend.

Kill two birds with one stone...

[phillymjs]

Someone, please write a tool that sends and executes a cable modem uncapper on every Nimda and Code Red infected machine that probes my servers from a cable modem IP address!

It will cut down on unwanted traffic as the cable company gestapo hunts down those ignorant dickheads who are still running unpatched machines, and sends them back to AOL, where they belong if they can't properly maintain a computer.

~Philly

What we really need

[ZoneGray]

See, they're going about this all wrong. What they really should do is develop a way to uncap your neighbors' cable modems. Then, they'll get tossed off the network and you can have it all to yourself.

Re:Changes in speed - The Carrot and The Stick

[White Roses]

Comcast and Cox, while not actively raising their rates, are certainly providing lousy connectivity. Sure, their respective customer services are responsive, but when the response is always, "We're working to fix that," it gets a little tedious. There have been days that service has been essentially unavailable. If I can't get the bandwidth one day, it's gone, and I generally don't even have a rebate to show for it. This tends to make me want to do something like uncapping my modem to make up for it the next day.

I'm not saying it's the company's fault that I'd do something along these lines. They're just not providing much of a carrot for me not to do so. Reliable service is the carrot, cutting off my service is the stick, in this case. It'd be nice if more companies would use the carrot before the stick, but that would mean, I don't know, that they appreciate their customers or something weird like that.

Cox, at any rate, monitors their cox.community news groups closely, and will respond in that forum about issues and try to resolve them. I do feel like I am getting a response, so I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt. For now.

Comcast's published news server rarely works at all, so I can't say the same for them. If there was a broadband option where I'm using Comcast, I'd have taken it long ago.

Farking Icehole!

[Anonymous Coward]

Well!

Let me take this opportunity to suggest, nay, *demand* that you take a well and truly frozen aluminum baseball bat and ram it up your ass.

Bye now!

Re:Fun? Yes. Legal? Questionable

[Anonymous Coward]

As$hole! I'm an american, and I think it is illegal.... ..for the company to cap my f! cable modem! I signed up for high-speed access, and I want it. They never ever advertised that 'you'll get a limited high-speed cable access..

Why bother?

[Chasing Amy]

I can't understand why people would even bother. Even though I've felt like my connection was "lagging" a bit this week, I've still managed to hit my 6 GB USENET download limit *three times* since last Friday. )My NNTP service sells 6 GB/month USENET access; but one can renew online for additional payments every time the cap is hit).

So, that's at least 18 GB of data I've downloaded in a week, without having to use one of these uncappers and pissing off my cable ISP. Unless you want to uncap the upload speed to run a server, I don't see much benefit. And of course, running a server is a TOSable offense for home cable internet service, so that's a risk that hardly seems worth it.

Re:Why bother?

[Wiener]

my connection was "lagging" a bit this week, I've still managed to hit my 6 GB USENET download limit *three times* since last Friday. )

Dude, how does your penis stand it? That's a lot of pr0n.

Things may soon get outof control?

[the_2nd_coming]

well yeah...now that it has been posted on /.

good job guys.

Speakin as an ex-employee

[Anonymous Coward]

Of a MAJOR cable company, working in their NOC let me add some points..

1. I've tried this, it did not work for me becuase of the firmware version in my modem, but it has worked for other people I know, and it DOES work
2. You can turn off SNMP on the modems so the cable company can't monitor anything that way, but they can and do it based on MAC address at the routers.
3. If you are found out they will either try to turn off your modem, or limit you to your subnet (basically shutting you off). This will force you to call tech support where they will most likely just make you reset your modem to get the normal cap.

Now, as far as monitoring you via the routers.. There is an automatic report generated call the "top talkers" and "top listeners" list. It's usually only the top 30 people or so. These people generate HUGE ammounts of bandwidth. I'm talking full tilt 24hrs a day, 7days a week. There's been people I know that I thought for sure would be on that list, people that were uncapped, and passing ISOs and such, they never even came close. So I wouldn't worry about it to much, because even people on top talkers/listeners didn't get booted, they usually just got a call and told to knock it off.

Also, if you have a modem that you can uncap because it has the stupid surfboard firmware that check the ethernet side, then the cable company can only permantly stop you from doing this by upgrading your firmware (and there's a way to flash it back to the old firmware) or by swapping out your modem to one that doesn't have this bug.

One little observation

[TrebleJunkie]

It seems like the overwhelming majority of folks here think that uncapping your cable modem is a Bad Idea, either because you're stealing the service, breaking the law, taking bandwidth away from people who are paying for it, or will lose your high speed access if you do.

But how many of you used Napster, and now use Gnutella, Kazaa, Audiogalaxy and the like, and think it's your god-given right to do so?

The shoe seems to be on the other foot when *you* run the risk of losing something. Consider, though, that other than the much closer-to-home personal risk involved in this one, that *both* acts are basically theft.

(As an aside, I wonder, though, how long until the "studies" show that uncapping your cable modem leads to the purchase of higher-bandwidth levels of service.)

Re:One little observation

[Anonymous Coward]

Amen brother!!

I get real tired of the whining from the thieves who can't conceptualize that the simple fact that they are technologically able to DO something gives them the moral right to go ahead with it.

Jeez people, THINK. Taking something you haven't paid for is THEFT. And don't hand over the bullshit about "greedy corporations" and the rest of that rot.

Those of you who take something you haven't paid for are greedy bastards who steal from everyone. You make it SO much easier for cable companies and record companies and whoever the hell else you think are out to get you---to make a case for further restrictions and punitive responses.

Pay for what you use or take the consequences of being caught without excess whining and "gee, I'm sorry, I'll be good next time."

Re:One little observation

[SwedishChef]

If I use Napster or Kazaa or any other file-trading software to download digital versions of music I already own on CDs it's not theft. It's no different than making an audio tape from a CD to play in my car. This is the legally established doctrine of "fair use" and the more people, like you, who continue to describe it as "theft" the sooner we'll be paying each time we listen to a piece of digital music. Not for each piece of music mind you, but each time we listen to it.

Erosion of fair use rights is a seriously dangerous thing. Try to at least modify your remarks to take this into account.

Re:One little observation

[TrebleJunkie]

Last time I checked, you didn't have to download your CD off the internet to make a cassette copy for your car. You put the CD (that you own) into the CD player (that you own), put a tape (that you own) into the cassette player (that you own), and press the play button (that you own) with your right index finger (that you, presumably, own) and wait roughly the 40 minutes to an hour to get your perfectly legal media-shifted fair use copy.

That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the folks that load up their favorite file-sharing app, and search a collection of ripped music (that they don't own) for songs from their favorite artist (that they don't own) download them to their computer, CDs, MP3 players and the like.

But, fine, I'll bite. "Fair Use" rights blah blah. File sharing apps are just tools blah blah blah. You know darn well I wasn't talking about that, but the countless people who trade/distrubute/steal music, software, etc.. that they do *not* own, and when fair use does *not* apply, and claim that it's not wrong, when they know full well that it is.

But take a situation where it's theft, it's wrong, *and* there's a chance of getting caught, getting shut off, prosecuted, or screwing your peers out of their precious bandwidth, (although I guess you could argue that file-sharing, too, does screw your peers out of bandwidth.) it's suddenly a Bad Idea and you just shouldn't do it.

I just think that's interesting.

Re:One little observation

[mc6809e]

If I use Napster or Kazaa or any other file-trading software to download digital versions of music I already own on CDs it's not theft.

If you already own the CD, why not make the MP3 yourself? People trade music for music they don't already own, plain and simple.

Re:One little observation

[Anonymous Coward]

Apples and oranges. I think almost everyone here agrees that cable modem uncapping is clearly theft, but whether piracy is theft is far less obvious.

For me, the key defining aspect of a theft is that the person(s) stolen from have lost something. If I steal your steak, you no longer possess a steak. If I steal my ISP's bandwidth, they have less bandwidth and lose money and quality of service. But if I copy your music, you lose nothing, and the original artists lose ... what? They are exactly as well off as if I had not bought their music.

Of course, the standard response to this line of argument is that indirect harm is caused. Now, it may be unethical, but indirect harm is not theft. Many types of indirect harm are perfectly legal. If I create a new super-efficient solar panel, I cause a great deal of indirect harm to coal companies, but I'm sure you'll agree that such things should not be outlawed.

Now, whether or not piracy is ethical is a much more complex matter and one I've not decided on myself. But clearly it is completely different from theft, and the two should not be equated. Piracy is less like raping and pillaging on the high seas and more like sneaking onto a vessel and copying the maps. So it is not hypocritical to support unfettered piracy but oppose bandwidth theft.

Re:One little observation

[SwedishChef]

"If you already own the CD, why not make the MP3 yourself? People trade music for music they don't already own, plain and simple."

Because it's a 2 minute download and it's already in mp3 format and that makes it easier. So not all people trade music that they don't already own.

Re:One little observation

[TrebleJunkie]

(Never mind that the person distributing that MP3 does not have the rights to do so in the first place.)

Re:Fun? Yes. Legal? Questionable

[programcsharp]

If you can't legislate morality, what do you legislate? Take murder for example. A law that condemns murder and provides penalties for murderers is definately legislating morality. This sort of law is necessary for human existance. Without laws that legislate morality, all civilization and society would crumble into anarchy.

Two things...

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, first off (point one) it is indeed il-legal by most TOS aggreements, and prosecutable in some states (Illinois is a prime example).

Two - I am a Optimum Online customer in NJ. I regularly pull down files at over 500K on my unchanged and unmodified connection. I came from the DSL world of Verizon where my best speed never got over 115K/s. Both ranges of speed are phenomenal for the home user, and I am lucky (so I am told) to have such a fast internet connection now. It seems to me that the only reason to get more speed is if you are uploading/downloading large files, and that mostly falls in the realm of warez, which is illegal also.

Cable companies realize this folks... don't be surprised if you get a knock on your door and are served a warrant by the police to investigate illegal software theft if you uncap... it's a giant, waving flag that screams at the cable company to not only cancel your account but ruin your life. If your connection is that slow, complain or switch.

Legislate Morality

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you can't legislate morality, I agree. But, if you want to live in an orderly society, because something is illegal, it is wrong. That is our social contract, especially in America.

It isn't that we are brainwashed, but if our neighbor breaks all the laws "that aren't wrong", and we follow the letter of the law, then they will seem to be getting over on us at every turn. They will also start infringing on our liberties with their flaunting of the laws. Then if I start to disobey laws that I don't think are just, and then my neighbor follows suit, anarchy will ensue. this is not farfetched as it sounds.

It is all because what you see as unjust, and what I see as unjust are two different things. I might see child pronography as not hurting anyone. You might have real low standards for justifiable homocide. We don't all agree on what is right, so we (in America) elect a group of people to try to find a middle ground that is acceptable to all.

In this particular instance, it is straight out theft. They (the cable provider) have to pay for all traffic. When you get rid of your cap then you are stealing bandwidth. Not to mention that everyone on the same section of the network shares bandwidth. In this light, you are not only stealing from the company, but making my use of the service degrade.

So while you think that breaking the laws isn't wrong, you are stepping all over your neighbors rights, and luxuries (note that I don't believe my legal ability to do something = my right to do something), just to flex your geek muscle. Come to think of it, my standards for justifiable homocide are dipping to new lows from reading this site ;)

Re:Bug in Slashcode or me being very confused ?

[Anonymous Coward]

remove the space between "0" and "4" for great justice, etc.

graspee

Re:Fun? Yes. Legal? Questionable

[Anonymous Coward]

What laws do you think they are breaking? Maybe you think it should be illegal but you are delusional if you think it is illegal now. You must be fairly illiterate if you think they never ever advertised the speeds you'll be getting. They spell that stuff out real well if you actually do some reading. Your complaint is as stupid as going to a grocery store and buying a pound of apples and complaining you didn't get them all. They are only $0.99/lb, right?

Re:Fun? Yes. Legal? Questionable

[einer]

Murder isn't about morality so much as order. It's hard to have an orderly society when murder is legal. Same with the Speed Limit laws. Legislation has nothing to do with morality. Nothing.

Not true...

[Anonymous Coward]

RCA modems have several 'uncap' settings themself, available through a control program. The program is not externally released by the manufacturer to the buying public, but it is available. With this program you can even force a low level spoof on the connection (though it is easily uncovered if looked into) at the ISP.

Having is so nice...

[Anonymous Coward]

I have that 'rare ubercable' connection... I roundly get 500K second averages on downloads and 256K/s up. I LOVE Optimum Online!!!

I had Verizon DSL in IL. It worked, and I only had one week of downtime in a year, but man it was nothing compared to this! YEHAAA!!!

Re:Having is so nice...

[Anonymous Coward]

I also have optonline. They cap ULs at 1 mbps, so unless you are uncapping an already great service, you are probably not getting 256KB/s UL.

Re:Fun? Yes. Legal? Questionable

[Anonymous Coward]

If you can't legislate morality, what do you legislate?

At least in the American legal system, criminal law is based upon rights, not an arbitrary moral code. Killing someone, for example, deprives them of their most basic right, the right to live.

Of course that's an ideal. These days, in no small part thanks to people like yourselves who never really think beyond what you're told, morality is often legislated. But it's clear to see what the final effect is of such nonsense. We have only to look at the War on (some) Drugs for a perfect example of what happens when you try to force something as individual as morality universally upon a populace.

But I paid for unlimited access

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because they didn't realize I was going to steal from them shouldn't allow them to stop letting me steal from them.

When I signed up for service, I knew this hack was available. That means when I signed up for service, I had every reason to believe that I would get unlimited bandwidth forever.

When will these companies get it. They are going to piss so many thieves off that sooner or later they are only going to have paying customers that follow the rules, or aren't heavy enough users to worry about. And then what will they do, besides make money. I mean what good is a network that isn't crawling on its knees from all the MP3 and warez sites. Some people just don't get it.

Someone buy these guys a ticket, so they can hop on the clue train.

Not Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not cool. As soon as you give people information they abuse it. Now I'm gonna have hella-slow downloads because everyone's gonna uncap their modems and the available bandwidth is gonna cease to exist. There was a friggin reason they capped the modems in the first place... So there's bandwidth available for everyone. Now there'll probably be moments of maxed out bandwidth... This sucks.. It would really be nice if people could share the bandwidth without abusing it... but unfortuneately all you who uncap it just ruin it for everyone else.

Convince your friends to do this

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, convince all your friends that have warez sites, or heavy P2P users.

Then, you will never have low service times.

You won't have to worry about saturated networks.

You might even see a new free install push to get new home users on the network, so your grandma will be able to get on.

This is a good thing. Tell all your feloniously intended friends how to uncap, and watch as real network performance for the rest of us unfolds ;)

Re:Bug in Slashcode or me being very confused ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Whooh, way to get bitch-slapped, three -1 offtopics in the same minute!

graspee

I work for a cable internet provider now...

[Anonymous Coward]

and we dont even USE the docsis file for bandwidth limiting..our docsis file says that the modem has 10mb up and down

we enforce bandwidth limits to the outside world with this product
http://www.allot.com/html/products_netenf orcer.sht m

Combine this with Brilliant's SpyWare network

[ReelOddeeo]

Brilliant's spyware network, Altnet, should incorporate this hack. If the hack will work on your particular modem, then Altnet would be able to make use of more bandwidth.

Or, maybe they shouldn't.

Re:Fun? Yes. Legal? Questionable

[Zzootnik]

Ah yes- Murder...Good example...
I give you "The death penalty". Reconcile that one...
"It is wrong to kill, so we are killing you for it!"
Get a clue on Societal functions....They are there for the greater safety and security and prosperity of the constituents. They don't and shouldn't legislate morality...those that do tend to get into sticky situations...If you look at specific examples of legislating morality, you'll see that they never turn out well (Completely). There may be some other reason that keeps the law alive that exists for the greater good, (Or to a particular segment's good....*COUGH*-corporations-*COUGH*), but the law doesn't exist solely for morality.

Say what?

[hagbard5235]

I've worked with both DOCSIS 1.0 and 1.1. The MAP MAC message is an integral part of both 1.0 and 1.1. It is not new in 1.1. The cable modem needs to specify a COS ( class of service ) during it's registration process to the CMTS ( cable modem termination system ) in both versions of the standard. The CMTS enforces the COS in both version of the standard. The only major changes I recall between 1.0 and 1.1 with regard to how COS was handled was the introduction of dynamic classes of service for cable modems to accomidate telephony services.

Re:Say what?

[ech3]

The DOCSIS 1.1 spec introduces Service flows, which were not part of the 1.0 spec, they allow voice in that you can lock up bandwidth with more flavors of QoS than I really want to think about. With DOCSIS 1.1 you can use the Downstream Maximum Sustained Rate as defined in Section C.2.2.5.2.2 of the DOCSIS 1.1 RFI (www.cablemodem.com) to limit users to a specified Bandwidth. Once this is used the CMTS ( for people not in the industry read: the head end unit that talks to the cable modem) must enforce upstream grants instead of the modem, and hacking a CMTS is a MUCH bigger task. Now, of course if you have a DOCSIS 1.0 modem on a 1.1 plant you have to use CoS to provision the modem, or else the modem will most likely freak out. How the hackers uncap is they have to find vulnerable firmware (which the MSO(read: Cable Company)s could probably upgrade and fix this problem) which downloads its tftp file through the ethernet link. This is a vulnerability that should really be closed, but might be useful useful in a development enviornment. However if you try to spoof the bandwidth settings with a DOCSIS 1.1 CMTS you will have a record within the CMTS of the bandwidth settings, and it will be near impossible to spoof the connection speed so that the MSO won't be able to see it. You also have to remember that when someone steals bandwidth it really screws up everyone else on that upstream, since the resource planning (if existant) for the upstream bandwidth gets shot to hell.

This ability to control bandwidth is one of the main advantages of DOCSIS 1.1, however since many MSOs do not utilize such features as the CMTS-MIC authenication string, new firmware, SNMP v3, or Baseline privacy, it is no wonder that things like uncapping occur. Heck we all know better than to not install security patches for programs, upgrading firmware on modems is no different. In addition since there are so many modems out there that are DOCSIS 1.0 only, the only real thing pushing DOCSIS 1.1 is VoIP solutions (read: an extra $30/voice line/month for an MSO). However with the presence of CBR solutions in the marketplace and the momentum behind them and the cutting edge nature of VoIP (read expensive deployment cost / very few large vendors with DOCSIS 1.1 capable CMTSs/CMs) it will take a while before DOCSIS 1.1 becomes deFacto and uncapping becomes more a thing of the past.

Sometimes called "incentive trap"

[Insightfill]

A similar analogy:

You are given a credit card with a $1000 limit. 100 other people are given the same card. The bills are all added up, averaged, and distributed out every month - you are responsible for 1/100 of the bill, no matter how much you spend. If fail to use the card, you still pay for all of the others who do, without any benefits. If you use the card, you add to the madness - what do you do?

Life is full of these - from the environment, to the economy, to broadband. Anytime anything is owned in common, this happens.

Some point to this as the reason that pork is a no-no in the Middle East. It's not necessarily a disease issue, but that pigs are a waste. Unlike a goat, you don't get much milk, or any work, out of a pig. And, they use a lot of water - a scarce resource. If everyone owned pigs, there'd be an issue. Solution - make it "unpopular" to own pigs.

New virus

[new_breed]

I think I know what the next Outlook-bug based virus is gonna do.. "My internet is so much faster since you mailed me that funny slash movie and unknown attachment! Thanks!"

Even better...

[Brian Stretch]

Reprogram the Code Red carriers cable modems for, say, 1Kbps upstream bandwidth, so they can't bother the rest of us quite so easily. The cable co will still noticed the hacked modem if they're paying attention at all. Heck, cut their downstream bandwidth down to 64Kbps while you're at it, leaves more for those of us who know what we're doing.

Re: BULL CRAP read on

[cb0y]

1. use video streaming/news yahoo vision etc.. so called online movies etc...
2. play online games (6k/sec)
3. game demos rake in at 80..120meg a piece now

There are lots of fun/mainstream ways to use the net bandwidth fast. If people arent using much its because they are scared to reach the limit or they are completely dull/clueless boring people.

I cant imagin the year 2005 with bandwidth caps, the net will suck while our cpus are bursting with power , what a joke the future will be.

Bandwidth is not like a natural resource, people just want the best for their fixed decent free ($40/m USD).

So what's the problem?

[Restil]

Someone violates his TOS by uncapping his modem for the purpose of abusing his connection, gets caught in short order, and is banned from every abusing that internet provider again. I fail to see the problem here. The REASON these modems are capped in the first place are because of these very abusers. Granted, AT&T as well as other cable providers probably don't want to lose a bunch of customers, but the heavy warez/movie trading crowd they would happily do without as they tend to overuse their bandwidth allocation regardless, as well as creating potential legal liabilities.

This gives them an easy out. If they're able to detect an uncapped cable modem in a matter of hours after its been uncapped, then this is a great way to relieve yourself of a bunch of unwanted customers. And they don't even have to monitor bandwidth content. Just have to check the speed going over the physical maximum.

This should also be a wakeup call for parents who "share" their internet connection with their kids. Better let your children be aware that if ever they do something this foolish there will be serious hell to pay. PAY ATTENTION to what your children are doing. You don't know?? Then don't let them have internet access. When they turn 18, let them get their own account, and they can use or abuse it as they see fit.

Or if you REALLY need that extra bandwidth, pay for an account that provides for it. MOST companies, even cable providers have accounts that provide greater upstream bandwidth, but they don't cost $49, and they're rarely parts of a promotional deal.

-Restil

Howzatagain?

[Blrfl]

AlgUSF writes:

That is why I switched to DSL, it is a always reliable connection, and I know no one is hogging my share of the pipe.

Uh, no, it means nobody's hogging the pipe between you and the DSLAM. Don't think for a minute that because you've got a 768K DSL line the phone company has 768K of its pipe to the rest of the world earmarked for your use only. ISPs work on oversubscription, which is why your service is so cheap.

Re:Howzatagain?

[AlgUSF]

I'm sure that for Verizon, bandwidth is cheap. They probably have a dozen or so OC48/192/... lines running from my CO to their office downtown. Even at prime times like 6-10pm I get the exact bandwidth they promised. With Time Warner, etc bandwidth is probably much more expensive, so they tend to oversubscribe more. Plus it is nice being able to listen on ports and run a server....


DSL is the only real option for broadband, unless you live in the ghetto, then TW would probably be able to deliver on there promises, because you will be the only one on the network.

Re:Howzatagain?

[Blrfl]

AlgUSF writes:

I'm sure that for Verizon, bandwidth is cheap. They probably have a dozen or so OC48/192/... lines running from my CO to their office downtown.

The RBOCs may have the bandwidth to play with internally, but they still have to buy transit from national ISPs, and that's neither infinite nor cheap. And besides, those big pipes cary tens of thousands of phone lines, 56Ks T1s, T3s, etc. It's not all Internet.

Re:Howzatagain?

[AlgUSF]

I would think that Verizon, being a mega-merger massive telco who owns basically the entire Atlantic coast is tied directly into the backbone of the Internet, and doesn't pay anyone for access.

Re:Howzatagain?

[Blrfl]

You may think that, but take it from an industry vet: it's not the case.

Re: Your DSL is already at full speed

[[l0l]Bobo]

You are comparing a heavily shielded co-ax cable with a practically unshielded twisted pair that already has most of its bandwidth potential occupied (quite unefficiently) by analog voice transmission. The reason why DSL has such a widely varying data rate from one location to the next is because for any given location, that's the maximum you'll get given your distance from your neighboorhood's switch. If the phone companies could offer the same speeds as the cable guys, they would.

Where I live, Videotron (cable) gives around 2.4Mbit/s while Bell Canada offers 1MBit/s. (Yes, Canada is one of the rare places where broadband is truly fast & relatively cheap. And that speed on DSL is due to Bell's network here which has very short distances between switches and residences, typically a few hundred meters).

My suggestion remains...

[_aa_]

Every month or so I try to email my ISP to complain about upload capping with a letter similar to the following:

Dear Sir or Madam:

When i subscribed to your service I was promised "Unlimited" access, however you have limited my upstream connection. When I try to video teleconference with my grandchildren in the hospital, the image quality is extremely poor, and the audio is hard to understand. It is absolutly no improvement from when I had dial-up. I was also promised that I would be able to send video emails, but they take so long to upload, and while they are uploading, it chokes my ability to surf the web. Moreso, when I am trying to upload pictures and video of my family to my website, the connection frequently stalls or disconnects halfway through the upload and I have to start all over. I find this to be very frustrating and stressful, and since my recent heart attack, my doctor has ordered me to avoid stress. Because of this I will be forced to end my service with you.

It never seems to work, but maybe it will get them to stop promissing unlimited access and blazing speed.

(btw, I'm not really old)

Re:My suggestion remains...

[Anonymous Coward]

Every month or so I try to email...

Because of this I will be forced to end my service with you.

It sounds like you are issuing monthly threats and then not following up on them. So while it's conceivable that your first mail might have gotten some attention, your tenth one is just an idle threat from a paper tiger who no longer has any credibility. If they're not laughing at your mails, then at best, they are ignoring you.

It might be at full speed, but I don't care.

[jawtheshark]

In a strict sense I was not comparing Cable and xDSL. If you re-read my post, I try to explain that they are two different beasts. Granted, I only stayed on the conceptual level and you went down to the phyiscial level.

Okay, it is UTP...but then you know very well that UTP can support up to 100Mbps. Don't diss UTP, because normal phone lines are based on it. Besides I doubt that the analog signals (which I do not have, my phone is ISDN) max out the whole bandwidth of the UTP cable. My brother often phones while I am surfing on our ADSL. I never ever saw a slowdown.

For the speeds you might be right... Maximum I can get here is 128Kbps upstream/768Kbps downstream (which is too expensive, so I go with 64Kbps/256Kbps). That is a lot less than 2.4Mbps, however I have the whole bandwith for me alone, you don't. If your neighborhood has a lot of leechers then you can forget your 2.4Mbps.
Let me illustrate it: it's just like on the hihgway. You are in the middle of a huge 7-lane road with a lot of traffic and you can't drive 200mph because of that, so you stick to 55mph. I have my own country road, and it has a lot more potholes, but I can safely drive 90mph all the time. See, that is the fundamental difference between cable and xDSL.

Now some questions you need to ask yourself: why is "heavily shielded coax" only used in high-interference environments(industry with a lot of machines) for networking purposes. Why do the most recent network cards don't even come with BNC, anymore? Think about it....

Re: Your DSL is already at full speed

[Jucius Maximus]

"(Yes, Canada is one of the rare places where broadband is truly fast & relatively cheap. "

Unfortunately due to geography, there is a large proportion of people who can't get any broadband except satellite where the upstream is still through the modem.

I wish DSL was available in my area. We will NEVER get cable because the population density on my street is too low and wiring it would cost too much compared to the returns.

UNCAP AND OBEY RULES!!!

[maxrez]

When onestep comes out I plan to try it. I don't think I will be caught because I'm going to set the speeds to the setting they ARE ADVERTISED AT.I might not get an increase, but its worth a try. I'm supposed to get 1500k down and 128k up. Those are both kilobits per second measured with kilo meaning 1000 not 1024.(as defined by communication term of kilo not storage term.) I have comcast and I have NEVER got the top speed as I did with @home. I understand if I don't get it all the time, or maybe not often but "never" is different! The top speed I have ever gotton is 900k down and 96k up. So if they are cheating us by setting the numbers (that we can't see) lower than they are supposed to, I will be fighting back. Its like a butcher's thumb on the scale, and I'm not going to fall for it. And if any records show that I am going faster than everyone else, I will still be BELLOW the allowed speed they say I can go.

Re:UNCAP AND OBEY RULES!!!

[steveargonman]

Lower than they should? I had 768 down, 128 up with Charter and I called that night to upgrade to 1.5MB/400up and I use that docsdiag (docsdiag.jar, do a search on Google) tool to check to see if the d/u bandwidth #'s were up, and they were. That's how I keep them in check..

Re:Fun? Yes. Legal? Questionable

[jerrytcow]

Legislation has nothing to do with morality. Nothing.

Which is why so many legislators want to make flag-burning and stem cell research illegal?

Re:Fun? Yes. Legal? Questionable

[Anonymous Coward]

The correct philosophy on that is actually "if something is not specifically illegal, then it is legal"

This wouldn't even be an issue if...

[chowbok]

The cable companies would just charge on a per-bandwidth basis. What we have here is a classic tragedy-of-the-commons situation, where nobody has an incentive to limit their usage. If they just charged by traffic usage, everybody could get exactly the speed they wanted, and those who don't use their modems as much would save money.

Imagine if the electric company charged everyone a flat fee, regardless of how much electricity they used... everyone would recognize it as unfair, and there'd be constant brownouts besides. Why the cable companies haven't figured this out yet is beyond me.

Only 4?

[Convergence]

One friend wanted to impress me with his 31337ness by doing 20 concurrent transfers on my http server!

I submitted a security advisory to apache and they basically said ``Its the kernel's responsibility''.

Maybe that is the only place where it can be assuredly done.. But IMHO, apache should still have that option, if only to make it easier for us to discourage abuse like this.

Re:Only 4?

[Anonymous Coward]

How is this an Apache security issue? If you confogure your server to allow 20 connections from 1 ip, that's your problem. It's a legitimate and acceptable use of service. If you want to restrict that, use mod_throttle, a server-side download manager, or another server. And it's not the kernel's responsibility either, the Apache guys are (rightly) brushing you off so you don't bug them anymore. Hey, maybe the kernel guys will get a laugh out of you.

Re:Only 4?

[Anonymous Coward]

D34r 31337 k3rn31 h4x0rs:

I n33d j00 to st0p th3s3 G37r1gh7 b4s74rds. P133z f1x th3 k3rn3l r1gh7 4w4y!

pr0ps 2 my h0m13s

Fair queueing

[Wesley Felter]

Fair queueing would probably be better than different caps based on peak/non-peak times, but I don't know if anyone has figured out how to do it on a shared-media network.

(As an aside, I looked up queueing in a dictionary and there seem to be two acceptable spellings, which makes googling a little harder.)

15KB?

[jrclark]

More like 12KB here..

Re:Fun? Yes. Legal? Questionable

[Art Tatum]

Of course, you still get in trouble with the law whether the law is correct or not. Thus the phrase, "Tell it to the judge, buddy."

My uncap history

[rosewood]

Last weekend I tried this guy's surfboard hack and I ran into one big problem

The Docsis files are md5 signed and if I dont sign them, then I am SOL. I followed the steps, spoofed the tftp, wathced the modem grab the config - but yet my upload was still no better then 256kbits/second

As for the whole legality - All I am going to do is make my cable modem "up to 100x faster then 56k modem" because right now I am @ 3mbit/s and 256k/s. A 56k modem has a limit of 33.6 kbit/s for upload SO 100x faster is 3360 kbit/s second ... THATS A FUCKLOAD MORE THEN WHAT I HAVE. As for my download - well, 100x faster then 56k - well, we know its not REALLY 56 and I forget what it is but I never got better then 40kbit/s so lets go with that as the cealing - 100x faster is 4000 kbit/s. - I am CAPPED @ 3000/256 but yet if I were to hit their MAX of 100x faster I would have to be capped @ 4000/3360. I know 100x means if all the planets are alligned but its absolutely 100% impossible to get 100x more then a 56k. That is false advertising. I see no reason why I can not take my modem to what they advertise.

Discuss.

Re:My uncap history

[prisoner-of-enigma]

Perhaps you neglected to note the first two words of your quote, which said "up to 100x faster than 56K". It is not false advertising, anymore than weight loss programs will advertise you can lose "up to" whatever amount of weight is popular this week.

Don't get me wrong here, I'd love to hack a modem myself, but you can't go spouting off about how they owe you this or they owe you that just because of the phrase you quoted. They don't owe you anything more than the service, and I doubt that there's any language in the contract that states ANY minimum or maximum transfer rate. That's why you should READ the small print, which I'm willing to bet you haven't.

I have DSL and cable available to me and I've picked DSL based upon the horrible feedback I've heard from customers of cable services. The day they hooked up my DSL (which was the same day they turned up the DSLAM down the street) I did a speed test and was getting 3Mbit downstream and 1Mbit upstream. That was fine for about four days until suddenly my connection went to 1.5Mbit down, 256K up. They capped me. Am I angry? Bitter? Nope. I have more bandwidth than many small companies do and I'm only paying $49/month for it. The network DOES NOT BELONG TO ME, thus the DSL company has every legal right to do whatever they want with it, including capping their customers.

If you wish to fight the company you have two choices: (a) hack your modem, get cut off, and then cry because you're stuck or (b) find another provider or method, such as satellite or DSL if it's available. If you have no alternatives then you are stuck and best just get used to it until someone else comes along. Laws of supply and demand to not alter themselves to your whim just because they didn't give you the "FUCKLOAD" of bandwidth that you wanted.

Re:My uncap history

[rosewood]

The problem is it is IMPOSSIBLE to hit the up to

Like I said, I understand this means if the planets are in alignment, etc. but I cant get that under ANY condition.

Example. The speed limit is 60mph so we really dont go over that - but I buy a car cause Im told top speed is 150mph, but Ill never drive it that fast. Id be pissed if my top speed was only 100 mph.

All I ask for is what they advertise
Always on? MY ASS
Fast? To who? Their own website at times w/ their own speed test on local servers sometimes tells me Im bellow 56k speeds!

Also, its my modem im "hacking." On top of that, I signed no agreement - dont tell me I did because I did not.

Some people, like you - maybe content with being stuck with crappy service - FUCK IT - Ill get the service I demand and most importantly, their advertising monkeys promised.

Re:My uncap history

[prisoner-of-enigma]

Some people, like you - maybe content with being stuck with crappy service - FUCK IT - Ill get the service I demand and most importantly, their advertising monkeys promised.


And precisely how do you propose to get the "service you demand"? Hack your modem and you'll be cut off. They have absolutely every legal right in the book to do so, and even though your signature may not be on a contract (because you likely started the service over the phone), the fact that you're using their network, you're being billed for it, and you're paying it, constitutes a legal contract. Go check your state law and you'll see I'm correct here.

And if you believe whatever you hear in advertising, you've got a long, rough road of life ahead of you.

Re:My uncap history

[rosewood]

And if you believe whatever you hear in advertising, you've got a long, rough road of life ahead of you

The problem is when a company advertises something, they have to deliver - what you are not suposed to beleive is the hype

for example, go back to their 100x faster claim. It was already covered that is UP TO 100x faster. We all know on any given sunday its really only 10x faster - but they are saying sure, it could hit 100x - and my bitch is that it can NEVER hit 100x, not due to poor network but by design.

I purpose that everyone out there hack their modem. If everyone does it, and they can everyone, then they can have fun running a business with no one on it.

If we wanted to duke it out on a legal basis, assuming I had the money and the lawyers, considering I exist under no terms of service contract, they would have a hard time winning.

If I get my account can'd - fine - its not worth paying for as-is

Re:My uncap history

[prisoner-of-enigma]

Let's do a little experiement based upon MY experience with my DSL provider.

Back when I had ISDN my average transfer rates were about 13KB (bytes, not bits) per sec, which is just about right given the 128Kb (bits, not bytes) that ISDN is rated at. ISDN is about 2.2x the speed of a 56K modem.

My current transfer rates are around 160KB/sec, meaning I'm a little more than 10x as fast as my ISDN, meaning it's about 25x the speed of your average 56K modem. That's nothing to be ashamed of! It's equal to having a T1 line in my home (downstream only). Last I checked, a T1 line at home would cost me about $800 to install and about $400/month through Worldcom. I'm paying $49/month for the service. No matter how you look at it I'm making out like a bandit here.

And let's consider that many of my friends with cable modems get speeds well in excess of mine (but only if they live in sparsely populated areas). Some of them have reported transfer rates around 300KB/sec, which is about double mine. That would make it about 50x the speed of a 56K modem.

What's odd is that I have yet to hear the magical "100 times faster" ad for any local service providers. All of them use the "up to 50 times faster", and it that they're pretty much on the mark. What provider do you have?

Take a step back and realize that you're getting a tremendous amount of bandwidth over a 56K modem, even if it was only 5x faster. You're paying practically NOTHING for it when you compare it with typical (commercial) internet service with the same bandwidth. If you want to gripe about something, gripe about how often it goes down (T1's almost NEVER go down, part of what you pay extra for), or the crappy customer service, or whatever, but griping about being "only" 10x faster than a modem is petulant. There are lots of people out there who would KILL to have 10x speed as they anxiously await broadband. I know, I was one of them until about 6 months ago.

Re:Fun? Yes. Legal? Questionable

[Rupert]

John Ashcroft says you're wrong.

Much Ado About Nothing

[Anonymous Coward]

I say much ado about nothing...

The business model of the ISP is flawed and artificial. Spend a few years working for an ISP and you get a real-world understanding of how artificial roadblocks are implemented by the business side folks to support their flawed business cases and even more flawed marketing.

Prime example:

THEN: Telco vs. the phreakers of yesteryear

NOW: Some telcos are offering unlimited calling for a flat rate now... (i recall dreaming of that same service offering way back in those early days of phreaking, cough, not that I did that or anything but for some reason DTMF was on my phone and I never got a bill... go figure)

What's my point ?
that eventually the business side *geniuses* at the cable and DSL monopolies, and yes they are monopolies, are going to try to leverage as much as they can to pad their income statements.

Eventually, and it may take years, the business side guys are going to figure out that bandwidth is not the drug but simply the needle by which the consumer is going to purchase his drug of choice, and it smells strongly like TV over IP. They will absolutely have to invest in a faster infrastructure and get every consumer a larger gauge needle.

Ironic that our government gives out free needles to addicts

thats my anonymous diatribe for the day. :)

In some networking circles, they call this QoS

[ChaosMt]

Quality of Service. In other words, they setup a QoS profile on their equipment (based on the nieve assumption that they would know how, or even care to get equipment that does QoS), and what that will ensure is that each customer will always get at LEAST what they paid for. If there is extra bandwidth, it will let you eat up more. I even wrote a program for an ISP that was interested in setting up accounts for customers who want to pay a bit extra for a fat pipe during the night and back to normal during the day. (I assumed the plan was dropped b/c the customer who was sucking down 80% of our traffic was doing it during the night any way).

So if QoS is out there and is implimentable, why doing they roll it out? 1) They don't know about it or understand or trust it, 2) What ever their neighbor hood hub and switches are, they didn't buy them to do QoS, 3) marketing: if the mainstream knew that this was possible, and that you could have a guarenteed minimum (think CIR), people would demand that, which completely blows away the business model of -oversubscription-, 4) Money: the internet has been sold to the highest bidder; coporations. The interenet was a remarkable way to promote free speech and open communications. However, the backbone providers realized that businesses have more money to use and do most of the "transmitting" (if you will) while average joe modem user did most of the recieving. Asyncronous billing was born; charge more for bytes sent than bytes recieved. It makes great sense from a business point of view, but it has effectivally KILLED the open and free communication aspect of the network. Back to cable - implementing QoS profiles would be bad news for them because it would make sure the pipe is always full, and thus they pay more. With the interenet, you pay for the size of the pipe, and how much is going through it, and now, how much is going away from you costs WAY more. As it always seems to be; it's all about the money.

brilliant troll! at least with the name.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm just in awe of this latest breakthrough in troll technology: you don't have to post anything even remotely cogent but because the flock, err, faithful, err... whatever don't notice your UID, you get modded to the sky! Kudos, props and all that stuff to you, good sir.

Re:Fun? Yes. Legal? Questionable

[Anonymous Coward]

Americans seem to have trouble with that one? Traditionally, Americans are most famous for having challenged the status quo. Of course, I am not suggesting that other countries have not also done the same thing, but I don't think its fair or hardly reasonable to accuse Americans of all peoples for not questioning authority.

Re:Fun? Yes. Legal? Questionable

[Anonymous Coward]

Would this really be considered illegal? As far as I can tell all one would be doing is breaking the company's TOS. Companies may be obsenely powerful, but I don't believe they have the force of law behind them...yet.

Although, I guess one could consider it stealing...but I have my doubts.

Re:Fun? Yes. Legal? Questionable

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you for lumping all Americans in one GIANT pot. There are some PC MF's that think they can legislate everything. Its almost a joke what they try to do in the name of 'offending someone' or 'for the childeren'. But it is also getting to the point where they are telling me what i can say or do. Im tired of it! You dont seem to realize you CAN legislate it. Wheither it is constitutional or not is a different story. And weither people will follow it or not...

Oh i get it you were baiting me! dumbass.

Your first argument has merit

[bcaulf]

You're right. The sound bite synopsis of this policy would be "You have to use it at night". Which of course is just the way shared, scare computer resources are... but Joe User doesn't know that.

When I got capped I did send a pleading mail to my ISP (rcn.net) asking them to cap more intelligently; they don't give a fuck and told me so.

Re:Fun? Yes. Legal? Questionable

[fatboy]

And just because something is illegal, doesn't mean it's wrong...

Americans, in particular, seem to have trouble with that one. Brainwashed, the lot of 'em...

You can't successfully legislate morality!

And that's why I say don't piss and moan like Eurotrash when you get busted breaking the law. Take it like a man.

The difference between Morals and Ethics.

[Qrlx]

The reason they say "You can't legislate morality" is because morals are unique to each individual, a set of personal beliefs and guiding principles (or lack thereof.) Morals occur inside your head, you get to figure them out for yourself.

Ethics, on the other hand, is what (some) laws address, such as laws against murder and other examples in this thread. Ethics could perhaps be described as the loose framework of commonly shared beliefs among a society's members, a consensus of what's acceptable and unacceptable. Ethics probably play a big factor in an individual's morals, but they are only one part.

This is an important difference. Morals and ethics are completely different things. No congressman has even been rung up for poor moral behavior, only ethics violations.

The statement "You can't legislate morality" means that the law reflects a society's ethics, not an individual's morals. You can't force your moral beliefs on anyone but you can demand that members in a society adhere to a code of ethics. For instance, you can make racism illegal but you can't prevent anyone from having racist thoughts. You CAN make it illegal for them to lynch or burn crosses.

Similarly, when you run a red light late at night, or don't buckle your seat belt, that's your morals overriding society's ethics.

I think a better statement is "Legislation should have nothing to do with morality." Sadly, our current Attorney General, for one, believes that you CAN legislate morality. That leads us to the era of the Thought Police.

Re:The difference between Morals and Ethics.

[unitron]

You can't legislate morality because if the only thing keeping you from doing something "wrong" (admittedly a very grey area) is fear of being punished for breaking the law that prohibits doing that "wrong" thing, then you aren't refraining from doing that "wrong" thing because of your own personal morals. Basically morality is defined by what you would or wouldn't do if you were sure you could get away with it and no one, except yourself, would ever know. Legislating morality is like passing a law making everybody have the same favorite color. Some people already thought that way and the rest are now lying about it, but the law has no effect on how they really feel.

Re:Fun? Yes. Legal? Questionable

[fatboy]

Ah yes- Murder...Good example...
I give you "The death penalty". Reconcile that one...

Murdering someone and killing someone are not the same thing, though in the end someone is dead.

Perils of hacking your cable modem

[Phrogger]

I've heard of uncapping your cable modem and have seen some tools around for doing so. However, I figured that it was a pretty dumb thing to do; if you actually used the resulting higher bandwidth, you would only call attention to yourself and have the cable company disconnect you.

If more people start uncapping their cable modems (which, in reality, are ethernet bridges not modems) then I can foresee the cable companies devoting more resources to stopping such activity. Given that the cable modem is in the path before any firewall, they could simply remote detect and disable an
uncapped mdoem. Afterall, like the Night of Long Knives at Internet Direct a few years back (wherein users who left their dial-up connections up for 24/7 suddenly had their "unlimited" usage accounts terminated), it's in their interest to weed out the high volume (ab)users and cherrypick for the users who won't use the system to its potential. The more people they can get on a switch (i.e. a smaller netmask) the less costly it is for them to provide the service.

And if uncapping your cable modem seems attractive, consider this; would you want to be on a subnet with a neighbour who uncapped his/her modem and was sucking up the bandwidth such that your DivX and mp3 downloads were slowed to a crawl? You'd be on the phone to the cable company PDQ to get your speed
back, wouldn't you? And what do you think the cable co. would do to the bandwidth bandit once they found out what the problem was?

In Canada, Shaw/Rogers has capped their cable modems at 1.5 mbps down and 640 kbps up and charge CDN$40/month (US$25)for this service without extra charge (so far) for high volume usage. Personally, I think that's a bargain especially when I read about what (lack of) service our neighbours in the Excited States receive.

Re:Perils of hacking your cable modem

[alexo]

> In Canada, Shaw/Rogers has capped their cable modems at 1.5 mbps down and 640 kbps up

Rogers is my ISP as well.
I have a Motorola CyberSURFR modem (not DOCSIS, as far as I know).
Is there any way to find out what my real cap is?

Re:Fun? Yes. Legal? Questionable

[Anonymous Coward]

FYI - There's a really good in-depth article on how uncapping works in the latest issue of 2600 Magzine -- it takes you step-by-step on the process and was written to provide information for educational purposes - although there's theoretically enough information in the article that would show someone how to do it. Check it out!

Wow.

[mindstrm]

Before anyone whines too much about their poor speed limits.

I live in Costa Rica.

I have a cable modem.

I have a 128/32 connection. IT costs me about $80/month.
The ISP uses NAT.
At that, it's bad NAT.. I can't even do pptp over it.

And I'm happy to have it.

Sure, I could (and probably would) hack my com21 modem if I find a way, to try it... but only because I don't forsee any reprecussions. I doubt they would notice.

But really. Is hacking your cable modem legit?
Well..
a) If you own it and
b) The speed caps are not in your service contract.. then *maybe* there is some grey area in there for you.
In general though.. be glad they simply cut you off and not prosecute you for theft of service.

Re:Fun? Yes. Legal? Questionable

[Sycraft-fu]

Well while this may not be wrong, it is certianly grounds for the cable company to cancel your account on. It's their service, they get to set the rules, prices, and so on. If you don't like it, don't use it. You don't have the right to abuse a service offered to you by someone. If you do they can and will terminate your service.

The thing that many people seem to forget is that bandwidth costs money. This is why higher bandwidth lines are more expensive.

Fake SNMP

[dragin33]

Isn't there a way to fake your SNMP automatically so that the cable company's automated scans think everything is ok?

Re:brilliant troll! at least with the name.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, this post was not an attempt to troll, it was my legitimate opinion (for once). But as well as flock of "faithful" there's a flock of bitter moderators who use every single one their mod points to mod my posts down. Just watch, this post will be brought down to at least 3, maybe even lower.

Re:Allows? Not really, it's a bug

[mnmoore]

Yeah, and stealing things that aren't tied down is perfectly ethical.

macs n stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

attbi users:
ok, uh, you can spoof someones mac with a cisco router and get some free access like that, also, your bootfiles can be manually remotely updated, and modems can be powercycled at the press of a button in canada.

Re:Fun? Yes. Legal? Questionable

[Doug Neal]

Just because technology allows you to do something, does not mean that it is also legal.

Yeah... and water's kinda damp... ;)

FWIW, I investigated this a while back

[CTachyon]

A friend of mine came across a site describing how to uncap SURFboard modems. Being the inquisitive hacker-in-training that I am, I read through their instructions, theorized what was ACTUALLY happening (as opposed to what they SAID was happening), then launched Ethereal and confirmed it. I've made some further discoveries since, but I've since rebooted my modem (which wipes the uncap) because I have an ISP that gives very fair caps (we have a business connection, ~$80/mon, roughly 8Mbit down and 570Kbit up). Here are my discoveries:

• The SURFboard cable modem series downloads its parameters from the ISP via TFTP during the boot sequence, grabbing a fresh copy each time it reboots, and rebooting each time it loses sync beyond hope of recovery.
• The configuration file is stored in ASN.1 BER format, which is very nasty so I won't discuss it further.
• The modem publishes lots of critical information via the SNMP "public" community string, including the TFTP server address.
• The flaw is that, during the modem boot, the modem downloads a TFTP config file from the IP address named in *its* DHCP ACK packet (the DHCP transaction that gives the modem an IP on the ISP's private network, which users should ideally never see). When it sends the TFTP request, it sends it to both sides (ISP and client), and accepts the first response that it gets.
• Later revisions have a slight fix; however, the Ethernet interface is still up and running in promiscuous mode, so rapidly pinging the modem as it boots will lodge your MAC address in the modem's ARP cache, making your computer receive the TFTP request as before.
• With proper filters in place in the ISP network, clients would never be permitted to access internal ISP resources like the TFTP server. With no known-good bootfile for your ISP, uncapping is much trickier.
• The same SNMP interface also publishes the upstream and downstream caps, allowing the ISP to trivially scan for modems with settings that don't match the ISP's own bootfiles.

Summary: Genuine, but not worth the risk.

Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Since you say so I'm sure it must be true so I won't bother to look. Not!

I was going to check into upping my bandwidth (downstream) a bit, but found there was no need. The config already shows maximum bitrate over 3000000 bps. 3Mbps is fine by me baybay!

Re:Broadband addiction?-crying game.

[Anonymous Coward]

"From a pitiable 56kbps AOL dial-up "

Hey if you was using AOL dial-up,. You'd we crying too.

Toshiba PCX1100U sucks.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait until your cable provider gets *modern* equipment like a cadent instead of a CISCO UBR and see how well that fuckin things works.

Best Summary Ever!

[Anonymous Coward]

Summary: It's not about how you handle your equipment, it's where you have permission to stick it.

thats has more innueno(s) than you can shake your equipment at.

Uncapping? Beware of Trojans

[VikingBrad]

There was an incident with Telstra, Australia's largest telco/ISP where users were caught out trying to uncap their cable limits.

The carrier didn't catch them, a lot of users (read 13yo kiddies) had been duped into downloading cable modem uncapping software. The software was in fact the SubSeven Trojan.

Those who had downloaded the software had their computers hacked. The hacker later posted a list of accounts & passwords they had obtained, at least 100 people were duped

Just beware, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is

Where's the lawyers

[Anonymous Coward]

Did any one REALY READ the AT&T broadband site? They are allowing people to PURCHASE their own cable mode. So my question to any lawyers out there, isn' this the same as hacking my PC alowing AT&T to cap my cable modem? I mean if I own the equipment, does AT&T have a right to modify it without my consent? NO where does it state that in their EULA.

My concern was there was no option to *limit*

[Convergence]

What is the technique to limit the number of connections per IP? I looked for a couple of hours finding no appropriate configuration directive.

I was requesting, as a *FEATURE*, some configuration directive allowing me to set such a limit. Maybe its been added since; this was a couple of years ago.

Re:My concern was there was no option to *limit*

[Koos]

What is the technique to limit the number of connections per IP? I looked for a couple of hours finding no appropriate configuration directive.

By default Apache has no options to limit this. When a webserver I deal with was visited by very antisocial 'download managers' taking 70(!) of Apaches server processes I searched for a module to fix this and found mod_limitipconn.c which fixes this problem. The outgoing traffic of the webserver more then doubled because the server processes were available again to more visitors.

clue stick for you, joker.

[twitter]

...sooner or later they are only going to have paying customers that follow the rules, or aren't heavy enough users to worry about. And then what will they do, besides make money.

Ha, ha, big laugh. Some dumb-ass at the cable company might really think that.

Capping is a relativly new, evil and stupid practice, rivaled only by port blocking. People who want cable modems are the kind of people who want to share their files. The cable companies are going to find that selling cable to EVERYONE is tougher than putting up a few stupid billboards and obnoxious, "if you were using cable this page would be downloaded by now" webpages. If they wanted to stop abusers such as spammers and loosers running warez sites, they could. Instead, they are greedy and lazy. They think that they can stop all the abuse by capping upload rates and make even more money by charging people for "services", like web space on some crappy M$ machine at the central office. BZZZZT! WRONG! They are going to piss off a larger proportion of their customer base then they realize. The endgame is that everyone will jump to the first viable alternative and leave the entertainment pimps in the dust. Sooner or later, they are going to go bankrupt like Excite! did when they started pulling this shit.

Re:clue stick for you, joker.

[xealon]

People who want cable modems are the kind of people who want to share their files.

Not true. I hoard all my files.

need mirror of www.iscentral.org/~tcniso/

[ubiquitin]

Looks like the site has been taken offline around 11:00PM CST same day that this was posted and google cache hadn't kicked in yet apparently. Can anyone who visited the site post the pages their browser cached somewhere? Please mod up so all can read this request for mirror. Thx.

google not a mirror

[Anonymous Coward]

umm can I just point out that most /.'ers already know about this goglie/gigloe/gogi whatever you call it. I'm too sure if that counts as a mirror.

O/T: timing and octane (was Re:Property vs Service

[Gordonjcp]

Errm, tricky. It's got a higher flashpoint, which reduces pre-ignition (pinking). This means that you can retard the ignition timing (spark happens later), when the cylinder pressure is higher, thus getting a greater expansion of hot gases during the power stroke.

This is why aero engines run on 100 octane fuel, although they have low compression engines. The spark is more-or-less at top dead centre, unlike a car engine where it can be as much as 20 degrees before TDC.

forbidden?

[slipgun]

Anyone else not being allowed to access the onestep site anymore? (Are people still reading this story?)

doesn't help the cable provider's bottom line

[makip]

Re: 1) the fact that cable companies have a cap in the first place is already "admitting the fact that they can't handle the desired bandwidth"

re: 2) do you really see an "overloaded" happening b/w 2-5am? I would expect most users will continue their heaviest usage during regular peak times, and should in theory experience better performance.

On the face of it, varying caps for peak/off-peak seems plausable and benefical to all user types, but dont forget cable companies still pay a cost per Mb to providers further up the chain. Shifting usage patterns around like this may not help their bottom line any. In fact it could be worse if it results in greater overall downloads which the current smaller fixed cap per user is preventing.

Re:Broadband addiction?-crying game.

[Anonymous Coward]

if i was using AOL anything i'd be crying, especially aol dial up. i guess AOL's business plan relies on "ignorance is bliss".

Re:Fun? Yes. Legal? Questionable

[electrongunner]

Most "Eurotrash", as you call them, don't have to piss and moan about being thrown in jail...they don't keep 3% of their population in prison for recreational drug use. As of 1994, which were the most recent DOJ statistics I could find. More than 5.1 million Americans -- almost 2.7 percent of the adult population -- were under some form of correctional supervision at the end of 1994. As of 2002, I believe it's closer to 5%. I personally find it laughable that the nation which considers itself the most free, has the highest percentage of its population in prison of any industrialized nation including the former USSR or South Africa. The only conclusion I can find is that either Americans are generally uneducated and unconcerned with both the facts AND morality, or they just love to live like hippocrites. Either way, I'm not proud to be called one. I'd rather move to Canada and pay 40% tax rates and be certain I could see a doctor and afford healthcare, than pay 15%-20% taxes here in the US and be 100% certain it would be used to put my friends in jail and kill people thousands of miles away. It's a very sad state of affairs. As far as I'm concerned, the US government was overthrown when George Bush and his idiot brother Jeb (or is it the other way around) stole an otherwise perfectly decent election from the American people....which sort of makes the legitimacy of America's silly little laws a moot point. So feel free to smoke some heroin and go on a shooting spree. MUAAAHAAAHAAAHhaaaahaaha...!