Cable Firms Limit Users' Freedoms

Passacaglia writes "An article in the Washington Post reports that a coalition of companies, including Dell, Microsoft, IBM, Sun, and even the BSA, have filed a report with the FCC complaining about how cable providers are placing restrictions on how subscribers use broadband access. This is in the wake of the recent FCC ruling that cable providers need not open their networks to competition from outside ISPs. The restrictions include limits on VPNs, servers, and many things that would make broadband really worth having." Meanwhile, TWC sent nastygrams to people it suspects are using unsecured wireless networks, skimming the info from the public database of wireless access points.

Comments

But what CAN we do?

[VEGx]

I know it sucks, but can we FORCE them to open out their network?

Re:But what CAN we do?

[anonymousman77]

You did it to Ma Bell! Why not do it to the cable cos? It's not right to put restrictions on the RBOCS without putting the same on the cable cos.

Re:But what CAN we do?

[CynicTheHedgehog]

They forced Bell to open their networks to CLECs. This isn't all that different.

Re:But what CAN we do?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares if we can or not, we have to at least TRY! What would this country be like if our forefathers just rolled over and payed the tax?

Re:But what CAN we do?

[scott1853]

Don't need to force my provider, they're going to be selling it off in bits and pieces soon enough.

Re:But what CAN we do?

[VEGx]

All I want is some sort of list of thing that could be done. Some things are bad now, some things would be bad if some OTHER things would be done.

Re:But what CAN we do?

[b_pretender]

It's called IP Tunneling.

Re:But what CAN we do?

[1qaz2wsx]

This is precisely what CO-OPs are for. In general, businesses are never going to provide a good deal over time, unless there is TRUE competion for products and services.

How many of you use the services of banks, even though credit unions almost always offer lower service charges, lower loan rates, and higher interest.

It is possible to setup your own ISP, see sugarloaf.net. These guys have broadband in the boonies, for LESS than you are probably paying.....

Re:But what CAN we do?

[unitron]

If you live out in the boonies where no corporation is interested in providing service then that avenue is open to you and is probably the only way you're going to get what you want.

But if you're living somewhere a bit less rural then there's already a phone company and a cable company in place and they already have the local franchise and right of way wrapped up and plenty of money to buy local politicians with, so your chances of getting approval from your local municipality to go into business in competition with them are probably pretty slim.

Re:But what CAN we do?

[JamesOfTheDesert]

Who cares if we can or not, we have to at least TRY! What would this country be like if our forefathers just rolled over and payed the tax?

Yeah! The US was founded by people who believed the goverment should control the marketplace, and step in to force companies to provide services in a manner most convenient to customers.

How about this: remove the government-sanctioned monopolies enjoyed by the cable companies, and let competition drive services.

Re:But what CAN we do?

[jerdenn]

The Cynical Hedgehog spake:
They forced Bell to open their networks to CLECs. This isn't all that different

...And jerdenn argued:
Actually, that statement is only partially correct. The FCC decision you are speaking of has been reversed in a recent court decision, and is expected to be brought more So, while the FCC did force the baby bells to "open" the networks to the CLECs, you'll be seeing them closed back up again soon.

-jerdenn

Re:But what CAN we do?

[pyramid termite]

Yeah! The US was founded by people who believed the goverment should control the marketplace, and step in to force companies to provide services in a manner most convenient to customers.

Well, if they're using public right of ways and monopoly contracts granted by government, they can't really complain if the government demands something back for their setting them up in business, can they?

Re:But what CAN we do?

[Anonymous Coward]

It sounds like the mafia. Fascism sucks.

Re:But what CAN we do?

[Anonymous Coward]

Say what?!

The US was founded by people who believed nothing of the sort. Are you really this ignorant, or are you a troll masquerading as a human?

The US was founded by people who believed the government should be answerable to the people and that the people should have rights of control over, and protection from, their government.

WRT business, the founders were very laissez-faire. They most certainly did not believe that the government should control the marketplace in any way.

Moreover, in a free, properly functioning marketplace, the companies that provide services in a manner most convenient to consumers will be the most successful. It is precisely because of the government's attempt to control the marketplace by granting geographical monopolies to cable companies that you get situations like that. When they have no competition, they can do anything they want.

Next time you want to post, please acquaint yourself at least slightly with your topic. Also make sure your seat belt is firmly fastened and your head has been removed from your ass, so that you can see to type properly.

Re:But what CAN we do?

[Anonymous Coward]

"How about this: remove the government-sanctioned monopolies enjoyed by the cable companies, and let competition drive services."

Yeah, let's deregulate them, it'll work just the deregulating the phone companies did. Oh, and let's not forget the energy sector!

Herbert Hoover: "The problem with capitalists is that they're so damn greedy." (said after he received assurances that certain businesses, which he gave a tax break to, would not fire their employees, they still did)

You can't deregulate anything that is absolutely necessary for a nation to function. Phone service is one of these, power is another. I'm sorry it just doesn't work well. People *have* to know that when they wake up in the morning there will be phones and power.

Deregulation freaks should realize that we *Still* have to pay to bail out power and phone services if they go belly up (local phone). If a state didn't have power and/or phones, anarchy and major economic damage would result.

Too bad cable has proven itself too willing to nail people to a cross with (hidden) costs and fees. You don't just end up being regulated one day. People have to complain that you are doing something wrong. Idiot politicians have to believe them.

I personally don't find cable necessary, but I wouldn't let them string their cable up on government poles for free. I wouldn't let them enter the telecommunications area. Only good thing cable did for me was teach me to hate TV.

Personally I think we should let the whole lot rot.

Re:But what CAN we do?

[Anonymous Coward]

"so your chances of getting approval from your local municipality to go into business in competition with them are probably pretty slim"
That's not always the case. Everest Connections [everestkc.com] is Midwest over builder that has fanchise agreements with most Kansas City metropolitian area and doing to extensive construction.

Re:But what CAN we do?

[JamesOfTheDesert]

Well, if they're using public right of ways and monopoly contracts granted by government, they can't really complain if the government demands something back for their setting them up in business, can they?

True, but layering bad rule on top of bad rules seems a sure way to choke progress and service. Still, it's funny how many (i.e., all) company owners cry "laize faire!" while enjoying special protection from liability.

Re:But what CAN we do?

[darkonc]

The founders of the US were VERY interested in having control of businesses. They were QUITE aware that a big business isn't much different than a government.. In fact, the tea that whas tossed at The Boston Tea Party belonged to, if I remember correctly, the East India Tea Company, who's monopoly on tea trade they especially despised.

Even the godfather of modern Capitalism -- Adam Smith was very aware that, in the market place, a large company is as bad as (if not worse than) the government. His ideal capitalistic world was a large number of SMALL (and I emphasize small with large letters) companies.

To see a small number of very large conglomerates controling not only the market -- but also the government, would have him (and most of the forefathers of the United States) spinning in his grave.

In the first century of America's existence, the people (via the government) kept a very tight reign on corporations -- not wanting to see the kind of corporate control of every day life that was part of what lead to the Revolution. The turning point was the US Civil war. During that time, the government(s) of the US was almost wholly occupied with fighting versions of itself. The corporate entities of the time took advantage of that distraction and weakness to firmly clamp their claws into the inner workings of the Government -- and thus, into everyday American life.

Re:But what CAN we do?

[1qaz2wsx]

The point is, that specific areas of the wireless spectrum is not FCC licensed...which means that you do not need **approval**....you can just do it. Of course, it does take money for equipment and since the spectrum is unlicensed, there are no guarantees that you will not get inteference at some point in the future, but there are options.

Re:But what CAN we do?

[unitron]

And as soon as big business (cable companies, etc) decide you're providing them with some actual competition over those unlicensed frequencies look for them to start buying politicians and FCC commissioners to take those frequencies away from you.

Re:But what CAN we do?

[1qaz2wsx]

Sadly, you are probably correct. In the meantime, systems like Motorola's Canopy is actually providing options. Perhaps this is one of the very few times that living in a marginal market is an advantage....

Re:But what CAN we do?

[Anonymous Coward]

Haha, it's funny when Americans try to rip off French expressions... and then get them wrong =)

Re:But what CAN we do?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, he used the term correctly. Read it again.

Re:But what CAN we do?

[Influencial]

The US started when immigrants refused to pay their taxes from the countries they came from.

Looks crumpled...

[tdischino]

Like he balled it up and threw it in the circular file before retreiving it and scanning it (as I would have done). :)

No way man

[emo boy]

I don't think this kind of crap will ever make it to the big time.

you know what really bothers me?

[wompser]

It really bothers me when all sorts of products advertise boldly "share your cable modem connection with all the computers in your house!" But of course, the cable providers don't support this and send out their cease and desist letters if you do it!

Re:you know what really bothers me?

[Enry]

Of course! Because the cable company wants you to get an IP address for each machine connected to the 'net and PAY for that extra connection. [Diety] forbid that we should want to conserve IP addresses by using NAT, which also adds a thin layer of security over direct portscans. Nope, they want their extra $10/IP/mo.

Re:you know what really bothers me?

[Sabalon]

The line tech brought the modem, tested the signal strength, proved what a good 'ol boy he was and left. Had the modem hooked up to my machine and online in 10 seconds after he left.

When the techs came out and "installed" my line, they recommended the Linksys model cause they saw the 5 computers sitting by the modem (sadly, still only have the main one and the notebook online - kids take a lot of time!). I showed them my Linux router. They installed the alternate dial-in numbers and setup Outlook for me, explaining that it was what they were required to do to cover their assess. I told them I understood and not to worry about it. (Didn't have the heart to tell them I was gonna reformat that weekend anyway!)

Re:you know what really bothers me?

[erohw amrak]

But of course, the cable providers don't support this and send out their cease and desist letters if you do it!

The "cease and desist" letter above was to a person sharing his cable access with anonymous users via amplified wireless antennas; this is certainly NOT the same as using a router to provide access to three machines in the same house.

There is no way that the terms-of-service allow this sort of practice, nor should they. This introduces a number of security risks onto the network, with no accountability. It costs money in bandwidth and lowers the quality of service for many paying customers on the same end of the cable line. Indeed, the person was breaking the TOS, and should have been cut off immediately rather than warned.

Re:you know what really bothers me?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the issue here is that he's not just sharing it with the computers in his house, he's sharing it with everyone. The issue raised in the letter about someone using the connection to commit a crime is an extremely valid one -- there would be no way to find the actual perpetrator, because the trail would end with your account (and you). And it's a good bet that if this happened, the FBI would take your computers off your hands for you, not to mention take a hard look at you as the person who committed the crime.

If I was a hax0r, and looking to launch the next DDoS attack, I would definitely start by finding an unsecured wireless network. That would make me virtually untraceable.

Re:you know what really bothers me?

[Anonymous Coward]

Look bitch, stop spreading your fucking FUD or I'm gonna grind your bones into paste.

Re:you know what really bothers me?

[MadAhab]

Great, so if I'm at a party at your house and I use your phone to call in a death threat to the President, you should go to jail for having an unsecured phone line, right? Retard.

Re:you know what really bothers me?

[Anonymous Coward]

um.. unless his modem was uncapped the extra wireless users would not be able to use any more bandwidth than he is already paying for.

Re:you know what really bothers me?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, but if you put your phone outside and let people use it however they want, the phone company might take it away. It's called Terms of Service. Moron.

Re:you know what really bothers me?

[gomiam]

Of course, but... why searching for such networks? There's a lot of xDSL/cable subscribers out there with their PCs open wide. It's not even worth the price of a wireless LAN card, methinks.

By the way, I'm afraid DDoSing from a wireless LAN would still have a limit: the subscriber's net connection cap. So it would probably be useless.

til next post...

Marcos (any likeness to chance is pure reality)

Re:you know what really bothers me?

[Anonymous Coward]

No no, you misunderstand. The wireless LAN would be used as an entry point, not as part of the DDoS. Hacking a computer invariably leaves some sort of trail, in log files and so forth, that might eventually lead back to the starting point. But if you've used a wireless LAN, the trail ends there.

The difficulty in hacking isn't the hacking, it's the not getting caught.

Re:you know what really bothers me?

[Zeinfeld]

Great, so if I'm at a party at your house and I use your phone to call in a death threat to the President, you should go to jail for having an unsecured phone line, right? Retard.

Perhaps there should be a down mod for 'unjustified namecalling', or maybe thats just flamebait.

When I did security for the Whitehouse the death threats were a major problem. There is a federal law that says that the secret service have to investigate each and every one.

So if you have someone com to your party and they make a phone call from your phone with a death threat against the President you are in a heck of a lot of deep doo-doo. Even if you do convince the secret service chaps that you are OK the experience is not likely to be plesant.

The same thing pretty much holds for supporting anonymous contact points. It is certainly a risk.

Given that the administration's re-election plan as revealed by Karl Rove is to exploit as much fear of terrorism as possible, having someone make a death threat or announcement of an Al-Qaeda attack via your open access port would be a decidely bad thing. That might not be enough to send you to jail according to the constitution, but only the second ammendment appears to be respected at this point.

So maybe it should not happen that way, but don't discount the probability that it could.

Re:you know what really bothers me?

[Com2Kid]

NAT is a pain in the ass, at least the Linksys 'solutions' that I so often get called in to fix are.

(I hear other manufacturers do not blow quite as much)

I find it much easier just to pay the damn $3 a month, yeesh. Considering what Static IPs USED to be at. . . . $3 a month is darn cheap!

Re:you know what really bothers me?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've heard many similar complaints about Linksys. I use Netgear. Problem free for 2.5 years. :)

Re:you know what really bothers me?

[ergo98]

What's with the "retard" comment? You immediately dismissed your reply as the slotherings of a pre-teen juvenile kid.

In any case, you ARE responsible for your phone. If, at that same party, a guest made a call to a 900 number and left it off the hook for the night you _WILL_ be charged for the bill, and there will be no way out of it.

Re:you know what really bothers me?

[ergo98]

While this concept seems to be beyond the gimmee-gimmee crowd, the high speed cable networks, just like the phone system, the cell phone system, and just about every shared system, is oversubscribed : They do some complex calculations about the amount of bandwidth that an average family will do, and the pricing is based upon that. If someone is setting himself up as a terminal, obviously his usage pattern is going to be very irregular for an ordinary family, and it's virtually certain that he's using far more capacity than the connection was intended for. As such, they have every right to shut him off, and kudos to them for doing it : It really pisses me off when righteous, gimmee-gimmees claim their god given right to have an endless stream of anything when the economics simply do not support their claims (the cable companies CAN'T let you run 100% 24/7 without significantly raising the price, or withdrawing the service. If someone believes otherwise, often coupling their absurd argument with a claim that "bandwidth is free, man!", then I encourage them to set up high speed networks where they offer DS1 speeds for $40 a month).

Re:you know what really bothers me?

[Anonymous Coward]

NAT is a pain in the ass, at least the Linksys 'solutions' that I so often get called in to fix are.

I was using Linux ipchains for my NAT purposes for a while. It would mysteriously stop working every now and then, and I'd have to restart ipchains. I bought a Linksys router/switch and have had no problems for the last year. Though ipchains has many more features.

Re:you know what really bothers me?

[zootread]

1. Setup public wireless LAN
2. Crack systems from it (making sure to leave no evidence locally)
3. Claim someone else was using it and is responsible for cracking, and that you are innocent

Re:you know what really bothers me?

[nil_null]

They don't support it, but they don't disallow it either. This is from a Time Warner / Roadrunner cable service FAQ:

LANs on Road Runner
The standard Road Runner Residential Service is designed for single-computer configurations. However, you are able to connect multiple computers to a single cable modem with the use of a hub. Such local area network (LAN) configurations are your responsibility to install and support.
Note: LAN configurations and hubs could decrease the performance of your Road Runner service, especially if multiple computers/users are using the service simultaneously.

However, here's an interesting bit from their policy list:

You must adopt adequate security measures to prevent or minimize unauthorized use of your account, including proper levels of security on mail, web and news servers maintained at your location.

I would imagine running a public WLAN would violate this last policy.

Re:you know what really bothers me?

[Anonymous Coward]

> I was using Linux ipchains for my NAT purposes for a while. It would mysteriously stop working every now and then, and I'd have to restart ipchains. I bought a Linksys router/switch and have had no problems for the last year. Though ipchains has many more features.

If you could only use ipchains, I'd suggest a kernel upgrade and start using iptables. I've been masquerading for quite some time, with no issues at all. Sounds like you were having NIC driver issues or some such.

Re:you know what really bothers me?

[shepd]

>just like the phone system... ...and just about every shared system, is oversubscribed

I have a residential phone line that stays connected to another local residential phone line 24x7.

>If someone is setting himself up as a terminal, obviously his usage pattern is going to be very irregular for an ordinary family, and it's virtually certain that he's using far more capacity than the connection was intended for. As such, they have every right to shut him off, and kudos to them for doing it

Does Bell therefore have every right to shut me off? I mean, you can't use any more capacity than 100% (actually, its quite a bit less than that, far less than the 99% average Bell guarantees because the lines are so piss poor out here).

If Bell, or Cable COs don't want people using their lines to their full potential, then its Bell's/Cable COs' job to change their service plan. In every other aspect than local service and most Cable internet, this has already happened. Allow me to demonstrate:

- Long distance phone calls eat up lines. Solution: Long distance charges ensure people don't tie up the phone lines unless they are actively using them.
- Cell phone calls use up limited cell bandwidth. Solution: No unlimited weekday-daytime minutes. You get a "reasonable" amount of minutes included with your plan, any overage that they would consider harmful to their servicing of other customers is charged for.

So, its about time the Cable COs followed the lead of so many other successful companies. Do what the (very few) smart Satellite internet service providers did when they ran out of bandwidth: Give everyone a "reasonable" amount of data transfer free with their account (and ensure the exact amount remaining is easy find out), and charge for anything extra. 10 Gigs ought to be far more than enough. Problem solved, crisis averted.

But instead, users who take advantage of the gaping wide hole in the Cable COs sales plans are punished. If anything, I think its about time for a judge to tell the Cable COs unlimited means a 100% saturated line 24x7, and that anything less has to be documented and explained to the customer.

Re:you know what really bothers me?

[Higher Authority]

Well I for one am forced into using NAT thanks to Charter's one-IP-fits-all scheme. I have three machines, and I would welcome two more public IP addresses. NAT does not add thin security, nor does it conserve addresses while actually being useful. It only delays the inevitable, and becomes a royal pain in the ass.

Re:you know what really bothers me?

[Higher Authority]

I don't know about you, but when I come across an ISP advertising 24/7 always-on Internet access, I think they damn well better deliver. The courts agree, and any consumer that sues when an ISP doesn't deliver would make a very interesting (and likely winning) case.

And the problem with oversubscription is not the fault of consumers. If they advertise high-speed Internet, one should be able to assume that it is high-speed. If the schmucks oversubscribe their service, that's the ISPs own damn fault.

Second, you're philosophically hollow; I can see right through you. The Internet has become a public medium, and it always deserved to be one since the day Academia got involved with it. The only reason bandwidth isn't free is because most of the world still uses a monetary system. I, being biased towards a nonmonetary system, would whole-heartedly agree that bandwidth should be free. I would not go so far as to say bandwidth *is* free, however. I would say, though, that companies overcharge quite a bit. Do you think a bullshit cable company such as the only few cable companies offering Internet access would survive if the market were *truly* competitive?

Re:you know what really bothers me?

[Higher Authority]

Now that is quite intriguing: a company that actually seems to recognize the de facto state of quite a few consumers...

Re:you know what really bothers me?

[ergo98]

I have a residential phone line that stays connected to another local residential phone line 24x7.

If you're connected to another phone that's service by the same CO, then it really isn't a problem: In essence you're using your local loop and their local loop, and a circuit in between. If, on the other hand, one of your loops is serviced by a remote CO, or a different CO all together, or the data has to go through a toll center, then Bell really DOESN'T like that: You're actually consuming 64Kbps 24/7 on their digital trunks, and again they don't have enough trunks to support everyone being on the line at the same time.

The only reason you can get away with it, so to speak, is that most Bells are highly regulated, and the government heavily restrains them from charging based on use, etc. However, if there were more people making dedicated connections (versus switched connections) then Bell would lobby for, and would get, changes that would allow them to charge extra to high users.

Re:you know what really bothers me?

[ergo98]

I don't know about you, but when I come across an ISP advertising 24/7 always-on Internet access

There is a massive difference between "always on" and "always at 100%". Always on means that I can hop on my PC 7 seconds before the movie comes on to check if it's worthwhile on IMDB. Always on means ICQ can sit waiting for an incoming "Hey there!" message. Always on doesn't mean that I'll stream a 1.5Mbps video feed 24/7 just for the heck of it.

If they advertise high-speed Internet, one should be able to assume that it is high-speed.

Again, it is high speed : Yesterday I needed to grab a 48MB file, and in blistering fast fashion I had it and could use it in a convenient and usefully small period of time. Again, always on+always fast != suck data 24/7.

Second, you're philosophically hollow; I can see right through you. The Internet has become a public medium, and it always deserved to be one since the day Academia got involved with it. The only reason bandwidth isn't free is because most of the world still uses a monetary system. I, being biased towards a nonmonetary system, would whole-heartedly agree that bandwidth should be free.

Bwahahahahaahah. I think you need to pay a little more attention to that Grade 11 economics class. Nothing is ever free, regardless of the society (were things "Free" in the Soviet Union? Guess what: They weren't), but I won't bother explaining human nature to someone who's such a prophet.

I would say, though, that companies overcharge quite a bit. Do you think a bullshit cable company such as the only few cable companies offering Internet access would survive if the market were *truly* competitive?

Uh...yes? Ignoring the fact that about 3/4 of the high speed providers have gone bankrupt in the last couple of years (boy, they're just making money hand over fist!), for most cable companies high speed is a loss leader way to try to entice people to stay with cable for their TV needs (TV, a unidirectional spitting of 20% advertisements, which costs me more than my internet connection which people like you claim is overcharged....), rather than getting satellite (and alternately the phone company wants you to get DSL, because that'll remove the barrier to you signing up with their satellite TV plan).

Re:you know what really bothers me?

[Higher Authority]

There is a massive difference between "always on" and "always at 100%"

Yes, and with today's service providers, it's hard to find one that offers both but provides both, let alone is reliable. But while there may be a difference with always on and always at 100%, why should it matter? If a service offers something, it should offer it and that's that. Afterall, we pay for what we have, whether or not we use it. If we can't use it all the time, why are we paying for it all the time?

Again, it is high speed : Yesterday...

...in a convenient and usefully small period of time...

Good for your convenience. We're not all the same, and not all of us can stand small intervals of time. Some of us actually have attention spans.

Bwahahahahaahah. I think you need to pay a little more attention to that Grade 11 economics class.

I'm not talking economics, I'm talking philosphy, and being whismical at that. If you didn't pick that up, perhaps you should be the one going back to grade school.

...but I won't bother explaining human nature to someone...

I well versed in human nature, being one, thank you.

Uh...yes? Ignoring the fact that about 3/4 of the high speed providers have gone bankrupt in the last couple of years (boy, they're just making money hand over fist!), for most cable companies high speed is a loss leader way to try to entice people to stay with cable for their TV needs...

It's only their fault they've gone backrupt and haven't managed their service properly. It's only their fault their network was a piece of shite after they severly oversubscribed and undermanaged it.

In the mean time switch to verizon online or some other crappy service which doesn't push such crap on you.

That sounds like a sure-fire way to go under to me. Let's just all go out and offer a piece of shit product to promote our other piece of shit product!

Now, let me get this straight. You're saying that not only are they already losing money as it is, raising prices to keep in business, they are a bullshit cable company...now let's introduce true competition. Prices go down farther, they lose more money, and how do they stay in business then?

Re:you know what really bothers me?

[ergo98]

Good for your convenience. We're not all the same, and not all of us can stand small intervals of time. Some of us actually have attention spans.

Ouch! Touche! Good one Einstein.

I'm not talking economics, I'm talking philosphy, and being whismical at that. If you didn't pick that up, perhaps you should be the one going back to grade school.

Sure.

It's only their fault they've gone backrupt and haven't managed their service properly. It's only their fault their network was a piece of shite after they severly oversubscribed and undermanaged it.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense: They went bankrupt because they oversubscribed it. Oh, wait, simple logic says that that would be more cost effective and would actually make more money...bzzttttt...logic sensors exploding. Obviously they undercharged for the bandwidth and services that they provided, usually on the premise that once they got settled they could raise prices or create partnerships that would offset the losses. Again, if you think you have such a genius comprehension of the cost of bandwidth and connectivity, I'm sure there'll be lots of people who'll be happy to sign up for your always super fast, no limits $20/month system. Oh wait, that should be free.

Now, let me get this straight. You're saying that not only are they already losing money as it is, raising prices to keep in business, they are a bullshit cable company...now let's introduce true competition. Prices go down farther, they lose more money, and how do they stay in business then?

(I'm skipping the fantasy quote where you either put words in my mouth, or are errantly replying to a whole different post). Firstly, idealists such as yourself don't care about "real competition" : You want to see AT&T and TW be forced to hand over billions of dollars of infrastructure so that someone else can provide magical bandwidth for free. Barring that, your competitor will have to run cable to everyone's home, and I don't see that happening anytime soon. However, competition doesn't equal "same technology same method" : In my area right now I can get DSL, cable, high speed two way radio, satellite (including the uplink now), along with dial-up. Strangely, the prices all seem to fall in line, and none of them has a magical way of offering guaranteed round-the-clock DS1 speeds for $40/month.

Re:you know what really bothers me?

[Higher Authority]

Replace that fantasy quote with this:

...for most cable companies high speed is a loss leader way to try to entice people to stay with cable for their TV needs...

Now that should make a little more sense...

Firstly, idealists such as yourself don't care about "real competition" : You want to see AT&T and TW be forced to hand over billions of dollars of infrastructure so that someone else can provide magical bandwidth for free.

It's quite obvious you don't know, or don't care, where I'm coming from. If there were no economy based on monetary units, there would be no need for monetary units, and nothing would be valued by meaningless paper. Think about that one a bit, hm? And second, don't tell me what I don't want, I am fully capable of deciding that myself.

I'm sure there'll be lots of people who'll be happy to sign up for your always super fast, no limits $20/month system. Oh wait, that should be free.

Sure, and they would be had. Check out DirecTV DSL. It's very reasonable service, for a very reasonable price. Read the service agreement, it's thorough, and written by a company who seems to know what they're doing. This is not written by your loss leader-productizing firm. Go read one of their service agreements. Charter's, for example, last time I checked was written by one of those millions of typing monkeys, last time I checked. If Shakespear is possible, I suppose anything is. It's no wonder the service they offer is complained about by the majority of people.

In my area right now I can get DSL, cable, high speed two way radio, satellite (including the uplink now), along with dial-up.

First off, let me say: you lucky bitch. And what thriving metropolis is this you speak of?

Anyway, now that you're starting to make some sense...I can see where you are coming from. Now understand where I am coming from: a typical American neighborhood where there are two choices: dial-up or cable. Other places have dial-up or DSL. And by Cable or DSL, I mean a monopoly. There is more often than not only one Cable provider, or one DSL provider, and there's were we start having problems. A place like where you are has competition, so naturally things would seem reasonable.

As far as round-the-clock DS1 speeds go...do cable providers claim to offer roud-the-clock speeds 50x greater than dial-up? Yes; it's advertised thusly in virtually every commercial. Do cable providers often provide such a service: no, because they don't really care about their cable Internet service, it's just a "loss leader", and a way to make a few extra bucks while keeping a select customer base (i.e., the clueless computer illiterates) happy. It works for them and their clueless happy users. It does not work for me, but alas, I am slummed into it because there is a coincidental monopoly. That monopoly is caused by deregulation. Now do you see where I'm coming from?

Re:you know what really bothers me?

[shepd]

>If, on the other hand, one of your loops is serviced by a remote CO, or a different CO all together, or the data has to go through a toll center, then Bell really DOESN'T like that

;-)

Due to Bell's own stupidity (nothing ever really changes) walking North (or is it West? Its been a while since I've checked the calling map...) for about 1/2 hour brings me out of my calling area, but driving for 3/4 of an hour the other way still leaves me in my "local" calling area.

You can guess which side of town the other phone's in.

>However, if there were more people making dedicated connections (versus switched connections) then Bell would lobby for, and would get, changes that would allow them to charge extra to high users.

I totally agree, and I'd be using something other than the phone line if it weren't that Bell (and everyone else, including wireless services) refuses to service my area with anything better. Ho Hum.

Re:you know what really bothers me?

[Anonymous Coward]

$3! Damn, you're lucky! Where I live, you have to pay $99/mo to have the PRIVILEGE from Time Warner Cable to have their "business class" service (without which you are required to have a dynamic address and are prohibited from running servers of any kind), plus $20/mo or so for EACH IP address.

Re:you know what really bothers me?

[Mr.Sharpy]

While it is true that access providers oversell their services based on a formula that depends on normal usage habits, the problem is that that kind of service is not what they advertise. They advertise continuous connections and highspeeds, with no disclaimer that that does not mean highspeed continuous connection. They should either revise their advertising, or their terms of service to reflect what they are really selling.

As a side note, the justification for restricting usage by saying that providers oversell their services is really sort of off base. If enough people are 'overusing' the service that service degrades, that should indicate that the formula they use to calculate the amount by which they can oversell is in need of adjustment. If they do so and discover they can't oversell as much and are unable to break even on service costs and revenue, then they need to adjust their pricing in accordance with what they find.

It all comes down to the users

[alen]

Most users have no idea how the tech works and interacts together. So the solution to huge support costs is to dumb things down. Even helping a user troubleshoot on the phone is an ardous task. Now I don't mean the average slashdotter who knows more than the support people. But the average user who only knows who to click the icons on the screen.

As far as servers, bandwith is expensive. You're always free to purchase the business package which lets you run servers. It's always the small minority who are the bandwith hogs and want it all for less than the cost of providing the service.

Re:It all comes down to the users

[ZxCv]

So why can't I run a server without a "business" package, even though my upstream is capped? Wasn't the whole point of an upstream cap to *discourage* people from running servers while not banning it altogether?

Re:It all comes down to the users

[ivan256]

You're always free to purchase the business package which lets you run servers.

The business package the cable company in my area offers is the same as the residential package with 5 more e-mail addresses and 4x the price. There's still a dynamic IP, a proxy, a port 80 block, and the support is still clueless.

I think we need to come up with another word other then "server", because "Server" has this big expensive price tag associated with it. Why can't I run a finger daemon, or sshd, or sendmail and imapd? That's an insignificant amount of bandwidth. What's the point of a dedicated internet connection if you disallow all the advantages? How is that "unlimited" internet? If you only want to surf the web, you might as well have dialup. If bandwidth is expensive, then companies should put a price on it. You get the amount you pay for, and you can do whatever you want with it.

Cable modems should be priced like burstable T1's used to be. You get a peak bandwidth, which you can use for x number of bytes per month, and you get a typical rate, which is sufficient for the rest of the time. Software enforces the limits, and you can do whatever you want with the bandwidth you pay for. There shouldn't be some nebulous definition of "unresonable use". You should just not be allowed to do what you're not allowed to do. That way you couldn't have "bandwith hogs" in the first place. It sucks that I have to pay $99 a month for 1.5Mb SDSL just because I need the speed sometimes (8 hours, 1 day a week) but I can't use my connection for what I need it for if I have a cable modem.

Re:It all comes down to the users

[stripes]

You're always free to purchase the business package which lets you run servers.

Ummmm, no, not you can't. I can buy cable IP access and 1 to 5 IP addresses. I can't buy any busniess service at all. Which is a shame because I would pay about 4x as much, which is what my DSL provider was getting before they went under, and is about what all the other DSL providers charge...except they can't reach my home!

I don't even really want a lot of bandwidth...just to be able to ssh back home and check things, to play sounds to amuse my dog, and to irratate my wife, and to handle my own e-mail so when the next ISP goes Tango Uniform I don't have to care. Of corse having them cleverly have their cable modems crash once a day or so really puts a damper on that...anyone know where to get a good serial or ethernet controled power strip?

Re:It all comes down to the users

[brad-x]

Correct. If perhaps their caps are costing them money because they're being utilized to their full potential, maybe they need to re-evaluate their business model and lower the caps a bit.

Not to cause a reaction or anything, but I'd even consider a rate hike in order to keep them solvent, while providing a reasonable service that don't impede the rights of the user.

Then again, the new policy being imposed on quite a number of ISP customers is a per gig fee for anything over a set minimum, usually 5GB/month. I'm not very big on that.

Re:It all comes down to the users

[Anonymous Coward]

anyone know where to get a good serial or ethernet controled power strip?

APC (yeah, the UPS company) makes a product that's basically a glorified power strip that plugs into a network. You could either do that, or get a real UPS and just use some software to forcibly power-cycle it from the computer.

Re:It all comes down to the users

[digitalsushi]

server (ser`-vr) n. When a customer can locate their machine without sitting in front of it.

That's in jest. As a netadmin for an ISP, though, I feel that if a customer wants to run a server on their connection, fine. They probably are never going to call in for support because they're either clueful enough not to need to, or scared enough that they didn't want to get caught (never realizing that our AUP doesn't forbid it, ironically). Seems that about 3 out of 128 people were running web servers. I wonder how many knew it.

Re:It all comes down to the users

[weave]

I don't even really want a lot of bandwidth...just to be able to ssh back home and check things

Create an IPTABLES rule like...

iptables -A INPUT -p tcp -s x.x.x.x/32 -dport 22 -j ACCEPT
iptables -A INPUT -p tcp -dport 22 -j reject-with tcp-reset

They can scan for you all they want. Just sub -s with your CIDR of choice where you want to come with, and anyone else trying to connect to port 22 gets connection reset, making it look like nothing is listening on the port.

Re:It all comes down to the users

[ealar dlanvuli]

Yes, I agree completly.

When I got the letter telling me my cable downstream was getting cut 90% and my prices were increasing 20%, and they were blocking port 80, and my newsgroups downloads were being capped at 1gb/month, I was like "WTF, have they never heard of freaking bandwidth auditing, morons".

I have (buisness) DSL now, they audit my bandwidth, and if I use too much they charge me for it. It's defined clearly in my TOS. I can run a server if I want, though I'd proy get a call at 2am if I ran something and got it slashdoted. They make money, I spend money, I don't fear explaining my network setup to the Tech support people when thier dhcp server decides to break again (that happened about weekly on @HOME), and all in all it's the same cost as the (now) 'caped at a slower speed' cable connection.

Cable companies strike me as a internet bubble dream thats now living down the own nightmare of thier existance. @Home seemed to know what they were doing as an ISP (if they had only left excite alone...), but now it just feels like cable is being run by incompitent CIO's who are aspiring to be CEO's.

Re:It all comes down to the users

[ivan256]

I can understand the 1GB/month newsgroup cap. It requires an enormous amount of resources to run a news server. The rest, I agree, is rediculous. Personally, I'd be happy if add on services were priced seperatly from the bandwidth. For example, my current connection is just a raw pipe to MCI with 8 static IPs. I pay an additional $7/month for 2GB/mont news access (That I only ever use at most 30MB of) and I run my own services for everything else. I get to choose the best providers for the services I want, and the ISP doesn't have to allocate resources to me that I'll never use. It seems like everyone wins.

It also seems to me that the cable companies (around here at least) were tryng to save money, and cut back on staff. Unfortunatly, they got rid of the more expensive employees that knew what they were doing and only kept the green admins. It's unfortunate, because half as many experienced admins probably could do a better job then what, say, the attbi admins do. Probably a decision made by a technologically impared PHB.

Re:It all comes down to the users

[Megane]

I can understand the 1GB/month newsgroup cap. It requires an enormous amount of resources to run a news server.

However, it can save an enormous amount of bandwidth resources if an ISP has a good news server on their network, or has a direct connection to a newsgroup provider like Giganews. A well run binaries newsgroup server can cut down on the number of people getting their anime in IRC chat rooms, or from a newsgroup provider.

1 gigabyte is five or six episodes of DivX anime. I download 2 gigs a week, and I'm not downloading nearly as heavily as I used to, mostly because of current lack of time to burn it all and lack of money to buy more big hard drives.

For you stats junkies, I just checked mine. Over a period of 21 months (the first 10 having a cap of 384K due to CO distance), I downloaded 175.65GB and uploaded 12.26GB (mostly ACKs). I've got over 250 burned CD-Rs and another 60GB or so on my hard drives to prove it. (some of that came from F2F sharing) I sometimes carry a third of a terabyte with one arm. :-)

Re:It all comes down to the users

[DunbarTheInept]

As far as servers, bandwith is expensive.

Yeah, and as far as apples go, I like Sunkist.

I have oodles of servers running on my machine right now that take very little bandwith, but just sit there waiting until I need them briefly. For example, there's everything that runs under inetd.conf.

The travesty is that cable providers give us this crap that server-denying is necessary to reduce bandwith, when more bandwith is taken up by prOn downloads than by anything I'd be putting up on a server.

Re:It all comes down to the users

[DunbarTheInept]

I'd be fearful of signing a contract that says I'll pay extra for excessive bandwith when I'm not in control of that bandwith. If someone felt like being a jackass and decided to flood my webserver there isn't a thing I could do about it on my end. I could deny the hits from that address, but that doesn't prevent the fact that the requests coming in still count against my download bandwith. I would much, much rather ask for the provider to have a cap in place that throttles my bandwith so I am not financially responsible for OTHER PEOPLE making me go over.

Re:It all comes down to the users

[Anonymous Coward]

> They can scan for you all they want. Just sub -s with your CIDR of choice where you want to come with, and anyone else trying to connect to port 22 gets connection reset, making it look like nothing is listening on the port.

Why is reject-with-tcp-reset better than DROP?

Re:It all comes down to the users

[ealar dlanvuli]

My ISP would call me if I started bursting in an irregular fassion (regular being downloading a few ISO's or serving 100 hits for an hour and then stoping), and I would have them set up a upstream block for me.

Your thinking they are out to screw me, these guys are just trying to be the best ISP possible for all the user types they can find, and they are compitent enough to pull it off.

Re:It all comes down to the users

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no need to actively scan the ips you are using - they can collect netflow data at aggregation points upstream from your connection and see exactly what traffic you are running so blocking with iptables entries will not help. If you are running on standard ports, they could track that traffic...

Re:It all comes down to the users

[Anonymous Coward]

If you do drop, it looks like there is something at that port and is being filtered or firewalled. tcp reset makes it behave like the box is up and nothing is on that port.

Re:It all comes down to the users

[DunbarTheInept]

Your thinking they are out to screw me

No. Not all screwings are deliberate. Sometimes a policy that seems like a good idea has unforseen side effects. Making users pay for excess bandwith *seems* like a reasonable way to do it, until you stop to think about how a user isn't fully in control of the bandwith usage hitting his leaf node.

This upstream block, how long would it take to get it set up, and in the time between when it went up and when the problem started a lot of your bandwith got burned - would that still count against your cap or would they reset the counter for you?

And when the attack is from distributed locations, such that a block would be ineffective - what then?

What would be nice (and I don't know enough of the TCP/IP sytem to know if this is possible) would be if you did not get charged for the initial connection negotiation packets, and only got measured based on the data packets. That way if your system is configured to reject a connection, repeated attempts to make that connection don't count against your cap. Then you could actually do something about the bandwith-eating offender at your end, on your leaf node, before their actions start to affect your bandwith.

Of course, that doesn't address unstreamed traffic (datagrams) that don't need to negotiate a connection. I don't know how those could be protected against.

Re:It all comes down to the users

[Anonymous Coward]

It's fairly simple. I don't worry about it because I don't hang out with l33t hax0rz, but if i did I wouldn't be to worried as I could take the DOS'er to small calims court if it cost me real money (and if my ISP didn't pass the cost on to me, I can be prety certain they would do it on their own). It's not really all that hard to figure out I think.

Re:It all comes down to the users

[Anonymous Coward]

And when the attack is from distributed locations, such that a block would be ineffective - what then?

his isp would probably give him a new IP for a few days, set an upstream block on his, and voila.

You can't always have your lunch and eat it too, when the lunch was free.

Re:It all comes down to the users

[ivan256]

A machine capable of serving uncapped binary groups to a subscriber base in the 10,000s costs MILLIONS of dollars. (If you want reasonable performance, anyway) It will take a very long time to recoup the costs of such a machine on bandwidth savings, especially when it takes about 20% less bandwidth to download files over a binary protocol then it does to download them over NNTP, and that most news leaches will probably significantly reduce their useage because of a cap.

A more intellegent way for them to go, however, would be to remove the news server access from their service, and then charge users for the bandwidth they use. It wouldn't have to be much. $2 a gigabyte would be enough.

Re:It all comes down to the users

[DunbarTheInept]

I don't worry about it because I don't hang out with l33t hax0rz,

All it takes is one vengeful idiot-savant who knows how to set up a distributed attack, but knows nothing about social ettiquite. You don't need to hang out with lots of them to run across one. And given the current state of cluelessness with tech issues that the judicial system has, I wouldn't put any faith at all in the ability of a randomly chosen small calims court judge to be able to understand what's going on enough to rule in your favor.

Microsoft

[nat5an]

So wait a minute....Microsoft is behind the fight for broadband freedom? But they're evil! I know we rotate daily on hating the MPAA, but it seems like everyday is Microsoft-hating day.

Can't handle...ambiguitity...black and white viewpoint...blurring to gray...

Re:Microsoft

[plover]

You're confusing this with the Two-Minutes Hate.

"nat5an's struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Bill Gates."

Re:Microsoft

[LowneWulf]

Heh.
They are doing the right things. Just for the wrong reasons.

Downloading your soul and silently uploading DRM upgrades in its place takes a lot of bandwidth. And a lot of this remote 0wning^H^H^H^H^H^Hassistance stuff in the OS could be considered servers, which many broadband providers ban. It'd suck to have your plans for world domination delayed for five years because the users' 56k modems don't pull it fast enough.

Re:Microsoft

[NanoGator]

"Microsoft is behind the fight for broadband freedom?"

My assumption is that they're fighting to make sure everybody and their mother runs MSN's net service. My gf's mother bought a computer with XP on it. I'm a little light on details, but the computer was trying to VPN to MSN via AT&T's cable modem. There were problems with that so they asked me to remove it, which I was happy to do.

I'm pretty sure the nature of MS's complaint is that they can't expand into cable as an ISP.

Criminal activity by Time Warner

[The Original Bobski]

Acusing someone of criminal activity without just cause is, itself a felony.

Re:Criminal activity by Time Warner

[gwernol]

Acusing someone of criminal activity without just cause is, itself a felony.

I don't see how Time Warner have done that, at least in the case of the nastygram. They are saying that connecting an unsecured wireless AP to their network makes it possible for people to use the service to perform criminal acts. They haven't accused the user of any criminal activity.

Skipping over, for a moment, what those acts might be and which ones are really criminal... this seems like a reasonable enough position to take. If you or Time Warner knowingly provide the means for someone else to perform a criminal act, you can be held partly responsible for that act. This may well be a risk that you as an individual are prepared to take, but Time Warner who service millions of accounts are in a very different position. There is a huge potential liability here, and they are trying to guard against that. This isn't so unreasonable, especially if it is part of the contract you signed with them (i.e. their Terms of Service).

Does this mean I am happy that Time Warner are doing this? No.

Should we have enough competition in the broadband market that you can find a better supplier than Time Warner? Yes.

Are Time Warner committing a felony, or even doing something that is shady? I don't think so. Of course, IANAL.

Re:Criminal activity by Time Warner

[Anonymous Coward]

problem is, it kinda looks like they did their homework.

You do business with somebody, you do it on terms that are known to both parties. If you don't like the terms, you go elsewhere, and, say, do like I do and pay the commercial rates for a pipe with no restrictions on use.

There's a reason that cable modem users pay $25/mb for bandwidth, and commercial users pay $100 and up -- it has to do with how much both parties expect the circuit to be used.

Re:Criminal activity by Time Warner

[Nfnitloop]

I think he was referring to the link at the bottom of the article that says it seems they are skimming these people's names off public databases instead of finding people who are actually doing it through their own access logs and their own investigation.
BTW, the replies to the linked comment above are interesting too.

Re:Criminal activity by Time Warner

[The Original Bobski]

problem is, it kinda looks like they did their homework.

The problem is you didn't follow all the links. To quote:

"The problem I have though, is that I was never running a node. Ever. Indeed, I do not own, nor have I ever owned, a single piece of wireless networking equipment.

No cards, no WAPs, no nothing. All I did was express interest in the project, and sign on to the maps as a *possible* *cloud* node. I have never attended a NYCWireless meeting. I havn't participated in the listservs in months."

To quote the letter:

"We have information indicating that you or someone using your Road Runner account has been transmitting the Road Runner service over a wireless network so that anyone with a wireless network card can tap into our service without authorization from us."

Further quoting:

"This activity also violates a number of federal and state laws..."

Sure sounds like accusation to me. But where is the "homework?" Where is the evidence and just cause for making the accusation?

Re:Criminal activity by Time Warner

[unitron]

"We have information indicating that you or someone using your Road Runner account..."

So basically TW is admitting that their security is so poor that they let someone else exploit his account?

Re:Criminal activity by Time Warner

[Anonymous Coward]

Just out of curiousity, what feder and state laws would you be violating?

Re:Criminal activity by Time Warner

[Higher Authority]

...provide the means for someone else to perform a criminal act, you can be held partly responsible for that act...

That's the lazy way of doing things. We're a lazy society. That's because we must hold *someone* within slapping distance responsible, or else we have failed ourselves and our wonderful society! What a shame *that* would be, if we didn't slap someone.

Re:Criminal activity by Time Warner

[Higher Authority]

Ok smarty, how about proof? Do we not require, by law, something beyond a reasonable doubt? I would call "We have information indicating such-and-such abitrary act occuring [but we won't provide it to you]" a reasonable doubt. Unless someone provides the "information indicating", they can all fuck off.

Re:Criminal activity by Time Warner

[unitron]

So are you agreeing with me, disagreeing, or were you actually trying to reply to the parent of my reply?

Re:Criminal activity by Time Warner

[The Original Bobski]

Just out of curiousity, what feder and state laws would you be violating?

Well, shit. You had to ask. I didn't include a link in my original post because I couldn't find it straight away. Now that you've made me search for it I find I can't find it! Damn!

I ran across it some time ago researching a predicament of my own. Now I've got to go searching again to find it.

I do clearly recall, though, that if you accuse someone of a felony offense without just cause you have committed a felony offense yourself.

If you really need to know I would suggest contacting a lawyer.

Re:Criminal activity by Time Warner

[Rakarra]

"We have information indicating that you or someone using your Road Runner account..."

So basically TW is admitting that their security is so poor that they let someone else exploit his account?

More likely they're referring to anyone living with the person receiving that email. After all, if you have broadband and live with someone else, that broadband access is usually shared, yes?

Re:Criminal activity by Time Warner

[Pansy]

I do clearly recall, though, that if you accuse someone of a felony offense without just cause you have committed a felony offense yourself.

This is called Barratry. IANAL and I'm rather busy here at work, otherwise I would provide more info, hope this helps.

OT: Great Churchill Quote! -nt

[Anonymous Coward]

No Text. Yeah, I mean it.

Film at Eleven...

[Jason Earl]

Imagine that, the Hardware folks want the bandwidth folks to lower restrictions on bandwidth usage so that new computer hardware (and software) becomes more desirable. It strikes me as pretty funny that Microsoft (king of the PC monopoly) wants to force the cable companies to open up their networks, and yet they have fought tooth and nail against measures that would make the PC software business more open to competition.

Re:Film at Eleven...

[Torgo's Pizza]

Ah, but that's what makes Microsoft a monopoly. It's only looking after it's own self-interests and nothing else.

Re:Film at Eleven...

[Shamashmuddamiq]

...all this despite the fact that MICROSOFT is one of the main reasons why cable companies *aren't* opening up their networks (code red viruses, etc.).

Re:Film at Eleven...

[HiThere]

That's not what makes MS a monopoly. That's what makes them an evil monopoly. They're a monopoly because they own x% of the market. This is always dangerous, but not always evil.

Re:Film at Eleven...

[Hector73]

Ah, but that's what makes Microsoft a monopoly. It's only looking after it's own self-interests and nothing else.

Sadly, that doesn't make them a monopoly, it makes them the board of directors/executives for any American corporation.

Re:Film at Eleven...

[phillymjs]

It strikes me as pretty funny that Microsoft (king of the PC monopoly) wants to force the cable companies to open up their networks

Nothing funny about it-- courtesy of a one billion dollar investment in 1997, Microsoft owns a chunk of Comcast, who is poised to become the largest cable company in the country.

If the stupid usage restrictions are lifted on broadband, more people will get it, and Microsoft will make money. If more people get broadband, those people will be more likely to buy shiny new Microsoft OS-laden hardware to take advantage of the fat pipe, and Microsoft will make still more money.

And if they pull off this .Net shit, the restriction-free fat pipe will be needed for people to use pay-per-use apps, and Microsoft will get paid again. And again. And again, ad infinitum.

~Philly

Re:Film at Eleven...

[cyberformer]

True, except that the fat pipe won't be quite restriction-free. Instead of the cable co's restrictions, it will have Microsoft's restrictions, which are even worse, and are encoded into hardware by Intel and AMD.

DSL

[EvilBudMan]

I wonder if DSL has different rules? We don't have broadband out here in the sticks. Aldelphia was supposed to bring cable in but I gues it ain't happening now. Verizon is our only other hope and I'm not optomistic about that either.

Re:DSL

[haroldK]

> I wonder if DSL has different rules?

Depends on the provider. My provider, Visi.com, allows any networking you want to do including servers of any kind, but they reserve the right to cut you off if there's anything illegal going on. If you set up an open mail relay and people use it to send spam, you can be booted, so it's up to you to make sure you have things secure.

On the other hand, when I was with Mindspring, I'm pretty sure they didn't allow servers unless you had a business account (and static IPs aren't even available through them in my area).

Re:DSL

[Phreakiture]

Telocity did have different rules, I don't know if DirecTV (who took over Telocity) still do. What I do know is that, some two or three years ago, I went 'round and 'round with Verizon and Telocity trying to get it hooked up, to no avail (I believe it to be Verizon's fault). Overall, I allowed them 163 days (with multiple extensions of a deadline) before I gave up and got Road Runner. Since then, I have taken great delight in telling folks offering me Verizon sales pitches to get lost.

Of course, Telocity's understanding with the customer was that you get 640k inbound and 128k outbound, and that was it. Since it wasn't shared, it didn't have that much of a serious impact on anything if you did run a server or a NAT router.

I don't know how they would have felt about WAP's, though. I can't help but think that they would have a somewhat negative view, because, even though you would be losing some of your own bandwidth (at no cost to anyone else), you might be inadvertently persuading another user not to get DSL because they have you.

Yes, I know the DSL bandwidth aggregates somewhere and that you might put extra load there, blah, blah, blah. Telocity just didn't present that kind of a face to the customer, as though they really didn't care about that part.

Re:DSL

[jonadab]

> I wonder if DSL has different rules?

I suspect it does. Actually, DSL has the normal rules;
it's cable modem service that has different rules.

There are good reasons for this, and it comes down
to design. The cable network was _designed_ to
deliver lots of the SAME content to every subscriber.
Yeah, it can carry 50+ channels, but it takes the
same 50+ channels to everybody. Need to add another
thousand users? No problem: just tee off the line
that's already there. As cable TV grew, they've
been teeing the lines for years.

As a result, the lines can handle pretty substantial
bandwidth to an individual node, but the _total_
amount of bandwidth on a given subnet has some pretty
stiff limits on it. In particular, the total amount
of available bandwidth, that has to be split between
all nodes, is not necessarily greater than what one
node is capable of receiving (unless they place some
artificial cap on the latter).

This is backwards from almost every other network.
If you have, say, a T1 line, your provider (typically)
won't whine much if you use its maximum capacity,
because the T1 line itself is the chokepoint. At
the other end is a router that's probably on your
ISP's core LAN (for small ISPs) or core WAN segment
for your area. The bandwidth there is somewhat more
plentiful (though not unlimited by any means). DSL
is probably in this category, as are dialup, satelite
service, and so on -- most forms of internet access.
if you have dialup, your provider doesn't mind if you
max out your phone line every minute that you're
connected. In fact, if they had to pick, they'd
rather that you use that phone line at max capacity
until you're finished getting everything downloaded
that you want and then disconnect, rather than
downloading at half speed for twice as long. Because
that way they can get by with fewer dial-in lines.

Cable modem service is different, because you do
not have a dedicated pipeline from you straight to
the company's core network. Instead, you share
the pipeline with numerous other nodes. Bandwidth
you use directly affects your neighbor's ability
to get data to and from your ISP's network.

For this reason, cable modem service, while being
cheaper than broadband, is also inferior. For
myself, I'm sticking with my existing dialup
account until I can get true broadband, something
better than cable modem (such as DSL).

Re:DSL

[stealthyburrito]

For this reason, cable modem service, while being
cheaper than broadband, is also inferior.

Um, your post made sense until this broad (no pun intended) conclusion. I pay $35.00/month for cable access, and have always had around 1.0-1.5Mbit downstream speeds. ADSL access from the LEC costs $49.95 for 640Kbit downstream.

Don't assume that because DSL is better than cable in one area, it is true for the entire planet.

Re:DSL

[tshak]

Comparing ATT NarrowBroadband and Earthlink DSL (which, so far, seems to have very good privacy and acceptable use policies.) there is only a $5.

ATT:$45 Speeds:1.5Mb/128k
Earthlink DSL:$50 Speeds: 384k/128k, 1.5Mb/384k burstable.

Re:DSL

[ergo98]

For this reason, cable modem service, while being cheaper than broadband, is also inferior. For
myself, I'm sticking with my existing dialup
account until I can get true broadband, something
better than cable modem (such as DSL).

What a ridiculous conclusion. As I'm typing this a download is happening from Microsoft at a solid 245KB/second in the background (Cogeco here in Southern Ontario has a superb infrastructure), and this is pretty much the speed that I get 24/7 on my cable modem. I realize that not all cable users have as good of an area as me, however from what I've read most do.

Secondly, your technical analysis sounds like a sales pitch for DSL, and it has little grounding in reality. Let me let you in on a little secret: DSL providers do the exact same thing : They oversubscribe a given amount of bandwidth to make it cost effective (of course this happens at the CO rather than at the neighbourhood level, but the net effect is exactly the same): Got 500 1.5Mbps DSL users? Calculate the likely proportion that'll be online at any time (20%), multiple that by an acceptably low "satisfied" ratio (80%), and set the switch up with a 120Mbps connect to the net, because anything more would be financial suicide.

It should also be noted that this technical "cable versus DSL" argument has been played out a million times (always disproving the ridiculous "never shared" spiel about DSL), and people are usually reminded that a) cable is capable of an unbelievable frequency bandwidth, and technically the cable company could multiplex dozens of cable modem frequency per subnet if they felt like it, and b) even barring that, they can make a subnet as small as financially viable : Maybe they'll drop fiber to the corner and you'll be your own little subnet.

Re:DSL

[Random Feature]

I think a higher level post had it right - it depends on where you live.

Where I live, there are no restrictions on bandwidth at all on cable. There are also, conversely, no GUARANTEES. Which meant that during the school year at 3pm throughput went to hell because all the kids got out of school and starting plugging away. And with only one T1 to Chicago (they've upgraded since) it pretty much killed the entire area.

But they still don't offer bandwidth guarantees, NOT EVEN TO BUSINESS CLASS. I've looked into it. It isn't worth $200/month for no guarantee on my bandwidth and 5 IPs.

I tried cable. For a week. It sucked. The DHCP server dropped at least once a day and was down for hours each time.

I've never had my (now) SBC DSL (768/128 up) with a /29 for $75/month.

I'll keep my DSL and TWC can screw itself.

Re:DSL

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoa! Makes me glad I live in Canada. My DSL account with Telus is only $35 CAD per month (or $40 if I needed to rent the modem), and that's for 1.5Mbps. :)

Re:DSL

[ergo98]

I don't think there's any question that a dedicated T1 beats out a cable connection if you have absolute requirements 24 hours a day, however you pay for that luxury (because the provider, usually the telco, has to have a T1 of bandwidth reserved for you 24 hours a day, and can't utilize standard switching to share the connection) : Usually about 20-50x more than a cable modem connection.

I also agree that cable modems definitely depend on the area, the types of neighbours you have, etc. I happen to live in an area, and my cable company has subdivided it such, that the moment I need a file I can grab it at a blistering 250KB/second with extremely good consistency. My connection has been stunningly reliable, and I've had incredibly few complaints. I'm not going to say that's the case for all cable modem users, but conversely I don't think it's fair for someone who has had a bad experience to cast their experience as the epitome of the cable modem experience.

BTW: How did you know that the DHCP server was down for hours a day? I don't even run a DHCP daemon on my box, it changes so infrequently, and it'd be pretty sad if your provider had a lease for less than a day.

Re:DSL

[jonadab]

Not all DSL is created equal, but you already knew that.

Re:DSL

[jonadab]

> > For myself, I'm sticking with my existing dialup
> > account until I can get true broadband, something
> > better than cable modem (such as DSL).
>
> What a ridiculous conclusion.

I did say "for myself". Also note that I'm considering
the costs of switching service providers (e.g., tracking
down hundreds of people and getting them all my new
email address, tracking down all the search engines
with my webspace indexed and getting them to index
the space at the new provider, and so on), and when
all of that is thrown in, cable modem service (at
least in this area) is just not good enough to warrant
switching, for me.

Also, several repliers have cited impressive download
speeds for cable modem service, but if I went broadband
I'd want bandwidth in the other direction, too...

What I _really_ want is a residential T1...

Re:DSL

[Anonymous DWord]

Lucky you. I used to think that was decent until I moved to New York and got cable here - 10Mbps for ~ $25 per month. :-)

Re:DSL

[Anonymous Coward]

We have verizon here in my town. Verizon offers a rate cheap for home users with no services running and using a dymanic link. If you want static, pay extra and host. Also, all of the ISPs here that offer DSL service (not using Verizon.net, just the DSL carrier), they all offer a static with the ability to host. I've got a domain pointed to my box, email running, etc. They only ask that you don't have an open relay, or an open BIND (recursion).

Wait..

[iONiUM]

Wasn't the BSA the ones cracking down on the huge warez a few years back on IRC? This seems odd... the cable companies are doing it to stop the mass amounts of warez (and pr0n/mp3) from being transferred, that would indirectly help a lot of those companies (ie. less pirating of Windows)...
It just seems weird that now all of a sudden they're more interested in keeping people online with unlimited bandwidth...

Re:Wait..

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats because, interestingly enough, the BSA is more than just a bunch of people that crack down on piracy. They represent the interests of the software industry, which in this case, is in favor of keeping broadband unlimited to prime demand for their products to get people to upgrade. Its just like how the RIAA is in opposition to the religious fanatics that want to censor movies... I guess even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

Re:Wait..

[autocracy]

BSA is in the interest of selling more software. They believe this can be done by keeping the internet from being heavily locked down. Don't think they're evil before and good now, they're still promoting the same interest: green stuff in their member's pockets.

What f***ing a**holes

[hypergreatthing]

Seriously, where do they come up with this crap? Under redistributing services, they can threaten anyone with a router. When the hell did violating some crappy TOS lead towards criminal investigations?

This all has to do with 9-11. The feds are going to love that whole "unknown users to anonymous plan criminal acts through your account". Apparently your next door neighboor is someone anonymous who is planning some terrorist activity now.

I suggest a broad boycott of their whole stinkin' service. Hit them where it hurts. In the mean time switch to verizon online or some other crappy service which doesn't push such crap on you.

Re:What f***ing a**holes

[Higher Authority]

In the mean time switch to verizon online or some other crappy service which doesn't push such crap on you.

If Verizon Internet service is much like their cellular service, they'll be charging you a $35 deductable to exchange your cable modem when you forget your email password.

Cable limiting of service

[WizardOfZid]

Between this from the major providers and the article about Buckeye Cablevision in Toledo bring in the FBI to raid users homes for uncaping broadband modems,

Searches by police, FBI target bandits of bandwidth

it looks like the providers are implementing a broad front attack on users. I've already heard of Buckeye users cancelling their accounts but with no competition in an area, its DSL hell or dial-up. A great choice (but at least with dial-up I don't get many telemarketers - they just show up in my spam box).

Re:Cable limiting of service

[JohnnyBolla]

This is a little different, this is people setting up DHCP servers to give thier modems a bogus *.cm file to uncap thier bandwidth.

Re:Cable limiting of service

[antirename]

I'm actually fairly happy with Bellsouth's dsl package. (I live in GA). Yes, they do screw things up every now and then but the uptime is better than cable and they don't bother you with this kind on nonsense (at least not yet).

Text version of letter

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear xxxxxxxxx;

We have information indicating that you or omeone using your Road Runner account has been transmitting the Road runner service over a wireless network so that anyone with a wireless network card can tap into our service without authorization from us.

Use of your account for this purpose violates your subscription agreement and our Acceptable Use Policy in a number of ways, including Paragraph 5(d) of the agreement, which states that subscribers are prohibited from reselling or redistributing the service, or any portion thereof, whether for a fee or otherwise. This activity also violates a number of federal and state laws, including 47 U.S.C. 553, which allows for civil remedies of up to $50,000.

You should be aware that this is a very serious problem that goes beyond the theft of our services. Individuals utilizing the Road runner system in this manner to carry out criminal activity, would be able to do so in an anonymous manner. In such circumstances, when law enforcement attempted to trace such activity, the trail would end with your account.

It is not our desire at this time to sue you, and we assume it is not your desire to allow unknown users to anonymously plan criminal acts through your account. However, your wireless broadcast of the Road Runner service must cease and desist.

If we do not receive written assurances from you within three (3) business days of this letter that your account will not be utilized in this manner, or if the unauthorized use continues, we will suspend your account and we may pursue our legal remedies. Your written confirmation should be sent to:

Gregory Powell
Abuse and Security
Time Warner Cable of New York City
41-61 Kissena Boulevard
Flushing, New York 11355
Internet.security@twcable.com

Please contact Internet Security directly at either (718) 670-6621 or internet.security@twcable.com if you have any questions.

Sincerely,
Gregory Powell
Abuse & Security, Supervisor
High Speed Online Services
Time Warner Cable of NYC

Re:Text version of letter

[dotslash]

Gregory Powell
Abuse & Security, Supervisor

So according to his title, Mr. Gregory Powell supervises the abuse of roadrunner customers as well as their security, right? He is the Abuse-Master!

Do you think he is related to the other Mr. Powell (Jr.) who supervises the abuse of all telecommunications users collectively?

Or maybe his father, the other Mr. Powell (Sr.), who will then come to bomb your home to stop the "anonymous criminal activity"?

Re:Text version of letter

[Anonymous Coward]

So... where does the legalese take a simple
proposition away from the realm of fact?

Theft of services...
nope, you paid for them.

But you're stealing extra bandwidth...
nope, they capped it. if you can't use what
you paid for, they owe you a refund.

Allows anonymous access...
Nope. Allows access in the name of the account
owner. He opened it to public access,
it's his responsibility for what's done with it.

Now that he's aware, if there is an investigation,
LET IT END AT HIM.

I'd really like to rant about the disgusting
behavior of such cable providers, and come up
with some great analogy with some other set of
greedy bastards. But all I can think of is...
they're acting like a bunch of cable providers,
wanting to get as much money as possible for doing
as little as they can.

The recent trend seems to be charge rental for the
hardware itself (and who's to say what's reasonable for that, besides them?), and then
speak of the actual data CONVEYANCE as something
they're giving you out of the goodness of their
hearts, for being such a good customer.

If you're letting others share in this gift they
give you, well, that's just mean, and they won't
give it to you anymore. But you can still pay them :)

Re:Text version of letter

[Anonymous Coward]

So according to his title, Mr. Gregory Powell supervises the abuse of roadrunner customers as well as their security, right? He is the Abuse-Master!

The "Abuse Master"? Is that some sort of dominatrix? Gregory Powell must be into some heavy BDSM then...

Re:Text version of letter

[Anonymous Coward]

Strange. I work at a Road Runner Helpdesk, and we never received any notice concerning Wireless access. In fact, I did assist one customer a few hours ago to setup his own wiress network. I have no indication to believe this is prohibited on the Road Runner service, assuming that no deliberate redistribution of the service is made.

Re:Text version of letter

[Anonymous Coward]

Paid for service? Do you honestly believe that 1mbps of Internet bandwith costs $49.95? You are NOT paying for the service. You are paying for the service that a NORMAL/AVERAGE household would use. If you open that service up to 10 households you are using more than you are paying for.

What you say?

[Smitedogg]

Ubiquitous broadband deployment will help our country both recover and sustain economic momentum, while demonstrating to the world the enduring strength and resilience of the United States," stated TIA President Matthew J. Flanigan.

Yet another example of PHB's justifying Scott Adams' popularity. I'd love to just tag "Mission Statement" above that and pass it around the office, see if anyone else sees how stupid that is.

Why not multiple computers,etc...

[Sabalon]

I can see the server issue somewhat - what if they get /.ed. Then again, with bandwidth caps, that becomes somewhat of a non-issue.

The same thing goes for the Broadband routers. It reminds me of the 80's when the cable companies insisted you pay for every TV hooked up - no splitters unless they were authorized. This was fixed and it was decided that the cables companies rights ended at the wall to your house.

So why not the same thing for broadband connections? Why am I not allowed to have my desktop and notebook on at the same time? My modem limits the amount of bandwidth I can pull, so that can't be it. (Actually, they are probably worried that instead of bursting at 500K I'd be able to use a sustained 500K, which I can do with one machine :)

Same thing with the Wireless really - just means it's not tied to where a wire runs. I guess their worry there is that my neighboor might get free service off me with a wireless card (can't even get a signal in the neighboors yard!)

If you want to sell me 500K/128K service, then do so and fuck off. Don't tell me I can't run a server on that 128K, so I can web in and check callerID logs. Don't tell me what machines and OS's I can use to pull down the 500K. Don't put a transparent proxy between me and the web. Don't block incoming port 80 requests. Just give me the pipe and accept your checks.

Re:Why not multiple computers,etc...

[erohw amrak]

Same thing with the Wireless really - just means it's not tied to where a wire runs. I guess their worry there is that my neighboor might get free service off me with a wireless card (can't even get a signal in the neighboors yard!)

Because there is always a certain percentage of the users/population who take advantage of it. In this case, someone is giving away bandwidth that they are not using (via broadcasting with an amplified antenna and posting the location on the internet). You may say: fine, it's his bandwidth, he can use it as he wants. Unfortunately, the billing rates and infrastructure logically assume that people will not use all of their bandwidth 24 hours a day, but will only use a percentage at any one time. Individuals who resell (giving away bandwidth is still reselling it, under most legal definitions) their bandwidth increase the load on the infrastructure, and cost the company money.

It's a problem, and it's against their TOS. The person knows that, and will get disconnected for it. There is no way around the problem in which neither side is adversely affected. Such is life. If he really feels like being a nice person and setting up a free access point, he should look into starting a non-profit organization, funded by donations, and lease real bandwidth, rather than a residential line.

Re:Why not multiple computers,etc...

[heimotikka]

When you order cable / DSL / whatever connection, how about reading what you can do or can't do - if connection provider says that you are not allowed to put server to that cable - choose if the deal fits your needs. If nobody buys their connections I guess they will be out of business or selling something else soon. Price / service quality...

My DSL provider doesn't like incoming 80 / 443 - so what? I don't need those - I have webservers on better connections where service providers like them. If cable companies would like, they could restrict the speed / data traffic in Mb/time period or whatever, but they are kind enough to trust people that they use the bandwidth moderately. They have right to ban people abusing their connections - using for something that they're not meant to.

Re:Why not multiple computers,etc...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just give me the pipe and accept your checks.

I guess they have an overstaffed policy department. These people come up with complicated and ever-changing policies to justify their pay. The cable company implements the policies because they are paying these people to come up with them.

Re:Why not multiple computers,etc...

[Anonymous Coward]

I can see the problem with running a commerical web server over a residential connection. It's really more ethical than technical so it's gray area and you could argue either way. You could say "They sold me 500/128 service so I'll use it for whatever I want", or they could say "You're stealing a commercial service by only paying residential pricing and degrading the network". Phone companies make you pay for a business service if you're a business and you don't get anything extra out of it.

Re:Why not multiple computers,etc...

[cmowire]

Simple.

They are selling you 500K/128K with the implicit assumption that you are using a traditional home-user access pattern (i.e. occasional bursts when you hit a good porn site, lotsa intermittent email and ICQ traffic, etc.)

My biggest problem is that I could see why they don't want to allow full-scale hosting. Makes sense, because it distorts their network load equations. The big advantage of an always-on broadband connection is that you can run little servers for you and maybe one or two other people. Like you said, to check your CallerID logs. Or turn on/off the lights with X10. Or run your own mail server. So what the proper AUP is that you outlaw spam sending, heavy sustained traffic in over x GB/day, commercial hosting, and other things that could destabalize the network.

But because I like to SSH and VNC in to my machines and would like to eventually host mail on my machines instead of my ISP, I gnaw my fingernails off every time that it looks like Covad is in trouble because once CLECs dissapear, I won't be able to even SSH and VNC into my home machines.

Re:Why not multiple computers,etc...

[Knife_Edge]

The whole problem with demanding that the cable companies do anything is that they are a monopoly in many areas. I do not like ridiculous policies such as the 'pay for each extra client IP' either, but there is nothing I can do about it. Except maybe buy one of those little broadband routers with a built-in switch, which I did. Still, that does not solve most of the other problems you mentioned.

Re:Why not multiple computers,etc...

[tempest303]

Don't worry - most cable ISPs (I work for one) don't check for SSH servers, nor do they appear to care about it. SCP is crappy for distributing warez and pr0n, as it requires *shell accounts* on the box giving out the files, and thus there's no anonymous access, plus SCP is cpu-intensive, so the incentive to use SSH at home for anything but "legit" means is very very low.

As for VNC, you've got me there. Not because the ports are blocked, but because 128kbit upload is crap for VNC. ;)

Re:Why not multiple computers,etc...

[Anonymous Coward]

Individuals who resell (giving away bandwidth is still reselling it, under most legal definitions) their bandwidth increase the load on the infrastructure, and cost the company money.

What about individuals who download and upload strings of zeros to make sure that they use 500K/128K? You laugh, but disgruntled users could start doing it if they wanted. What would be the phrasing in the TOS? "You may not download and upload useless data?"

Take a breath and think again. If bandwidth is what costs money, cable companies can charge proportionally to the bandwidth used and be done with it.

Re:Why not multiple computers,etc...

[HiThere]

Two points:
1) if there's only one ISP in the area, you don't have any choice.
2) after the contract is signed, they feel free to change the terms to be more restrictive. (I'd like to see you try to get away with that one! The Feds raided some people the other day over that.)

Re:Why not multiple computers,etc...

[PD]

Bing. Everyone used to look at me crazy when I told them that I was on a modem and would not EVER sign up for the cable modem that was available. DSL became available to me a couple months ago and I signed up right away.

The only need that I had was the right to run my own servers. I could have done something like that on the cable modem, but it would do me no good. I wanted my own domain to host my own web page and host my own e-mail. I someone would have sold me a 56K full-time modem with static IP account for a reasonable price I would have jumped all over it.

Seriously, for me it wasn't about the bandwidth at all, it was about the right to be a real node on the internet.

DirectTV DSL gave me 1 static IP and the explicit statement that they don't care what servers I run on my own line. The only time the connection went down it was because of SWBell's incompetence. DirectTV has been really great so far.

Re:Why not multiple computers,etc...

[nweathe]

Funny, I use VNC on just that kind of network, and while it is true that it is not "blazing fast", I am able to run some graphics intensive programs from my home machine and monitor them from work, and still have it be responsive enough to understand what is going on...

Re:Why not multiple computers,etc...

[mla_anderson]

I have to agree with this one, with all the complaining about TOS and the like with the cable providers a good DSL provider is great. I use DirectTV DSL with their standard package (1 static IP). The only major problem was with the telco, the voice lines kept dropping off and that was Pacbell's equipment. (Actually it was kind of nice not to have the phone ringing...)

I run a web, mail and db server as well as a VPN tunnel to work. I am explicitly allowed to do this.

Sure I only have 1.54Mbps download (yes I get it) but that's plenty fast and the 128kbps limit on the upload rarely bothers me.

Re:Why not multiple computers,etc...

[The Wing Lover]

Just give me the pipe and accept your checks.

I dunno, it still sounds dirty to me.

Re:Why not multiple computers,etc...

[heimotikka]

Very good points. It's true that there are significantly less cable / DSL-providers and they shouldn't use their monopolistic market position to dictate rules. My point is that we as customers shouldn't pay for something we don't like - even if there are only few choices... that's only way to show that we're not satisfied with their rules. Paying means supporting. We have choice not to pay, someone will eventually come and sell you something that you really want - its financial trueth

2) If they change the terms so that you don't like them, cancel your order. (yeah, easier to say... =) I lived last year without internet connection at home
(so I lived mostly at work...)

Re:Why not multiple computers,etc...

[uberdave]

Unfortunately, the billing rates and infrastructure logically assume that people will not use all of their bandwidth 24 hours a day, but will only use a percentage at any one time.

Therein lies the problem. Because most of the time the overall bandwidth of a neighbourhood is low, a company will put in a smaller pipe. When everyone gets home from work/school and starts downloading "LOTR:The Two Towers" the equipment gets overloaded, and crashes. It is not logical to assume that equipment designed for the average load will perform adequately for peak usage.

If the cable companies want to play at being ISPs then they should either sell a fixed bandwidth for a fixed price, or sell a timeshared access for a time used price. They should not sell a timeshared access for a fixed price, and then start lopping off services in order to fix their broken business model.

I used to be a cable client. I was charged $45/month for internet, plus a $10/month surcharge because I was not a cable TV subscriber. They did not provide static IPs. Their speed was tremendously variable. (I hit speeds of 240 bytes/sec at times). Then the had the nerve to announce a price hike! I dropped them for a dsl provider that supports linux, lets me run whatever I wish, and supplies a static IP address, all for less than what I was paying before. Life is sweet now.

Re:Why not multiple computers,etc...

[linzeal]

What kind of machine are you running the vpn through? I have a 500mhz amd k62 with 384k up and can use X from work pretty easily.

Re:Why not multiple computers,etc...

[Amazing Quantum Man]

It reminds me of the 80's when the cable companies insisted you pay for every TV hooked up - no splitters unless they were authorized. This was fixed and it was decided that the cables companies rights ended at the wall to your house.

This was still going on as late as 1995. When I moved back into my condo after repairs from the Northridge quake, TW cable insisted I pay a hookup fee for all three drops, because their records showed that I only had one TV connected. Of course, all three drops were there when I moved in 8 years earlier.

Re:Why not multiple computers,etc...

[Kwil]

They are selling you 500K/128K with the implicit assumption that you are using a traditional home-user access pattern (i.e. occasional bursts when you hit a good porn site, lotsa intermittent email and ICQ traffic, etc.)

And I'm purchasing with the explicit assumption that what they promise (500K/128K) is what they give. Go figure.

After all, were I to try and sell something like a printer and promise a "lifetime supply of color ink", you can bet there'd be a stink if when the printer ran out I come back and say, "Sorry, we sell that with the implicit assumption that you'll only use the black ink.."

I believe that could easily be construed as fraudulent advertising, if not as direct fraud.

Re:Why not multiple computers,etc...

[Anonymous Coward]

Usually it's something along the lines of responsible net usage or something like that. Things like that are usually covered by the standard TOS.

Re:Why not multiple computers,etc...

[tempest303]

VPN? ewww. i hope you meant VNC. (i hate "vpn" software... what's wrong with SSH tunelling?)

ANyhow... most cable providers I know don't have a 384k up, which IS plenty, but 128, which is more common as I understand it, is far more frequent.

Re:Why not multiple computers,etc...

[Anonymous Coward]

Phone companies make you pay for a business service if you're a business and you don't get anything extra out of it.

never heard of such. where on earth?

Re:Why not multiple computers,etc...

[HughsOnFirst]

>where on earth?
In New York they do.
I used to live in a loft, and because it was a commercial building I had to get a "business" phone.
It came with a "free" listing in the yellow pages.
It cost me extra to not have the "free" listing.

Re:Why not multiple computers,etc...

[filer]

After all, were I to try and sell something like a printer and promise a "lifetime supply of color ink", you can bet there'd be a stink if when the printer ran out I come back and say, "Sorry, we sell that with the implicit assumption that you'll only use the black ink.."

This discussion is beginning to dovetail nicely with the many discussions on here about "fair use" of purchased media. I guess this is no surprise considering that the same compnay that is trying to tell you what do with your music purchases and claims that you are stealing from them if you go to the kitchen to make a sandwich during a commercial break is now trying to tell you what you can do with your internet connection.

Anyone who gives their money to these pricks deserves what they get. If there are no alternatives then complain to you congesscritter. Cuz it doesn't have to be this way.

Up in the Peoples Republic of Canada there was recently ahuge auproasr (sson to grow larger as ppl get their bills) about the introduction of bandwidth caps by the nations largest dsl provider (also the major phone monopoly in central Canada). Fortunately it seems that the government had found a good solution to the high bandwidth competition problem. They had forced the telcos to:

Split off their ISP service from their telecom and network connectivity service.

The network connectivity service *has* to allow outside isps to sell internet access (for a fee of course).

ISPs offering a better deal then the telco started popping up like mushrooms and now this has resulted in a situation in Canada where there is now more competition in isps then we've seen in years. The major highband isps are instituting bandwidth caps and smaller operators are pilling into the market offering cheaper service.

I have the choice right now of probably a dozen dsl providers in my area. At all kinds if different price ranges offering a range of services. Apperantly some are even making money :-) In order to sample them all I have to do is get an account change the login on my dsl bridge - it's actually even easier than in the days of dialup.

This seems to be turning into a win-win situation for all involved. Users have a choice as there's lots of competition, The telco makes lots of money renting out bandwidth and connectivity in bulk to all these isps (with comparitively cheap support costs) and we are seeing a resurgence in the small, independent garage ISP. Something that I thought was gone forever.

Don't let Roadrunner walk all over u folks. It doesn't have to be that way.

Re:Why not multiple computers,etc...

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed! You are Absolutely RIGHT!!!

Re:Why not multiple computers,etc...

[Megane]

what's wrong with SSH tunelling?

What's wrong with it is when you're sending UDP packets over a TCP connection, or multiple TCP connections over a single TCP connection. A proper VPN connection won't slow you down with retransmits when UDP packets would have simply been dropped, or slow you down with two layers of TCP stream ACKs.

Re:Why not multiple computers,etc...

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod this beast up, insightful beyond belief!

Re:Why not multiple computers,etc...

[bettlebrox]

"I dropped them for a dsl provider that supports linux, lets me run whatever I wish, and supplies a static IP address, all for less than what I was paying before."

Who is you DSL provider? I've been trying to find a decent inexpensive one in Boston that allows one to run servers.

Thanks
Mick

Re:Why not multiple computers,etc...

[GigsVT]

We had a bill to force cable people to share their wires but it got killed.

I kinda have a problem with bills like that. Would you like it if the government forced you to let your competitors rent out parts of your storefront?

Re:Why not multiple computers,etc...

[r6144]

Not having a static IP does not bother me. My roommate just sets up a 24/7 http server in the dorm (static IP) so that I can register my IP address to a CGI program whenever I get one via DHCP, so he can easily ssh or http into my machine.

Well, thank god I can have servers.

Re:Why not multiple computers,etc...

[filer]

I don't think the storefront analogy really works here - after all a competitor can easily open up a competing storefront across the street and start a price war(as they often do). A railway operator would be a better analogy - tho openining that area up for competition is much more complex than simply forcing telecoms to rent out their switches.

That said, as a monopolist I probably wouldn't like it at all.. that doesn't meant that it would be better for the consumer and industry to have some healthy competition. I am sure that Bell Canada initially didn't like the idea of openning up their switches but now that they have they've discovered that they can make big bux renting them out to other isps with little or no support costs.

Re:Why not multiple computers,etc...

[uberdave]

istop.com, a small outfit out of Ottawa that also services Toronto.

Re:Why not multiple computers,etc...

[GiMP]

Of course... According to Verizon's terms of service, servers are (where?) "ok" for DSL (but not for dial-up). When Code-red attacked, guess what? They blocked port 80 and 25. Their TOS did not change, at least not within the next month or two.

I called, I bitched, nobody helped. After the technician consulted with his superior, he came back and told me that it was due to the Code-red worm. I replied that I know about the worm, I was not running IIS; hence not afflicted, and only the infected machines should be blocked.

Its really great to have a TOS where servers are allowed, as long as your provider doesn't break it.

Re:Why not multiple computers,etc...

[jdavidb]

I someone would have sold me a 56K full-time modem with static IP account for a reasonable price I would have jumped all over it.

I used to make the same comment before I moved and got DirecTV DSL. Sounds like we had the same preferences, same problem, and same provider to solve the problem.

same old thing...

[mike77]

It's the same thing we've always seen. A company states that it will give the us something we want for a reasonable price. Lo and behold, when the time actually comes to do it, they screw the customer over. The question is why? The answer is that it has become an acceptable buisness practice to operate in this way, maximizing your profits and screwing the customer, who you have conviently signed to a long term contract.

Microsoft does it, Sprint PCS does it, and now the cable companies are doing it. The buisness's sole purpose is to make money for their stockholders (profit). They do it any way they can, and well the current model hasn't shown that it won't work yet. Maybe it's time to start some serious boycotting of individual companies?

Re:same old thing...

[laymil]

sprint pcs? what exactly have they done? their rates are quite reasonable imho, and their service is excellent in most cases in my area. i'd appreciate it if you would expound upon your comment.

as for cable internet: i'm still pissed off that my downstream and upstream were capped when comcast took over. i went from having > 1 Mbyte/s downstream to 1.5Mbit downstream, and my upstream was capped to that horrible number (128 Kbits/s). they don't offer a 'business' service with higher speeds (they are planning to i believe...supposedly 3.0Mbit down/ 256Kbit up...but planning on charging well over twice the price from what i've heard) . they won't let you upgrade to a faster cap, myself and many other users have asked for the opportunity. its a shame...cable is the only broadband that i can get at home...and the rose colored glasses shattered.

Re:same old thing...

[Anonymous Coward]

wrong about microsoft. They're not operating for their share holders (40 billion in the bank). They are working towards global dommination. Then all the citizens of the world can be profit sharing shareholders.
Muahahahha Muahahaha

Re:same old thing...

[Anonymous Coward]

i went from having > 1 Mbyte/s downstream to 1.5Mbit downstream

1.5Mbit downstream is > 1 Mbyte/s.

Re:same old thing...

[Zarquon]

1.5Mbit downstream is > 1 Mbyte/s.

Eh? 1 MB/s is roughly what you can get on an unloaded 10 Mbit connection. 1.5 Mbit tops out around 150-180 KB/s.

Quit whining about MS etc.

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares if MS, Intel, IBM, Dell etc. are really only doing this in their own interests? WE still end up benefitting by not having these fuckhead cable companies putting tighter and tighter restrictions on the service.

Law the letter references...

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/47usc553. htm

47 U.S.C
553. Unauthorized Reception of Cable Service

(a) Unauthorized interception or receipt or assistance in intercepting or receiving service; "assist in intercepting or receiving" defined

(1) No person shall intercept or receive or assist in intercepting or receiving any communications service offered over a cable system, unless specifically authorized to do so by a cable operator or as may otherwise be specifically authorized by law.

(2) For the purpose of this section, the term "assist in intercepting or receiving" shall include the manufacture or distribution of equipment intended by the manufacturer or distributor (as the case may be) for unauthorized reception of any communications service offered over a cable system in violation of subparagraph (1).

Re:Law the letter references...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm. Does this mean that Intel, Motorola and Texas Instruments can be named as accessories? After all, they manufacture the wireless chipsets in the WLAN cards...

Re:Law the letter references...

[Anonymous Coward]

Does this mean if my brother comes over and surfs on my computer, I have violated a federal law? What if my wife's name is on the bill and the cable company doesn't even know I exist? How can I possibly be "specifically authorized to do so by a cable operator"?

Lack of Competition

[Renraku]

Companies should be able to benefit from their foresight or luck (ie, buying cable lines, etc). However, when no competition can come into the area without spending millions on a second cable infrastructure, there's a problem. Most cable or DSL providers can do next to anything, service wise. Broadband might make another step and become like long distance and charge a per-minute fee. This, of course, after they shave down your speeds by about 50%. Its almost as if the more people that subscribe to your network, the less money the company makes, so they must charge more and more for your slowly-declining service.

Curiously though...port 80 is okay

[Matey-O]

While I was looking through the ATTbi policies on verboten stuff, apparenly web servers _aren't_ expressly forbidden. As if they expect a LOT of things will work on port 80 and short of stateful inspection, they're not going to be able to enforce it...

Naturally, I can't find it now because i'm looking for it, but I discovered it while reporting script kiddie attacks to my home webserver.

Bandwidth?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, first off, it says in my Service Agreement with AT&T that the purpose of disallowing us to run servers is to prevent us from using too much bandwidth that OTHER customers use. Mind you, in a cable connection, we all eat off the same plate. Not like DSL...

Now, I had a long talk through several emails (trying to pick a fight) with AT&T support over the server issue. The thing is, we're not allowed to allow INCOMING connections to our servers. Reason we can't run a game server: bandwidth. Reason we can't run an ftp server: bandwidth. Now, there are almost certainly other legal liability issues they're trying to avoid, such as MPAA coming after them because one of their customers wants to run an FTP server that's full of movies, or RIAA going after the mp3's on my box (most are legal, believe it or not, but some aren't).

Furthermore, I have a router setup. AT&T doesn't object, in fact they ENCOURAGE users to set up home networks. So, I told him I've got 4 boxes plugged in, one's a Windows client and the rest are Linux (the Windows client belongs to the upstairs lady that has to call me whenever she turns it on to ask how). He explained that I can run a local LAN server, so long as I didn't let in things like VPN traffic, and stuff. They're also concerned about mail servers (read: SPAM).

I see AT&T's side, and I support them. BUT, I think they should set something up where you get a certain amount of traffic covered in your plan, and the extra you pay for. Or something like that. Let them work out the details, and then I'll either agree or go somehwere else. I DO think that I should be able to run an FTP server AND a MAIL server that allows incoming connections. I want a static IP address that I can register a domain and run my own mail server. I don't want to depend on my ISP's mail server ANYMORE. I don't want to use Hotmail anymore either. I want my own mail server, private, and secure.

They DO need to allow us that. Problem is, there's plenty who will abuse it. Where's the happy middle?

Re:Bandwidth?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, first off, it says in my Service Agreement with AT&T that the purpose of disallowing us to run servers is to prevent us from using too much bandwidth that OTHER customers use. Mind you, in a cable connection, we all eat off the same plate. Not like DSL... Interesting how they say that their worried about you screwing up somebody elses bandwidth out of one side of their mount while somehow convincing a judge that SBC commercials that said that your cable performance could be affected by the internet habits of their neighbors were inaccurate. SBC was ordered to stop airing the commercials.

Re:Bandwidth?

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting how they say that their worried about you screwing up somebody elses bandwidth out of one side of their mount while somehow convincing a judge that SBC commercials that said that your cable performance could be affected by the internet habits of their neighbors were inaccurate. SBC was ordered to stop airing the commercials.

Hadn't heard about that, but the fact of the matter (as we all know) is that IP packets are basically bounced off each cable modem until they hit the one they're intended for. As an architectural design, we all use the same pipe. That's why during periods of high usage download rates drop, but when I download my Linux isos in the middle of the night I get strong performance, often passing 250k/sec

However, it wouldn't be the first time AT&T tried to prevent someone from making them look bad, and it sure in the hell won't be the last. I like my neighbor that says that after a company reaches a certain size they can't be altruistic in any way. It's just the nature of the beast.

Re:Bandwidth?

[Anonymous Coward]

I, too, have had an ATT broadband account in the past, and I was able to run servers from it. What ATT does is change your IP address every few weeks so that you can't really register a domain name with your IP address. It's still good for a "friends and family" type connection where you email a url with the IP address to everyone you know.... Personally, I have no problems with this, and as long as one doesn't eat up too much bandwidth, ATT doesn't care what you run.

Re:Bandwidth?

[ImpTech]

I'm on ATTbi too, though it was MediaOne back when I signed up. Back then, they had a daemon or something that ran around checking to see if it could bounce mail off people's computers, and if it could it would send a message to a bunch of account names that machine might have (root,webmaster, admin, etc.) explaining to the user that he/she is running a vulnerable mail server. It even had a link to a website that explained how to disable relaying for several different types of mailservers. MediaOne was always cool like that... as long as I wasn't pulling my bandwidth cap both ways simultaneously, spamming people, and running DoS attacks they couldn't care less what I did. In fact, the license agreement used to say that they didn't support running servers, but they didn't forbid them either. Fortunately, AT&T seems to be perfectly happy to look the other way as well, but the second they start harassing me I'm cancelling the service.

Re:Bandwidth?

[SEE]

It wasn't because the ads were inaccurate about neighbor's activities slowing down cable; it was because the ads were deceptive about DSL. While cable shares bandwith closer to your computer than DSL, DSL access moves over shared pipes to reach a backbone after it reaches the teleco anyway. SBC's ads implied that DSL access to the Internet was never shared, which is just plain wrong.

I hate Road Runner

[OmniVector]

Why? Because they decided to cap our bandwidth from 500kb/s down and 100kb/s up to 250kb/s down and 50kb/s. They had no reason to do this other than the fact that they didn't feel like upgrading and expanding their network to accomidate for the increased number of users and large bandwidth consumption.
I remember when all those tech articles were boasting that the rate of broadband users joining the bandwagon was going to go up and up and yet it's peaked at a standstill, in fact, my service as I just said has accually gotten WORSE. I'm sure a large portion of it has to do with the @home cable company going under, and giving control back to the cable companies who now want to jack the prices and screw the users ridding on the wave of the future.
This situation probably won't improve for awhile because companies like the RIAA and MPAA want to keep home users's bandwidth lower to control the "mass epidemic" of spreading illegal media. By now we could have had the whole country wired in T1 if some private organiations would get off their ass, lay the wire, and force the prices to drop by saturating the market. So expect congress to be lobbied to the stone age until Microsoft's DRM gets through the cracks.
Then I can GUARANTEE that the RIAA and MPAA will even back up the companies who want to push for better broadband, so they can liscense more music/movies to users at more absurd prices than ever.

Re:I hate Road Runner

[alen]

And where will that fictitious organization get the money to lay all these T1's? The costs of laying the last mile under the city streets is the most expensive. Then there is the access costs that have to be paid to the backbone providers. Keep on dreaming.

Re:I hate Road Runner

[Anonymous Coward]

...they decided to cap our bandwidth from 500kb/s down and 100kb/s up to 250kb/s down and 50kb/s.

You should have just decided to pay $10 a month instead of $50 in response.

Re:I hate Road Runner

[Anonymous Coward]

I still get 1400kb/s down 800kb/s up from RCN broadband in NYC. However RCN has its own special problems, like your connection freezing in the middle of almost every online gaming session. :(

Re:I hate Road Runner

[OmniVector]

What exactly is keeping it from happening? Money is just money. It would be more of an issue of red tape. You sure are optomistic, you must work for RIAA :)

Re:I hate Road Runner

[withinavoid]

All roadrunner services are supposed to be 2000kbps down and 384kbps up. If you're not getting that then either they have over subscribed your area or there are cable plant problems (noise and such) that are preventing clean packet transmission. Of course, if everyone in your town is getting the same slow speeds, then perhaps they did decrease the caps. Thats a dumb move though.

Re:I hate Road Runner

[DunbarTheInept]

The point is they are selling more service without actually providing it. They are adding more subscribers without actually providing more product overall. It's essentially the same as if a McDonalds said to a crowded store full of noon-rush customers, "Well, we know we told you all that you'd be getting a full hamburger for your price you paid, we really only planned on making 20 hamburgers this hour, and there's 40 of you who purchased one. We could make 20 more hamburgers but we'd rather funnel the money you paid us into pure profit, so we'll be giving each of you half a hamgurger. Have a nice day, and thank you for choosing McDonalds." Now, those who hadn't paid yet and could still get out of the deal aren't getting screwed, but those who already did pay are getting the shaft when the terms changed after their purchase.

Re:I hate Road Runner

[Anonymous Coward]

I think a better statement would be I Hate RoadRunner in -name of location where you live-

because my roadrunner up here in good old Wisconsin is capped off at 2 megabits... plenty enough for me, i love it

the FCC wont let me be..

[Vodak]

Power to the people!!! cept that the powell in charge of the fcc need not worry about things like freedoms. the man in charge of the FCC is an ass and these complaints will fall on deaf ears because of it.

Really,

[loraksus]

If you want to host a server, just pay setup + $3.95 a month to have it professionally hosted, christ, oc48 vs 15k shouldn't take any thought. Yes, I have a server based off my home dsl, but it's kiddie crap, a simple mail server and a web server. If my ISP, verizon, decided to charge, or restrict, I'd switch in an instant.
That said, cable (and fone) companies are cheap bastards who piss away money on stuff like sending trucks out to scan for waps, but what do you expect from an arrogant monopoly.
Which is why I can get a dsl line in canada 1.5/768 w/3 static ips for $40 canadian and pay $60 a month for Verizon dsl down here.

Re:Really,

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Except if you want to do anything interesting on that server. Hosting is only cheap if it's a cookie cutter website with the lamest cgi around. Want to do weird things with BIND? Do you need to recompile a kernel to accomplish what you want?

Too bad.

We're paying for a service that can already do what we want, and as long as it isn't illegal or damaging their ability to provide the service, what's the big deal?

No Kidding

[timeOday]

If the Internet had been dominated by cable companies in 1993, there would be no WWW because "normal people just want to use gopher!"

DSL vs Cable

[conan_albrecht]

It seems every article comparing DSL to cable focuses on the speed or technology. The primary reason I have DSL is because I have more choice in providers. The cable access is offered only by one large company in my area (read ATT) and I simply don't trust them to meet my needs as a geek.

Contrast that to the DSL front, where I have the choice of many companies. I get a static IP, good speed, Linux supported, etc. because that's what I looked for when I subscribed.

More reviews should look at choice vs. monopolies when comparing DSL and Cable.

Re:DSL vs Cable

[owlmeat]

It's the cable mentality at work as well. If you're sharing, you're stealing. If you're using port 80 to serve a web page, you're stealing services. The cable mentality dictates that unless your coax goes to one TV (or computer) and no more, you're a thief.

Re:DSL vs Cable

[molo]

Hi, I'm considering getting DSL, and wondering how you were able to find out about your provider? Is it more expensive than regular service? Your setup sounds quote ideal, but I don't know how to find out these details. Please reply and let me know.

Re:DSL vs Cable

[delcielo]

This is precisely why I'm currently switching to DSL. Locally, Cox just severed from RoadRunner and became the sole supplier of cable-modem access in town. They immediately shrunk my service from 3 addresses to 1, and blocked about a dozen ports.

Now, I'm not running streaming video over my web server; and I'm not hosting a warez site. I just want a few handy php utilities that I can use remotely. I'd be perfectly happy with a bandwidth cap. But instead, they chose port blocking as the solution. And in addition to reduced services, I also have to deal with being on an 8000 host subnet, so every time their router hiccups, potentially 8000 people lose their routes to the net. I don't know about everybody else's network; but my experience is that routing is the fragile part of the equation. It causes more problems than anything else.

So I'm switching. My DSL equipment should arrive early next week.

Re:DSL vs Cable

[Anonymous Coward]

You should check out this website http://www.broadbandreports.com. They have broadband news, info, reviews of providers etc. Its very usefull information.

Re:DSL vs Cable

[mla_anderson]

At the risk of sounding like a company rep...I use DirectTV DSL (used to be Telocity). They have two packages:

1. The standard package is a 1.5M/128K line and 1 static IP.
2. The enhanced package is the same line but they provide the equivalent of a Linksys router for an extra $10/month.

Even with the standard package you are allowed to add your own router/firewall and put on as many computers as you want.

Their rules are basically:

• The system is to be used for business purposes only occaisionally.
• Don't do anything illegal

I run a VPN tunnel to work so I can get to home from work, a web server so my folks can see pictures of their grandkids, a mail server so I don't have to use DirectTV DSL's crappy email service, a db server, and a vpn server so my dad can get into my home network. The point is, all of this activity is allowed I don't have to hide it from my provider.

I can get cheaper DSL, I pay $10-$15 more than other people do for DHCP, PPPOE or PPTP connections, but I get a static IP address and an awesome TOS.

Re:DSL vs Cable

[silversurf]

"I get a static IP, good speed, Linux supported, etc."

Just curious what does "Linux Supported" actually mean? I see this from DSL providers but still haven't figured it out. As far as I'm concerned a computer is a computer on your network and so how does a DSL line support linux (or not support it)?

-s

Re:DSL vs Cable

[uberdave]

Just curious what does "Linux Supported" actually mean? I see this from DSL providers but still haven't figured it out. As far as I'm concerned a computer is a computer on your network and so how does a DSL line support linux (or not support it)?

"Linux Supported" means two things. First of all, it means that they can provide you with a linux based connection manager. (A connection manager is a piece of software that manages the connection.)

Secondly, and more importantly, it means that their tech support staff can provide support to people using linux. It means that you won't get a clueless highschool geek that keeps telling you to "Right click on Network Neighbourhood". Instead, you'll get a clueless highschool geek who will tell you to type "ifconfig" at the shell prompt.&LTGrin&gt

Re:DSL vs Cable

[Random Feature]

It means the damn techs won't tell you "I can't help you if you aren't running Windows".

It means you don't have to sit idly and lie like this:

Tech: Right click on blah blah
Me: okay
Tech: Now click on "Properties"
Me: okay
Tech: Now choose "X"
Me: okay

until you get to a point that the tech admits that they have a router down - which you already knew because you'd tracerouted the damn thing and saw that UUNet in Chicago had a crash AGAIN.

Re:DSL vs Cable

[DunbarTheInept]

Sometimes the important thing isn't "Linux supported", but "Linux is not verbotten here". It's more about finding a provider where you don't have to shut off everything that makes unix unix to meet the terms of service of the company, and not having to mess with idiots who don't know what the word "server" really means. (In an attempt to reduce bandwith a cable provider will often say servers are not allowed, not realizing that being a server says nothing about how much traffic will flow. If I put my webserver for a local gaming club up on a home computer it would generate a hell of a lot less traffic than the typical prOn downloader at home generates. Plus, they don't even have a definition of "server" that I can use to ensure I know what is and isn't allowed. (They allow ICQ and various p2p services, so clearly they aren't using the technical definition of server when they say servers are banned.)

I don't care about linux being "supported" - I just care about it being allowed. I don't need support on my own computer.

Re:DSL vs Cable

[Luyseyal]

man, your post made my day. Story of my experience with Time Warner Austin... GAH!

-l

p.s. we switched to DirecTV DSL so I could get port 80 back and not hide my services. TWTC told me over the phone that running a game that listened on a port constituted infringement, too, even though it probably would not be enforced!!

Re:DSL vs Cable

[conan_albrecht]

Check out dslreports.com. I have speakeasy.net, and I've been very happy with them.

Sigh...

[SlowMovingTarget]

Comcast is the only available broadband provider in my neighborhood. I guess I'll have to wait for powerline broadband.

I'll just have to figure out how to cover the meter outside my house that guages how many pictures I've downloaded...

Ownership and Control

[xyzzy-ladder]

Perhaps the only way to guarantee the freedom to use the network the way we want to is to own the network ourselves.

As long as some group of corporations owns the network, they will place whatever restrictions they expect will bring in more money for them. As more uses of the network are discovered, they will automatically be considered "unacceptable use" until they can figure out how to restrict it to their advantage.

So, is it possible for the users to own and control the network?

Re:Ownership and Control

[steve_l]

yes if you go for a real wireless cloud. in high density areas you could jut route among peers to a shared T1 access points, maybe at amenable universities.

So in a way, universal WLANS do threaten the cable companies, not just with bandwidth theft but with rendering the need for cable obsolete. Same for 3G cellular telcos.

Re:Ownership and Control

[Anonymous Coward]

"Perhaps the only way to guarantee the freedom to use the network the way we want to is to own the network ourselves. "

This has been used historically both for municipal ownership of public utilities (electric mainly) and for co-operatives.

If you want ownership in the strictest sense a co-operative would be the way to go. See this report as a starter. This PDF article says some interesting stuff about telecomm and cable co-ops.

Find others in you service area who are interested. Organize public meetings. Incorporate. Show up for hearings. The next time the cable contract comes up for renewal, get your city council to consider a cooperative. "Raise less corn and more hell"

Here here, I totally agree

[JoeShmoe]

I myself have always been arguing with my ISP over this very thing. My standpoint is this, if an ISP claims that their service is compatibile with Windows 98 or 2000 or whatever, what gives them the right to then deny you the ability to use a feature of that operating system?

Windows 98 included Personal Web Server. If you install Office you get Frontpage Server Extensions. 2000 server has VPN services. These are all part and parcel with the operating system. How then can my ISP say that even those Windows may let you share data on certain ports and protocols, we forbid it?

Obviously the clause was designed to prevent someone from running a business website on a consumer connection. But they don't write the rules to target abuse. The terms don't say "you may not run a server that consumes excessive bandwidth" or "you may not turn your connnection into a gateway to dozens of users". No, they write it as "no servers, period" and "no sharing this connection, period".

There are ISPs that don't do this. SpeakEasy comes to mind. When I was a SpeakEasy customer I ran web/ftp/vpn/shoutcast/dcc until my connection was absolutely saturated. I never heard word one from them about it. They even make a point to say they encourage you to runs servers (no porn sites, please!).

But the majority of the big ones, the AT&T Broadband and the SBC Pacific Bell want you to pay for broadband prices just to use low bandwidth protocols like e-mail and web browsing. After all, they content, you don't need all taht bandwidth we said we would give you. The only people who need to use their full quota of data is pirates, right? No one has any legitmate reason to upload a significant amount of information.

So, good for the tech companies. They have finally caught on that people aren't going to keep buying new computers and bigger hard drives and CD burners and all the trappings of a multimedia lifestyle if they get double taxed by having to pay for content. I consider my $50 broadband fee a global content tax and whether people consciously admit it or not, that's really what broadband is all about.

Given a choice between siding with the content providers and the infrastructure providers, I choose to side against the content industry because the only thing they stand to lose is potential (read: imaginary) profit. The people who actually make and sell tangible products will go out of business if they are subject to the whims of the content industry.

- JoeShmoe

.

Re:Here here, I totally agree

[Anonymous Coward]

Speakeasy is definately cool. They even sponsor Quake 3 OSP servers. If only they were in Michigan...

Re:Here here, I totally agree

[Gavin Rogers]

Windows 98 included Personal Web Server. If you install Office you get Frontpage Server Extensions. 2000 server has VPN services. These are all part and parcel with the operating system. How then can my ISP say that even those Windows may let you share data on certain ports and protocols, we forbid it?

First off, I agree that (as many others have said) ISPs should just accept your money, give you your IP address and access and then leave you alone. No port blocking no redirection...

But realise this: not all ISP customers know what they are doing. You mention the built-in web servers that come with Windows - how flawed are they out of the box without patching? Does Joe user serving out holiday photos to his friends and family know how to update his web server? No.

How many of the Nimda etc probes we are (still) receiving have been investigated by the customer's ISP who were contractually unable to do anything about it because their agreement with their customer ends at the router and not the customer equipment?

The customer says, "I don't care - it's none of your business what we do with our account".

ISPs should leave their customers to infiltered, direct internet access, but they need to interfere sometimes to protect users from themselves. (like blocking incoming port 80 by default unless you tell them otherwise)

ISPs who block incoming ports 25, 53, 80 etc only to push their own hosting products are just greedy.

And over here in reality...

[Anonymous Coward]

...you are being charged (probably) a very LOW amount for this bandwidth. In exchange, you agree to certain things like this to prevent you from using too much of their bandwidth and support staff time.

If you want them to "give you the pipe and accept the checks," then perhaps you'll be prepared to pay SUBSTANTIALLY MORE MONEY for those benefits?

I have TWC digital cable, hdtv, and a cable modem. My service has been great. I do have a router hooked up to my cable modem, and a wireless network (though it's only for my home's use), and several computers on the network. I also run a webserver on a non-standard port just fine. If they can figure all this out, they're welcome to turn off my service.

BSA

[Betelgeuse]

Yeah. . . and if you want to do adminstration from a campsite. . . but really, Slashdot shouldn't be giving press to such blatant homophobes . . .

OH! BSA not BSA!

It's funny because BSA was actually what I first thought of when I saw the story.

What gives?

[juggler314]

One would assume you are trying to portray TWC as some hideous corporate entity. But in reality for security reasons you absolutely should not be allowing everyone in the world to use your access point. I think the threat of legal action is a bit much, however, if I were going to do some deeds online I didn't want to be traced to the first thing I would do is wander around NYC using ppl's home wireless bridges to cable/DSL. Furthermore the reason cable companies are capping bandwidth is because it's too expensive. If everyone re-shares the connection there will be no manageable traffic it'll just be 100% utilization 24x7 so there's nothing wrong with trying to curtail this.

Re:What gives?

[juggler314]

furthermore, it bothers me that ppl buy a certain service then complain they can't do what they want with it. Well what you should do is cancel that service, and subscribe to one that does. Then 2 months later when you can't afford it anymore you'll come running back. The real problem is that many of us can't seem to think like a business (and of course many of us think capitalism is bad and refuse to admit that companies don't do things for the good of the ppl they do it to make money).

Re:What gives?

[MImeKillEr]

TWC threatened to cut off a buddy of mine for :

1) Running a password-protected game server, accessible to only 5 people who knew the password
2) Running Windows NT Server

He shut down the game server (there went our Quake Clan..) but refused to change the OS. He never did get TWC to explain to him why he couldn't run the OS of his choice.

Re:What gives?

[dotslash]

"Furthermore the reason cable companies are capping bandwidth is because it's too expensive."

Ahem, the problem is that instead of passing on the expense by providing a "tiered" stucture of pricing, respresentative of bandwitdh based pricing, they force a complete ban. If they allowed you to pay for extra bandwidth and server use and interesting protocols, you would have a choice. If they priced these services too high for what the market believes is their true value, they will be trumped by a (hopefully existent, perhaps DSL based) competitor who will offer these services cheaper.

The problem is that their "ban" approach distorts the market and imposes technology choices that stiffle inovation. Open architectures allow the market to rapidly develop "interesting" technologies, by allowing them to be offered at a price that the market will accept. Eventually, the VPN (or whatever) functionality starts getting popular and some ISPs start offering it cheaper, expanding its reach...

So they are in effect choosing which technologies are "acceptable" and which not. Some of us believe that P2P is a lot more than just a file-sharing system, it is a completely new ad-hoc networking model architecture that will eventually replace the current very static network. I think that eventually, all the layer 7 protocols will be encapsulated in ad-hoc wireless peer-to-peer encrypted anonymized networks. Obviously cable companies may wish to differ, as this would really screw with their content distribution model. Therefore, they decide that P2P is irrelevant, and they block it. Allowing them to do that will seriously affect inovation for quite a while.

Hopefully, users will start being more demanding and they will start affecting the areas that have more than 2 choices for broadband. Here in NY, for example, I feel I have several choices of providers with different terms. My current provider has pretty much no restrictions.

Re:What gives?

[juggler314]

what on earth makes you think a cable company should have to open up it's network to competitors. Just because they happened to be there first or win out by having a better business doesn't mean that later on when the small companies complain they should get a free ride.

Re:What gives?

[juggler314]

Look I understand that there are better ways to do it. I'm not saying there aren't better solutions. But as a business TWC is pretty much allowed to do anything they want in this respect. If they do too much, customers leave they hurt financially and change policies. You want them to do a certain thing because *you* believe it's better. They have every right to choose what they think is the best. Contrary to what you may think TWC doesn't sell internet access for the betterment of the world but to make a profit and as stated above they can and will do whatever they feel leads to the most profit.

Re:What gives?

[MsGeek]

TWC threatened to cut off a buddy of mine for :
1) Running a password-protected game server, accessible to only 5 people who knew the password
2) Running Windows NT Server

He shut down the game server (there went our Quake Clan..) but refused to change the OS. He never did get TWC to explain to him why he couldn't run the OS of his choice.

I'll tell you what gives. Windows NT Server gives people Code Red. And Nimda. And so on. Sure, maybe this guy was clueful and kept his NT Server patched. If so, it was lame that they cut him off.

But the thing is that not everyone running NT Server IS clueful. Remember how the Net was when Code Red was at its height? It's the lazy-person's way to control things if you just blanket forbid certain OSes from running on your network, but they are within their rights.

If you live in CA or AZ, you might want to check out DSLExtreme...both of your friends "offenses" would have been perfectly OK under the DSLExtreme TOS/AUP.

Did anyone read the letter 'nastygram'?

[BlueOtto]

The letter brought out a good point. Criminal activity could be done with these unsecured access points very anonymously and then the accountibility ends at the user's account.

I hate to say it, but I side with the cable company on this one. He agreed to it when he signed up - not to share his account - I think broadcasting unsecured wireless access is sharing the account with anyone.

Re:Did anyone read the letter 'nastygram'?

[toybuilder]

Yeah. It sounded reasonable, except for the obvious heavy lawyer tone.

But, man, the letter sure looked fake. The guy says it is the actual letter; but the text and letter head graphics are too perfectly aligned (on crinkled paper, no less) to be a real scan.

I wish...

[dmarien]

That internet access was simply unrestricted. I mean, I don't care if I have to pay twice as much for my cable modem and broadband internet access -- just don't restrict my usage!!!

I wish at work, where we have a very fat pipe I could SSH over port 22! Instead of having to run sshd off a port which can be access through our LAN firewall.

I know that at work they're paying me, whereas at home I'm paying Rogers... But why the heck can't I just use what I'm paying for the way it's designed to work... It's ludicrous that I'm not allowed to run any servers from my home PC, or that I can't utilize more than a certian amount of bandwidth -- or that I can't uncap my cable modem (which *I* purchased!). The early days of broadband where one could get away with nearly anything are long gone -- these days i'm lucky that they haven't determined that I'm running sshd off that odd port and cancelled my service!

nothing in here about bandwidth caps

[mblase]

...the companies say that in the subscriber agreements of major cable Internet providers, there are prohibitions on the use of private corporate networks that allow employees to work from home; restrictions on adding hardware such as servers and game boxes to the networks; and clauses that reserve the right to restrict access to certain bandwidth-intensive sites, such as those for online gambling.

... the High Tech Broadband Coalition, also wants the FCC to ensure that cable companies don't unilaterally prohibit any type of Internet use. A separate filing by Amazon.com takes the same view.

The cable industry supports the FCC's deregulatory effort and has been moving toward a system of tiered pricing for services that require faster connection speeds, such as access to corporate networks and graphics-intensive gambling.

To summarize: The corporate group wants cable internet providers to move away from restricting how customers use their bandwidth, and instead only restrict how much. To summarize of the summary: Big Brother bad, bandwidth caps good.

And this is all quite good and reasonable. Why should my internet provider be concerned with whether or not I'm operating a server on my modem? Or playing games? Or visiting gambling or *cough* porn sites all night long? Or working from home all day? It shouldn't matter what I'm doing with my bandwidth, and it's unfair to restrict what I do with it in the contract.

But it's entirely reasonable and acceptable to charge me more if I use a high volume of bandwidth. My web hosting provider charges me a different amount per month if I exceed a certain amount of traffic; my cable internet provider can and should do the same.

This deserves our support, Slashdotters. Read carefully.

Re:nothing in here about bandwidth caps

[tshak]

Or playing games?

This is what boggles me. When I was younger I was on 16 player Quake servers all the time. This easily uses as much bandwidth as my current VPN usage. So why is VPN, a very practical and legitimate usage of a home internet connection, banned while gaming for hours on end during peak time accepted? It seems like these policies are being created by your friendly technology MBA "expert".

Re:nothing in here about bandwidth caps

[withinavoid]

I agree with your comments. The only problem is that in a cable plant there is not enough bandwidth as it is, perhaps when DOCSIS 2.0 is out that will be a different story. For now, the only feasable option is to reduce the bandwidth caps to something even lower (yah I hear the bitchin). By doing so there is less ability for one or only a select few 'hogs' to take all the bandwidth which results in poor service for others. Reduce the caps and let the customer run whatever they want. There are two problems though with potential subscriber servers. Open SMTP relays mainly. Too many people have absolutely NO CLUE about securing services. Open relays get ISPs in serious trouble. I am totaly for blocking that out on residential use. Another problem is open proxies for the same reasons. So I think there is some policing that has to be done since these connections are always on, and almost always at the same IP address. But I see nothing wrong with running web servers, or working from home, NAT, etc.

Re:nothing in here about bandwidth caps

[Luyseyal]

Because they want to use the VPN usage to justify charging you for "business class service" whatever the hell that means.

-l

p.s.- not that their argument is in any way, shape, or form logical. :)

Re:nothing in here about bandwidth caps

[mcrbids]

So why is VPN, a very practical and legitimate usage of a home internet connection, banned while gaming for hours on end during peak time accepted?

Simple. Most ISPs offer "business" services for a significant mark-up (read: profits) that include the ability to do VPNs.

The goal is to create a distinction between the "consumer" (cheap) grade service and the "business" (costly) service, even though they are fundamentally the same thing.

Re:nothing in here about bandwidth caps

[tshak]

I can understand this if I was running a business from my house. However, I VPN for my employer whenever I'm sick or whenever I'm taking a half day (2-3 times a month). I also VPN to my friends house to play games on his "LAN" with games that don't support TCP/IP without going through some silly service.

Telco and Cable never liked Internet Access

[phsolide]

The telcos and cablemodem companies have never really liked to provide freewheeling internet access. The cable companies in particular have a "broadcast" mentality where someone pays to provide "content" and the unwashed massses pay to view the "content". Unfortunately for them, all the cool stuff requires two-way communications. A very unfortunate side effect of providing communication back from the "viewers" using TCP/IP is that the "viewers" can now do content themselves.

DSL and cablemodem people have an ugly history of AUPs that prevent running "servers". They have a history of blocking port 80 (and other ports) inbound to their clients.

There's two real problems inherent in this mess:

1. TCP/IP doesn't make too much distinction between "client" and "server" except in the 3-packet handshake when setting up a connection.
2. The traditional "content providers" (movie and TV studios, music recording industry) are totally bankrupt - morally, creatively and philosophically. When was the last time you saw a TV show that didn't copy some format pioneered in the 50s?

So what does this predict for the future? A couple of things: first, MPAA and RIAA and whatever the TV and radio trade associations are will continue to try to legislate things, since they no longer have the mental or moral wherewithal to make any new art. Expect DMCA enforcement to continue to get worse. Expect legislatures to enact UCITA-like laws, or even stuff like Senator Holling's TBPDTPADTAPA abortion.

You can also expect a technical thrust: replacing TCP/IP with some base protocol(s) that make a very strict distinction between "server" and "client". This might come from Microsoft and not from the MPAA/RIAA/legislative thrust. "Palladium" just might be part of this. The protocol might even be proprietary very costly to obtain the spec if one even exists. But it will cost tons of money to run a "server" for that protocol, one way or the other. Either the software will be pricey or a network hookup that accepts special "server" packets will be pricey.

Re:I just want to make it perfect;ly clear...

[Anonymous Coward]

Shut up, Michael. It's fuckin' tiresome at this point. You were clearly in the wrong, you are clearly a self-serving scumbag, just shut up.

Server != High Bandwidth

[fmaxwell]

As far as servers, bandwith is expensive.

I have a web server. It serves a text-only page that has info about my fan speeds, CPU temperature, etc. I access it a few times per day, each time downloading about 5K of data across my cable modem. I have an FTP server. I only access it about twice a week and then I don't move anything big. Usually just a .zip file or two. It's password-protected and I'm the only user. Neither one of these servers causes excessive bandwidth usage, yet both are banned under the newly amended TOS/AUP at my cable modem provider.

If the ISP is concerned about my usage of bandwidth, then they should publish bandwidth limits and/or tiered pricing to reflect usage rather than banning things that often have nothing to do with the "problem."

Of course, the real problem is that they want to force computer hobbyists, to whom the connection is most useful, to pay big bucks for a "business service." That's why they keep putting up red herrings like "servers" rather than just limiting bandwidth or charging for tiered service.

Re:Server != High Bandwidth

[pongo000]

Of course, the real problem is that they want to force computer hobbyists, to whom the connection is most useful, to pay big bucks for a "business service."

I would more readily believe this if, in fact, ATT offered business-class service where I live...but, in fact, ATT doesn't (residential service only), and have told me they have no plans to do so. Then again, the area where I live isn't served DSL, either, so maybe ATT knows a good thing when they see it.

Of course, this doesn't stop me from running my own mail and SSH server. But I'd rather not have to do it on the sly...

Re:Server != High Bandwidth

[Higher Authority]

They only don't offer it, because you alone wouldn't make much profit. In fact, they'd probably be loosing money if they charged to more to offer you more. Or so they would claim, and I'd be inclined to somewhat believe them. But if they offered that more widely, sure, they could make moeny off of you.

As far as the whole idea behind "business service", it's completely flawed. Someone like myself, or even you probably, is/are a home user, else, we wouldn't being using the service at home. A business class service agreement seems totally inappropriate in a residentatial area.

The problem stems most, I believe, from the bullshit that the profiteering gluntins are spreading that servers are for and only for businesses, and you can make big bucks off of it using their service, or by the most popular propoganda that filesharing takes up *so much* bandwidth, and it's illegal anyway so why not cap it and stop it as best we can. Yeah, and I'm Mahatma Ghandi. Filesharing is not so evil, or intensive, if managed properly (and there are other, more efficient ways of handling problems that do arise), and I'm not so perfect. Sue me.

Re:Server != High Bandwidth

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a public FTP, wich is quite crowded, a webserver o formerly served a quite big comminuty site (around 10k members), and i download LOTS of stuff.. (around 10 GB / day i think). ..And the company who provides this (Swedish government-owned-monopoly-company telia), does not care.. Who said competition was good for busieness? :)

(I have had this connection for 1.5 yers now).

(btw. I have only change IP twice - and the service does DHCP adressing.. :)

Who controls the beachhead into the home

[LL]

Perhaps I'm being cynical but I see this as a scaled-up variant of the Intel tactics mentioned in a previous /. article. As claimed, in order for Intel to dominate the high-volume business/consumer market, they had to do a form industry consortium against IBM's microchannel and open up the specs (competitive advantage only to manufacturers) so that all the value accumulated on their CPUs and the architecture could not be limited by the I/O bus (which can be scaled in higher mainframe systems of course).

In a similar way, the PC-centric world would like cheap unexpensive pipes to people's home and commoditise the bandwidth providers. Naturally the entrenched cable guys prefer seeing services centralised on their heavily controlled servers and demanding gatekeeper fees for access to their "customers". Which IMHO creates this Goliath v Gozilla tussle between the two camps. One wonders where the hapless "owned" customer feels about this supposedly beneficial outcome of creative destruction of capitalism.

It's hard to be an umpire (supposedly the US gov) when the two groups are playing by different rules with the cable guys demarcating their turf and the rest trying scorched earth tactics to dig their swimming pool (so-called liquid market).

LL

Re:Who controls the beachhead into the home

[xyzzy-ladder]

This sounds like a good idea.

I wonder if apartment building and neighborhoods could run ethernet or wireless to each other? Imagine an apartment building with 20 apartments. Install ethernet into each apartment, run a gateway with NAT, and share a T1/T3/OCX. Assuming you could get a big enough pipe and pay your expenses for $1000/month, that would be $50 per apartment, roughly the cost DSL or cable is now. And of course, to sweeten the deal, you could set up a cheap box to provide free email, websites, etc.

Sound feasible?

Competition and Regulation

[xyzzy-ladder]

Will more competition or regulation help?

I can't see how "competition" from one or more corporations will help. The corporations will have interests in common to restrict our use of the network in some way, so most of them will. And I can't see more than a handful of providers in a given area, at least not in the next few years.

What about regulation? We would have to lobby the government, while the corporations are lobbying too - with more money and more access. And even if we were to win, they will still be there, week after week every year, lobbying to change the regulations in their favor.

I don't see any other solution besides owning the network ourselves. Maybe each user could have an equal share, and delegate responsibilities to the engineers who already design and build the network? Right now, the engineers answer to the management of the corporations, but maybe we could get them to answer to the users directly instead. That sounds reasonably democratic.

How'd they detect this?

[NanoGator]

I'm just curious how they detected his wireless usage. It seems like he could install a router with NAT between the cable modem and the wireless node, then call up and say "problem solved."

Here's another question: Was he using encryption? If he's not, I can understand the company's point of view. (Note: I said understand, I didn't say I agree with it.) If he were to say 'its encrypted...', that should solve it.

Hmmm sounds like a call to pre-emptively sue the cable/dsl companies for express permission to use wireless. When I signed on with @Home (and then ATT Broadband), they were advertising how to use multiple computers on the same connection. I even found a howto on how to do it. Here's the address: http://www.computers4sure.com/linksys/store/att_wi reless.asp

Note: AT&T's site linked me to this. When you go to this site before going to AT&T's site, you see the AT&T logo on the screen. Strange, eh? hehe.

Re:How'd they detect this?

[CyberLife]

I'm just curious how they detected his wireless usage.

I too am curious. There are two ways I see this could be set up (maybe more???):

• NAT - Provider would not be able to distinguish between traffic originating from the router and that passing through it.
  
• Static IPs - Provider would not be able to distinguish between traffic originating from a wireless node or one hardwired into the LAN.

Even if a wireless network were to be set up, the service provider has no way of knowing who is using it. They would not be able to distinguish between traffic from the legitimate customer and that from outsiders.

Re:How'd they detect this?

[NanoGator]

I'm wondering if they drove around with a laptop and an 802.11 card and found him that way.

There's a hint of that in the original Slashdot posting. Unfortunately, the guy himself doesn't offer much in terms of details. If that's all they did, then I'm not sure I'm going to jump on the 'Cable is evil!!!' bandwagon right away. It's rude that he got that letter, but it seems like if he were to set up a basic encryption key (which is rather trivial) then they'd never have known about it.

Part of me wonders if there are two stories being balled up into one. I think MS's involvement in this is so that MSN can be used as an ISP. So they're trying to say 'cable companies are being bad!'. I don't want the cable companies behaving like that, but I'm leary of MS backing that. Heh.

I dunno. What do you guys think?

Re:How'd they detect this?

[mla_anderson]

I suspect they were looking at their bandwidth usage and found his usage was significantly higher than other people. This would then generate interest because they pay for bandwidth and their pricing formulas are built for occasional access. (The fact that they claim to sell full time access is another point.)

At that point they go to the house and spot the external antenna for the 802.11. Then they get one of their spectrum analyzers and determine that there is a lot of 802.11 activity going on.

Under this scenario there is no need for them to determine that the node is open, only that it exists and is accessible from outside the house.

What was illegal was the amplifier(s) on the 802.11 device(s).

Re:How'd they detect this?

[Anonymous Coward]

1. He wasn't using a wireless router, card, or anything.

2. The cable company got the records of NYCWireless group which the man signed on as a -possible- cloud node, however he never decided to go through with it.

Cheers.

I agree with Microsoft?????

[newt_sd]

I do I really agree with Microsoft I realize they are taking this position for their own business practices but the concept is sound. Just because the current business model of these high speed internet providers is horrid doesn't mean that they have the right to limit what you surf for???? Oh wait its a free world they tell you up front that hey your not going to be able to do certain things if you get service from us. And what do we do but sign on the dotted line. Maybe its our faults for accepting terms of service like this and hey wait a minute doesn't microsoft limit what you can do with their service that they provide (the OS). Well what the heck apparently businesses can decide what they sell you and get this you can choose whether to buy it??? Ok now I am confused you mean with all these choices if i pick something that i don't like its MY FAULT??????

Running servers

[Tim Ward]

My cable modem supplier keeps changing the rules on running servers, but what it boils down to is that they don't want you eating "too much" bandwidth.

So you can run web servers, email servers, news servers, whatever, that are private to a group of friends and they won't mind at all, even in a week when their Ts&Cs say it's forbidden.

Run a publicly advertised server with free stolen porno videos, though, and you might expect them to notice and close you down.

VPN similarly seems to be "allowed" some weeks and not others, but they've never actually blocked it, and I've always been able to use it when I want to. Running an entire network off the cable modem is "not supported" - but of course everybody does it, and they even provide a self-help newsgroup for people to tell each other how to set it up. One imagines however that they'd get upset if you ran a multi-person company behind one cable modem on a domestic tariff and saturated your 512K for eight hours a day.

What it amounts to is that if their network falls over because of a few prats play silly buggers they'll deal with them, otherwise if you're sensible they don't in practice mind what you get up to.

Seems reasonable to me.

Re:Running servers

[sealawyer]

"Seems reasonable to me."

It seems reasonable, but it may not be.

Your cable company has you in a very vulnerable position. If you do something that they don't like, but which isn't a violation, like using too much bandwidth surfing or downloading linux isos, they can terminate you for any one of the things they are now turning a blind eye to.

VPN usage looks like a particularly good "dump Tim Ward any time we get good and ready" hole card.

I wonder if...

[Just Jeff]

A group of cable companies and ISPs might get together and write the Federal Trade Commission or the U.S. Department of Justice, complaining that Microsoft limits and impedes what broadband customers are allowed to do with their computers connected to their networks...

Re:Microsoft (MPAA??)

[Anonymous Coward]

What does the MPAA have to do with any of this??
or did you mean This MPAA????

Please Advise

What I'd like to know...

[MImeKillEr]

..is if he takes measures to secure the WAP (as much as is possible, with 802.11 being less-than-secure) will TWC back off?

Both my neighbor and I have RR, and both of us have WAPs for our internal networks. She and I have (as everyone with a WAP should) changed the SSID, the channel, and enabled 128bit "encryption".

Hell, I just heard a couple of days ago on <a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cable">Yaho o's cable group</a> that THEY'RE going to start offering cable routers with built in WAPs next month...!

No doubt to be modded down as flamebait, but...

[StevenMaurer]

I see no problem with cable companies preventing people from turning their computers into WAN routers.

Face facts people, if the cable co's allow this, wireless wardriving will become the spammers tool of choice.

Everybody here knows what a pain in the ass open relays are, why get upset when the cable co's do the right thing for unsecure WAPs?

Strawman

[Lurkingrue]

We're not dealing with "capitalism" here, because in most cases the individuals looking for another service don't have any other options -- especially with the "non-compete" decision recently handed down about ISPs in the US. Keep in mind, too, that the internet was a government-derived project when it started. I'm not sure why its acceptable for corporations to restrict access to this communications backbone.

Parcelling out regions of citizens/consumers to monopolistic "providers" doesn't serve the nation, and our government should be keeping an eye out for us that we don't get gouged or unilaterally controlled. I'd like to see some folks bringing a few anti-trust cases up to keep everyone on the up and up, and not view the US populace as sheep for fleecing.

Re:Strawman

[Anonymous Coward]

We're not dealing with "capitalism" here, because in most cases the individuals looking for another service don't have any other options -- especially with the "non-compete" decision recently handed down about ISPs in the US. Keep in mind, too, that the internet was a government-derived project when it started. I'm not sure why its acceptable for corporations to restrict access to this communications backbone.

It is acceptable for corporations (ie, capitalists) to control access to the network because they now own it, and in a capitalist system, those who own, control (so yes, we are dealing with capitalism here). Telling is the fact that the reason they own the network is because the government gave it to them for free.

Parcelling out regions of citizens/consumers to monopolistic "providers" doesn't serve the nation, and our government should be keeping an eye out for us that we don't get gouged or unilaterally controlled.

It serves those who have the most campaign dollars (at the moment) to contribute to the politicians who control the government. The government isn't there to keep an eye OUT FOR us. It's there to keep an eye ON us. To make sure we obey the DMCA. To make sure that the RIAA gets its DRM. To make sure we don't DARE contribute to PGP (lest our patches be construed as "exports" of "munitions" and the government calls us "terrorists" as an excuse to deny us a trial).

I'd like to see some folks bringing a few anti-trust cases up to keep everyone on the up and up, and not view the US populace as sheep for fleecing.

If an anti-trust case was the solution, Microsoft wouldn't still be around to try to shove Palladium down everybody's throats.

Private corporations and governments always have and will view ordinary citizens as being sheep for fleecing. It's in their very natures as power structures.

I would love that...

[bcwengerter]

Contrast that to the DSL front, where I have the choice of many companies. I get a static IP, good speed, Linux supported, etc. because that's what I looked for when I subscribed.

...except for the fact that DSL has NEVER been available in my area, and it doesn't look like there are plans to fix that any time soon. So, what other broadband options do I have besides cable? I'm serious. Let me know, so I can switch.

Truth in advertising?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if truth-in-advertising laws could be used against home broadband providers who advertise an "Internet connection" when in reality they are just providing a crippled, limited web-surfing connection with most "Internet" services disabled.

Re:Truth in advertising?

[Katravax]

Interesting, but maybe not, because they present you with the TOS before you sign.

Re:Truth in advertising?

[phillymjs]

Interesting, but maybe not, because they present you with the TOS before you sign.

You can't make false claims in your commercials and then just revoke them in a disclaimer, EULA, or TOS, or whatever. The software industry, especially Microsoft, has gotten away with this for way too long and will eventually be smacked down. But companies that make tangible products that exist in the physical world can't really break this rule as easily. No amount of disclaimers would mean Coke commercials could claim drinking one can of their products will cure AIDS and whiten your teeth. Ford can't claim their cars get a million miles per gallon, and are capable of flying to the moon.

These cable companies are totally full of shit... their commercials bray far and wide, "Download music and movies and all sorts of cool stuff!" "Play internet games with a bunch of friends!"

Meanwhile, they keep crossing stuff off the list of things you're allowed to do with your connection. As far as some cable ISPs are concerned, you're violating their AUP if you so much as check your office e-mail with Outlook Web Access via a "residential" cable internet connection.

In one commerical that's recently gotten a fair amount of play where I live, Vanessa Williams is auditioning for a part in New York while sitting in L.A., via videoconferencing over her Comcast cable internet service. Isn't that considered "working at home"? Well I sure hope she's paying for Comcast's "business" class cable internet service! But... wait! The ad is clearly for "residential" service! What's going on?

As far as I'm concerned, the cable companies are advertising one service, but actually selling people an entirely different one. And that is why I dumped Comcast in January and got DSL through SpeakEasy. And now I've got static IPs, my own domain, and run my own mail and web servers, and everybody's happy. SpeakEasy knows how to do what Comcast refuses to do-- just take my money, give me a fat pipe in return, and fuck off otherwise unless I need something and call them.

The cable companies will eventually go too far and find themselves on the wrong end of a false-advertising lawsuit. If these companies that are banding together to complain to the FCC were smart, they'd also give a holler to the people in the FTC.

~Philly

Once again..

[mindstrm]

things will work much better freedom-wise when the consumer starts buying bandwidth by the byte.

Sure, it's more complex.. but it also reflects the actual limited resource being used.

Weak point

[owlmeat]

We don't ban anonymous letters because they might contain anthrax, at least not yet. Being anonymous should not equate to criminal activity.

Re:Weak point

[Anonymous Coward]

bad example because it wouldn't be anonymous it would have this stupid users name on it.

Stop complaining start being picky.

[dotslash]

If the first question you ask before hooking up with broadband is:
"Do you have any service restrictions", then how long do you think this crap is going to last? Sure, there will be a lame cable provider who caters to mom&pop audiences, but if the majority of serious users become very selective, surely there is a big enough impact to make this a selling point. Even in limited competition that would have an effect.

I think the problem really lies in the fact that very few users have enough of a clue to be demanding even when they do have choices.

Top x questions (in no order):

- Do you restrict the use of LAN's NATed behind a router?
- Do you run any proxies (transparent or not)
- Do you restrict any traffic by port, address, or protocol type?
- Do you allow IPSec?
- What are your plans for IPv6?
- Do I have at least one non-NATed address?
- How much for extra IP or netblock?
- Do you have a bandwidth cap on volume or peak use?
- Do you allow the use of public facing servers?
- Do you allow the use of P2P?
- Can I see your Acceptable Use policy and Terms & Conditions?
- Can I see your Privacy Policy?
- Do you have a security policy?
- Do you monitor or collect customer traffic or traffic patterns?
- Do you demand a subpoena prior to law enforcement access?
- What is your policy on SPAM?
- What is your policy on sharing of personally identifiable information?
- What is your policy on sharing of aggregate use data?

Make 'em sweat. Most sales people will happily go through this list, very politely. If not, you already have a problem.

Don't know if you noticed, but broadband adoption is in the crapper and many people have reverted to dial-up. Who needs whom more?

Re:Stop complaining start being picky.

[steve_l]

ask them about their multicast IP support too. The mbone is all about shared bandwidth, yet it isnt always accessible

Re:Stop complaining start being picky.

[Lemmy Caution]

My DSL ISP would happily answer all these questions. They work in a market that is competitive, and it is Federal regulation which keeps them competitive, by forcing ILECS and CLECS to allow competing ISP's to use their facilities (for a fee.)

The cable providers have no regulation. And no competition. And are more than happy to answer "no and goodbye" to the 3 percent of the market that might ask these questions and then turn around and make money hand-over-fist to the 97 percent that doesn't ask these questions.

Re:Stop complaining start being picky.

[dotslash]

Then I think that if you care about these things you will want to go with DSL. For those areas where that kind of choice exists, I suggest we start voting with our wallet as to what we would like to see provided.

MS & Broadband

[lionchild]

Just to add to this line of thinking, would it be surprising if MS bought or just started up their own flavor of Cable/DSL Broadband? I'd heard the rumor that some of the dwindling Baby Bells could be in trouble of being thrust into anti-trust court again, which would make them ripe for purchasing, I would think. Thus, a company with alot of cash laying around could buy out a division of it, like Broadband/DSL, and have your own access to a nice tidy infrastructure.

There might be an upside, though

[Noel]

Yeah, it stinks that cable ISPs are [legally] gaining [monopoly] control and the ability to squelch their competition.

OTOH, this may also slow down the migration of commercial software to the network-based service model. Anything that keeps broadband prices high and single-sourced will be a disincentive for this migration.

I doubt this possible benefit outweighs the liabilities, though...and Microsoft already has an alternative - if they can't force people to use net-based application servers for their software, they can own their desktop machines with Palladium.

The obvious solution...

[dtfarmer]

The obvoius solution to this is that cable and DSL providers need to stop trying to control how we use the bandwidth we pay for and just focus on how much bandwidth each user is allowed to use. Bandwidth caps are good, and anyone who un-caps their router/modem without notifiying their provider (so they can be billed appropriately) is stealing bandwidth they are not paying for. And monthly caps are not unreasonable as long as you only get knocked down to 56k or 33k for the remainder of the month - it would be unreasonable if you lost all service for the last week of the month.

Everyone of you who are outraged that you can't have a full T1 service for $40/mo are being outrageous. You expect all the others on your loop to subsidize your use? Grow up and get real. Bandwidth costs money, and if you aren't willing to pay for it - well, I'm not gonna shed a tear for you. You're stealing just like someone stealing HBO - and should be subject to prosecution just the same, if you get caught.

Basically, users need to stop expecting to get more than their money's worth, and providers need to stop worrying about what's done with the bandwidth.

Contract violation

[chiph]

If it's in the contract, you need to obey it as long as you want to continue receiving their service. Don't like the contract? You can try negotiating better terms (unlikely) or go somewhere else, like DSL.

If you were to lease a T1, the contract would be much more liberal, only forbidding the truly nasty stuff - kiddy porn, spamming, and assaulting other systems. Plus whatever your upstream provider decided they didn't like, of course. Or go without access.

Chip H.

MS Giveth And MS Taketh Away

[prisonercx]

I find it funny/scary/ridiculous that MS and content providers will stand behind the CBDTPA, whose claim is ostensibly to promote the adoption of high-bandwidth Internet connections (by limiting what users can do with their computers), and then turn around and accuse them of limiting the freedoms of users. I suppose it's just another case of self-serving interests.

And BTW, since when is it the BSA's job to complain about other companies limiting user freedom? Don't they have enough to do finding "licence infringments" that they don't need to dip their claw in this?

PrisonerCX

Heh

[tlambert]

(2) For the purpose of this section, the term "assist in intercepting or receiving" shall include the manufacture or distribution of equipment intended by the manufacturer or distributor (as the case may be) for unauthorized reception of any communications service offered over a cable system in violation of subparagraph (1).

Does this mean that Lucent, Cisco, and other Wi-Fi equipment manufacturers are aiding and abetting when they sell a Wi-Fi capable cable modem?

Switch to dialup

[tlambert]

Switch to dialup. Then you will have even more choices!

Oh... wait... NOW it's about bandwidth?

-- Terry

GTE/Genuity/BBNPlanet/Verizon

[rworne]

Whatever they call themselves this week...

I was an "early adopter" of DSL in my area and simply got the business DSL service for our home. After prodding both the drone that set up the order, and the tech support crew, I was told basically I can do whatever I want with the service provided I simply don't break any laws/set up a pr0n site/send spam.

In fact, once I explained I was supplying my own mail and web server, they seemed happy to accomodate sending these services to my box vs. their hosting services.

In return, the only time I would call to gripe is to complain about the DSL line being down.

Yes, it costs more, but the freedom is refreshing. (2x residential rate, but I split the costs with another party on the same property)

I would also like to add that for nearly a year they screwed up the billing and we didn't get a bill for nearly 8 months. When we would send in payment anyway, they would cut us a refund check and send it back. After the initial 8 months, they found out about the billing problem and fixed it. Billed us for 2 months and called the other 6 months a wash.

I never expected that, especially from a phone company

YGWYPF

[Spazmania]

Mommy mommy!

Bobby said he'd give me a one hundred dollar bill if I gave him five dollars, but he gave me monopoly money!

You get what you pay for. Sure it would be nice if the "broadband" providers would level with you and tell you up front that the standard of service is several steps below a T1, but that would be like a Toyota salesman telling you that their standard of quality was several steps below that of a Porsche.

Of course it is! DUH!

atlas shrugged

[Anonymous Coward]

Does this remind anyone of Atlas Shrugged, where a private company builds a railroad, and then the government claims it is unfair for one railroad company to have a monopoly, and seize the rail without compensation? If the cable company payed for the cable lines, why they should they have to open them up to competition? Sounds more like communism that capitalism to me

Re:atlas shrugged

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really. In Rand's tales, the company was private and built a railroad all by themselves, with no help from anyone. In one scene, she even has the CEO of the steel company working at the steel mill, with his trusted foreman at his side! It reminds me more of Mr. Burns and Smithers at the robot factory. It's funny and entertaining, but has little to do with the real world.

The cable network was not built by chairmen and directors. It was built by engineers. The chairmen and directors shuffled paper and made speeches.

In the real world, the phone companies and the cable companies have been incorporated by the government, had the government protect their markets, and limit their shareholder's liability.

The Boards of Directors and the CEOs are starting to act more and more like the Central Committee and the Party Chair. Among the most notorious are the phone companies and the cable companies. Corporate Communism? No thanks.

cheap 802.11b antennas

[comatose6032]

these people make cheap 802.11b antennas http://www.signull.com/

Regulation keeps the DSL market competitive.

[Lemmy Caution]

The DSL providers give a lot more latitude and flexibility, and offer more servers, because they are regulated in a way that ensures more, rather than less competition. Wherever there's a natural bottleneck - and the last mile is definitely a natural bottleneck, for any given technology - only regulation ensures that a competitive market develops.

evil ISP's

[stuuf]

It wasn't enough to advertise 50x the speed of dialup, and give us 2.5x the speed?
Eventually they'll limit us to only outgoing connections on ports 80, 25, 110, and 21.
then just 80.

Re:evil ISP's

[s10god]

Actually if you look they always compare to 14.4 or 28.8 never 33.6 or 56k!

Of ISPs and users...

[Nogami_Saeko]

Just remember the following...

Try to think as if you're an ISP:

- Users doing anything on their computer that requires bandwidth costs you money.
- Users running servers costs you money.
- Users running servers that serve MP3s or movies costs you LOTs of money (lots of bandwidth), and could open you up to legal issues.
- Users who telecommute should be able to "afford" to buy a business package for home. After all, if they lead such a wonderful life as to be able to work from home, then they SHOULD pay extra to us!
- Users who run servers or share internet connections bother tech support.

Solution? Deny all servers.

If possible, deny anything that users may do other than web surfing and email. No telecommuting here!

Infact, if it's possible to bill users without providing ANY service, that's the way to go!

Sigh.

[MrNemesis]

The cable/DSL companies just want people to use their expensive high bandwidth connections so people can use the net for browsing, email, maybe downloading the new patches for the latest 'doze vuln, and maybe stream some prepackaged media crap from the music piRIAAtes.

If this trend carries on (along with the ever incresing size of banner ads and spam) cable and DSL will be about as fast as 56K in a few years time.

Fair do's to the tech companies for speaking out against this though. If stuff doesn't become available on the net any more, why will people bother buying X number of fancy new multimedia computer enhancements? Sad but true, most people have CD/DVD burners to make copies of music/warez/movies etc... make these difficult to get at, and people just won't buy them as much any more.

The whole rubbish about "not running a server" is nonsense. Once I get linux figured out, I plan to have my old computer set up as a mail server/net gateway so I can access the net from any PC in the house over a communal connection. Not lettring me do this is total nonsense.

I don't care how much you want me to pay for my bandwidth - just let me use it as I want to do. I don't mind paying extra for a 1 Mbit line with no caps, just let me do what the hell I want with it!

How Sad

[ONOIML8]

How truely sad it is to see the Boy Scouts of America involved in something like this.

normal technology cycle

[crodo]

Stay the course, as in all new technology those who can will scramble to deliver what people are willing to pay for it. Once the hook is set then it's time to recoupe the infrastructure investment by whatever control methods are available to allow companies to profit. This is a normal business cycle, those who play the game well will survive and those who don't will be eaten by the former. This cycle of development, delivery, profiteering is what enables new technology to be brought to the public. If we are unwilling to step up and pay for our technology, you will find yourself with companies not willing to develop it. I know everyone will nitpick this to death, I am not saying I condone some of the practices in which the companies generate there profits after delivering there technology but I am saying it is necessary to the cycle of technology development and distribution. I applaude those watchdog the companies who would exploit the customers during the profiteering stage.

Re:It all comes down to the users. And how!

[Combuchan]

I wholeheartedly agree that people should be able to run 'low-bandwith' daemons--provided they stay low bandwith. The problem is that 95% of your cable company's customers haven't heard of sshd, 4.9% have, and .1% actually want to run an sshd server. Sorry, you're not in the target market.

Let's explore this further. I should be able to run a low-bandwith web server and serve small personal pages. However, the reality of the other 99% of the customers is this: Code Red/Nimda. Idiots who didn't even know they had a webserver running got wormed and turned a low-bandwith web server into a massive pipeleech that made my Internet connection horrendously slow for about two months and logged tens of thousands of 404's to apache running off my cable. You mention you want to run sendmail. You gonna leave that an open relay? No, I'm sure... but a majority of everybody else who would run an MTA (either accidentally (it came with my WinInternetSharingProgram32 Lite!)) or purposefully isn't smart enough to lock it down, and this further compends the spam problem. Same with people who run NNTP servers and screw up news for everyone else.

Broadband customers as a whole are too irresponsible to run servers and should be prohibited from doing so. That's why this is prohibited in the Accetable Use Policy. It's a bitter reality.

I however, should be free of such restrictions as I'm smarter than most other broadband customers, but until I can prove that to my cable company and/or they see a market in letting intelligent people run servers, I'm ... somewhat SOL.

I run sshd, and ftpd for myself. Cox doesn't block it, but they do block SMB (139/tcp), HTTP, and telnet (23/tcp). They have the technical measures to block problematic ports, and I'm quite frankly glad they do that for the nimda reasons discussed above. I run apache off of port 8080 and cox doesn't seem to mind, else they'd send their AUP Gestapo after me

"Cable modems should be priced like burstable T1's used to be. "

Burstable T1's run today in my part of town (Phoenix metro) for a unnegotiatable local loop fee of $400/month, plus data fees of somewhere around $700 - $1200 depending on the provider. I know I'm misconstruing your statement, but as I understand it, Cox.net has an OC-12 coming in to what I assume is the entire Phoenix metro area (3 million people) A pricing structure that would allow for profitability and burstability up to T1 speeds and beyond and the ability to run servers would be only somewhat more cost-effective than an actual dedicated circuit with the added disadvantages of being far less reliable. Cox.net does offer a business rate plan, but it's not nearly as flexible as a T1 feed would be, probably for these reasons.
Moreover, people who want to run servers generally can afford colocation (which is far more cost-effective) and/or pay for their own line.

I'm in the same boat as you, I'm a poor geek who likes high bandwith and apache and php and MySQL and all that good stuff, but we're few and far between to even be considered a blip on MassiveCableCo's radar. Maybe, in time...

My $0.02

You get what you pay for.

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Are you paying for a T1 line? Then what did your cheap asses expect! It's $40 a month. You want consistency, get a DSL line. If you want really brass nuckles reliability, get a T1 line. You bought the lowest price option and now you complain about quality?

Hey, have one person get a T1 line and split it with the neighbors through WiFi. $800 / 20 users = what you are paying for Cable. Wifi boxes are $140 a pop, that's 1/2 the price of a cable modem. If the signal is crappy, about $200 in antennas are all that are required to service 2 city blocks.

I personally am leaching off of the office, with their blessing, because getting any kind of broadband in Center City Philadelphia requires a letter to your congressman. I'm the admin, and they are supposed to be paying for my link into the building anyway. (Living 2 blocks away from the office is nice for more than just commuting, let me tell you.)

I want to hear less bitching and more hacking people! We aren't consumers. We are customers. If you aren't being serve, don't bitch. Cancel the service and take some positive steps.

Irony

[mir@ge]

> The primary reason I have DSL is because I have
> more choice in providers.
...
> More reviews should look at choice vs. monopolies
> when comparing DSL and Cable.

And the irony is, it is the phone companies that are the highly regulated legally declared monopoly. Now, I am a bit biased, but it is starting to look like they have some competition. Not from the CLECs or those independent DSL providers. But from the cable companies and the wireless market. It will be interesting to see the governments role in this affair. Eventually, they may have to set the baby bells free or declare the cable companies a monopoly to maintain equal footing.

Re:Irony

[Luyseyal]

right... here in Austin, most of the DSL ISP/resellers have gone out of business because SWBell charged an arm and a leg to them for their service. BUT interestingly, _not_ DirecTV. Which makes me think that SWBell is giving them a deal so they can together compete with Time Warner (satellite + phone + DSL vs. cable + cablemodem).

???
-l

Not Bandwidth: Rooted Boxes and IIS

[EvilTwinSkippy]

I run a sizeable network, and my logs are clogged with the Code Red virus trying to break into my Linux boxes. (Go figure.) I traceroute them, and wouldn't you know, 90% of the traffic is from local Cable modem subscribers.

I also expressly forbid extraneous servers on our network because of my experiences as a College administrator. Most people do not patch their boxes, and they don't even know more often than not that it has been rooted. If I had a nickle for every DOS...

It's kind of come full circle. Back on an NT network I was the rogue linux server guy. Now I'm the Linux guy clamping down on NT server (2000/XP/ETC).

It is their wire...

[TheRealStyro]

If a monopolistic cable ISP (MC-ISP) wants to limit what is carried over it's wires, it most certainly may do so. The MC-ISP built the infrastructure to supply this a service for it's customer base. The MC-ISP can [largely] do whatever it wants with the service. You would agree with this if the business were yours (and your altruistic ideals did not exist).

It is not really bad business, it is bad business ethics. In a recession, business ethics are the first to go. As customers we can only do a limited amount to get change - 1) complain, and 2) jump-ship/sign-on to whatever other broadband service is available. If none others are available - keep POTS (you can cry all you like to whoever will listen, but chances are high it will not gain you anything).

It's a limitation on publishing

[Erris]

Of course, the real problem is that they want to force computer hobbyists, to whom the connection is most useful, to pay big bucks for a "business service."

COX does not alow home servers of any kind for any price. They have a bunch of M$ fueled shit sitting someplace and they want to charge money for a few megs on it. My "business" plan gave me little more than a fixed IP and difficlut to use email address that had the "@" character in the middle of the user name! Port 80 and 25 are still blocked and the TOS still forbids all "servers".

The point of this is that COX thinks that they can become a monopoly publisher. If it was about bandwith they could rely on their upstream caps. If it was about security they would forbid the use of known insecure software like Outlook MSIE and Windows. It's about control and power. The current publishers will do everything they can to prevent the comming communications revolution. Can you imagine only 4 national "internet broadcasters", paying by the minute for long distance calls, and only five big music lables in the future? I can, it's called DRM and COX is part of it.

The Washington Post claims that Bush wants to avoid legislation on this. I'm pissed about that. With the FBI raiding people's houses to enforce bogus service agreements, the government could not be more involved than it is. Oh yeah, there's always Carnivore. The future is evil. Clinton built it in the 90s, no supprise from a man who loved China and bent backward to please Fidel Castro. Bush is milking it now. That's supprising from a party that used to stand for smaller government.

Re:It's a limitation on publishing

[zootread]

Damn, that sucks. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. COX lives up to their name. Fortunately I'm no longer a customer.

Re:It's a limitation on publishing

[AndroidCat]

Port 80 and 25 are still blocked and the TOS still forbids all "servers".

Including the server that answers ping inquiries? It's a good thing that my computer doesn't answer ping packets then!

As for the web server, when I poke it out the firewall, it's usually on port 1214. Feeding a 404 to the Kazaa kiddies usually makes them confused and go away. Otherwise they keep trying every few minutes in bunches for days. The logs of what they request is sometimes interesting, and I've got IP addresses and aliases and stuff. (Hey Jack V, give me a call! We'll do lunch.)

** REQUEST from wpg-84-74-res1.mts.net **
m=GET p= a= u=/13501/X TV 07 (512x384 eng sub).avi [HTTP/1.1]
Host: 64.229.160.53:1214
UserAgent: KazaaClient May 28 2002 00:23:52
X-Kazaa-Username: Kiki
X-Kazaa-Network: KaZaA
X-Kazaa-IP: 216.130.84.74:1214
X-Kazaa-SupernodeIP: 216.191.145.4:1214
Range: bytes=166057465-230473369
Connection: close
X-Kazaa-XferId: 12233313

Does anyone know if "X TV 07" is worth watching? Does it have a plot? And Kiki, how's things in Winnipeg? ;^) (Is being modded a bastard +1 or -1?)

Re:It's a limitation on publishing

[Higher Authority]

Port 80 and 25 are still blocked and the TOS still forbids all "servers".
Including the server that answers ping inquiries? It's a good thing that my computer doesn't answer ping packets then!

Haha, you struck a crucial chord. Those types of service agreements do seem absurd, and they violate themselves. Without servers at even the client's end, things would be practically useless on the Internet as we no today. FTP uses client-side servers, IM uses client-side servers, video-conferencing uses client-side servers, ... TONS of shite uses servers, to the point that if that term of service were completely enforce. there would likely be no users left on the service at all. People really need to understand the technology they're servicing before they service it.

Re:It's a limitation on publishing

[Erris]

Including the server that answers ping inquiries?

They don't explicitly define the word "servers" and if they did, it would be meaningless because the ToS has a unilateral change clause. A few services are expressly forbiden, ftp, http, mail and dns. The only reason I'm techincally able to offer an ftp server is that AOL's instant messenger uses port 21. Even COX is not so stupid as to block incoming port 21 yet.

It's about control of publishing. AIM is useless for publishing and so allowed. Pictures of my baby girl ride there until the FBI knock down my door and take my computers away for doing so against my service agreement and the will of RIAA / MPAA.

at&t u/l caps

[Perception]

A bit off the subject I know, but has anyone else noticed an increased u/l cap on their at&t cable modem service within the past week. Mine has been stuck at 128kbps since it was scooped up by at&t. Looks as if I've been bumped up to 256kbps. Not complaining here, but it does seem to be an odd move on their part in light of the recent restrictions placed on broadband connections by at&t. I wonder if hosting Halo on my xbox violates the acceptable use policy..... or now, 2 xboxes..

what drives me crazy...

[numbuscus]

...is that I have to nearly sell myself into slavery to get a static IP! When I was in Portland, I had to go with a different ISP than my DSL provider (Qwest) in order to avoid a $150/month business rate in order to get a single static IP (of course they didn't give out single IPs - only groups of five or something).

When I moved to Southern Cal. I had to do the same thing when dealing with SBC (even though I don't have to pay an extra $10-$15 per month). Now that I'm moving to Rhode Island, I'm having to deal with the same thing again but this time I hear that Verizon's service is poor and I should go with cable. They have so many restrictions, and I don't even think I can get a static IP (web site ver unclear)! Guess I'll have to pay business rates. What's with these companies?!? Does it really cost $100+ per month to provide a static IP? The small ISPs seem to be able to do it. What's up? Please, someone explain!

I've got even better.

[MsGeek]

If you're in CA or AZ, do yourself a favor and check this URL out: http://www.dslextreme.com/.

Static IPs for all, no restrictions at all except don't serve pr0n or Warez from your home server.

The whole company is run by computer enthusiasts. They even have their own game server. How cool is that?

They work with the Telcos for their last mile, so you are limited to what Verizon or SBC can do for you, respectively. I have 768/128, but if you're in SBC territory the base package gives you a little more downstream bandwidth. My speed tests have been running around 735Kbps which is close to the max. When I had DSL previously with Flashcom 384Kbps was all I could get.

DSLExtreme rocks my world. No, I am not employed by them.

Re:I've got even better.

[mesocyclone]

Errr... if you are in Arizona, you aren't limited by Verizon or SBC, because they don't provide the service. You are limited by QWest, which, if you follow the financial follies, is in deep doodoo. They don't have the money to invest in DSL or anything else right now... they are just on the edge of bankrupcy. It seems that Mountain Bell ( a crappy phone company, but at least it knew it was a phone company) was acquired by Quest, a "telecommunications giant." And we know what has been happening to all the telecommunications giants!

I'll be lucky to get DSL before the 2100! At least I have Sprint Broadband Direct, which my neighbors can't get because the mountains are in the way.

Sprint, BTW, has no problem with you running routers, but they do inform you at their tech support line that they aren't going to diagnose your own LAN problems... not an unreasonable approach.

It's not the bandwidth

[MartinB]

Look, you need to realise that different price points have little to do with "What's most expensive to provide" (beyond obviously covering costs).

It's much more to do with "how much do customers want it enough to pay for it." The stuff which makes broadband useful is obviously more desirable to technically competent customers such as ourselves than a 'faster version of dialup'.

So if I'm the owner of a cable company, I apply simple supply & demand and say "You want the good stuff? Sure you can have it, for a price"

Now I think there's a tier between the bog standard consumer and the business customer who has a net financial gain from their connection - call it the 'clueful consumer' offering. If I were running a cable company, I'd be offering it at a price a bit above the standard consumer offering, which would allow:

1. Servers not open to the public (ie all services have to be p/w protected and the URLs not generally advertised)
2. Faster speed (I'm thinking 1024kps download)
3. Mostly static IP - no SLA on it, but the DHCP hands out long leases (a month+)

By some odd coincidence, that's what my cable provider is offering. Although only the extra bandwidth is part of the premium service rn - I get everything else. The AUP explicitly allows me to run servers:

Telewest blueyonder hi-speed internet opens up new possibilities of use with its features such as 'always on', and while subscribers are able to benefit from these features, Telewest must also ensure that the Service is not abused to the disadvantage of the Service and subscriber group.

You must not use, nor allow anyone else to use the Services to provide Internet Protocol services to the Internet populace as a whole, including other blueyonder customers. Internet Protocol services includes, but is not limited to, HTTP, games, telnet and FTP services.

However, you may provide Internet Protocol services from your computer for personal use. An example would be the running of an authenticated FTP service to enable you to access files on your home computer remotely. The following conditions apply:-

• Any Internet Protocol services you use require authentication eg. You are not allowed to provide anonymous FTP servers; and
• You are not allowed more than ten concurrent connections to the Internet Protocol services you use.

Which is nice

Re:It's not the bandwidth

[Higher Authority]

Only ten concurrent connections? I use more then that simultaneous just with ssh!

This is proof that Cable providers aren't real ISP

[intermodal]

ISP=Internet service provider. Internet service = access to the internet and all the priveledges thereof, including DNS, access, and whatever applications you have to utilize these with (i.e. IE, Mozilla, ICQ, Apache, Sendmail, SSH, Telnet, Lynx, Etc. Ad Nauseum) AUP disallowing DNS/blocking ports = internet access, not internet service.

The real issue

[deblau]

DSL works unregulated for the same reason the telephone companies are now (mostly) unregulated: competition. The local phone company is required, by law, to give access to the lines to any Mom & Pop ISP that comes along. Sure, the phone company's ISP (they all own ISPs now) can charge less because they don't have to pay for access onto the data lines, but they're stuck with paying maintenance of those lines, regardless of whether the bandwidth gets used or not. The local ISPs have no incentives to regulate the bandwidth or services since their main cost is what the data company charges them for bandwidth sent into/out of their network, and the ISP can pass that charge through to their customers at a profit (pay-for-bandwidth, pay-for-data-transferred, etc). Heck, they want you to use as much b/w as possible under some scenarios.

On the other hand, the cable situation is totally different, since the cable company has been granted a local monopoly, much like Ma Bell had before the telephone breakup. The cost of this monopoly is total FCC regulation. This isn't suprising, considering that cable technology is more recent than phones. Anyway, the cable companies started offering cable modem service (usually through @Home) back in the mid '90s. The problem was, @Home had a 7-year exclusive contract to be the ISP on each cable company, in exchange for spending the $billions to roll out the networks. There was no way the FCC could regulate internet access (on a regulated cable!) unless they invalidated the @Home contracts in court (not that they wanted to regulate anyway). Well, they didn't have to worry about it because the cable companies fscked up the marketing (they wanted to use internet access as an upsell for more cable TV subscriptions, when what people really wanted was the internet by itself), and @Home went under.

So, the issue facing the FCC is whether or not to regulate internet access over cable. As I said before, they don't want to regulate it. They want the cable companies to pretend there's competition, and "play nice". The problem is, they won't, and the FCC is going to have to step in. Their options aren't pretty:

1. Start regulating cable internet. This sucks, because they aren't regulating phone internet (DSL), and the cable companies are gonna cry foul and raise a big stink.
2. Break up the local cable monopolies. This sucks just as bad, because the same thing that happened with the phone rates rising after the Ma Bell breakup would happen with cable. Raise your hand if you wanna pay $150-200 a month for cable TV.

It gets even more interesting when you consider that the satellite TV companies are starting to offer internet access. Note that, in theory, there is competition in the satellite space, so the FCC doesn't have to regulate. (It's not quite that simple, but that's another story.) So there are companies out there offering bundled TV and internet already, but in a (mostly) unregulated fashion. Of course, the FCC is fscked here too, because the only way they can avoid regulating satellite systems is if they can guarantee competition, and they only way they can do that is by regulating the frequency space!

My solution: if the owners of the medium (phone copper, cable coax, airwaves, etc) have been granted a local monopoly, then all services offered over that medium must be regulated. In other words, regulation based on medium, not service. I'm in favor of option #1.

Re:The real issue

[SEE]

since the cable company has been granted a local monopoly,

All cable monopolies were revoked by the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Eight years ago. There is no cable company in the U.S. today with a grant of a local monopoly, and there hasn't been for eight years.

Re:The real issue

[Detritus]

That's closing the barn door after the horse is gone. The cable company has a de facto monopoly. The barriers to entry for a second cable company are high, assuming they could get the local governments to negotiate for right-of-ways in good faith. In my neck of the woods, the incumbent cable company bribed the local politicians to get their franchise. Now that their system is built out, and deregulated, they can jack up the rates and tell the local governments to go to hell.

recent verizon residential DSL changes...

[mkbz]

i have residential DSL from verizon in the seattle area.

when i signed up, i could access a number of ports from the outside world, all that was being blocked was netbios, http, ftp. (so, ssh, identd, https, arbitrary > 1024 ports were fine).

about 3 months ago, i noticed i could no longer access my http server running on 8012 or some high, arbitrary port. so, i nmap my host, and see that 8012 is filtered! okay, no sweat. ssh in, switch ports, restart apache. new port doesn't work, nmap again.... new port is being filtered. verizon is actively filtering http connections on arbitrary ports.

now all i'm left with is ssh & identd. sure, tunnel everything thru ssh, but the hassle? i'll just switch ISPs - oh wait, i'll get charged $175 for an 'early termination fee' if i switch before i've had it for a year.

filtering port 80 to stop nimda is great. but there are 2 assumptions to using arbitrary > 1024 ports: 1. viruses are not written to expect standard services on non-standard ports, 2. if i'm smart enough to change the port, i'm smart enough to patch my machines.

can they perhaps make the EULA more technical? i re-read mine, and after a few phone calls this doesn't seem to constitute the sort of 'change of service provided' that would absolve me from the $175 charge to leave... i guess they need that 2 months worth of payments to GUARANTEE i switch when my year is up.

Re:recent verizon residential DSL changes...

[J'raxis]

filtering port 80 to stop nimda is great. but there are 2 assumptions to using arbitrary > 1024 ports: 1. viruses are not written to expect standard services on non-standard ports, 2. if i'm smart enough to change the port, i'm smart enough to patch my machines.

You can probably expect newer viruses to eventually try non-standard ports. Virus writers do not exactly care about flooding the network (witness CodeRed and Nimda), so I also dont think they would mind writing one that portscans. I know some security scanners like DALnets proxy checker will hit you on about a dozen common non-standard ports (81, 82, 1080, 8000, 8080, 8081, 3128, ...), so viruses could also employ this tactic in the future.

Secondly, why would knowing how to change a port indicate that youre the slightest bit savvy about administration? For example: Im an op in a channel on DALnet where we get the stupidest people dropping in by accident (<newbie> is tihs teh mp3 chanal???). These people can evade bans, script flood, clone, download and run bots, but they cant even tell the difference between JOIN # mp3s and JOIN #mp3s.

Re:It all comes down to the users. And how!

[Com2Kid]

I wholeheartedly agree that people should be able to run 'low-bandwith' daemons--provided they stay low bandwith. The problem is that 95% of your cable company's customers haven't heard of sshd, 4.9% have, and .1% actually want to run an sshd server. Sorry, you're not in the target market.

You honestly think the cable company is going to give a fuck if you are running some low bandwidth service? Hell no, they only start bitching some some kid starts up a WarezFTP that is maxing out his cap 24/7.

Companies are about money, as long as you are not using more Bandwidth then you are paying for, they don't give a fuck, they are still making money off of you.

But the TOS says No Servers because it is easier to shush up the whiners that way (see, we said unconditionaly NO SERVERS, no if ands or buts) and ensures that there aren't any (many) loop holes.

Re:It all comes down to the users. And how!

[ivan256]

Burstable T1's run today in my part of town (Phoenix metro) for a unnegotiatable local loop fee of $400/month, plus data fees of somewhere around $700 - $1200 depending on the provider. I know I'm misconstruing your statement, but as I understand it, Cox.net has an OC-12 coming in to what I assume is the entire Phoenix metro area (3 million people) A pricing structure that would allow for profitability and burstability up to T1 speeds and beyond and the ability to run servers would be only somewhat more cost-effective than an actual dedicated circuit

I'm not saying you have to offer T1 speeds, but the burstable T1 pricing structure. Joe web surfer doesn't need 786kbps. They should have 256kbps with bursts up to 1.5mbps. Also, the majority of the price of a burstable T1 is the SLA. If you get a line without a 24 hour service contract and guaranteed uptime you lower your price by 80%. You can get a FULL T1 in any metro area in the US for $699 a month. You just don't have a service level agreement. If a backhoe cuts your line on saturday morning, they're not even going to start working on fixing it until Monday at the earliest. Your $1500 burstable T1 will be repaired in 12 hours or less.

Furthemore, it is almost trivial to set up a system where savvy users can enable services that are disabled by default to protect the clueless. My ISP has one. It probably took one guy two days to set it up. This facility has to exist in order to spawn new uses for the internet, and create demand for the broadband service. These providers are digging their own grave by blocking access to everybody. The internet as it is right now is not worth $50 a month to most people, and unless creative programmers have access, there won't be new applications developed to make the $50 tab more worthwhile.

47 U.S.C does not apply

[zenyu]

This was discussed on the nycwireless list so I'm not gonna go into it but basically the cable companies lobbied not to have internet service included in the definition of cable so they wouldn't be under same restrictions selling internet service as they are under cable. With cable they are subject to regulation which often has must serve provisions.

Also the $50,000 quoted in the letter is only for reselling the cable television service. The fine for non-commercial cable tv service sharing ranges from $100 to $1000. However they may go after the fees they could have charged your neighbor in a civil suit.

Thankfully in New York there are plenty of DSL providers, and some such as AceDSL and Bway.net explicitly encourage wireless sharing. Others will sell you a business line for $60/mo so there is no good reason to use a Cable modem.

Wow!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Dell, Microsoft, IBM, Sun, and even the BSA..."

That reads like, you suck, your the devil, your cool, your ok and your the antichrist. Who would think pond scum like the BSA, Dell and Microsoft would _ever_ do something that is positive for the user? I'm in shock, they must have something to gain.

Funny...

[JohnA]

News.com just printed my response to a letter published by former counsel to John Ashcroft on this very topic.

We, as the informed users, need to get the word out. The cable companies are doing a great job convincing the policy makers that there really is competion.

Re:Funny...

[SEE]

Question: why don't you have cable competition in your local community?

No, it's not because the local company has been granted a monopoly. All of those grants were revoked in 1996, with the Telecommunications Act.

Instead, either there just isn't enough of a market to justify a competitor coming in, or your local government is playing around with permits and fees to keep competitors out.

If the second, why are you whinging about federal government policies instead of asking for going after your local government?

Re:It all comes down to the users. And how!

[Random Feature]

Question - are they blocking HTTP or are they blocking port 80?

If they're just blocking port 80 - run it on a different port. Same for FTP/SSH/Telnet/etc... I'm betting most of them just block by port and don't use anything sophisticated enough to block protocols regardless of what port they run on.

This is why I am glad to have DSL. I'm pissed is ADSL when it used to be symmetrical (damn @link) but it's better than cable and I can run what I want.

I'm on cable, and...

[dpilot]

I have SSH and IMAPS ports open, so I can use both remotely. I sort of go by the original Terms Of Service from when I signed up. They said I may not run a server for the use of others. Well, I'm running servers for my own use. They have recently ammended the TOS to disallow ALL servers, but IMHO that's a bunch of crock concocted by managers who don't understand TCP/IP at all. After all, how can you do IRC without IDENT? What about the fact that strict DHCP requires that you respond to pings (acting like a server, here) by the DHCP server.

I also see that they fear that Joe 6-pack couldn't properly configure and run a server, and keep it safe. My remote access is only from a few IP ranges, and is tightened to that with firewall, tcp-wrappers, and every other way I can manage.

I understand the reason behind the TOS, and in my opinion am living by the spirit of the rules, no matter how much I might like to do a bit more.

Code Red.

[hearingaid]

Idiots who didn't even know they had a webserver running got wormed and turned a low-bandwith web server into a massive pipeleech that made my Internet connection horrendously slow for about two months and logged tens of thousands of 404's to apache running off my cable.

And, you know something? Their ISPs could have easily prevented them from ever turning up. There's a technology out there; it's called a transparent proxy server. Perhaps you've heard of it. It takes all connections to port 80 and runs them through the proxy; perhaps Squid. This gives the organization running the proxy numerous benefits, the top one being of course a reduction in outgoing bandwidth and therefore associated cost.

It also means that the organization running the proxy can filter based on URL. And, specifically, can filter out Code Red and its descendants completely. This is just a red herring caused by too many MSCEs in ISPs.

Re:Code Red.

[Bradley]

Transparent proxies suck, mainly because they're never truly transparent. My provider tried transparent FTP proxying a couple of days ago, but it seems to be gone now (they tried again last year, and it was gone within a few days, apparently - I was in a differnet country at the time)

They suck, because I can't use port 80 for non-http connections.

They suck, because occasionally you'll get out of date pages, and have to shift-reload.

They suck, because sometimes pags will just stop half way through. OK, that ones an implementation detail, but two different ISPs on different sides of the world (.AU and .CA) running different proxy servers have done that to me. Usually only for a few days at a time, then its fine for another month, but....

They suck, because my current one doesn't seem to want to do persistent connections some of the time.

Re:Code Red.

[Anonymous Coward]

All of your complaints are the fault of the proxy's admin, not the proxy. If your ISP can't properly manage the proxy, yeah, that does suck, but it's NOT due to the proxy per se.

Re:Code Red.

[Bradley]

Sure, but once you start doing stateful inspection to allow 'things which don't look like http' though, the costs (money + response time) go up, as does the risk of the server getting it wrong.

Lets face it, the vast majority of port 80 is for http, so why should an ISP care about the other uses?

Re:Code Red.

[Higher Authority]

Indeed, transparent proxies are hardly ever transparent. And more often then not, they hurt the Internet more then they help. Proxies are only the precursors to censorship. A commercial entity running a transparent proxy is outright stupid. If a person wanted a proxy, that person would configure his machine accordingly. If the service wanted to configure it by default for clueless users, sure, be my guest! But at least give me the chance of changing it. Of course, I wouldn't give them the chance of a default, as they wouldn't ever come near my computer. Transparent proxies override that whole thing, and are absolutely required by all subscribers unconditionally, and that when things start breaking. And believe me, they break quickly. It only took me a few days to notice a transparent proxy (and mind you, that was only because I used it much for a week, until I got off my ass and set up the network and stopped switching the cables every evening). It would have been a few hours before I noticed if I were the only one using it.

Sure, most consumers won't notice. The ones that do are few, so why not let them out of the whole loop?

Re:Code Red.

[hearingaid]

FTP is different, and honestly, really difficult to proxy, especially transparently. It's an antiquated protocol though, I wish we would just abandon it. However, that said.

Okay, you can't use the HTTP port for non-HTTP services. That part is true, but generally irrelevant.

The rest of the criticisms, though, are just implementation details. Honestly, HTTP is a protocol that's meant to be proxied. It's so much more efficient that way.

Re:It all comes down to the users. And how!

[Darby]

I'm betting most of them just block by port and don't use anything sophisticated enough to block protocols regardless of what port they run on.

Well, Roadrunner appears to block *all* incoming connections as far as I can tell.
I'm out of town on business, and I can't even ping my gateway let alone ssh. Traceroute stops resolving at least 2 hops short of it.
It's possible I'm being a retard, so if you think so, let me know what to try.

Re:It all comes down to the users. And how!

[Anonymous Coward]

Must be a local policy. I have RR and run a web server and sshd.

Absolutely

[FreeUser]

I have a cable modem through 21st Century (RCN).

They use DHCP and non-static IPs, have server restrictions, BUT they have an excellent USENET news server. The cost is $10/month (the Condo Association got a deal on net access, included in the cable service) for the modem rental.

I also have Sprint Business DSL for $160/month, which gives me 6 usable static IPs, 7.8 Mbit download (I'm not too far from the DSLAM and I have good wire) and 847 kbit upload, no caps on how much data I can push through that, no limits on servers, VPNs or whatever. However, in contrast to RCN, Sprint's USENET servers require login and password accounts, are slow, don't carry all the newsgroups I want ... in a word, they suck.

I'd much rather pay $10/month than $160/month, but the FREEDOM I get with the business service to do whatever I want without hassle is worth it. Now I creatively route my USENE traffic through the RCN network (those Dr. Who episodes take up a chunk of bandwidth) and it doesn't affect my DSL speeds at all, through which everything else goes.

Re:It all comes down to the users. And how!

[Darby]

Must be a local policy.

I have RR in San Diego. Is that where you are?

Bogus!

[Fascist Christ]

The paper is wrinkled, yet the text is straight. I don't believe a word of it.

They should do it this way and just solve it.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

They are selling you 500K/128K with the implicit assumption that you are using a traditional home-user access pattern (i.e. occasional bursts when you hit a good porn site, lotsa intermittent email and ICQ traffic, etc.)

And if they configured their routers and/or subscriber management system correctly it wouldn't be an issue.

"Correctly" in this case means to evenly divide the inbound bandwidth among all destination IP addresses with inbound traffic, and similarly with outbound traffic bandwidth from each IP address, both on a moment-by-moment (i.e. queue length) basis.

When the other users are using their bandwidth you only get your fair share.

When the other users AREN'T using their bandwidth, WHO CARES if you use it?

(You can even do it intelligently and drop TCP established-link packets preferentially, throttling TCP links while still allowing establishment of more and passage of non-TCP protocols, at least until there's so much non-established-TCP traffic for the address that it must also be throttled.)

Re:It all comes down to the users. And how!

[Higher Authority]

If a person is clueful enough to pick up a computer, have it connected to the Internet, and use it, that person should be clueful enough to secure the fucking computer.

Now, with that said, yes: most consumers^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hpeople aren't clueful. I would ask "and why should they be?", but I just answered that above. Companies need to stop protecting consumers from themselves and let them learn a little on their own.

Re:It all comes down to the users. And how!

[Skjellifetti]

Nope, sorry. Midwest.

Troll Alert! - #582610 is a troll imposter

[Anonymous Coward]

Another day, another troll :-(

The above account is a fraud

The real Seth Finkelstein has slashdot uid #90154

The name is also a subtle misspelling

My name is Seth Finkelstein, the troll is using the name Seth Finkelstien

I did not post the above message in this thread. I have enough troubles without troll imposters.

Though this message is posted anonymously, I will attest to it and verify it if needed. Other message posted by similar-looking accounts, or not attested, are frauds. - Seth Finkelstein, uid#90154

Re:It all comes down to the users. And how!

[Anonymous Coward]

It reminds me of when I worked for a web hosting start-up( and shutdown) here in Austin. They were using a new product to remotely deploy( set up/ configure) web servers at one of our data centers. The product, which I wont name, was pretty good except they forgot to close the open relay on sendmail. I think we had about 300 web servers that were configured like that. Needless to say, ORBS got all over us, and we figured it out, and had the company fix it. Now imagine if someone with little no savy were to set up a web server( of course on a much smaller scale,... but in aggregate......?) on their cable network. They may never know that SPAM was being bounced off their relay, but I guarantee the IT boys at the cable company would notice it. Anyone else on their node would as well. I don't agree with some of the restrictions, but.......As someone who has had to deal with the headache, I must say I CAN understand it.

DSL generally = small ISP, Cable = large faceless

[Anonymous Coward]

While there are obviously exceptions, the majority of cable internet service is provided by large corporate ISPs (Roadrunner, Earthlink, etc.) who sign high-value agreements with cable companies themselves owned by large corporations. As such, they have little interest in catering to niche markets (like home users who want to run their own web servers and such). From a raw cost/benefit analysis, it's just not worth it for them to put up with the grief that accompanies letting naive users run their own servers just to identify and satisfy the tiny minority who can do it responsibly. Their customer support departments are staffed by telemarketers following CRM scripts who know nothing themselves about network architecture.

There are plenty of DSL providers that fall into the same category as cable ISPs (Telocity/DirectTV, Earthlink, etc.), but due to FCC rules requiring telcos to provide unbundled infrastructure to even small customers (like an ISP with 200 DSL customers), it's possible for smaller ISPs to offer service too. Often, they'll charge $10 to $20 a month more than the Big Companies, but the extra amount will get you a static IP address and a company whose tech support staff can generally recognize the difference between a clueless web surfer and someone qualified to set up and secure his own mail or web server.

True story: when I switched from BellSouth.net to a local ISP, I asked whether the account included a fixed IP address. The salesperson put me on hold for a moment, gave me an IP address and a gateway IP address (on different pseudo-C subnets), and told me I could have it if I could tell him a plausible netmask. I got it right, and immediately became the proud owner of a real, static public IP address.

Somehow, I just can't see an Earthlink training their telemarketers to probe the new customer's knowledge of netmasks and SASL to ascertain their worthiness of a fixed IP...

Firewall Drop vs. Reset

[AnotherScratchMonkey]

What's important is that you do the same thing that you do on other unused ports, so that port doesn't look unusual.

ISP's are getting used to their customers using personal firewalls, so drops are not unusual anymore on a connected residential computer.