Comcast Hinders BitTorrent Traffic

FsG writes "Over the past few weeks, more and more Comcast users have reported that their BitTorrent traffic is severely throttled and they are totally unable to seed. Comcast doesn't seem to discriminate between legitimate and infringing torrent traffic, and most of the BitTorrent encryption techniques in use today aren't helping. If more ISPs adopt their strategy, could this mean the end of BitTorrent?"

Comments

solution

[imbaczek]

here

iptables -A INPUT -p tcp -dport $TORRENT_CLIENT_PORT -tcp-flags RST RST -j DROP

it's not mine so don't blame me. it's ugly, don't blame me. if it doesn't work, don't blame me. blame Canada.

Re:solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Could someone please explain what the above command does, and how to revert back if there is a problem?

It's supposed to silently drop (-j DROP) incoming tcp packets (-A INPUT -p tcp) that have the tcp-reset flag set (-tcp-flags RST RST) and whose destination port is that of the BitTorrent client (-dport $TORRENT_CLIENT_PORT). See the iptables(8). The iptables rule cited by the OP, as written, is syntactically invalid. Whoever originally wrote it probably meant to write this instead: iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport $TORRENT_CLIENT_PORT --tcp-flags RST RST -j DROP To roll back the rule, you replace "-A INPUT" ("append to the INPUT chain") with "-D INPUT" ("delete from the INPUT chain"): iptables -D INPUT -p tcp --dport $TORRENT_CLIENT_PORT --tcp-flags RST RST -j DROP All this having been said, using these iptables rules is not a good idea. TCP resets happen all the time for useful and legitimate reasons; dropping them won't do you any favors.

24/7 modem users back in '80s = similar

[davidwr]

Because they are over-selling their product hoping that the customer will not expect to make full use of it. For the honest ISPs, yes.

The telephone companies do the same thing. Dating back for decades, they've price the "unlimited local calling" plans knowing some users will under-utilize and some will over-utilize.

When a shift in usage happens faster than they can adjust, as happened during the BBS era of the '80s and early '90s, their expenses go up and their revenue remains constant.

Back in the '80s, telcos in some states put a dent in the problem by limiting the number of lines you could have in your house without paying higher "business" rates. Some multi-line BBS owners paid out of pocket, others charged their users or solicited donations, others reduced their number of lines.

There was also talk of a "modem tax" but thankfully that never went anywhere.

Fraud is a weak manager's way of doing business.

[Futurepower(R)]

As someone said on the linked site, selling a service without mentioning that it is severely restricted is fraud.