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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?"
I thought it might be some obscure router setting, but I've been having this problem for a few months. Since I barely download things anymore (re: Linux ISOs), it hasn't affected me nearly as much as it would have, say, 2 years ago. Still, this entire situation is pretty ridiculous. Comcast basically says "You can get this speed for $xx.xx a month! It's Comcastic!" but then they act like a bunch of little girls when somebody actually uses what they're paying for. For that reason alone, The guys in suits just want to be able to milk their current infrastructure for longer, and I don't have any sympathy for them. What I find funny about this is that broadband probably wouldn't have gotten as big as it is right now (At least in the U.S.) without warez. Stop and think about how many of your local broadband ISPs were pushing the ability to get music, movies, and games more quickly a few years ago. Comcast was doing that back before legal download services got big. It's like they baited us with the promise of more warez in less time, and now that we're locked in, they want to screw everybody.
God dam it so annoys me when the ISP's bitch and moan about the customers actually using the bandwidth they have signed a contract, and paid for to use.
We're the people who build and run these systems. Comcast...or anyone for that matter...can't win that fight. I've worked with you wankers for 15 years, you're clever, relentless, and infinitely creative in a mischievous kind of way. If Comcast closes off BitTorrent, you'll find another way to disguise the traffic. They'll figure it out after a while and you'll figure out something else or go somewhere else. It may be difficult some days to motivate you at work, but you'll drive yourself until the early hours of the morning figuring out how to get around whatever filters they put in place. I've seen this arms race take place in every type of communication technology out there and you've won every time. Telephones, mainframes, PC networks, the internet. The road of technology is littered with the bodies of people who underestimate the technical genius of people who don't like being regulated.
We run your switches, your networks, firewalls, databases and your web sites. We are root and domain admins, we have the back door passwords to your routers. We run packet sniffers and Snort, know what a clever fella can do with xp_ extended stored procedures and javascript, we grew up on ping and tracert....we don't need no steeking GUI.
You can work with us or spend your life on an endless treadmill fighting a losing battle. But one thing history should have taught you...
....do not fuck with us.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Sorry, but you're wrong. If Comcast sends RST packets to both ends of the connection (and why wouldn't they?), it doesn't matter whether or not you're dropping them, it matters that the other guy isn't.
There's an old saying that says pretty much whatever you want it to.