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.

Why not charge by the GB delivered?

[davidwr]

Wouldn't it be simpler for the telcos to charge per GB delivered in addition to the size of the pipe?

Give all your customers your fastest residential speed. Set your rate so 90% of your customers don't exceed the "monthly allowance" for your low-end rate plan.

For the other 10%, bill them on a pro-rated basis based on how much they use. If they use 2x the allowance, they pay 2x. If they use 100x, they pay 100x.

To prevent runaway bills, allow customers to set their own "caps" and "throttle-down speeds" that would kick in after the cap was reached. If a customer never wanted to pay more than $20, he could set his "monthly cap" at 80% of what $20 would buy, and set the throttle-down rate low enough that he could never use up the remaining 20% even if he was maxing out his connection.

This seems a lot simpler and fairer than traffic shaping by protocol.

Re:Why not charge by the GB delivered?

[longword]

We just have to invent some kind of "computational" device to automate the process...

Re:Why not charge by the GB delivered?

[jumperboy]

Because, ultimately, the end user has little control over how much bandwidth they use. A Pandora's box was opened when the Internet was targeted as a way to deliver rich multimedia instead of text. Even the links featured on /. are usually a few bytes of content surrounded by many kilobytes of ads, spread over multiple pages. Compared to analog television and telephony, the quality of online video and voice communications is horrendous, but demand is only a tiny fraction of what it's going to be. The ISPs promote multimedia heavily when they sell connectivity, so they're just as culpable as the content providers. Throttling bandwidth at today's poor quality is not going to be a satisfactory solution for consumers. Increasing capacity is the only solution. I have a family of four, and when each of us want to experience the rich content we were promised (like VOIP, online productivity applications, video-on-demand, and streaming music), you're going to call us bandwidth hogs? I don't think so.

So THAT's what happened...

[Nero Nimbus]

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.

Bitch, bitch, moan, moan

[node159]

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.

I have no sympathy for ISP that oversell their services and fail to invest profits in infrastructure.

Re:Bitch, bitch, moan, moan

[gravij]

Yeah, except the contract (which the customer probably didn't bother to read) likely specifies that the customer isn't allowed to host servers on their connection (web, smtp, bittorrent, or otherwise).
I'm not sure if bittorrent should count as a server. It doesn't fit into the traditional client server model at all. And if the only thing that makes it count as a server is the uploading of data then what about things like Skype or a multiplayer game?

ISPs have got themselves into a bad spot by overselling and under cutting and the only way they can deal with it is by making their customers suffer...

Phone companies and electrical companies do it

[davidwr]

Metered billing is the easy part. In the long run, it's even easier than the cat-and-mouse game of fighting a particular popular protocol.

The other features, like giving the customer control of monthly caps and throttling, will take a bit of work.

One unintended side-effect is the effect on home users who run wireless networks. "Stealing" bandwidth from an inadvertently unsecured or under-secured wireless connection without permission will now be literally stealing, as the poor subscriber will be stuck with the bill. Expect a few prosecutions under theft or fraud statutes if this becomes commonplace.

Re:Most unpopular comment ever

[Nasarius]

And suddenly things like downloading videos from iTunes become a whole lot less attractive. Torrent-gobbling nerds aren't the only ones using a lot of bandwidth, and that will become more and more true in the near future.

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.

Reminds me of Fight Club

[HangingChad]

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.

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.

Re:Doesn't quite work

[netcrusher88]

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.