Slashdot Mirror
Comcast Forging Packets To Filter Torrents
An anonymous reader writes "It's been widely reported by now that Comcast is throttling BitTorrent traffic. What has escaped attention is the fact that Comcast, like the Great Firewall of China uses forged TCP Reset (RST) packets to do the job. While the Chinese government can do what they want, it turns out that Comcast may actually be violating criminal impersonation statutes in states around the country. Simply put, while it's legal to block traffic on your network, forging data to and from customers is a big no-no."
say it ! and add a "lawsuit" to the end. Such "companies" deserve it.
Read radical news here
We use a popular web content filter. The way it works is by doing the same thing. So when we are blocking traffic, we block it by issuing a forged RST. It's either do this, or place the content filter inline ACTIVE. Right now it is passive It does packet capturing and RST to block. If it's down, then traffic still flows. If it were active, we could simply drop the traffic and not forge the RST. But performance and uptime are horrible on many products when these are inline.
Initially this sounded a lot worse to me.
do you think you even have a chance in Hell?
Then again, Rosa Parks had no legal right to keep her bus seat from a white guy. And yet, she did.
If you don't stand up and fight for your rights, who else will?
There are legal torrents. Comcast is certainly screwing you. That said:
I may not have known Rosa Parks, Rosa Parks wasn't a friend of mine, but I can say with pretty god damn clear certainty that you are no Rosa Parks.
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
I realize that to the nerdish mind falsifying the sender of an IP packet is equivalent to "impersonating another", but no sane prosecutor would ever make such a case.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Why, because of the weather? It can't be because of your traffic-throttling happy ISPs:
http://torrentfreak.com/rogers-fighting-bittorren
First, Spyder was not saying that he was Rosa, but even ignoring that, why do you say with certainty that this is not the same? This is standing up to a MUCH bigger bulley who is trying to take what is not theirs. It was no different than when the geek stood up to a circuit city store and then the police. That is a case that may make a difference, as might this (keeping our rights from those that would gladly steal them). You can bet that at the time of Rosa, the locals just thought it was a silly disturbance.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I wish you continued fun waiting for 2 hours in a download queue at Fileplanet to get a 50 kb/s download slot.
Want to hear the voice of GOD? cat
I haven't done a packet capture recently, but my Comcast modem is usually pegged with crap packets (port scans). Why don't they send some resets for potentially harmful packets, then they wouldn't have to worry about a few torrents.
If I want a static IP, I pay more. If I want more bandwidth, I pay more. If I want to run a mail server, you guessed it, I pay more. I think the solution is simple for ISPs if they're not too chicken to try it. Offer a premium "file monster" service for an extra $5/month. Don't phrase it that way of course, just roll out the usual price increases and a couple months later offer a "$5 discounted, non-p2p" service.
I almost feel dirty for posting this, but somebody else has already thought of it who didn't post to /. and seeing it here will make it sound familiar when they start doing it. Doubtless this will come as some vague fine print like ISP reserves the right to terminate disruptive traffic buried at the back of a bill.
Back in my day when we chiseled our bits into stone and sent them by mule train from village to village...