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."

Comments

Can you say "class action" ?

[unity100]

say it ! and add a "lawsuit" to the end. Such "companies" deserve it.

Re:Can you say "class action" ?

[unity100]

and you should have told them they should have invested while they were overselling their lines. it doesnt matter what percentage of p2p is legal or not, the fact is they are not able to provide what they promised. the debate should be on that, not p2p's legality.

Re:Can you say "class action" ?

[Fujisawa Sensei]

Major ISP's in the US have told me in meetings that P2P makes up 70-80% of their total traffic. Do you really believe that the majority of this is legal content?

That's not for the ISP to decide.

Re:Can you say "class action" ?

[HiThere]

If the ISPs filter based on torrent source, then they cease to be common carriers, and lose common carrier protection. Then they immediately become liable for every case of copyright infringement that they are accessory to.

I don't think they'd like that choice.

If they are common carriers, then they are supposed to be indifferent to WHAT they are carrying, like the mail or the phones. If an extortion threat is transmitted by mail, you can't sue the post office. Not just because it's acting as an agent of the govt, but because it's a common carrier. (UPS is just as protected.) They aren't supposed to know or care what they're carrying. If they did, and demonstrated the capability of filtering it by filtering some of it, then they would lose their common carrier status, and become liable as accessories to extortion, e.g.

OTOH, I don't want them pretending to be me. Not at all. That should be grounds for a suit. It should also be grounds for criminal prosecution not only of those who implemented it, but of all of their supervisors, managers, etc. also. Including the boards of directors. It shouldn't have a particular onerous penalty...say 10 days for each separate offense. Cumulative. I'll be generous, and say 1 day per instance. I.e., 1 day per false packet.

Re:Can you say "class action" ?

[Fujisawa Sensei]

There is no legitimate use of BitTorrent. Anything BitTorrent can do, FTP can do better.

There is not legitimate use of FTP. Anything FTP can do rsync can do better.

Re:Suure... legal action is possible...

[Spy der Mann]

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?

Evidence is already out there

[poetmatt]

take a look at http://www.dslreports.com/forum/comcast and you will note that plenty of examples of this impersonation exist. They disconnect by impersonation after about 10 seconds of seeding, and it seems to be courtesy of Sandvine. Gotta love lack of net neutrality here, although I am not in favor of extreme net neutrality, some would be, well, nice.

Re:Typo

[Tribbin]

You made an spelling error last January 22nd:

"un-realisically"

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=218196&cid=177 12652

You are welcome.

Actaul chat session dialog.

[moseman]

Christopher(Tue Sep 04 2007 17:54:47 GMT-0400 (Eastern Daylight Time))>

Please provide me with a complete list of TCP/IP ports which Comcast actively blocks/filters/or limits traffic to users??

analyst Tallilee.7304 has entered room

Tallilee.7304(Tue Sep 04 2007 17:54:50 GMT-0400 (Eastern Daylight Time))>

Hello Christopher_, Thank you for contacting Comcast Live Chat Support. My name is Tallilee.7304. Please give me one moment to review your information.

Christopher_(Tue Sep 04 2007 17:55:23 GMT-0400 (Eastern Daylight Time))>

Hi

Tallilee.7304(Tue Sep 04 2007 17:55:18 GMT-0400 (Eastern Daylight Time))>

The only ports that may be actively blocked on the Comcast network are 67, 68, 135, 137, 138, 139, 445, 512, 520, and 1080 at this time. Any ports that are blocked will not be unblocked. If the port you would like to use is on this list, please select another port to use with your software. There are over 10,000 ports available for use. Please be advised that Comcast reserves the entitlement to block any ports on the network without prior notice. We thank you for understanding this security policy.

Christopher_(Tue Sep 04 2007 17:56:14 GMT-0400 (Eastern Daylight Time))>

I have read that Comcast is now actively retarding bittorrent traffic.

Tallilee.7304(Tue Sep 04 2007 17:56:09 GMT-0400 (Eastern Daylight Time))>

That is not a true statement.

Re:Forged RST is a perfectly valid firewall techni

[bm_luethke]

I'm skipping the TCP RST as I mostly agree with what you are saying, though I would say that comcast doing it is MUCH more irritating than myself doing it. I agree with many posters above that it should call into question their common carrier status if they are only doing it to file sharing protocols. You can't have it both ways.

"But ask yourself what would you do if you were in Comcast's position. There is no way in hell they could afford to provide the full advertised downstream and upstream bandwidth 24/7. That's why your cable modem costs a whole lot less than a bandwidth-guaranteed T1. And it's not just for consumers. Businesses who just want an internet connection are now able to get cable modems as well and it's a huge money saver over a T1 because it means you get to burst at much faster speeds and aren't paying for the full bandwidth all the way to an internet backbone which you aren't even using anyway."

Therein lies the problem - at least where I live Comcast runs tons of commercials showing people cheering about the money saved with no loss going with them. Were I in Comcast's shoes and I were not able to provide that I wouldn't advertise it as such - especially if it was something I was artificially throttling through TCP resets (MUCH harder to defend in a lawsuit). Had they sold their service under a different idea then yea, I would fully agree. But at is they heavily commercial one thing, have their service contract vaguely say something else, and finally do something totally different from both and hope people bend over and take it because "what else are they to do - it costs too much money".

There is no reason to quote the rest of your stuff as I agree - Bittorrent is a bandwidth hog and Comcast has WAY oversold what their bandwidth can service. But then, that is their fault for advertising things they can not hope to even come close to covering. There is no other consumer market where that is acceptable. Lets face it, if Denny's ran commercials with normal ingredients as caviar, swallows nest, sea bass, truffles, and other high end items, put a small note in the bottom "ingredients may differ", and then you got spam, American cheese, and old lettuce there would be a VERY strong legal case against them. No difference here - they shouldn't commercial what they will not give and the small print isn't going to save them. With them also heavily commercialing their home service for streaming videos this is only going to get worse.

That being said - I use Comcast and have had no real issues. In fact, I'm constantly surprised what I do doesn't get any note sent to me. This month I have over 70 gigs down and an unknown amount upstream and not a peep from them, this was not really a heavy or light month and I've been a customer for about 6 years now (and there have been months where I have gone WAY over that). I've had their service technicians be as courteous as can be expected (though since I generally knew what the issue was I just pretended to do what they wanted until I got to who I needed to talk too, I understand why the lower level people wouldn't just move me on and stayed very polite) and I even had my cable modem replaced at no charge or questions when I told them it "quit working" (I spilled a bottle of soda in it).

But, if I had the above happen to me I would be quite irritated - they sold me a service and I expect the service they advertised to be provided. I can pay the same price to the local DSL provider and have *none* of those issues though their advertised bandwidth is less you *do* actually get all of it (and it is greater than what many are reporting). That type of little finger to mouth rationalization doesn't work in almost any other field and I suspect it will not work if this type of thing goes to court. My guess is that I live in a fairly rural area and they do not have bandwidth issues so I get to hog all I want.