Comcast Admits Delaying, Not Blocking, P2P Traffic

haibijon writes "The executive declined to talk in detail about the technology, citing spammers or other miscreants who might exploit that knowledge. But he insisted the company was not stopping file transfers from happening, only postponing them in certain cases. He compared it to making a phone call and getting a busy signal, then trying again and getting through."

Comments

I've noticed this behavior

[Maestro485]

I like to leave my Slackware downloads seeding just for the hell of it, and I've noticed that Comcast doesn't exactly block the traffic but does something similar to what this article describes. During certain hours (typically mid-morning and evening, roughly), all torrent activity will cease for a minute or two and then resume normally. This only happens at certain "peak" times and usually rather infrequently. Torrent speeds are generally quite good later on at night and on the weekends.

Not that I agree with Comcast screwing around with traffic and killing off connections, but they at least appear to be telling the truth here.

Comcast is still lying -- and not just about this

[Arrogant-Bastard]

As has been noted in numerous places, Comcast isn't just forging RST packets to disrupt P2P traffic -- they're also doing it to disrupt Lotus Notes traffic...which makes the "we're doing it to stop the bad guys" excuse a transparent lie.

Moreover, disrupting P2P traffic will have no effect on "spammers and other miscreants", as they have far more sophisticated, self-organizing C&C methods already deployed. (No doubt having anticipated that use of traditional P2P would leave them vulnerable to such countermeaures.)

But the truly galling part is that Comcast continues to repeat the same big lie they trotted out years ago: "We take the spam problem seriously". This is utter nonsense, of course; spam emission levels from their network continue to steadily increase, as they have for half a decade, to the point where their only serious rival for the #1 spot on the world's list of top spam-sending network is Verizon.

So what this episode tells us is that Comcast has the capability to monitor and modify traffic, but only chooses to do so when it might affect their profits -- not when it might could the unceasing flow of abuse outbound from their network.

Re:First Class or Coach?

[CRCulver]

I'm thinking of an airline that's planning to ensure that if you fly coach, your bags will be the last ones off the plane.

You must be thinking of them all, then, since it was established in the discussion to that story that most airlines have offered these services for years already.

Re:Sure, Comcast.

[Rude Turnip]

I worked for a bank in college...you can't post-date a check. Specifically, it won't matter if you post-date it; it's cashed or deposited when presented.

Re:Makes me wonder

[rriven]

it also had a policy to outright block all encrypted traffic that wasn't coming over port 80

I feel sorry for your friend. Https is done over port 443 not 80. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTPS)

Every https webisite I have tried to view over port 80 has given me an error. https://www.bankofamerica.com:80/

Bittorrent 'for profits'

[p00pyd00py]

Anyone know of any companies that make revenue by selling products or services that are transferred via BitTorrent? If so maybe they should file a lawsuit against Comcast to recover damages. I went back and forth from Comcast to Verizon and then tried Cavtel for a while. I'm currently using Comcast but am going to leave them and go back to Cavtel. I do not want anyone screwing around with my packets.

btw, "busy signal" = TCP-RESET