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Comcast Admits Delaying, Not Blocking, P2P Traffic

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the oh-yeah-thats-fine-then-nevermind dept.

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."

9 of 287 comments (clear)

  1. Sure, Comcast. by EveryNickIsTaken · · Score: 5, Funny

    On that note, I'm not "cancelling" my service with you. I'm merely "delaying" signing back up with your company (indefinitely).

  2. I'm not delinquent in paying my bill by mandark1967 · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm just delaying it...I tried to put my payment in the mailbox and there were other letters there so I waited until it was less congested....

    --
    Sig Follows: "Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." -- Mark Twain
  3. He compares it to a phone call.... by OctoberSky · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I compare it to paying a gym membership, heading towards the treadmill only to be stopped by a trainer and told there is someone on it already. You look, see no one is on it, ask again and are allowed to use it. Sometimes the trainer comes over and tells you that you have to get off for someone else. Everytime you get off, no one else gets on. So you have to restart your workout whenever the trainer asks.

    1. Re:He compares it to a phone call.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      what is this "gym" you speak of?

  4. Comcast is still lying -- and not just about this by Arrogant-Bastard · · Score: 5, Informative


    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.

  5. Just shy of the bullseye... by glindsey · · Score: 5, Insightful

    He compared it to making a phone call and getting a busy signal, then trying again and getting through Hey, good phone analogy, but you're not quite right, Mr. Comcast Executive. Let me try to lend you a hand: it's like already being on a phone call and having it dropped in the middle of your conversation. Over and over and over. And it makes you so angry you vow you're going to cancel your service and switch to a competitor, except you can't, because they're the Phone Company, the only game in town.

    At least, that's the way it works for a huge portion of Comcast's service area, including large swaths of Chicagoland.
  6. Re:Makes me wonder by walt-sjc · · Score: 5, Interesting

    From what I understand, they are forging packets that make your BT client think that peers have hung up on you. Since they (comcast) are the man-in-the-middle, they can easily perform these types of attacks.

    And that's what this is. An attack. QOS would just slow things down, this kills. I don't mind QOS. I do mind active damage.

    It's time to take p2p to the next level - implementing some of the concepts of the old freenet (the encryption part) and make the traffic unidentifiable. Maybe move it to UDP and make it look like DNS. Or Skype.

  7. Re:Makes me wonder by norton_I · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Technically that is certainly true. You could make the legal argument that presenting a certificate as belonging to another organization if fraud.

    Not that it matters for the moment. Comcast can't currently afford to intercept all SSL connections, inspect the certificate to see if they can forge it, and proxy the connection just to do packet inspection.

    Furthermore, I think you can prevent that. Essentially, create a new "CA" key whenever you create a .torrent file, and include the public key in the .torrent. Then, on-the-fly build a chain of authority stemming from that key. Then, whenever you get directed to a new peer, the message includes a public key for that peer, signed by your current peer, and so forth. Even if comcast tries to join the network to disrupt it, they can't disrupt communication between nodes when the chain-of-authority does not use their keys, and if tampering is detected, their keys can be revoked, un-authenticating any bogus keys they have generated and signed.

    Sounds like a fun project, actually, assuming it doesn't already exist.

  8. Re:"Postponing..." by dunkelfalke · · Score: 5, Funny

    it's not dead, it's resting ;-)

    --
    "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap