Slashdot Mirror
Comcast May Face Lawsuits Over BitTorrent Filtering
An anonymous reader writes "It's been widely reported that Comcast is engaged in a sneaky form of Internet filtering. The company is terminating its customers' BitTorrent sessions by sending misleading data onto the network. The end result is that instead of targeting key heavy users, Comcast is instead engaged in an all out war against P2P protocols. In an interview with CNET, the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Fred von Lohmann states that Comcast is 'throwing a spanner in the works of the Internet, hoping that this will somehow reduce bandwidth usage overall.' Other lawyers seem to have smelled blood, and are circling in the water. Lohmann reveals that '[The EFF has] already been contacted by attorneys who are considering legal action against Comcast.' Could Comcast be facing a class-action?"
YAY, I have a tiny chance of receiving $7.32 off my comcast bill in 6 years time!
----- Documentation is worth it just to be able to answer all your mail with 'RTFM' - Alan Cox.
Personally I hope they do get sued. While I do think our society is overly litigous, and Comcast does have the right to modify traffic on the network they own, I don't think they have the right to lie or mislead about it. And isn't this the same Comcast who had the unlimited plan with bandwidth caps?
once the lawyers sense blood, watch out for the feeding frenzy. And who said lawyers were bottom feeders?
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to think "profiling is worse than the slaughter of innocent people..."
Comcast is 'throwing a spanner in the works of the Internet, hoping that this will somehow reduce bandwidth usage overall.'
Honestly, I have to give Comcast this point. I was thinking about signing up with Comcast, but now will be going with Copowi instead. That'll save Comcast some bandwidth.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Think about it, if you are off somewhere, doing "whatever" and you do say ARP posioning to help in your "whatever" you could of just commited a crime! Right now you can say "Screw of cop, its my network you can go to hell." but if we start telling Comcast don't send out these packets, it could be a very slipperly slope.
The other thing to keep in mind is that we pay Comcast to basically lease time/energy on there networks. I understand that they interchange with other networks, but it is still there networks.
If anything this is a contract dispute, not the worlds end.
That being said, I hate the bastards too. Frigen making me go to there office because the last person who had my apartment had late payments.. so I have to take an ID down and a copy of my lease. Assholes. I'll just keep stealing internet from folks near by, and downloading movies. TAKE THAT COMCAST. EAT IT.
So basically, -1 troll/offtopic is really slashdots way of saying "I hate that you thought of something before me."
In Canada, Rogers Cable has been throttling BT traffic for a while. Hopefully a successful lawsuit in the US would encourage similar action against Rogers up here in the north. What ISP's should be doing is putting down the money to lay down the fibre optic cables needed to keep up with demand. Though I guess doing something like that when you can just covertly attack the customer would make FAR too much sense.
Sue them. Then leave them as a customer and go someplace else. I wonder how they will prove this case? I know sometimes with my P2P it can mess up but it was later related to a firewall issue. Or will they request Comcasts' internal documents? If that is the case I bet they are going to just started shredding everything non stop.
I smoked pot once. But I DID NOT inhale. Will you hire me?
Well, it's not like you could get the three years of crappy service back, right?
"Chance favors the prepared mind." ~Me
This isn't mere filtering (which would be bad enough). This is intentional, specific, active tampering. These TCP RST packets are spoofed forgeries. That's much more evil.
Passively dropping packets in an attempt to shape traffic or implement some QoS policy is one thing. Actively "jamming" connections is quite another.
We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from the machinations of the wicked.
is that Comcast will shortly be coming out with their own branded p2p. My understanding is that it is MS's. If we are not going to regulate the monopolies, then they should be de-monopolized, and allow true competition to take hold. Right now, the only difference between china and us is that china is out about how they do things. We wrap ours up in the flag and pretend that there is real competition.
I love the smell of gunpowder in the morning !!! Nothing straightens the greedy out like a good legal battle !!
Read radical news here
..... If an actual lawyer could comment on the possibility of any sort of lawsuit. While the article does reference this, it isn't clear if this could be done on a federal scale. That leaves the whole issue of a potential class action lawsuit up in the air IMHO.
Having said that, I hope it scares the crap out of Comcast (and any other ISP dumb enough to try this).
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
Big question: Can ISP's be considered common carriers? If so, how does that limit their ability to shape traffic? does it at all?
Little question: Does the packet shaping and interdiction violate the agreement that comcast made with users? does it violate upstream agreements with other providers?
the big question isn't likely to be solved by this lawsuit. It is the question we want answered, and quickly, but any lawsuit is likely to stem from some violation of contract erms or some misrepresentation in advertising, not the existential question of Comcast's nature as a common or a private carrier.
The little question might be enlightening, but I doubt it. This policy might have been implemented after consulting the legal depatment and determining that the TOS for Comcast users was draconian and one sided enough to permit this sort of meddling. Alternately, it may have been the result of a business action distinct from legal consulation. Comcast may have been dumb enough to think that their users would be able to notice or test this phenomenon. My money is on a combination of the two notions. comcast probably cleared "packet shaping" in the abstract with legal, but failed to note this wrinkle in the method with them.
they will probably argue in court that they have the right to provide their definition of QOS to buyers, and this requires that they stop "illegal" traffic. They will presumably go through great pains to paint Bittorrent as illegitimate, and justify their actions on that front. They will also bring up the likely fact that residential broadband users have no uptime/QOS clause in their contracts, a fact that will become much more important than the supposed illegality of traffic.
That is where the meat will be. What sort of QOS/uptime/bandwidth promises are made internal and external to the contract. Not very fun stuff, but them's the breaks.
Dear Isaac,
Shut up.
Love,
AC
For quite some time, the swing in favor of "big media" has been moving in some extreme directions where every technology vendor and provider seems to be ruining their own products, services and indeed their businesses in order to pander to "big media." (Technology vendors such as ISPs, Microsoft, various hardware makers come to mind) But now with threats of litigation against one of these technology providers, perhaps the pandering to big media may decrease... and perhaps after that, even the government will stop writing laws for them as well... or even erase some laws while they are at it.
One should hope so. See, here's the deal.
If I were on Comcast's Internet service, I would be paying for the ability to communicate with other people to accomplish various legal tasks. And if there is anything to learn in the past few days immediately following the release of Gutsy Gibbon, with Ubuntu.com completely hosed as far as I can tell, there are legitimate, much-needed, legal ways to use peer-to-peer services. If this isn't the fundamental reason for signing up with an Internet Service Provider, to be able to communicate with other computers, what is?
If they had told me up front that they would be resetting peer-to-peer connections, I might be mad, but at least I'd know it up front and could choose to sign up with a service that doesn't do so. If these were technical problems that forced their actions as a resolution, then I might agree that taking necessary action to restore service is a Good Thing. If there really were no legitimate uses for peer-to-peer networks, as the RIAA and MPAA would have everyone believe, then I would still disagree, but at least I would understand.
As it is, though, none of those things are true. Comcast is still denying that they are deliberately causing connections to fail, in spite of the incontrovertible proof that has been offered, and that only after Comcast said nothing at all to their customers for... well... we don't know how long. As it is, it's not in response to connections being down, it was planned out and implemented while nothing was broken in response to some hypothetical situation that might arise. In fact, in having problems with Lotus Notes, Comcast has actually broken something else that was working before in order to fix a problem that didn't exist to begin with!
In short, if I were on Comcast's Internet service, I would be paying them to deliver network packets, that's all. At best, Comcast has engaged in an egregious breach of contract by deliberately interfering with my ability to get packets from A to B. At worst, they are guilty of deliberately and secretly impersonating someone they're not, and if I'm not mistaken, that's a crime. They might be lucky if they can get out of this with just a class action lawsuit.
I'm not on Comcast's Internet service, thank goodness, although I am on AT&T's, and believe me, it's not much better. All of this stupidity just makes me long even more for more competition in this space for something else to come along. I never that I'd see the day when, "We won't interfere with your Internet connection!" would actually become a selling point, yet here we are.
If I can indulge in a bit of tinfoil-hattishness, it really makes me wonder. The RIAA and MPAA are a huge media creation conglomerate. As mentioned, they hate, HATE, HATE peer-to-peer software, even with all of its legitimate uses. As some of you may know, Comcast is more than just an Internet service provider, they also happen to be the largest media provider company, and they're facing increased competition from telcos and satellite providers. Who wants to bet that Comcast has been either paid off or offered sweet deals on media content in trade for pushing the RIAA's and MPAA's agenda of controlling what applications can and can't be used on the Internet?
Something to think about...
1) The one guy out there actually downloading Creative Commons-licensed Ogg Theora files
...or...
2) A complete idiot
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
"YAY, I have a tiny chance of receiving $7.32 off my comcast bill in 6 years time!"
Unfortunately, to get in on the lawsuit, you have to submit an online form - and the cost of sending those few hundred KB of information over a Comcast line will doubtless cancel out that award.
that broke the internet's back for me. I've already ordered DSL service to replace my current Comcast connection. As soon as it is up and running I'm taking both my cable box and my modem back personally, and explaining that the reason I am cancelling is due to Comcast's complete disregard for customer service in that they constantly lie to their customers about having "unlimited" service as well as messing around with packets they ought not be messing around with.
Not everyone is so lucky, I read so many posts in other threads saying that Comcast is their only option for broadband. Hopefully that will change for them. I have a friend in a rural area who was able to sign up for sprint wireless broadband, because comcast wont run their cable 20 feet across the road to his house. The only issue with the sprint connection is it is not incredibly reliable, but for the most part his link stays up while he is using it.
UnFair thee well, Comcast...
Is there heaven? Is there Hell? Is that a Tuna Melt I smell?-Primus
It would seem to me that the result from a class action on these grounds would amount to a precedent-setting case in network neutrality, which could be a good thing or a bad thing depending on how the court handles it.
you are sending a request out to site X for pR0n/tunes/elusive high-level research data.
they are intercepting your request and changing it into asking for used bubble gum.
not passing the data straight through, for a Data Carrier, is a class-1 Super Sin. now giving a copy to the NSA to sort through and find out if any of your relatives back to Alexander the Shepherd had an axe to grind with the US government is another matter, and under review in many places.
but horking up your data stream? federal case.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Chris Pirillo went on a rant last night on his live stream, and with good reason: Comcast was apparently blocking his legitimate traffic to our Exchange server, as well as traffic to Google and Microsoft Live. We could confirm this much last night on Skype: it was either limited to him or his immediate area. Both Google and the Exchange server were working for us, as well as other Seattle-area Comcast subscribers. The beautiful thing about this? He upgraded to Comcast Business to avoid just this bullshit.
The point of such a lawsuit is not so much for you to personally profit by $7.32, it is that they will have to pay millions of people $7.32, plus millions of dollars more to very expensive lawyers.
The point is that after paying so much money for doing something so stupid, they'll be less inclined to do stupid things in the future.
I hope that this actually happens, so that somewhere, at some time, some executive might realize, "Gosh, it would have been a lot cheaper and more PR-friendly if we had just upgraded our network instead." Also, I hpe that this actually happens so that other Internet service providers sit up and take note.
if they can't handle selling the bandwidth they advertise then they should stop. I personally have comcast too, and when our cable company used to be adelphia (mid maryland) i had no problems, the only downtime in about 7 years was when we had people knocking down the telephone poles or if it was really windy out... now we have comcast my service just drops out randomly for 15-20 minutes at a time, it's rediculous, and for the price, almost $50 a month it's almost not worth it anymore. i have been thinking of converting to dsl for the last 6 months (since the comcast changeover) but it's unfortunately not available.. that's how comcast can get away with this stuff, because not enough people have once choice let alone two choices for broadband services in even semi-rural areas. I would protest with my money if i could but alas i am stuck with comcast so i am for this lawsuit, although it will probably cause other problems, because i don't want them just cutting my traffic off when i pay an arm and a leg every month for it and because i want to use what i pay for.
- My uid ends in 69...
There was a report showing that Comcast was also interfering with Lotus Notes traffic.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
...considering the country that Comcast operates in, I'd say the possibility of a lawsuit is pretty close to 1.
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
i guess i'm to lazy to rtfa or rtf other comments, but i'm downloading the simpsons movie via ktorrent at 500kps, faster than i download anything else. i dunno if this is because of the lawsuit, or whatever, but it seems that comcast is no longer governing bittorrent downloads. or it may be just me.
My, slashdot, this field I'm typing into has the perfect dimensions!
I bet lawyers are salivating. With 9 million subscribers, all of whom are directly or indirectly affected by Comcast's actions, you've got a pretty sizable number of people who might sign on. Granted, all the people in the class action suit will get next to nothing. But the lawyers won't have to worry about paying for their children to eat for a while.
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -Albert Einstein
This is an outrage I was going to move to Colorado Springs, Now I seriously am wondering if I should, I need my P2P and torrent apps to work. I wonder If this includes all Business hosting solutions becuase that would make more sense than to do it on the residential side. I prefer all business bandwidth to be business related and already most companys are doing something to prevent people from accessing some websites, content, ports and material. America is becomming more communist as we speak. Next it will be filtered at the lec controled by Mr. Bush... We are all just rats in a cage forced to buying songs for .99 cents + a new Tax called the media transaction tax soon to be introduced.
The Phish
Comcast has also been killing VPN connections and competing VOIP services for years. I have personally run into a number of clients that are working fine and then all of the sudden they can't VPN in anymore. The common denominator is Comcast.
I haven't had direct issues with Comcast and 3rd party VOIP but I do have a number of IT buddies that have. The have had to resort to changing ports to non standard ranges in order to get their Vonage working.
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed H
begin distributing youtube videos via bittorrent, this problem would find a quick resolution?
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
According to this document at the FCC's website, cable modem service is not subject to common carrier regulation. While I'm no lawyer, and my knowledge of what exactly the regulations surrounding a "interstate information service" are, if any exist, but a lot of the posts here seem to be assuming that they are a common carrier like most other Internet service is, and that's just not the case.
1) Lawyers file class action lawsuit that says P2P traffic is being blocked.
2) Comcast rebuttal says that all the traffic is illegal.
3) RIAA, the Business Software Alliance, say, "oh ho, you can figure out that this traffic is illegal.. why are you allowing it at all?"
4) Comcast agrees to halt all "illegal" traffic, winning the 1st lawsuit, after being joined by RIAA and co, and they agree to drop their lawsuits against Comcast.
5) P2P is dead, killed by ISPs that follow comcast's lead.
This is my sig.
Can a tcpdump wizard provide an example of how one might detect the reset?
I sure am glad you signed your name, because after reading the massive amounts of asinine, unintelligible drivel in your irrelevant post, I lost so many IQ points that I forgot who made it. Moron.
I think this was a pretty underhanded move by Comcast, and the conspiracy theorists among us can probably find the RIAA behind the move. I don't think it's right.
Having said that...
Remember when the Green Card Lottery spam first went out? Everyone was up in arms about it, threats and lawsuits were coming from all sides...sound familiar? And that stopped the spam problem dead in it's tracks, right?
Same thing here. This is just the first volley. They're testing the waters. In 5 years it'll be commonplace for the ISP to disrupt/block/delay traffic as they see fit.
I hope I'm wrong. Smells like censorship to me.
Companies need to be penalized for breaking the law. This is what Punitive Damages are for, and I entirely support it. If Comcast gets a multi-billion dollar judgement against them, perhaps the next time a company starts needlessly screwing with their customer's traffic... they will think about the Comcast judgement, and the thought of having their corporation sued into oblivion will deter them.
It's amazing how your average conservative loves capital punishment, but hates penalizing corporations for wrongdoing. Conservatives are simply typical fascists: no rights for the citizens, no restrictions for the corporations.
If more corporations were made an example of, like Arthur Anderson and Enron, you would have far less malfeasance in the marketplace. But crime and corruption are the lifeblood of fiscal conservatives, so obviously they are going to stop that at all costs.
I'm not sure if this is related or not, but my Comcast workplace business connection has been having severe problems with Lotus Notes (cannot send emails with attachments) and my VPN sessions drop or severely degrade if I try to transfer a large (several meg) amount of data over it. Vonage has gone downhill as well, but that is always bad with Comcast.
I do know this is related, I'm terminating my account next month and moving to FIOS business. Roughly the same price, over twice the speed (up and down). The only thing that sucks is a pack of 5 static ip addresses costs $20/month vs $10/month. Well, that and that it is Verizon.
Finkployd
Sue the b4stards. Make an example of them.
Lawyers walk away with millions. Subscribers gets five dollars off their next bill. Comcast pass the cost to their subscribers. The douche bag decision makers in comcast are still employed, moving onto their next (evil) scheme. There is ZERO accountability here. Now if we start talking about PRISON term or heavy financial fines for the said douche...
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
All you have to do is show that they are blocking 100% completely legal traffic on the Internet. Not 90% legal or 99% legal or "has substantial non-infringing use" - none of these are going to stand up to the light of day with a jury.
The problem is that if you want to ding Comcast for blocking it you are going to need to show that in no way could they ever be held liable for not blocking it. With decisions about contributing to infringement coming down in the last year, I'd say an ISP would be incredibly stupid for not blocking traffic that they could clearly be held liable for. You better believe Comcast will use this as a defensive strategy. In today's climate their attorneys have likely advised that not blocking it could be construed as a assisting in infringement.
So while technically it helps management of the network it also eliminates one more thing that could create a liability for them. Win - win for Comcast, lose-lose for the customer.
The decision that nobody owns anything you cannot hold in your hand is the only way out of this. I don't think it is going to come because it would mean the virtual bankruptcy of the US. We don't make "stuff" anymore, we make "intellectual property".
Will this make people respect copyright? Heck no. You can't prosecute people on the Internet, you can't track them down and you just barely can sue them - only if they are stupid about it.
On your BitTorrent client.
I turned it on yesterday and am getting unheard of download speeds: over a 1000 kB/sec. in some cases. I've never seen speeds that high. I use Comcast. And my uploads are getting better so my ratio doesn't ban me from my favorite site.
(Just for linux iso's of course.)
I would be scared to sign my name to anything which says HI I USE P2P NETWORKS. It just invites scrutiny from whoever wants to investigate. It may not be worth a $15 credit towards my next triply-overpriced Comcast bill.
good for you?!?
I see the same exact thing. Video is perfect for about 30 seconds, after which it hits a wall and degrades all to hell. I have to lower the capped bandwidth (it's in the iChat preferences) to about 20% of my supposed "download bandwidth".
The funny thing is, according to the java tests through places like dslreports.com, my bandwidth is very high. Even though I pay for 3m/784 I usually see 6m/1.5 on the tests, however those tests are typically about 15s long and Comcast is probably smart enough to "shape" those to the high-end.
From the legal framework, I think a crafty lawyer should beable to construe their actions as inter-state wirefraud if they were impersonating traffic. This would result in a federal criminal case. Obviously, by the statements, the highest level of comcast has knowlede of these activities, therefor, the board and officers of the corporation should be held accountable.
I smell blood, and the lawyers do to. Makes me wish I finished the law degree sometimes, because this case would be 'fun' to take to trial.
See similar items:
IANAL. Playing Devil's Advocate. :)
By signing up for and/or using the service, you agree to Comcast's AUP. According to Comcast's AUP, they can "terminate or suspend" your account if you fail to comply with the terms.
Instead of suspending or terminating the account, Comcast - recognizing the importance of the net and being connected - simply restricts / blocks / slows down the traffic associated with the excessive usage.
It is still possible to use BT, it will merely take longer.
Since the ports and protocol aren't vital to most people and the ways in which most people use the service (web, email, im), these actions only effect a minority of abusers who degrade the service for the majority.
I'm not sure how a class action lawsuit works (notice the "IANAL" at the start of this post? good), but if a jury is involved... the case faces an additional burden. Attempting to explain to the average person that BT traffic isn't just used to swap copyrighted material, but is also used to distribute Linux ISOs and WoW patches will only confirm in his mind that this is "geek shit" that he doesn't use and probably never will - and it may be responsible for his own slow connection at home.
From Comcast's AUP:
Prohibited Uses and Activitiesviii. restrict, inhibit, interfere with, or otherwise disrupt or cause a performance degradation, regardless of intent, purpose or knowledge, to the Service or any Comcast (or Comcast supplier) host, server, backbone network, node or service, or otherwise cause a performance degradation to any Comcast (or Comcast supplier) facilities used to deliver the Service;
-snip-
Network, Bandwidth, Data Storage and Other LimitationsComcast may provide versions of the Service with different speeds and bandwidth usage limitations, among other characteristics, subject to applicable Service plans. You shall ensure that your use of the Service does not restrict, inhibit, interfere with, or degrade any other user's use of the Service, nor represent (in the sole judgment of Comcast) an overly large burden on the network. In addition, you shall ensure that your use of the Service does not restrict, inhibit, interfere with, disrupt, degrade, or impede Comcast's ability to deliver and provide the Service and monitor the Service, backbone, network nodes, and/or other network services.
You further agree to comply with all Comcast network, bandwidth, and data storage and usage limitations. You shall ensure that your bandwidth consumption using the Service does not exceed the limitations that are now in effect or may be established in the future. If your use of the Service results in the consumption of bandwidth in excess of the applicable limitations, that is a violation of this Policy. In such cases, Comcast may, in its sole discretion, terminate or suspend your Service account or request that you subscribe to a version of the Service with higher bandwidth usage limitations if you wish to continue to use the Service at higher bandwidth consumption levels.
"The fight for freedom has only just begun." - Geert Wilders
I havent seen it mentioned here but RCN also does this with their cable modem service in some states. The was confirmed on DLSreports.com about 1-2 years ago by an RCN employee. The results are the same as what Comcast is doing: torrents download as normal, but when the user tries to seed the connection is reset. I confirmed that this happens with RCN in New York But its been over a year since I tried to seed so I dont know if this is still happening. A search on dslreports for "rcn" and "torrent" should bring up some stuff. RCN rep confirmed this was only turned on in select markets.
I don't want money. I want them to stop shaping [all] traffic/mangling packets.
... by my ISP.
If I don't have encryption enabled in my client I can't download anything, legal or not, via BT. My bandwidth is either throttled or outright disabled (modem needs a reboot).
Just another example of how the one's in charge (ISP and Telecom management) have no real concept of how technology works. We say P2P and they immediately think PIRATE... lamerz.
There are only 10 kinds of people in the world. Those that understand binary and those that don't.
Well, what they are legally allowed to modify would be their internal network used by employees, not the regulated part of the internet that Comcast got the exclusive right by the government to build. In terms of regulations, it isn't their internet, even though they build it and own it.
I am quite certain this falls into the realm of net neutrality. Its like dumping toxic waste on an easement.
Want Big Business out of government? Take away the incentive and start by getting government out of big business!
One for the pirates and one for legitimate users. That would work. ;)
I have excellent Karma and I am not afraid to Troll it.
Just in case anyone hasn't noticed, the Communications Workers of America have conducted a worldwide survey of internet access speeds. What they found is that Japan is number one with 61 Mb/s. We're didn't even place. You can read about that, here.http://www.itwire.com/content/view/13184/1066/. I guess the MPAA and the RIAA don't have very much pull in Japan.
The diversity and expression of human opinion is essential to human survival.
Unfortunately, like all court cases against big companies, the lawyers will walk away with the big million doallar checks after they win, leaving the victims $10 to claim (like Microsoft's recent court case). Also, I have been using Comcast for a year for Internet, but I have to say, I have not noticed any significant reduction in speed on BitTorrent. I mostly download TV shows, which are about 350mb each. Anyway, I have not really noticed P2P networks being hurt because of this. Sometimes I notice bizzar speeds, but I just thought it was because everyone was hogging the bandwich.
well if you go and do a legit bittorrent download, like say a linux distro you could join the class without a question i would think. IANAL but in this case it seems like they should have to pay out to anyone who uses their service since they are fraudulently not providing the service they are supposed to. it doesnt matter what you are downloading, its irrelevant to the case.
and there are much more than 5 users. Basically all linux distros are now hosted via torrents, and virtually everything VMware hosts for virtual appliances. Its a lot more than 5 users. That isnt even remotely the point however. They are violating a contract, invading your privacy and technically they are misrepresenting themselves willfully as well.
It would be one thing if they were at least only doing this to people who were the bandwidth pigs first, or that and were sending notices. but they are just doing it in blanket form.
and for you morons out there who still dont get it, two wrongs dont make a right. a protocol is a protocol, do you ban cdr drives because you can duplicate a cd with it? honestly from a non commercial usage standpoint what does anyone ever do with a standalone cd duplicator do?
"Jazz isn't dead, it just smells funny" ~Frank Zappa
EdelFactor
Only if *I* am the one defining what is "bulk" and what is not. How would you like it if UPS decided for you which packages to send Ground, and which to send NextDay? QoS is great if setting the QoS bits in packets leaving my computer causes my ISP to do something different (for an extra charge, even, like NextDay delivery). Non technical end-users would have checkboxes on their cable router setup with options like "optimize VOIP (minimize latency) - extra ISP charges may accrue". Geeks would have iptables...
I also use Comcast. I don't do BitTorrent that much because in the long run certain... ahem... alternatives are faster, but I just grabbed an OpenSUSE DVD the other day (no, seriously, it really was a Linux ISO) and had no problems receiving at 750KB+. I also encrypt my traffic, though. Is this why I never seem to have seen Comcast fiddling around with my transfers? Or is Comcast only applying this in certain areas so far?
Breakfast served all day!
Hey there,
not withstanding the legality of interfering with data connections that are non of their business.
I wonder if the ability to even tell the two end points independendly that their connectiosn are terminated by the other side, is actually a security flaw of the protocol? Isn't that what is called a man in the middle attack? How could that happen at all?
Question, would a simple SSL tunnel stop that effectively?
K
Busy helping non technical users of OpenOffice.org - http://plan-b-for-openoffice.org/
I don't understand this 'it's their network so they can do whatever they want with my data' attitude that seems to be very common. If you get in a cab, the cab driver doesn't have the right to do whatever they want to your body just because they own the cab. The data being sent is not Comcasts. The data belongs to the people sending and receiving the data. Comcast does not have the right to do whatever they want to MY data. When someone breaks something that you own, you have legal recourse.
That's one of the problems with this mythical thing called 'Intellectual Property'. It only seems to exist when a corporation is making money off of it. When it is a Comcast user's IP that Comcast is damaging, suddenly the 'IP' doesn't exist anymore, and all that matters is that the network is Comcast's.
Ah, the joys of perverted federalism. PATRIOT Act made damn near everyone a "financial institution." And according to the powers that run the Drug War, a guy who grows marijuana in his back yard for his own consumption, is engaging in "interstate commerce."
Nearly every computer in the country is both used by a financial institution and used in interstate commerce. ;-)
Ah, but here's the rub:
Oops. Comcast is an intelligence agency of the United States.As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Absolutely correct, your town does give access permission to the network and most of the time requires for example that channels of the TV capacity are reserved for local access and often enough even local TV programming efforts being paid for. On that token, the contracts need to stipulate that IP traffic needs to be neutral and that no interference other for random volume shaping is permittet. By the way extend that to e-mail store and forward services and port blocking as well. An ISP will never be able to decide for you what is SPAM and what not. Therefore it shoudl stay out of that business unless specifically directed to do so by its user.
Busy helping non technical users of OpenOffice.org - http://plan-b-for-openoffice.org/
No, that would only be "fair" to those who use/abuse voip, ssh, gaming, etc and unfair to everyone who doesn't. How about (1) they upgrade infrastructure with voip-only routers, and (2) you PAY to have voip prioritized.
I fired off a nastygram to Comcast with a link to that MSNBC article and asked them flat out if it was true or not
I got the following response
"I understand you have some concerns over recent web gossip that has
suggested Comcast is blocking or hindering customer access to
BitTorrent. My name is Armin and I will be glad to assist you.
Mark, we do not block access to any P2P (Peer To Peer) applications,
including BitTorrent. We respect our customers' privacy and don't
monitor specific customer activities on the Internet, or track
individual online behavior, such as which websites are visited.
Therefore, we do not know whether any individual user is visiting
BitTorrent or any other site.
Additionally, Comcast does not "throttle" bandwidth (limit throughput on
the network). Comcast also is not traffic shaping or packet shaping.
We have a responsibility to manage our network to ensure that our
customers have the best broadband experience possible. That means we
use the latest technologies to manage our network to provide a quality
experience for all Comcast subscribers. This is standard practice for
network operators around the world. I do not have specific information
to provide to you regarding the details of how we manage our network, or
vendors that may be used.
I hope that I was able to effectively address your concerns. If you
have any further questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to contact
us back."
---- "Logoff! That cookie shit makes me nervous!" - A. Soprano
Just like DRM hobbled "CDs" shouldn't be able to use the "Compact Disc" logo, Comcast should be forced to state that their service is a "Reduced Internet" or "Crippled Internet" or maybe even "Quasi-evil Internet." And, since they're not providing true internet access, maybe some of the areas they have contracts to serve will sue for breach of contract?
...///...
The TOS explicitly forbid file sharing and P2P; I don't see any basis for a lawsuit.
You know why it's bullshit to say "fill-in-the-blank is a slippery slope"?
BECAUSE EVERYTHING IS A SLIPPERY SLOPE!
So I can suggest that compulsory education is a 'slippery slope' towards selling our children as Janissaries, or that extending Medicare to all americans is a 'slippery slope' towards soviet-style central controls on the economy, or that checking to see if you have a history of violent criminal behavior is a slippery slope towards the government seizing your guns, or that protecting your 2nd amendment rights is a slippery slope towards the average guy owning his own attack helicopter.
All typical uses of the term 'slippery slope', all equally bullshit arguments.
Not that incremental-ism doesn't happen, but if you wanna suggest that X is on the road to Y, how 'bout providing some evidence for that?
The plural form of "anecdote" is "anecdotes", not "evidence".
Well, it'd be great if free-market dynamics would solve this problem, but I'm not optimistic... After all, what portion of comcrap users use bittorrent? Of those, what fraction are informed or inclined to understand this kind of stuff? I picture somebody like my girlfriend's parents, who own 2 laptops and a desktop, but when I try and tell her dad that he should turn on his wi-fi encryption, I can see his eyes glaze over as if I'm discussing the finer points of ethnic puppetry or something.
Comcast knows this, in fact is probably _counting_ on it.
Personally, I love free markets. The problem is, we just don't see them very often. The closest thing I've seen to a free market is illegal drugs.
A market should be a place where, if I don't feel I'm getting sufficient 'value' for my money, then I go to someone else, and eventually, both buyer and seller feel they're getting a 'good deal' or a 'fair deal'.
So in something like ISPs, where most people in North America have the choice of nearly identical products from nearly identical service providers, can a market even be said to exist in the first place? If Adam Smith was alive, I think he'd describe the alleged 'market' for internet service as a oligarchy or duopoly, but definitely not a free market.
If a market doesn't properly exist, then free market forces aren't going to work. I personally suspect Comcast et. al. full well know this, and they count on it. Otherwise, why make campaign contributions?
The plural form of "anecdote" is "anecdotes", not "evidence".
"If I were on Comcast's Internet service, I would be paying for the ability to communicate with other people to accomplish various legal tasks. And if there is anything to learn in the past few days immediately following the release of Gutsy Gibbon, with Ubuntu.com completely hosed as far as I can tell, there are legitimate, much-needed, legal ways to use peer-to-peer services. If this isn't the fundamental reason for signing up with an Internet Service Provider, to be able to communicate with other computers, what is?"
Well a gun is likewise legal and can be used in a legal manner. However society likewise has the right to impose upon your usage of said gun for the benefit of society. Comcast is doing what it's doing for the benefit of it's society aka customers. Why should your right to P2P be to the detriment of others on the same network? Were do my rights start when yours apparently don't end?
"In short, if I were on Comcast's Internet service, I would be paying them to deliver network packets, that's all. At best, Comcast has engaged in an egregious breach of contract by deliberately interfering with my ability to get packets from A to B."
What about the breach of contract by the customer running a server? Why the lopsided viewpoint? Think a courtt will not notice?
Comcast forged the packets that appeared to come from the address they claim was assigned to me at that time.
I use FTP over a VPN to back up some files (mput *). The big files slow down to about 20% of advertised upload speeds after maybe 10 seconds or so, while small files just fly.
curse the non-believers! down with comcast!
What a Crock! Comtrash techs that visited my home confirmed that ComTrash was throttling my network. They were charging me for 6 MBit and delivering 1 MBit. Finally, after numerous complaints, they fessed up that they were, in fact, throttling EVERYBODY here to make bandwidth available for their new TV and Telephone digital services. They were suprised that I noticed but, they also refused to correct the situation. So, I dropped their over priced less-than-T1 service and got DSL at 1.5 MBit for about 1/3 the price of ComTrash's rip-off for their falsly advertised 6 Mbit.
Banjo - The more I know about Windoze, the more I love *nix
Fricken lawyers with fricken lasers on their heads.
ipfw add deny tcp from any to any 6890 in tcpflags rst
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
ISPs are not common carriers like phone companies.
For the last several months, attempting to send messages or connect to the chat feature in Gmail from Comcast (and only Comcast; plugging the machine in at work does just fine) consistently fails with a "please try again" or similar generic error message. Adding an 's' (as in, https:/// ) to encrypt the traffic fixes this.
Caveat Emptor is not a business model.
So, Comcast DSL can actually become faster? its comcastic
They'll probably get away with this shite - I mean, the RIAA and MPAA owns lots of nice US gangsters, oops, I mean politicians. Perhaps the US government should get Wolfowitz "wolfie" involved, I mean he has lots of prior experience of helping the rich get richer, the powerful stay more powerful, and fucking over the normal, average person. Sadly, Australian ISPs are following the US lead (what is it with following the US?), and illegally tampering with people's connections. Proving it is awkwardly difficult, at least for the average consumer. No government is interested in protecting the rights of the ordinary citizen, they're too busy playing to the will of the rich and the powerful, and working out new ways to lie to their constituents and enforce more forms of control over the normal populace. Nice eh? Dave
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. --Martin Luther King Jr.
They spoof the packet ID so that it resets the connection.
If the NSA aren't allowed to spy on US citizens' web traffic, the data goes to the UK so they can spy on it. This necessarily entails going outside the state and likely through other states. If AT&T were sending the information to the NSA or DHS (which in the UK is a furniture chainstore), unless they are in the same state, this information will go out of state.
And it's still fraud fording the ID of someone else even if it doesn't go out of state.
"Slashdot requires you to wait between each successful posting of a comment to allow everyone a fair chance at posting a comment.
It's been 24 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment"
Hmm. It knows it's been 24 minutes but doesn't think it's been a long time between postings...
POS.
Tagged this one: censorship netneutrality unlimitedinternet fraud
;)
So much for "unlimited Internet"
They really ought to call it "unlimited access to the comcast.net portal, access to everything else has to be approved by us."
I still can't get FIOS at home or at work - they will still run it only into single-family homes and into single-business structures around here. However once they do I'm thinking of switching. I download linux distro updates all the time, and last I checked that is legitimate content. Comcast should not be in the business of discriminating network traffic unless it's malicious and intended to disrupt the Internet at large (such as a worm or DDoS).
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
I think a more important issue is the possibility that Comcast is breaking some federal and state criminal laws by using hacker tactics to thwart filesharing. Comcast is pulling a Man-in-the-Middle attack which amounts to fraud and impersonation, not to mention Denial-of-Service. My state law, for instance, makes the following a criminal offense: "Causing computer output to purposely be false for, but not limited to, the purpose of obtaining money, property, or services for oneself or another by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises."
I think Comcast is certainly falling into this general area of computer crime.
I purchases a firewall box to put between my development computer and my comcast high speed internet. I kept receiving email from the firewall during safari sessions with ebay. I couldn't explain why I was getting the resets from ebay. I find this upsetting.
If it's illegal to hinder email, and you build an email server that transfers email over bittorent, can you sue?
Ignore the fact that bittorent is not the medium of choice for email transmission.
a congressmen who actually knows something about technology and says something intelligents:
http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/25/164247&from=rss
"Jazz isn't dead, it just smells funny" ~Frank Zappa
EdelFactor