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?"

Comments

Filtering vs. tampering

[Kevin DeGraaf]

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.

It's not just P2P -- Lotus Notes traffic also!

[whoever57]

There was a report showing that Comcast was also interfering with Lotus Notes traffic.

Re:Lawsuits will have unintended consequences.

[skintigh2]

Point #2 is already moot: the AP journalists who conducted the tests were downloading the Bible. I DARE Comcast, the RIAA and BSA to argue that reading the Bible should be illegal.

Well - they are denying it

[bizitch]

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."