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

ZOMG!! Squeal!!

[anthonyclark]

YAY, I have a tiny chance of receiving $7.32 off my comcast bill in 6 years time!

Re:ZOMG!! Squeal!!

[Protonk]

you're missing his point. He's making fun of most class action outcomes being toothless in the extreme. Class action victory against company A? 5-7 years down the line, you get a voucher for 30-40 dollars if you can provide proof of purchase in triplicate, a blood sample, and a unicorn hair.

Reverse this notion and look at it from the likely payout end. It is like having to honor a rebate you didn't have to tell customers they were eligible for 7 years down the road. think how many rebates are honored with prior notice three MONTHS down the road...

Re:ZOMG!! Squeal!!

[Walpurgiss]

But due to the nature of the suit's claim of bandwidth throttling bittorrent, what would you have to sign for to recieve member status in the class action suit?

Sign something saying that during such and such a timeframe, you were engaged in stealing music/movies/games/porn using bittorrent, and Comcast's throttling of bittorrent or cancellation of your account for excessive bandwidth consumption negatively impacted your illicit activities?

Who is the class going to be? The 5 legitimate torrent users who also happened to use Comcast?

Re:ZOMG!! Squeal!!

[Skye16]

World of Warcraft users who are trying to get the latest patch, for example?

Re:ZOMG!! Squeal!!

[GryMor]

Anyone who plays WOW. Blizzard uses torrents for distribution of World of Warcraft patches. I'm sure they aren't the only ones, and this doesn't even mention the Linux ISOs that are transferred via torrents.

Re:ZOMG!! Squeal!!

[u-235-sentinel]

YAY, I have a tiny chance of receiving $7.32 off my comcast bill in 6 years time!

I was just thinking how much I don't miss Comcast. Even though DSL isn't 6 or 60 Megs up/down like I would expect from a Utopia connection, at least I don't have to deal with Comcast's Frankenstein behaviour.

Personally I hope as a nation we consider the Internet "Important" to our economic future. If so then why are we not building a National Infrastructure as proposed by Clinton/Gore int he 90's? I'm talking about NII. From what I'm reading, we already paid for it in taxes over the last decade plus.

And don't get me started over Comcast terminating it's customers for "Using the Internet too much". That's just plain stupid. No limits but don't over use the service you are paying for. And how much is acceptable and what is not?

Yeah, I've read their AUP/TOS and you know what. Even the two lawyers I've spoken to couldn't make heads/tails of it. It's that screwed up.

Anyway, we need to contact our local city council, Mayors, State and Federal politicians about this problem. Either the internet is important or it isn't.

I'm taking a vacation day this Thursday to attend a subcommittee meeting discussing building the Utopia Infrastructure here in Utah. I sure hope comcast sends someone there. I'd love to hear and respond to his bull.

Re:ZOMG!! Squeal!!

[EggyToast]

While I agree with you, I believe the larger issue (and why it's actually getting news) is that Comcast is intentionally killing Bittorrent traffic -- not just blocking ports, not just monitoring certain illegal sites, but killing the way the protocol works. And it's doing so indiscriminately.

So even though the majority of Bittorrent traffic is based on infringing copyright, it's also used for the majority portion of Linux ISO distribution. It's also used by a few game companies and other, very legitimate, purposes. If Comcast simply put out a press release saying "Due to our infrastructure, we are blocking all Bittorrent usage," there would likely be no problem. Instead, they're claiming they're not doing anything, or perhaps they're doing something, or they are definitely doing something but not really, or it's just like a "busy signal" on a telephone, and they're allowing people to download but not upload (which kills Bittorrent).

Instead they're lying, and trying to kill even legitimate torrents (without saying they're killing them). I'm not at all surprised that they're doing it -- the upload speeds on Comcast's network are laughable. But it's the avoidance and lying that gets me. Come out and say "We are actively blocking Bittorrent activity on our network." Otherwise, you're just misleading your customers.

Re:ZOMG!! Squeal!!

[sgarringer]

So you're why all my bittorrent downloads are so slow, wasting upload with something you can get for free anyway! Why don't you try seeding something of worth =)

PS: I kid, I kid.

Re:ZOMG!! Squeal!!

[sneezinglion]

What about those of us on OTHER ISPs that are harmed by the DL taking longer? I mean not only comcast subscribers are hurt by this.

Comcast

[jcicora]

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?

Re:Comcast

[UncleTogie]

Comcast does have the right to modify traffic on the network they own

Really? Where does it end? Modifying emails because they disapprove of the content? What if your cell phone company monitored your phone conversations, and bleeped out words they didn't like?

This is obnoxious on so many levels it's not even funny...

Re:Comcast

[Chandon Seldon]

Comcast does have the right to modify traffic on the network they own.

As long as they have a government granted monopoly on local cable service, they have the right to provide fully functional cable internet service to any resident who requests it and is willing to pay the fee specified in the contract between Comcast and the municipality.

Companies getting to chose who they do business with is great - I kicked people out occasionally when I owned a retail store - but it simply doesn't apply to utility companies with government granted monopolies or government subsidized infrastructure.

Re:Comcast

[DJCacophony]

Telephone lines have common carrier status, so they can't do that
Internet lines were denied the same designation, so they can, hence network-non-neutrality
The idea, however, is that if they do that, they will lose all their customers, and be sued for it, too.

Re:Comcast

[Applekid]

You do not OWN the network you are just renting it. But you're subscribing to an ISP proper, not an ISP* (* some limitations of connectivity and authenticity of traffic apply). Internet traffic comes in all shapes and ports and by blocking certain things and intentionally dicking around with that traffic they are misrepresenting what they're selling. It's even MORE nefarious if you consider that, for high speed, you may not even have a competitor able to pick you up on it.

Imagine if the mail worked that way. The love letter you send gets altered to read that you hate them and never want to hear from them again. The sorrow filled response asking what they did wrong gets replaced with a directive to go to hell. All is fine because, after all, it's THEIR mail trucks.

Lets hope these sorts of filtering issues don't ever take a political slant where dissidents' web pages and text get altered in-flight and turn into glowing approvals. (Pro Tip: eventually, if this stuff isn't protected against NOW, it will.)

Re:Comcast

[coaxial]

1. Court issued writs and warrants do not requestion permission! You are compelled to comply. There is nothing optional about them.

2. Property rights are not, and never have been, absolute rights. I can not fill my backyard swimming pool full of radioactive sludge no matter how much I want to.

3. Comcast is a government blessed monopoly in many cases. Therefore, their behavior is even more limited since they must "act in the public interest."

4. Comcast likes to enjoy the legal protections of being a "common carrier" (i.e a dumb pipe). This behavior shows that they are not a dumb pipe at all. Once a provider starts manipulating the traffic flowing across their network, they lose common carrier status, and are now responsible for ALL the traffic on their network.

5. They are forging packets. This is a computer crime. ("knowingly cause[] the transmission of a program, information, code, or command, and as a result of such conduct, intentionally cause[] damage without authorization, to a protected computer", where "damage is "any impairment to the integrity or availability of data, a program, a system, or information." and "loss to 1 or more persons during any 1-year period (and, for purposes of an investigation, prosecution, or other proceeding brought by the United States only, loss resulting from a related course of conduct affecting 1 or more other protected computers) aggregating at least $5,000 in value.") While you may not be able to say that any one computer was "damaged" in excess of $5,000, the entire network was affected, and that is certainly more than $5,000.

6. They are deciptively advertising their serves as "unlimited" when it clearly is "limited."

7. While not related here, you should know, that just because a legal "agreement" says something, doesn't make it legal. Case in point: The indemnity clause at ski resorts that say "If our ski lift collapses, you can't sue." Bullshit. You can, as there is a clear public interest in not having deathtrap ski lifts.

Re:Comcast

[Shakrai]

and Comcast does have the right to modify traffic on the network they own

I disagree. I'm paying them to transport my traffic. Granted, I don't have an SLA, but even without an SLA I have the right to expect best-effort delivery. Sending me forged packets to trick my client into dropping connections doesn't seem like "best-effort".

In lieu of upgrading their network (god forbid they invest some of that money they are making back into the infrastructure), perhaps they should look at some sort of traffic shaping scheme? Prioritize VOIP, ssh, telnet, gaming, etc, etc, packets over large downloads (ftp or http) or bittorrent, which get best effort delivery. That would be fair to everyone concerned and even if they deployed it nationwide it would only come into play on nodes that are overloaded. I've never seen my node overload, probably because I live in a neighborhood full of old people, so for people in neighborhoods like me it wouldn't even come into play. For people in neighborhoods full of script kiddies they'd get better latency on interactive stuff, while the script kiddies wouldn't lose that much bandwidth overall (how much does VOIP or ssh take?).

Bittorrent is obviously the heavy hitter, but if the service providers think it's their only problem they are going to be rudely surprised in a few years. Recall the story about The Daily Show putting all their archives online? I blew through 600 megs of bandwidth in about half an hour messing around on that site. What will happen when video becomes even more popular then it is today? Will they adopt the Verizon Wireless solution of banning such activity or will they actually (*gasp*) invest in some upgrades?

Re:Comcast

[DustyShadow]

What you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever read. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this thread is now dumber for having listened to it. If I had points, I would mod you down.

Re:Comcast

[Krondor]

While I absolutely hate your circuit switch analogy for TCP, since regardless that the conversation can be considered a stream, it is still packet switched no matter how you look at. I do see your point on common carrier status.

The issue I take with this is that there are a myriad of ways to handle this problem. Forged packet RST is not the answer. There are plenty of options at their disposal, but they have chosen one that not only spoofs my identity but is very disruptive. What is wrong with response queuing and traditional QoS methods?

What if it were a protocol less resilient then Bittorrent?

SIP for example, which I still think Comcast was playing with against Vonage. I know slippery slope is a logical fallacy, but I lose a lot of faith in my carrier when they play man in the middle games with my content. In addition, their refusal to admit to their customers what they are doing is inexcusable. I pay for the service, I should receive notice if they're going to decide to gimp a part of it I actively use (in a legal way).

Re:Comcast

[nomadic]

I can not fill my backyard swimming pool full of radioactive sludge no matter how much I want to.

Those commie pinko liberals, always trying to keep a man down...

It's Working!

[Bob9113]

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.

Re:It's Working!

[Aladrin]

I once had '#1 abuser' title at an ISP and I call tell you this: They don't care.

They -want- all the heavy users to leave and leave them with only light users that pay full price. It's their dream situation.

Comcast Rebate

[CryptoJones]

Well, it's not like you could get the three years of crappy service back, right?

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.

Re:Filtering vs. tampering

[Jimithing DMB]

Spoken like someone with only a limited concept of network equipment. Let's roughly break down filtering techniques into two broad categories:

1. Physically between the two endpoints
2. Able to see both endpoints but not stop them from communicating

Both techniques have their plusses and minuses. In the first case, the filter can literally filter the packets. That is, it simply drops them rather than forwarding them on. The downside is that if the filter machine goes down then the two endpoints cannot communicate. This is a useful technique when you really do want to filter packets. For instance, you generally don't want CIFS/SMB traffic ingress or egress from a private network to the internet. You do not want to allow even one packet to do this.

In the second case you're usually doing it not for security reasons but to filter traffic. The EFF mentions that the Great Firewall of China uses this technique. How sensationalist. So do a number of other web filters. I know of at least one dating back to like 1997 or so that uses this technique. The idea is that you can effectively block the traffic by forging a RST in both directions. So when your employee goes to playboy.com you can hit both sides with a RST and stop that from happening. This technique has the advantage that if the filter goes down, traffic can still pass because it doesn't pass through the filter.

Now, here's Comcast's issue. BitTorrent as a protocol is specifically designed to suck up all available bandwidth. The problem is that by necessity it does that to the exclusion of all other traffic which is more well behaved. Although we'd all love to live in a dreamworld where bandwidth is unlimited, reality is different. In reality, there are a lot of people who just want to check their e-mail and browse the web quickly. When their neighbors are running BitTorrent 24/7 they can no longer do this. Increasing the bandwidth does not help because BitTorrent will proceed to soak that up.

So, the only fix is to stop BitTorrent from sucking up all available bandwidth. That means you need some sort of a filter. Now, you can do it the first way by putting a filter in between the endpoints. The filter could presumably receive the packets then delay sending them for a bit. TCP window sizes are usually only so large so delaying the packets will delay them from reaching the other endpoint which will thus cause ACK messages to be delayed. The problem with this is that you have to have real QoS equipment to get all this done.

The other method is to realize that while most protocols would be disrupted due to forcibly closing the connection, BitTorrent will not be. The receiving peer will just go hunt for a different peer and the sending peer now has another slot open for a new receiving peer. Thus, closing BitTorrent connections doesn't prevent anyone from using BitTorrent, it just makes it slower.

That, of course, is reasoned and intelligent debate without stupid emphasis on various words to make the story more sensational. The EFF is ridiculous. Like the ACLU, it's a good idea in principle. In practice both of those organizations aren't protecting anyone's liberties because they aren't having an open discussion about what is and what is not an infringement on one's liberties. They pre-decide what they consider to be infringements then hire armies of lawyers to ram their decisions down everyone else's throat.

No one, of course, is going to discuss the idea that maybe your neighbor deserves to be able to check his e-mail without you clogging up the connection and that maybe the ISP has the obligation to ensure a good level of service for all of their users. Nope, none of that. Instead we've already decided that blocking any traffic for any reason is bad and is of course just like Chinese censorship and so Comcast must be the devil. Typical group think.

It would be nice....

[8127972]

..... 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).

Big and Little answers to this

[Protonk]

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.

One should hope so

[KingSkippus]

Could Comcast be facing a class-action?

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...

Re:One should hope so

[profquad]

and could choose to sign up with a service that doesn't do so

Lucky.

Heh...

[Otter]

If you're one of the aggrieved filesharers and you're willing to submit your hard drive and IP records for discovery, you're either:

1) The one guy out there actually downloading Creative Commons-licensed Ogg Theora files

...or...

2) A complete idiot

Re:Heh...

[icydog]

Right, because nobody downloads Linux distros?

This was The Straw...

[fohat]

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...

Pirillo

[LordKaT]

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.

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

[wsanders]

I'd block Lotus Notes, too. The sooner those people are put out of their misery the better off they'll be.

I'm not a lawyer, but...

[toadlife]

...considering the country that Comcast operates in, I'd say the possibility of a lawsuit is pretty close to 1.

Re:I don't know

[Chandon Seldon]

Comcast has 1.) advertised full-function internet service 2.) contracted with municipalities to provide that service to residents. Sending out spoofed packets to disrupt users internet usage simply isn't reasonable behavior for a company claiming to provide internet service.

Re:um

[fohat]

The issue is not affecting downloads, only seeding.

Lawsuits will have unintended consequences.

[tjstork]

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.

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.

Kiss neutral traffic access goodbye...

[patmandu]

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.

What would be the point? (WAS: Sue them)

[Lead Butthead]

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...

Re:WoW is good for something

[Biff Stu]

...the lawyers won't have to worry about paying for their children to eat for a while.

Let me rephrase that for you:
...the lawyers won't have to eat their children for a while

Turn on encryption

[myth_of_sisyphus]

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.)

We're on the slow network, too.

[Lorien_the_first_one]

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.

more than 5 users

[EdelFactor19]

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?

Re:more than 5 users

[sgarringer]

In all seriousness, I am pretty sure in their terms of service it states that they can adjust their network for the performance for everyone. Do you have any idea how open that is? Good luck pinning down any sort of lawsuit against that. Its all in their Terms of Service. Does no one read these things? I know I read each and every word of mine for my cable company (I must give them access to their cable box 24/7/365 if they ask) and my cellphone (They're not required to actually provide me with any services during a billing period and I still need to pay).

They've got all the bases covered... Trust me.

Re:more than 5 users

[sgarringer]

Killing someone is illegal. Blocking (or spoofing) your BitTorrent traffic to speed up the network for others (their argument, not mine) is not illegal... in fact, it hasn't been tested in court.

ISPs block things all the time (try getting the Windows SMB port through most ISPs or port 80, 25, etc...) and not a single time has the court struck that down. Seems the precedent shows that its fine for an ISP to do things like this. Some even redirect web traffic to their own proxy servers, again, without legal issue.

Now if you had a business class connection, which guaranteed things like port availability for hosting servers, then you might have something to sue over.

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."

New P2P lawsuit defense:

[Kaenneth]

Comcast forged the packets that appeared to come from the address they claim was assigned to me at that time.

Does AJAX smell like BitTorrent?

[BillX]

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.

Re:I don't want money (was Re:ZOMG!! Squeal!!)

[acvh]

"Frankly, I would prefer that my ISP have some sort of QoS so that my bulk traffic is at a lower priority than VoIP. Wouldn't you???"

No. I do not want my data traffic to be lower priority than someone else's VOIP. I don't use VOIP, I HAVE PHONE SERVICE. When I first heard of VOIP in 1996 I thought it was a bad idea, and I think it's worse now.