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Comcast's FCC Filing Called Unfair, Not Good Enough
Shoemaker brings us a follow-up to Comcast's recent defense of its traffic management procedures. The companies involved in the original FCC investigation are not satisfied with Comcast's response. From Ars Technica:
"Comcast made an aggressive defense of its policies, claiming that it only resets P2P uploads made during peak times and when no download is also in progress. Free Press, BitTorrent, and Vuze all say that's not good enough. In a conference call, Vuze's general counsel Jay Monahan drew the starkest analogy. What Comcast is really doing, he said, wasn't at all comparable to limiting the number of cars that enter a highway. Instead, it was more like a horse race where the cable company owns one of the horses and the racetrack itself. By slowing down the horse of a competitor like Vuze, even for a few seconds, Comcast makes it harder for that horse to compete. 'Which horse would you bet on in a race like that?' asked Monahan."
It's more like having a professional sniper taking out the competitors.
For a minute there, I thought we were going to get yet another car analogy.
Or ISPs could stop over-selling their capacity, then no one would need to "police" themselves by making sure they use less than the bandwidth they're paying for.
ISPs either need to take on less customers (I know at least one DSL provider in my area is taking this path, actually refusing new customers and their money because they've oversold) or actually tell their customers how much bandwidth they're getting.
Instead, they sell, sell, sell accounts with "unlimited" bandwidth at X speed; add something in their ToS that some unknown amount of usage is too much; and then blame their infrasture problems on those that use BitTorrent and the like (whether they are used for legal or illegal purposes) rather than on their own irresponsibility and money-grabbing.
They admit to sending RST packets, but then claim that they don't forge packets. They're audacious enough to say that the people who say that the packets are forged are the liars. They also say RST packets are the only way, completely ignoring options like ICMP source quench, leaky bucket/token bucket filtering, or TCP's own congestion control reaction to dropped/delayed packets.
Whoever wrote Comcast's response has quite a pair.
Oh, no room for P2P, huh?
Fine. I'll go build my own telecom infrastructure with blackjack.. and hookers.
In fact, forget the infrastructure and the blackjack... Eh, screw the whole thing.
Except in this case it is much more than just blocking connections. Comcast was making forged reset packets, and sending it to both parties. Forgery != Blocking.
These reset packets were also targeted at VPN connections.
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
You see, the internet is like a car, and Comcast is like the clutch. If you stick a bologna sandwich in the clutch, obviously you need more cup holders, like Bit Torrent and Vuze.
That's why we need net neutrality!
hookers and grits.
The post office dropped your packet. Or did it send you a fake cancellation of service notice to both of you?
I don't think the EFFECT of Comcast's interference is the main issue here. Traffic shaping IS an issue, but not the important one in this case. HOW they are doing it is important. They are forging network packets (RST packets, in particular). This isn't just limiting the cars getting on the highway, it's like calling you on your cell phone before you get on the highway, pretending to be your boss, and telling you not to bother coming to work today. They are committing fraud, of multiple sorts, every time they do this.