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Comcast, Cox Slow BitTorrent Traffic All Day
narramissic writes "A study by the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems found that Comcast and Cox Communications are slowing BitTorrent traffic at all times of day, not just peak hours. Comcast was found to be interrupting at least 30% of BitTorrent upload attempts around the clock. At noon, Comcast was interfering with more than 80% of BitTorrent traffic, but it was also slowing more than 60% of BitTorrent traffic at other times, including midnight, 3 a.m. and 8 p.m. Eastern Time in the U.S., the time zone where Comcast is based. Cox was interfering with 100% of the BitTorrent traffic at 1 a.m., 4 a.m. and 5 a.m. Eastern Time. Comcast spokeswoman Sena Fitzmaurice downplayed the results saying, 'P-to-p traffic doesn't necessarily follow normal traffic flows.'"
I'm paying for bandwidth, I should be able to use 100% of what I paid for. If their infrastructure can't handle it - maybe they should go back to selling tv.
It is horrible. My experience is that all of your internet traffic grinds to a halt while running a BitTorrent client for more than a couple hours. It takes forever to even load a web page. I usually have to kill my BitTorrent client and wait about five minutes for things to return to normal.
But that does not address you blocking any of the traffic.
As long as I can get my episode of gattai-subbed macross frontier when I leave azureus on over night, I'll be fine.
'P-to-p traffic doesn't necessarily follow normal traffic flows.'
Nope it sure doesn't when you implement layer 4 filtering and then configure it to block/messwith/"delay" p2p apps. Who knew?
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"The fight for freedom has only just begun." - Geert Wilders
Now the real question is whether there will be enough pressure for Comcast to remove this unnecessary throttling. Given their track record with many of their other questionable services, I doubt that they will.
Not all file sharing is thievery. What Comcast is doing IS highway robbery.
Cox is my ISP. Sometimes, after using BitTorrent, regardless of what is being transferred, my cable modem's connection to their system will be severed, and it will not return for a time which more or less seems to be directly proportional to the time spent using the torrent.
/. told me that they had the same phenomenon happen to them when using VoIP.
I remember that someone here on
I don't really use BitTorrent much at all. Sure, I downloaded some HiDef video to test out content delivery over my home LAN from a server to my HDTV, but I don't scour the net for movies and music like I used to. I just don't have the time and interest.
However, I did just grab the new Nine Inch Nails album, and as a former musician myself, I still dabble in remixing on occasion. Thus, when I went to go grab the freely available multitracks for remixing, I was somewhat surprised that they were only available via Torrent. That's smart on the part of Trent Reznor and his tech team (why bog down only his own servers with information that he's freely sharing with everyone?), it's bad for other artists and remixers if their access to this media is going to be limited because of the "taint" associated with BitTorrent.
I'm not sure there's a solution here. Any distributed network will inevitably be used for some amount of "gray market" trafficking, but it would be nice if we preferred and promoted technologies for their Common Good usage rather than limiting them by their potential negative effects. And by "we" I mean the corporations who gouge us for $100 each month just to shuttle electrons around.
Are they only slowing the protocol or are they still spoofing packets?
So now I am not allowed to use my rights to download GPL'd software or public domain software now? Implying that P2P is all illegal copying is incorrect and makes you look misinformed. P2P can contain free-to-copy files along with not-free-to-copy files as can HTTP/FTP/Etc. So can CDs, Hard disks, Floppy Disks, Cassette Tapes, Flash drives, the list goes on and on. Just because some people use knives to kill people shouldn't mean that we have to now use forks to cut our meat.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
And frankly "F you" for assuming that all P2P traffic is illegal file sharing. There are many legitimate uses for P2P that is unfortunately getting trapped by Comcast's technique. The shotgun approach isn't always the best way.
I guess when all you have is a hammer....
I don't have a microwave. I do, however, have a clock that occasionally cooks shit.
So just because there's a law against it, it's wrong?
In this day and age when most of the middle class doesn't give a fuck enough to vote with their dollars or otherwise, we techies do what we have to. If that means enabling everybody to steal from the big corporations that have been ripping everybody off for years, then so be it. I encourage everyone that I know to do the same.
1 - legally IP infringement is not stealing, so don't say its nitpicking.
2 - come closer and call us names, see if you don't get a good old fashioned ass kicking.
3 - what has the internet got to do with it? People were copying music long before digital was even thought of.
Cox has been dicking their customers and... the others are getting comcastrated.
The same thing is happening with Linux. If you want to download the latest release of Ubuntu in a few days to a few weeks after it has been released using HTTP, you will find that the connection's max speed is around 30KB/Second, the torrent however hits around 200Kb/Second. If you want the release and don't want to mess with time-out errors, torrenting it is the only way you can really get it.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
They say cox does it? I get 1 MB on average DLs with Bittorrent with them, and my service plan is only 7 Mb/s. I have a friend who reports the same experience (and he pirates gigs upon gigs of stuff) Either we got lucky or the researchers got unlucky. Now, Comcast, on the other hand, I can believe throttles.
what? we don't need to overturn net neutrality, we need to create net neutrality. what exists currently is NOT net neutrality.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
To be fair what she is refering to about "normal traffic patterns" is the sustained nature of P2P. That said there are much better ways to go about traffic control then what they are doing. I love P2P and see an enormous amount of potential in the future. At some point the ISPs and P2P programs need to find a way to get along. What that is, I don't know, but we have to figure it out somehow.
Thoughts? (and please dont just cry about the evil ISPs. We honestly need to have a constructive conversation about this. (yes, i do realize this is slashdot))
I don't have a microwave. I do, however, have a clock that occasionally cooks shit.
Cox tries to sell you the KY while Comcast tries to sell you the bread.
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
World of Warcraft used torrents to patch the game when last i was playing. My ISP US Cable throttled the traffic severely and I always had to download the patch using other methods. There are many legitimate uses for torrents.
Limiting bittorrent because it can be used for illegal downloads is like scrambling epsn because people make illegal bets on football games.
tm
Support TBI Research: http://www.raisinhope.org
it's bad for other artists and remixers if their access to this media is going to be limited because of the "taint" associated with BitTorrent.
But you can apply that same reasoning to any service offered across the internet. What if they'd just posted it on mirrored web servers? Is Comcast going to start limiting web traffic? Or FTP? I suppose I shouldn't give them any ideas.
From a technology standpoint it just seems like a retarded policy. The rise of BitTorrent traffic only means the content available on the internet has evolved from text to digital media. If they start screwing with torrents, people will switch to something else. They'll find a way to get through.
Guess that means Comcast would have sided with the buggy whip manufacturers and tried to limit automobile traffic.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
dude, replace "net neutrality" with "the lack of net neutrality", and your whole comment makes sense.
Oh give me a break. You are saying it is ok to rip people or companies off?
Mind if I grab into your pocket to steal your wallet?
What you remind me of are those people that go into the fields of farmers and dig up vegetables or fruits. My father in law is a potato farmer and he has about 500 acres of potatoes. YET time and time again people go to his fields and steal potatoes.
They think it is ok to rip off from larger farmers. After all he won't notice, or he is ripping off the consumers or he is big enough to deal with it. The reality is otherwise...
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
Comcast charges me a lot for their service, yet when I try to get a return for my money by actually using what they claim to offer - I'm kicked out. This false advertising is appalling and I hope a class action lawsuit will follow. They disgusted me off with their "no criticize" clause and this is the last straw.
Call Comcast during a business day and select the choices to cancel service. A customer retention person will come on and ask why. Say you're switching to DSL at $25 a month. They'll lower your rate to 33. And in the meantime, it's 3:00pm PST and pretty much every peer that tries to leech from me is getting killed by lovely Comcast.
thank god i have at&T dsl. hopefully they dont start this crap. also, i use newsgroups, not torrents.
Now I shouldn't be defending them because I have Cox, but I'd just like to say I get anywhere from 30-300kBps when downloading torrents which is not terrible but ultimately lags far behind what I could get back in the urban area where my parents live that uses Bright House.
shhh.. don't mention news groups, no one needs to know about them. you're gonna mess it up for all of us. ;)
That is correct, however BitTorrent is a much faster way to download it, when it is a new release of something popular such as Ubuntu, HTTP downloads are around 30KB/Second while torrents are around 200Kb/Second, therefore, there is little justification to not use BitTorrent when downloading large files, and when you figure that BitTorrent doesn't stress the servers of the project, it is a better choice in the long run too.
So yes you are right, but that's the theory. Let's look at the facts. There is more illegal software than legal software. And I am sure it is clogging the networks of Comcast and other network providers.
There is illegal software via HTTP and FTP too, in fact one might say that there is just as much via HTTP as via P2P. As for clogging the networks, the ISPs should have gotten more bandwidth before they offered higher speed Internet or at least have it in their advertising that they throttle P2P and certainly contracts. It would be like if I set up a huge pile of sand in my backyard, and I had people pay $40 per month to get as much sand as they wanted and it said so in the contract and through advertising. Of course some people only needed a bit of sand and took some home in buckets, others would take bigger ones. However, fearing that my sand would run out I poked holes in all of the larger buckets making them carry much less. People would have a right to be mad at me for promising unlimited sand and then limiting it. Same thing with the ISPs
Don't like, switch!
I don't know where you live, but here in the US there are about 3 main ISPs and most if not all have torrent throttling. Some of the more rural areas only have one way of getting high-speed internet and if you don't like that ISP it is either that or dial-up. And as for creating your own company, the grants the government/cities gave out to help get internet to the world, chances are won't be given again making it impossible to
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Kaetemi
better title: `cox blocks around the clocks`
Both cable and ADSL service providers are against the customer. Dial-up is basically a joke and a half... So, switch to who again?
"There is more illegal software than legal software."
I would like to see a citation..and perhaps a clarification by what 'software' means in that sentence. I am unaware of any illegal software, except software that circumnavigates protections.
More and more service are using bit torrent, Blizzard spring to mind.
I ahve worked for companies that use bit torrents to send information out to there home workers.
Switching isn't the correct answer because of the limited choices, and you know it.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
They either charge for a product or don't charge for a product. People who are having their internet connection throttled after having paid for it should be entitled to a refund. Otherwise, Comcast should advertise a P2P-free service at a discounted price.
Isn't there any kind of consumer protection in all of this?
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
This is the only thing I have seen that will allow me to get speeds on torrent networks where they should be. If I didn't do this Cox cable red flag me for days and my internet drags for a couple of days until they decided to uncap me. I would have not been able to get Kubuntu 8.04 when it launched without using bit-torrent so don't give me the bit-torrent=pirate bullsh*t. All the Http and FTP distribution servers were overloaded that day.
Oh please for the love of all that is holy, everyone stop using the "dont like it, switch" argument! Its common knowledge that the majority of US broadband users are only serviced by ONE company. Its simply not an option, and its getting old.
As to your other arguments to the legality and saturation of networks, your viewpoint is quite backwards. The fact of the matter is, its a precedent being set, that they can sell you "always on high speed access to the internet", but then dictate what you can and cannot do with it. A phone company that listened in on your phone calls, and then disconnected you because your conversation with your girlfriend wasn't deemed as important as a business call being handled by your neighbor is an apt description of whats going on here. We pay for access to something, we don't expect them to determine what is important to us and why we are going to use it.
If it boils down to a supply and demand issue, why doesn't it sort itself out the same way all other markets do? Do you see gas stations dictating where you can and cannot drive? No, they raise their prices and pass the cost of business to the customer. Its simple economics.
If sharing a song makes you a pirate, what do I have to share to be a ninja?
Allow me to correct you.
Besides, there are other uses for bittorrent besides Linux distros. What about Free / Creative Commons media, like music (or even free-as-in-beer professional music, like Radiohead's latest album) or videos (anime music videos, Star wreck, independent movies, video tutorials)?
Comcast's reasoning (p2p is for i113641 w4r3z!!!111ONE) is simply a lame excuse. Their infrastructure sucks and they're only using the pirate excuse to cover their arses.
it's true
Actually, a few monopolies do own most of the internet. After all, they're the ones who paid for the hi-speed backbones that everyone uses. Second to them is universities and the government.
Of course that doesn't change the fact that they offer X kbps d/l speed, but only give it to you when they feel like it, which is seldom if ever. I wonder though, what are good bittorrent speeds on a cable connection? How do you know if you're getting throttled?
And one other thing, slightly off topic, but why does firefox on linux download from the same http server 3x as fast as firefox on windows? (750KBps linux, 250KBps windows)
The path to enlightenment is truly through homemade drugs!
When you take back something that was unfairly taken from you (i.e. high prices due to monopolies), that isn't ripping someone off. It's called justice. Illegal? Maybe, but don't forget a lot of laws were made only to benefit the rich and powerful.
>That only applies if you have bought the network. But since you haven't and are using the network as a service then they can give you any kind of knifes they please. Don't like, switch!
But haven't you like, paid for it with your taxes Mr. Devil's advocate?
I have Cox internet in Rhode Island, and I have not experienced any throttling. The difference is that there is a strong presence of fios from Verzion, which is known to not mess with your connection. Cox, and all these ISP networks actually have tons of extra capacity. The proof came for me when fios first arrived. Cox flipped a magic switch, and increased their standard service to 5Mb down/2Mb up, to directly match the specs and pricing of a basic fios connection. While I won't complain about the huge increase in upstream speed, it really makes me wonder what the hell these ISPs are really up to.
While I don't argue that bittorrent is being used for distributed pirated works, there are legal uses for it. For the most part bittorrent is used for large files because it is more efficient. Because of this, Linux distributions are distributed via bittorrent. If you don't believe me, get a copy of Redhat Fedora. World of Warcraft players get their updates from Blizzard using Blizzard's customized version of bittorrent. Some musicians like Trent Reznor have released digital masters via bittorrent of their own work. At the moment, none of these ISPs will recognize these legal uses.
Recently, I've noticed the filtering. It wasn't network latency. I could surf for hours and download gigabytes of files directly from a site. If I started bittorrent, my ISP connection would drop in 10 minutes. I would have to restart my router. Every time my I had to update WoW, I had to kiss my internet connection goodbye while it loaded.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Taken from you? So someone held a gun to your head and forced you to buy that Britney Spears CD?
Torrents don't steal ... people do.
On a related topic has anyone seen comcast interrupting network "Watch Instantly" traffic?
My netflix server worked great until about two months ago,... then shows would start stopping mid-way.
Arggg..
Is there a good reason that common carrier non-discrimination was removed from data networks?
Does that reason outweigh the benefits of a non-discriminatory communications network?
Should we not restore at least the non-discrimination provisions of common carrier for data networks?
Would non-discrimination not automatically, and with minimal government interference for good actors, result in net neutrality?
The only downside I can immediately come up with is that less regulation means less opportunity for graft. But I cannot see a desire to engage in graft as a valid economic priority.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Wow, the Parent Poster is a thief! To access *any* website (including /.) you need to download a copy of the files on the slashdot servers. Opps, score one for holistic generalizations!
Then again, the AC poster was obviously just trolling. No one is stupid enough to actually mean that.
"The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth." ~1984 George Orwell
Currently I'm on Comcast and my speeds are 200~300KB/sec upload (I usually cap it at 200 so I don't choke the connection) and 400~450KB/sec download when torrenting... But when I'm not torrenting and downloading a file from a fat pipe I can reach upwards of 1100KB/sec download. Even on really nice torrents with thousands of seeds and no peers, I never get that speed from my torrents.
Yawn.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
They are rationing the bandwidth so its not monopolized by a few users.....
Including me. In my area, it's Comcast or nothing, literally. As soon as anybody has any other type of hi-speed Internet, I'd love to switch to them. Comcast has the right to be as lousy as they want, cause they're a effing MONOPOLY, which is WRONG. Argh!
This is not hatred. This is retribution. This is not revenge. This is justice.
That is not called justice. Its called taking the law into your own hands. And that is ILLEGAL...
Justice is not about getting your way. Justice is about protecting your rights whomever you may be.
And then there were laws created for the poor...
For example unions...
What you are doing is seeing only your side of the story.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
Comcast offers 2 gigabytes per month of free newsgroup access. Newsgroups are going to be faster than any torrent you try. Comcast newsgroup service maxes out my connection any time I use it. The whole idea that slow ftp/http is the only method of downloading isn't true. You just need to be a little more knowledgeable about methods available for downloading binaries.
Thanks for nothing Cox.
Net Neutrality is obviously already dead as long as this is true.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
First of all:
When you take back something that was unfairly taken from you (i.e. high prices due to monopolies), that isn't ripping someone off. It's called justice.
1) People use P2P to get free movies, music, and pirated software. None of this stuff was "taken from you." You have the option to buy it at many locations nationwide for reasonable prices. There's no monopoly on movies, music or software at the moment.
2) Yes, you are ripping people off. We all agree the MPAA and RIAA exaggerate the damages, but it's also not a victimless crime, not by any stretch of the imagination.
Illegal? Maybe, but don't forget a lot of laws were made only to benefit the rich and powerful.
Then get off your lazy ass and change the law. The Civil Rights Movement didn't succeed because Martin Luthor King, Jr sat on his ass all day, then occasionally stole a candy bar from the corner store under the guise of "justice."
If you think the law is wrong, change the law.
Comment of the year
>There is illegal software via HTTP and FTP too, in fact one might say that there is just as much via HTTP as via P2P.
That's right. BUT what about the percentages? People seem to forget that....
>It would be like if I set up a huge pile of sand in my backyard, and I had people pay $40 per month to get as much sand as they wanted and it said so in the contract and through advertising.
Read your contract. Does it not say that they have the right to terminate you if you overuse the network?
>I don't know where you live, but here in the US there are about 3 main ISPs and most if not all have torrent throttling.
Yes depending on the service you purchase you get throttling. Here is a suggestion GET a more expensive connection. That is exactly what I did. I have a SOHO connection and I pay more. BUT I also get an IP address and non-throttled connection.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
There's a problem with your "switch" idea. Many people are stuck with a contract that said nothing about BitTorrent at all. Even worse is when an isp has a monopoly on an area. My appartment has a contract with an isp, and I cannot switch. There are lots of other people in the same boat because this is a common practice in real estate. The management company (or maybe just the executive who made the decision) gets a kickback, while you get dicked around with every time you want to download a linux iso.
Actually it's information superhighway robbery.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Wow, I'm not sure what plan I'm on, but BitTorrent rarely passes 200KB/s d/l. Usually (for a lot of peers) it runs about 75-150. As I said, in Linux I've hit almost 800 KB/s download (http) so it's got to be a fairly fast connection. They must have been throttling it for a while because it's been like that for the last 6 months.
The path to enlightenment is truly through homemade drugs!
copying is stealing. Period.
No. No it isn't.
Circumstance matters. Copyright laws are about who has the Right to produce copies, and in case you haven't read or bothered to look up any of the US laws the copyright holder does not have exclusive rights in all cases.
Furthermore, blocking P2P isn't just used for copyrighted material. It is also used for distributing legal software and files and those users are also getting punished.
Though the reality of it has nothing to do with punishment. It has more to do with the fact that the companies feel they can get away with it for this segment of their user base. They would prefer to throttle down everyone unless an exorbitant fee is paid, but still be able to advertise their fast rates.
No from what I remember what happened is that tax rebates were given. No monies were actually given out.
Were the telcos completely honest? No not really, but that is a second issue.
If you say you have the right to rip off the telcos because they ripped you off, well that is taking the law into your own hands. That's illegal...
Don't like what the telcos are doing? Change it, do something? Stop complaining!
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
The subject says it all!!!
Some of the PS3 games are also using torrents to seed updates to games, like MGS4 online. That game is going to be HUGE (granted, it probably won't be as big as WoW, but it'll still piss off a bunch of people)
you gotta low how bold corporate shills can speak due to years of republican administration spoilage.
Read radical news here
And if your uncle catches someone stealing from his farm, are they finned $200,000 per stolen potato? Are farmers lobbying for federal agencies like the FBI to get involved with potato theft?
Or would the person be charged with trespassing and petty theft by the local DA? In other words, you're being ridiculous. There is juuuuust a bit of a difference between "no punishment" and being sent to a "federal pound me in the ass penitentiary."
Try Something New
NASA TV Via Peer-to-Peer Streaming
NASA and Digimeld are conducting a pilot study to stream NASA TV using Digimeld's peer-to-peer streaming technology
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html
Hi, Cliff Clavin
What's the best way to measure one's bandwidth. For example, once you get above 2Mb/sec and live more than 600 miles from a major speed text site, there's not a single speed test meter that works right, in my extensive searches.
Comcast also puts in these 10 second bandwith burst boosts so any test you do has to outlast that if you want to know the sustained rate.
The best way I seem to be able to test things is to find some server and start multiple scp sessions going. But this is plagued by weird artifacts probably having to do with routers at the far end shaping things.
Bit torrent used to be the only way I could actually see anything within a factor of 3 of the bandwidth I pay for. But now I can't even get that speed even when I'm dealing with 100% seeds (I use comcast).
My basic reason for caring is that given I never am able to get within a factor 3 of what I pay for in a sustained way, I'm thinking of downgrading the service level I pay for. But I worry that my service might just get proportionally worse.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
The real reason that Apple, Adobe, and Microsoft don't spend a great deal of time going after pirated software is because they would quickly lose market share. Even if software is cheap, it's never going to be cheap enough for a college student eating Ramen and saving money for beer on the weekends. He's going to nab a copy of whatever he wants to putz around with, and mostly use it complete school work and personal creative projects.
If Adobe made it impossible for him to get an illegal copy of Photoshop, guess what? He'd learn something else. And when he arrives at his first job and they ask him which version of the Creative Suite he needs, he very well might say "That's alright - I know Gimp and Inkscape, and I already have them. Just get me a bigger monitor instead."
It's a nightmare scenario, and one of those things I wish they (Microsoft/Adobe/Autodesk/Apple) would be more honest about. I hope they do lock down Windows with DRM so it is nearly hackproof and rejects the installation of pirated software, because Linux would gain a few million users overnight. In the end, the best thing the OSS movement has going for it is the greed of the big guys, so here's to hoping they only get more delirious with it.
1) You have satellite...
2) You probably even have wireless from another telco
>I'm fairly certain the police don't stop or slow access to major roads just because a criminal -might- drive past with a body in the trunk
Really? Huh, what about those spot checks for drunk drivers?
>What I do with them is none of their business.
This is one of the most misunderstood pieces of the law. Let's consider your road metaphor.
If I drive on a road I have the right to drive on the road under a specific set of conditions.
* I may only drive in the direction required.
* I may only drive a certain speed limit.
* I may only drive on a certain side of the road.
* I may only drive with lights on at night.
Need I go on?
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
In fact, Blizzards entire new digital distribution store is based around torrents - I downloaded my (entirely legal!) WC3 and Frozen Throne RTS games there, quite quickly. As an aside, I did so on a service provider other than comcast, who I dropped a few months ago due to the incredible ineptitude of their employees to fix common problems. Line disconnects every 10 minutes? Sorry sir, that was in your contract....
Hi Guys, Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the whole start of the Internet "web" was started with P2P Researchers could share their research back and forth. Isn't this really blocking what the intention of the Internet is? P2P does have its uses, but I don't think ISPs should tell you what you should be doing. This is a form of censorship.
Do you see what you just did?
> Or would the person be charged with trespassing and petty theft by the local DA? In other words, you're being ridiculous. There is juuuuust a bit of a difference between "no punishment" and being sent to a "federal pound me in the ass penitentiary."
You just trivialized the stealing of potatoes. You don't think its a big deal. Just a little crime. nothing to worry about. My father-in-law would love to fine people 200,000 per potatoe because maybe then people would think twice. He earns his living with potatoes and when people take potatoes you are stealing from his pocket and food from his table.
This is exactly the reason why fines are as high as they are. You don't even consider the damage on the other side of the coin because well it doesn't affect you.
Try switching sides sometime in the future...
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
No Issues. I have been on torrents and uploading at the same speed for well over 2 years with no issues. I have tracked a solid 70k/sec upload speed for months and months and my charts show no throttling at all. I am on the best residential connection Cox offers and I cannot see how my experience would be any different than another users unless Cox is identifying the tracker and blocking if they recognize it (TPB/*nova/etc). Cox would be unable to identify the trackers I use and maybe that lets me get away with it? Who knows, just thought I would share.
My $.02
Invexi - a Phoenix, AZ based web design and web development company.
Yep. That's the case here..... Cox only. and they are horrible.
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
>Let's explain this one. Is your connection always on? Yes. Do you have high speed access to the Internet? Yes. Do you always have high speed access to a specific protocol on the Internet NO.
You have always on, high speed access to the atmosphere. However, we're going to block your access to oxygen. I'm sure you wont mind, its for the good of the entire atmosphere.
Has anyone done any studies to see if encrypting the traffic has any effect on the throttling?
SerpentMage, are you a total idiot or do you just play on these boards??!!! Seriously, don't give me crap like "two way satellite" because if you knew anything about internet service that is about as useless as a hole in my foot. Satellite internet has horrible lag/latency issues and is just unacceptable for my use. When I pay for high speed internet and I get internet that is throttled then I don't get what I paid for and I am blatantly being robbed. How would you feel if you knew that the highway in your city had a speed limit of 60mph but when you get on it the city decides to put out some pace cop cars and they prevent anyone from going more than 20mph...I'm pretty sure you'd be pissed. It is one thing if the traffic built up because of too many cars and that caused things to slow down but yet another when they do it on purpose. Even in that situation I would expect the city to use the tax revenue to build a bigger highway to once again increase the speeds of the cars traveling. Well, these fucking ISPs are not doing anything for us other than steal our money. They decrease the speeds yet lie to us that we get high speeds and then they take our money and don't provide improved and better pipes to increase the speeds to match their advertising and promises. Fuck Comcrap and fuck all of you idiots who think that what they do is ok.
I recently was told I was downloading a movie via bittorrents BY Cox. As true or false as it may be, please explain to me why when I called the cox security team the guy on the phone was asking me if I was using bittorrents .. when I told him no numerous times he was "surprised" .. monitoring connections much are we? .. and can ANYONE please explain to me HOW he was able to tell me what kind of motherboard I am using?? ?!?!? .. Last time I checked about the most info you could get from a net connection without hacking it was just what kind of adapter it is (among some other handy info of course ... BUT NOT MOTHERBOARD) ... the worst part .. if I want ANY sort of internet, its either cox or hijack someone's wireless .. America WHAT ARE YOU DOING!!!!!!!
I'd probably settle for 50%.
I get fiber-to-the-home. I may have to call at some point, as I'm supposed to get 100 mbits, and their test actually results in more like 60. But you know, a doller/month/megabit is a damned good deal. Full duplex, too -- I often seed torrents at one megabyte per second.
The difference is, of course, Fiber rocks, and also, my ISP actually believes in net neutrality, or claims to. If they're throttling my traffic, fine, I'm still downloading at 300 kilobytes/second. Again, kilobytes, not bits.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
If we really want to beat this type of behavior, there is a simple answer: class-action lawsuit.
These companies sell "internet connections", and market different speeds of service. Then, after the sale, they limit the speed of service.
If Comcast/Cox/etc. sells me a 5Mb connection, and then afterward, says "no, we really only meant for those things we allow", then they are engaged in fraudulent marketing (i.e. "bait & switch"). Even worse, they are doing for unsound reasons ("it will crush our network"). If it will crush the network, then don't sell me the 5Mb connection - make it a 3Mb connection, and drop the fraudulent marketing.
Bring on the lawyers...
I have Cox High Speed Internet.
I have Deluge running on high ports, all day, every day.
I have encryption forced.
I have no problems whatsoever.
It's just a matter of putting a little thought into things.
What about Linux? I download Ubuntu install DVDs via BitTorrent.
How about music and movies which I've bought? There are now at least two major services through which I can buy a movie online, and download it via BitTorrent. Allow me to take a moment to mock you: Just because the internet existed when you were born does not mean that free music and movies are a birthright. And just because you were senile before the Internet existed does not mean that a fucking protocol is the devil.
Remember -- these fucktards are throttling BitTorrent, which is a protocol. It happens to be popular among filesharing, but this is not the way to go about stopping these "thieves". And fuck your nitpicking - copying is stealing. Period. Fuck your generalizing. Some things are actually public domain, and copying is legal, and is what the original author intended.
In fact, copying stuff which I bought, to other devices which I own, so that I can enjoy it for myself, is also legal, but often prevented by DRM, because morons like you couldn't wrap your head around the difference between copying and copyright infringement, let alone stealing.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Yeah, I have Cox and used to get as much as about 1200kB/s downloading, even over torrents (and around 300kB/s up). These days I can manage about 250kB/s down and 125kB/s up over torrents only for a while before it slows even more (an effect that isn't solely limited to torrents, instead affecting all internet traffic). I'd say Cox has been throttling for AT LEAST two years around where I am.
I used to have a similar problem, except with eMule. I'd fire it up, it would run for a few minutes, then my internet connection would go down.
Turns out it was my router, a D-link DI-524. It has a tiny connection tracking table, and reboots if you go over.. which happened reguarly when using eMule's KAD network and all the UDP packets that implies. If I disabled KAD, I no longer had the problem.
You could be seeing something similar with the DHT that is used in some BitTorrent clients, or really any feature that uses UDP and hits a large number of hosts. Try disabling these features, or perhaps test with a different client entirely (with the same caveats in mind).
I am a subscriber to Comcast in a metropolitan area. Whenever I've used BitTorrent, the upload/download speeds were actually very fast. Perhaps Comcast doesn't throttle traffic in all areas.
Oh, and then there's the legal media downloads via BitTorrent. Azureus Vuze comes to mind. And I am sure it is clogging the networks of Comcast and other network providers. Their fault for overselling. Not my fault for using what I paid for.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
I hate to say it but a lot of states limit the size knife you're allowed to own for this very reason. This is why swords usually have to be dull. One could easily interpret this for broadband speed and limit the available bandwidth.
Personally I haven't noticed this slowdown on Cox. I routinely download at my rated speed or even slightly above. For this reason everytime there is a large download I usually look for a torrent first to get it. The latest Debian DVD iso only took me about 25 minutes to download, maybe closer to the 30 minutes but that's pretty darned fast.
I don't think speed should be limited, I'm paying for Internet access, I'm not paying for certain kinds of access for certain kinds of applications. If that's the case they will have to list out what they are restricting. Fortunately Cox here in Phoenix is not starved for bandwidth so I don't imagine we'll see the issues here anytime soon.
I'm on Concast in Massachusetts, it takes ~20-30 minutes for most torrent files to even start. For the first 10 minutes after starting, the download rate is usually from 10-25kbps, never going faster. Then, it's stuck on 50-60kbps for 10 minutes, then I finally get to download my file - but very rarely do I get over 200kbps for a download speed...
Also, unions exist to represent labor, not "the poor".
If you grab my wallet, I'm out something like $50 -- which you actually took from me. If you copy my movie, I'm out... $0. Because you didn't take anything from me.
I'm not saying copyright infringement is OK, but be clear in your analogies. Stealing potatoes is, again, quite different than copying.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Please do not feed the trolls. Thank You.
Read your contract. Does it not say that they have the right to terminate you if you overuse the network?
Who said they were overusing? One Linux distro via P2P per month is throttled the same as 24/7/365 pirated movie downloading.
It appears they are throttling on the means, not the content or quantity.
And fuck your nitpicking - copying is stealing. Period.
I hope you don't mind-- I just stole-pasted your last sentence.
Now, rentals, I do consider to be reasonable prices -- but I'd much rather not have to actually go to the store. Netflix is a good idea, but their "watch now" service is heavily DRM'd.
So tell me where else I can go, when I want to watch a movie right now, without going to a video store -- or maybe it's not even at the video store yet -- oh, and I want to watch it on Linux.
The business model is just screaming for someone to implement it. There's no monopoly on movies, music or software at the moment. The majority of movies come from a shockingly small number of studios. The majority of music comes from a shockingly small number of labels.
And there are certainly monopolies within software. Microsoft, anyone? We all agree the MPAA and RIAA exaggerate the damages, but it's also not a victimless crime, not by any stretch of the imagination. I used to feel bad about it, yes. Then they started suing 12-year-old children, grandmothers, and dead people for $100/song. Now I really don't care.
I will go out of my way to pay for indie music, when I find a band I like. But with the things the MPAA and the RIAA does in response to piracy... Seriously, proposing a "piracy tax" on ISPs? If they already assume their customers are their enemies, then I really don't care. The Civil Rights Movement didn't succeed because Martin Luthor King, Jr sat on his ass all day, then occasionally stole a candy bar from the corner store under the guise of "justice." At the same time, Rosa Parks didn't wait for the law to change. Neither am I.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
There's always dialup. It might take half an hour to download an mp3 through BitTorrent, but that might still be better than a throttled high speed connection.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
So all us guys who stayed with newsgroups as their source of copyrighted material are laughing now huh?
You may find my appearance and demeanor foolish, but it is you who plays the fool.
Well, my BitTorrents of Ubuntu, Slackware and such aren't "stealing" a single thing from a single person by _any_ definition.
The _stupid_ thing about this disruption is that it actually causes the transfers to use _more_ bandwidth.
Consider:
The participant will _still_ download the entire content.
The participant will, for every segment downloaded, now have several false starts and partial segment transfers.
Participants who elect to stop their transfers will most likely go to another means (http etc) of transfer so 100% of the content will be transferred again on top of the partial transfer that was aborted.
A given provider pays cash money only for bandwidth usage that "crosses" the boundary of their service. So every Comcast/Cox customer who would have gotten a percentage of their transfer from a peer on the same service instead gets their transfer from original source, raising Comcast/Cox/etc's upstream service usage.
Now a big company like comcast _may_ be able to soak some of this cost in proxy space so that several transferers are actually not leaving their net, but are instead getting the contents from their proxy. But that would make Comcast/Cox/etc's proxy server the agent of "illegal sharing" in those cases where the content was infringing, so I doubt they are doing that to any useful extent.
As an added bonus, by interrupting the TCP connections, they _do_ prevent the TCP window sizes from scaling up to speed, but they don't prevent the outstanding window-size-worth of packets to be delivered and discarded by the target host. That is, by inserting the reset artificially, _neither_ side had the opportunity to discard their "already queued" packets, so that buffer skid goes all the way across the internet, costing time and money and congestion but now artificially devoid of benefit to anyone.
So by sandbagging their own customers they are actually raising their bandwidth costs and in-network infrastructure usage. And an infinite number of their customers can raise their "simultaneous connections per torrent" for free. I raised my limit to something like 200 in each direction, which restored my throughput and cost Comcast one hell of a pile of churn. [I also use advanced packet shaping where my packets leave my network and hit the wire, ensuring that I never "drop" a connection request locally due to modem buffer sizes etc.]
The technique being used by the provider is a classic foot bullet by every technical measure.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
I don't actually get fiber from Verizon. I get it from a local ISP, and I had DSL from them before I had fiber.
Right now, I'm downloading a torrent at a pretty steady 300k -- as in, 300 kilobytes per second. I'm uploading at 1 megabyte per second. On a better torrent, I can easily get up to 2-3 megabytes down. It's pretty close to sharing files over a LAN. Face it we are screwed thanks to Net Neutrality. Which definition?
The original definition is that the network should be neutral.
The twisted Telecom definition is that the government should be neutral about the network.
I support the original net neutrality, and I support the government taking action towards that. What is truly sad is that we just kick our feet back and do not care. Why can't I run my own software on my iphone? Well, actually, you can. We need to write to our legislatures and see if we can overturn net neutrality. Again, WTF? What do you think net neutrality means? What do you think you'd be overturning?
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Because the bandwidth you think you're paying for costs a lot more than you're actually paying right now.
What you're actually paying for is a kind of time-share bandwidth thing. Based on a profile of an average user who wants spurts of high speed (to make web pages responsive) but doesn't actually need that data rate anywhere near 100% of the time.
This is generally a good deal all around, because by selling it this way, the ISPs ensure good utilization of the equipment, and you get fast web pages. And that connection is on 24/7.
If your use profile doesn't conform to that estimate, for instance, if you're actually using a fairly constant bandwidth, then you need to upgrade your service to a plan that figures that in. Prices for those plans are sure to come down soon, as the capacity is built in to satisfy the upcoming demand for internet-tv.
It is unfortunate that the ad campaigns didn't specify this explicitly at the outset (although they're getting better). But I think it was in the name of brevity rather than malice. And also some malice, but at least at some point someone probably figured that many people either weren't bright enough or didn't have enough time to fully absorb the details, so they oversimplified them. I don't think that assumption is wrong, btw.
Haven't you ever wondered why a T1 line, which ostensibly has lower data rate than your plan by a factor of between 3 and 5 in most of the country, costs so very much more? That's because they don't expect you to use that data rate anywhere near all the time.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
What this boils down to is really quite simple:
Most of the people "stealing" content don't have the money to buy it in the first place.
It's not like without the internet I'd have 10,000 dollars worth of CDs instead of a bunch of MP3's.
I don't have 10 grand to spend on CDs.
I'm not "stealing" anything because the producer/corporation loses nothing tangible and they never would have gotten any money from me anyway.
You aren't too bright. The correct comparison is your father-in-law saying people are stealing his potatoes when they merely take a picture for their scrapbook.
-- Will program for bandwidth
I'm with Cox, and to test the claim, I started to download a ubuntu iso. I hit speeds in excess of 1000KB/s
Arguing with Anonymous again? You guys bit this one..... hook, line, & sinker
If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again, it was probably worth it.
In Soviet Russia, Cox blocks you!
Having lived in areas "served" by both Cox and Comcast, and relying on telecommuting to work, I have looked into the "business packages" for both. Essentually they offer static IPs (or a block of them), open incoming port 80, 25, 443, etc, and a higher SLA (for an increased cost). Since I depend on faster upstream connection speed for my job, I was wondering if these filters are in place with the (more expensive) business packages (Comcast was about $85/year for 12 down 2 up, Cox was about $110 for similar).
Grandpa: My Homer is not a communist. He may be a liar, a pig, an idiot, a communist, but he is not a porn star.
Your argument fails on a number of fronts, mostly because you come across as a petulant child who seems to think he/she's entitled to everything whenever he/she wishes.
Let's go in steps:
"... So tell me where else I can go, when I want to watch a movie right now, without going to a video store -- or maybe it's not even at the video store yet -- oh, and I want to watch it on Linux."
Contrary to what you may think, you do not have *the right* to watch a movie whenever you feel like it. You might have the *opportunity* to watch it when the movie studio decides to release it in theathers, DVD, or whatever method they choose, but it's at their leisure, not yours.
You wanting to watch it really bad and NOW! means absolutely nothing. Get that through your thick skull.
"The majority of movies come from a shockingly small number of studios. The majority of music comes from a shockingly small number of labels."
There are quite a few independent movie studious out there releasing hundreds of movies every year. The same is true with regards to music.
Now, maybe the movies *you* like are coming from a very limited number of studios, and the music *you* like is only coming from a small group of labels, but that doesn't mean that they should accomodate your pedantic wants. Maybe you just need to broaden your tastes a bit.
"Seriously, proposing a "piracy tax" on ISPs? If they already assume their customers are their enemies, then I really don't care."
It could be worse. In Canada, you're paying a 'piracy tax' on blank media like CD/DVD-Rs because they automatically assume you're going to use it for illicit purposes. Get over it.
"At the same time, Rosa Parks didn't wait for the law to change. Neither am I."
Comparing your plight for bootlegged movies and music to the struggles of civil rights icons just shows how much of a complete idiot you are.
Next time you feel the urge to type this type of comment, just don't. Open up a browser, go to Wikipedia or some other online reference, and educate yourself before inserting your foot so firmly into your mouth that your toes stick out of your asshole.
"We'll need 2000 crickets, 4 cans of Easy Cheese, and the fluid from 18 glowsticks for this plan to work...." - ph0n1c
Here in Phoenix they've doing network upgrades and around those times the whole DOCSIS network(Phone(packetcable), TV, internet) has been down on and off for two days. My CMTS is PEORCMTK01(telnet to your gateway on 3918 and it tells you the internal hostname). I've also seen SSCTCMTK01 going down.
www.isoHunt.com
I had to waste someone's http bandwidth downloading xubuntu a couple of days ago because my utorrent downloads never go faster than 12kbps (on a 768 connection) and often slower than 7kbps.
I'm not going to spend 13 hours downloading something when i can get it in an hour. That's why they shouldn't limit bt traffic. Sorry for costing someone an extra 25Â because my ISP (centurytel) is crappy!
(and this is just with the desktop. If I ever torrent anything on my laptop it just downright kills the network connection. every. time. but it doesn't at my boyfriend's house (warner cable). how queer!)
anyways, I'm just one fish in the sea. I'm sure there's several others just like me. we fish swim in mighty big schools.
What I don't get is why there isn't some level of network caching? Http caching on some level reduces the amount of outbound traffic and potentially reduce peering costs (no?). Some form of intelligent, automated peering of some kinds of traffic could do well to reduce the outbound load for torrents and P2P traffic. Would anyone complain if they were still getting the d/l speed if it were somehow seeded within the nearby network instead of out on the net somewhere? Is there a way to intelligently discover which files are being downloaded and once a particular file reached 2 leechers a nearby torrent-cache fired up to help distribute the local load? A company (ISP) that offered something like that could probably garner some goodwill and more clients.
Have fun downloading the latest big name Linux release with that dialup! There are many legitimate uses for Bittorent, and speaking from a throttled Comcast connection, switching to dialup is not an option. It won't increase your BT/P2P traffic but it will slow down everything else you do. My connection is fine, as long as I keep my upload extremely conservative (at about 1/10th actual capacity, minimum) when using Bittorrent. Turn off Bittorrent, everything's peachy again.
"We invented personal computing." - Bill Gates
There's no caching, because to get anything at all through Comcast, you need to encrypt the connections (to obfuscate them). Not sure if that trick works now, but it did for a while. For the time being, I've given up P2P, but the INSTANT I have a choice, I am switching. By-the-way, if you only get basic cable from Comcast, try broadcast HDTV -- I get pretty good reception, in a place that never got good analog reception.
Actually.. that's more likely to be caused by excess simultaneous connections. You can potentially sort this out by limiting the number of active connections in your BT client.
http://www.xkcd.com/354/
for the last few months, if I have bittorent traffic, even at a very low bandwidth consumption, once I try slashdot or any other web site, I get a "navigation interrupted" or a lot of "bad header" error and various connection lost. Refreshing after a while bring the web page. Going 5 minutes after ward to work I get an immediate display of the web page. This is not happening once, but every day.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
But what if there were caching? Something like Robert X Cringely wrote about a while back.
Well duh, SerpentMage has the answer here too! MOVE!
So it may be expensive and slower, but at least I can download what I want when I want. Well, it's not like I can get anything else either...other than dial up.
If brute force isn't working, you are not using enough.
If they were caching, it would be useless, because (almost) everyone with Comcast/Cox is already encrypting P2P to try to avoid throttling. The encrypted bits are only useful in a single connection, never again. It's exactly the sort of data that you don't ever want in a cache. C/C apparently decided that degrading service was a better choice than caching or adding capacity.
That's the state that it is now. What if it weren't? There's more than one way to skin a cat you know.
Joy! Beautiful spark of the gods!
No, but the very core of the civil rights movement was civil disobedience. one could argue that downloading copyrighted materials on bittorrent is a form of civil disobedience.
Sorry to knock down your straw man. I'm sure you can prop him back up again
Maybe it's a regional thing, because I just looked at Verizon's BroadbandAccess plans and they only offer two here: one with a 50 MB monthly limit ($39.99/mo), and another with a 5 GB monthly limit ($59.99/mo).
Once you hit the limits, it's 99 cents for each additional megabyte on the 50 MB plan, or 49 cents on the 5 GB plan. So, if you download 30 GB this week and then don't use it at all for the rest of the month, your bill will be $12,603.99 (plus a few miscellaneous fees).
If you can get that for only $60 a month, you're getting one hell of a deal. Don't expect it to last!
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
no, he was using an abductio ad absurdum argument to point out the unreasonable nature of penalties for copyright infringement.
Instead of trying to trivialize the potato thefts, he was trying to show how ridicuous the fined for downloading music are.
Using Azureus/Vuze http://azureus.sourceforge.net/ and ISP Network Monitor http://azureuswiki.com/index.php/ISP_Network_Monitor I've been able to track Comcast's network interference here in Atlanta. In general the interference has been 24/7 but there is the occasional reprieve (about five hours Sunday morning being the most recent).
The four files I've been uploading are GPL / public-domain and I would encourage you to visit the links above and do the same. The more data collected the better.
As torrents gain in popularity I'm hoping that software companies adopt this superior technology for updates - not just to improve downloading efficiencies but also to make it much more difficult for the ISPs to throttle P2P traffic. Can you imagine the impact if Microsoft's updates were torrent files?
JAGga.me ----> Producing video games addressing emotional health and wellness issues affecting teens.
Or you can follow George Washington's lead, If you think the law is wrong, pick up a gun.
As far as I can tell, my 15/2 FiOS is completely unrestricted - I regularly hit 2 MB/s on Bittorrent downloads and can upload with ease. Of course, I also threw out the crappy router they give you for my nix gateway box, which can handle more than 100 simultaneous connections. Also, if you're having trouble browsing while using BT - remember that you need to cap your upload speed, as the browser needs to upload info just to view a page.
As a Comcast customer, I'm also more than a bit upset that I'm not getting all the bandwidth I paid for, but as the first wave of bandwidth shaping attempts based on packet fingerprinting encouraged more people to use data encryption, Comcast's use of packet injection (TCP resets) to shut down P2P seeders will encourage development and usage of transport encryption (VPNs work, or even better some method of opportunistic point to point encryption). Then they won''t be able screw with our transport.
Someone please make this work soon, easy, and standards based!
The days when you could trust your ISPs with your network data are over. It's now time to start using the encryption technology that's already out there to return our privacy and get our bandwidth back. It will also provide a nice how-do-you-do to the network monitoring spooks out there as well.
Thanks!
It looks like that the main issue most posters are having is that they bought ISP's marketing drivel about "all you can eat" connectivity. They accepted it as a fact, and now they want ISPs to live up to unrealistic promises with unrealistic oversubscription rates.
It is not going to happen. These last few years were the only period when bandwidth was truly free for *early* P2Pers, but it is over now. Regardless of the amount of uninformed bitching, you will pay for the bandwidth, and it will change P2P equations (ISPs will stick to all-you-can-eat mantra for some time, as long as 90+% of their customers are web users and don't download too many movies.)
How much will you pay?
At T3 rates, 1Gb of transfer costs $0.20-$0.30. This price changed very little in the last few years and is unlikely to rapidly drop. Add at least 50% markup for the lower speeds (some would say 5x - 500% - but let's stick to the rock bottom), and you get $0.30-$0.50/Gigabyte. So if you want to download 50 gigabytes per month (20 movies in bearable quality) it will take $15-$25 just to cover the bandwidth costs, the raw material. It is *not* free.
I have seen very little here about the strong probability that Comcast itself is breaking Federal communications laws by forging TCP Reset packets. I tried the Max Planck Institute test applications myself last night, and Comcast was blocking 100% of my "uploads" of perfectly legal content.
Terms of Service (which are probably unenforceable anyway) aside, Comcast has no legal right to forge TCP packets that say they are coming from YOUR IP!!!
zero.. not one.. notta..
You know this is true, since you can not prove otherwise, and if you tried, you would see 100% of the proof says you are wrong.
And by the way, stop stealing slashdots bits you thief! Yes you, I saw you copy those bits from the webserver to a cache to a buffer in ram to a video buffer... that is alot of stealing you just did.
(Its OK in this one case to call you a thief for copying data, since you admit to being one yourself in the line i quoted)
Furthermore, our Cox business internet (3Mbit symmetrical optical fiber) has no monthly bandwidth limits or throttling. I use it heavily for remote backups of clients, and haven't had any complaints from Cox.
I've been with Comcast a few years here in Eugene, and it isn't too bad as long as I don't care about mooching. I have pretty well unlimited download, but upload has been capped at 35kB/s for as long as I have used them (~5 years). It doesn't cause me any problems with downloading whatever I want, but if I try to be a decent participant in my favorite BT sites, it's a real bitch to get around or above a 1.0 ratio.
For your edification, ask a marketing agency if they'd rather have a talented artist who knows how to use the Gimp, or a Photoshop expert with the creative mind of a turnip. It's not ad hominem if it's true. It's ad hominem if you attack the other person instead of their argument. Even if your petty and subjective opinion was correct, it doesn't dim your inability to provide a stimulating counter-point.
Adobe will never fully prosecute a college kid for pirating their product, because the damage that occurs is far outweighed by having that person hooked on their tools. If they do start sending out the lawyers, it means that there is a better product available for a better price, or Adobe has hired an idiot to run their company.
In reality, the college kid downloads a multi-thousand dollar package for free, and Adobe looks the other way because it's to their benefit.
We could combat these ISPs with a Consumer Reports approach. Develop a measuring methodology and put real world results for various tasks on a web page. Comcast advertising says "5 Mbit down"? Check the web page for what you *really* get for BitTorrent, HTTP download, and other common applications. If the measuring tool is easy to install and use, people could submit their own results - kind of like gasbuddy.com. Measurements would include the time it was taken, so that day vs night performance can be compared. Maps could show geographic areas where service is slow or fast.
If I get to assume a fantasy world, Comcast isn't caching, because they've gone out of business. You can theorize about your fantasy world, I'll theorize about mine.
I have cox and my bittorrent speeds tripled this afternoon. Its not hosing up my internet connection either.
They must have got the memo! =)
Thank you slashdot
Did I ever say I had the right? No, I'm countering the point about "many fine stores" -- fact is, piracy currently provides features not found anywhere else, for any price. And, for software, it may also provide better quality, given how harmful the DRM schemes themselves can be until the pirate group removes their teeth. There are quite a few independent movie studious out there releasing hundreds of movies every year. The same is true with regards to music. And again, when I find these, I try to support them. Especially when one of them gets it.
I went to an Umphrey's McGee concert. Right outside, on your way out, they had a couple of towers of CD burners. They would burn and sell you a CD of the concert, right there and then.
Wait a couple of days, and it's up on the website, for a reasonable price, and in DRM-free flac. Yes, flac, not just mp3. It could be worse. In Canada, you're paying a 'piracy tax' on blank media like CD/DVD-Rs because they automatically assume you're going to use it for illicit purposes. I know. Get over it. Oh, bullshit.
You really want to play that game? Alright, how's this: Major studios and labels are finding that their business model is failing in the marketplace. They can't compete with "free" without drastically revamping their business model. Get over it.
Or you could, y'know, actually agree that it's wrong. Comparing your plight for bootlegged movies and music to the struggles of civil rights icons just shows how much of a complete idiot you are. Well, you didn't read my post, I couldn't expect you to read the GP's. Next time you feel the urge to type this type of comment, just don't. Open up a browser, go to Wikipedia or some other online reference, and educate yourself You first.
Oh, by the way, notice how I was modded insightful, and you were modded troll?
This time, read my signature. Then read my comment. Then take a deep breath, take a walk, get some fresh air, and calm the fuck down.
And then come back with something better than calling me a "petulant child" -- that's called an ad hominem, and using it is a flaw in your argument, not mine.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Here to. We are supposedly getting FIOS in our area but that rumor has been going around for a long time now.
I've been reading this little thread, and I wish you'd STFU Copponex. Shut up about hockey and senators and shit. Stop waving your hands about. In a job in an office with a lot of other people, chances are they'll supply the tools and expect you to know them.
In an office of PS jockeys, a gimp user is going to be a PITA. File compatibility and all that, not to mention all the things gimp can't do that the Adobe suites can. Yep, there's a whole bunch of other SW that Adobe makes that other people in the office may use. Like InDesign - it will import PS files with layers intact. Apple's FCP will do the same. Dreamweaver and Fireworks like PS, too.
Working in an office is about teamwork, not who is the shining star. While the boss may occasionally hire a prima donna, if she doesn't get on with everyone else, she'll get dumped. Then she can go work on The Greatest Artwork In The World.
And in your false dichotomy of the ad agency hiring a Rembrandt Gimp-meister or a PS superstar with the creative skill of a turnip, I think they may readvertise the job.
And where he makes his living by selling pictures of his potatoes. If you don't like it, grow your own damn potatoes. But don't say, I'll just take his potatoes because I could grow my own if I wanted.
When my lease runs out, I can move to another appartment with the same issue, different company. You shouldn't have to move to get decent internet service anyway.
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
That is, let's say the ISP has 100 Mbps available, and they're providing "unlimited" service capped at 5 Mbps to 400 customers, under their old estimate that an average customer would use 5% of their available bandwidth.
Now BitTorrent comes along, and soon the average customer is using 10% of their available bandwidth. Instead of doubling their network capacity to 200 Mbps, the ISP can halve the per-user cap to 2.5 Mbps, keeping overall usage the same without spending a dime or raising their rates.
(Well, it isn't quite that simple, since in reality everyone hasn't increased their usage equally, so the lowered cap wouldn't affect them all equally. But there is some number where the ISP could set the cap to keep usage under control without having to add capacity or raise prices.)
Of course, ISPs don't want to do this. They want to keep advertising big numbers. But the fact is, people use more bandwidth than they used to, and that demand isn't doing away, so something has to change: the ISPs need to either add capacity and/or raise their prices, or stop advertising service levels they can't provide at the current prices.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
So, you have nothing to add to the discussion about the copyright policies of major software vendors?. Well, thanks for stopping by!
But before I go, I wanted to sincerely wish you luck with teamwork and creation by committee. I'm sure your work will be forgotten long before you're dead. But hey, somebody has to market Hannah Montana Easy Cheese Macaroni!
(Yes, simpleminded AC, I'm well aware of the entire CS3 suite and the traction of existing software platforms. Believe it or not, I even paid $400 for the CS2 Premium Design suite when I was in college, and I was the extreme exception to the rule. But your whole tirade, in left field again, has nothing to do with the topic of piracy and Bittorrent throttling. The whole hypothetical situation was based on the premise of Adobe shutting down piracy, which they will never, ever, ever do, unless they begin to lose market share for other reasons. So, have a heaping helping of your own advice, and GFSUTD - go find something useful to do.)
My work forgotten long before I'm dead? Chances are it'll be forgotten next month. And I do expect to live longer than that.
Once again, you present the false dichotomy: working in an ad agency (your example) with a team consigns me to the dustbin of creativity, or I COULD USE GIMP AND BE A CREATIVE INDIVIDUAL! There is a difference between working on a team (my term) and "creation by committee" (your term), both in the perception of someone reading the terms as well as the reality of working in them. FWIW, I work for government so I know more about committees and stifled creativity than anyone should know. Furthermore, my marketing campaign for HMECM would include full nude pics inside.
(Insert retaliatory ad hominem)
Adobe won't go after student pirates for a few reasons, and only one of them is yours. The BSA-types like to get the big fish: distributors and entire workplaces. More money in it and it has more effect. Students (and any schmo at home running a copy) are small-fry. No gain for Adobe. And, yes, Adobe et al want mindshare. They want the pirating student to become the legal businessman - it's still about running the numbers. Would they like piracy to be zero? Probably, but it's all about costs.
While your post may have started out being about shutting down piracy, it started veering off into wild-scenario territory. Hence, my post.
And I have something useful to do: I'm watching FCP render and export. To prove I can multitask, I am going to get a coffee. Then I'll go home early because it's POETS day.
Don't like it? Switch country then!
No retaliatory ad hominem? What am I going to do while I repave my laptop?
Yeah, I get hung up on stuff. Hyperbole flows in these veins. But at least it's entertaining.
I do think OSS solutions will replace a majority of creative software in the next 10 years, and five if plugin and file format standards are established. I'm not a zealot by any means - I use XP and OSX at work, because I have to get things done. But I have converted every one of my workplaces to OOo and haven't heard a peep. Four years ago I would not have considered it.
With all of the Linux toolkits coming to maturity on the Windows and OS X platforms, OSS will begin to infiltrate very effectively. All it takes is a company to fork the GIMP and give it direction the way Sun did with OOo.
"Your reading comprehension is pathetic, as long as we're trading ad-hominims."
/. moderation system works, specially when someone comments against the 'fashionable' opinion. In a way, it's more of a affirmation that I'm onto something, while you're spouting off the popular opinions of the 'whiny interweb nerds' I alluded to previously.
*Sigh* What's with you people and calling everything an ad-hominem, when it plainly isn't? Do you actually think it makes you sound smarter than what you really are?
I *did* read your comment, and here are the staments that led me to the conclusion that you somehow feel entitled to obtain movies or music when and how you see fit (notice the bolded parts):
I don't consider $20 for a DRM'd (and thus defective) movie, or $30 for an even more heavily DRM'd (but hi-def and shiny!) movie, to be a reasonable price.
Now, rentals, I do consider to be reasonable prices -- but I'd much rather not have to actually go to the store. Netflix is a good idea, but their "watch now" service is heavily DRM'd."
I used to feel bad about it, yes. Then they started suing 12-year-old children, grandmothers, and dead people for $100/song. Now I really don't care.
I interpret those statements as "I don't think I should pay that much for something that has DRM, and I if I want to watch the movie/listen to the album now, I'll just go ahead and pirate it. I don't care if I'm screwing the bands or whatever, I pay my dues to the indy bands and I hate the RIAA because they're douchebags".
Isn't that essentially what you're saying? Tell if it isn't, because from here it certainly looks like that's it.
"Major studios and labels are finding that their business model is failing in the marketplace. They can't compete with "free" without drastically revamping their business model. Get over it."
Of course they cannot compete with "free". All it takes is one self-righteous idiot to come along, rip the album, upload it to a p2p service, and there goes any chance at potential revenue from album sales.
Funny how it's their problem that people are pirating music, and you don't seem to see anything wrong with what is, in essence, theft.
You'd be deceiving yourself if you believed that every person that downloads any album from a torrent will go out and buy it; some will, most won't. Heck, even Radiohead is not going to do the pay-what-you-think-is-fair bit anymore because as successful as their last album was, it wasn't *that* profitable for them. That's a *fact*.
"Well, you didn't read my post, I couldn't expect you to read the GP's."
I read your post, I read the GP, and most of the thread. That still doesn't invalidate my point that comparing the civil rights struggle of someone like Rosa Parks to whiny interweb nerds who want to freely spread copyrighted music and movies without repercussions or as some sort of 'protest' against RIAA's tactics a completely shameful action.
"Oh, by the way, notice how I was modded insightful, and you were modded troll?"
Yes, because we all know how awesome the
"This time, read my signature. Then read my comment. Then take a deep breath, take a walk, get some fresh air, and calm the fuck down.
I read your signature, that's why I took the time to reply to it. I think it's important to address rampant idiocy before it spirals out of control, but alas, it's too late.
"And then come back with something better than calling me a "petulant child" -- that's called an ad hominem, and using it is a flaw in your argument, not mine."
There you go again with the reference to ad hominem, this time with a link and all. Please. Stop.
To quote Inigo Montoya: "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
"We'll need 2000 crickets, 4 cans of Easy Cheese, and the fluid from 18 glowsticks for this plan to work...." - ph0n1c
Theres no satellite or wireless internet service here, and neither of those are good alternatives to begin with. (To go with my road metaphor, they are like walking... well that might be too harsh, dial-up would be walking, and those would be bicyling.) Spot checks for drunk drivers, don't occur all day every day. Matter of fact, my town only does them on new years, and its mostly just for the good image they get in the press. Those are all well written and posted laws, my isp contract says NOTHING about them slowing access to an entire protocol all day every day. Nice try though.
Its innovative much like the corporation which uses loopholes in laws to cheat you. Morally wrong, but legally right.
So, its not taking law into your own hands. Its like treating the law innovatively and interpret its wording differently to your advantage.
Play the same game corporations play.
For instance, send comcast a certified letter and tell them of material change in contract has resulted in automatic termination of contract.
Get a Justice of Peace to certify that.
Send them another notice from Justice of Peace asking for compensation for breaking a contract (legal). Claim small amount not to trigger their lawyers.
When they disobey both, get the Justice to get a warrant to seize and auction their assets.
Proceed to nearest comcast office with sheriff, throw everyone out and start auctioning their valuables on the spot.
BTW, tell a dozen of your friends about "good auction deals" and make them bid $1 or $2 for each PC/Laptop or Router. This way you get to auction everything and yet get back only very little of your claim.
And before the high powered lawyers of comcast descend with court injunctions, dispose of every asset in comcast's office at $1-2 to recoup your financial loss.
Immediately file a criminal complaint to premept comcast and state comcast is trying to game the system and trying to cheat you out of your judgement. All judges will respect a previous court order and issue another order preventing comcast from contacting you or reversing the auction.
Sounds Good???
Its also Perfectly Legal.
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
From memory, an ad-hominem is an argument made by attacking a person's character, rather than their argument. It is a logical fallacy because the argument itself may be true, regardless of who made it.
Here, rather than tell me why it wasn't an ad-hominem, you insult me by suggesting I only use the term to make myself sound smarter than I am... which is, you guessed it, another ad-hominem.
You are not helping your case here.
I will tell you one thing, though, since you seem to have put so much effort into your response: It absolutely is possible to compete with free. Yes, free, whether it's legal or not -- it is possible to compete with piracy. But if you intend to do that, the very first thing you have to do is stop attacking it as a moral issue, and start attacking it as a competitor.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
That is rather a dumb comment if you realize how many World of Warcraft client instances there are out there, and how large an update can be. Do you really think *ANY* company wants to provide the bandwidth needed to serve that amount of data, for a once in a month or so occurance? If you do, then you need a new calculator.
Let's do some simple estimates. A day after the release of a new content patch at say 200M (which is a quite reasonable size, we've had bigger), if 1/7th of total subscribers have downloaded it (this might be a bit of a high guess, but hey), that means that 1 million downloads have happened of the 200M file.
Let's keep it simple and in Megabytes, so we get 200 million MB in 24 hours, that's 2314MB per second.
I agree that there are definitely links that can handle that amount of data. Notwithstanding the amount of connections running through that. But most backbones have serious problems with anything over 1GB/s. Also. The costs of having an infrastructure in place that can handle that sort of bandwidths are high enough to not make it worth it to even think of investing in it just for upgrades.
I personally think Blizzard made the best decision considering all the factors, and seeing as you can refuse to upload anything, you personally should not even have any problems with this.
Coz eternity my friend, is a long *ing time.
Oh come on this is America. Where's the lawsuit ?
(Along with stealing other peoples oil) litigation is the only activity Americans are really interested in so get with the program already.
>I had to waste someone's http bandwidth downloading xubuntu
If it was a waste of bandwidth, why'd you bother?
use IPv6 to avoid filterings
I suspect they're using a wireless broadband provider, not cellular. More 802.11 something, only designed for long distance usage.
enlighten the rest of us mortals. how do I compete with free? If someone distributes MY games for free, how do I compete with that?
Be aware it is MY product they are offering for free.
Please list any experience you have in paying the rent by using this system of yours.
Cheers,
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
Well, SerpentMage said "you probably even have wireless from another telco". Either he was talking about cellular, or he's hopelessly optimistic about the number of people covered by wireless ISPs.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
True, but there's no reason to suspect that SerpentMage and Rakeris were talking about the same thing. ;)
And fuck your nitpicking - copying is stealing. Period. You are an idiot. Period.
I have around a year left, after that, I'll have to sign another contract...which will hopeful be with sprint as if they don't have coverage in my area by then, I will be on the short end of a 5GB stick. Which will really suck.
I have to say, if I got a $12,603.99+ bill from verizon, I would probably shit my pants honestly.
If brute force isn't working, you are not using enough.
Then let's outlaw guns, alcohol, cigarettes, and M-rated video games. All can lead to violence and breaking the law in some way. Many people have legitimate uses for P-2-P, and many do not. The subject is that these companies are limiting certain traffic speeds, regardless of WHAT'S being downloaded. Period. Not their job or right to do that. That's the subject and topic of discussion. They don't have the right to slow down torrent traffic or any other traffic. Period.
Come to eastern Canada. We've got Bell on ADSL, and Roger's on cable.
It's like voting in an election, you're deciding to choose from which candidate is the least undesirable.
Cox blocker...
I'm pretty sure forks have been used occasionally for killing people ;P
One would think they use p2p just as much in Japan, Korea, Europe and South America. I know for a fact that p2p is used quite a lot in Europe and we aren't subject to these kinds of issues... So why is this even on the table? I believe the need to delivering record earning *every* single quarter is the problem.. Instead of building a network that doesn't saturate, you try to limit the networks overall use...
Not only do you fail reading comp. 101 (you are from the US no?), you are also very ill-informed regarding our media levy:
"It could be worse. In Canada, you're paying a 'piracy tax' on blank media like CD/DVD-Rs because they automatically assume you're going to use it for illicit purposes. Get over it"
Bzzt, wrong! We pay a levy on CD-Rs only. There was once an ipod tax (under the same law) but this was repealed years ago, like way before I bought my first G4 ipod.
Now you really look stupid. As if the last bunch of your arguments didn't already.
---Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A START
To me, core tenants of civil disobedience are:
1) You admit that you're breaking the law openly
2) You're willing to accept the punishment for it
If you're hunched over in your basement watching pirated movies, you're doing neither of those.
I don't considering pirating movies as "civil disobedience," I consider it "being greedy." The civil disobedience is just a rationalization that pirates happen to often use. (Some others: "it's not illegal if I don't keep it for more than 48 hours" "the company that made it went out of business anyway".)
Comment of the year
waste of HTTP bandwidth. on BT it could've been 50 different people sharing it, and I would've been helping other people by seeding while I dl'd it.
Frickin' Cox basically made it impossible for me to get the Age of Conan client download. I had to get it elsewhere and copy it over. It's not like I have a choice, it's Cox or nothing where I'm at. I hate government sponsored monopolies.
only in U.S. can happen something like p2p throttling, I feel sry for u guys there meanwhile we get our downloads here up to 10Mbps in europe
Doesn't bittorrent traffic encryption help against this kind of problem?
Actually it's information superhighway robbery.
That's what I thought the 'IS' stood for...Another thing you can do is add value, in a way which can't be copied. Not through DRM, but through actual services. Consider WoW -- they've got, what, ten million subscribers now? Each paying $12.95 a month! Don't you think they would pirate it if they could?
In fact, people have written and set up pirate WoW servers, but they are a vast minority. Most people have found that WoW provides something they can't get anywhere else, and that it's worth a large monthly fee.
Then, to a lesser extent, there are services like Steam and Xbox Live. Technically, the games you find here are easily pirated even multiplayer, and many of them are single-player. But through a combination of not over-charging (Portal is absolutely worth $20) and adding features like a friends list, the ability to easily join a game a friend is playing (or start a game with a friend, on Xbox Live), and toys like "Achievements", the legitimate version starts to look better.
Add to that the fact that the pirated version of a Steam game is actually less convenient than the legit version -- I can just enter my username and password anywhere, and download the game, and if I have a credit card, I can always start downloading another game that I want. The pirated version would require me to jump through a lot more hoops.
Now, compare this to places where piracy wins -- movies and music, and many other single-player games. When the tech-savvy person is going to buy the game in the store (to make sure you get paid), and then pirate it anyway, because the pirated version is actually going to be safer to their computer (and won't require swapping CDs), something is VERY wrong.
And when I can get pretty much instant gratification via things like YouTube, and close to it with BitTorrent, whereas buying them legitimately either requires a trip across town or a very specific version of Windows Media Player or iTunes -- and the song will only play on an iPod and not a Zune, or vice-versa -- I would pay more to get the kind of service I already get for free from piracy.
Do you see the difference?
Now, following the link in your signature -- It seems like you could provide this via steam, if you wanted to. At a glance, I can see what you might want to offer in a service of your own -- maybe let people play against each other, or the world at large. Democracy, in particular, looks like it could be made into an MMO of sorts -- you could create a world in which only one person can win a particular election, and then let players form their own communities and political parties.
But that's off the top of my head, and I haven't even played them. You know your games better than I do. Please list any experience you have in paying the rent by using this system of yours. That is, in fact, what I'm doing right now.
Because of this, and because it's still in the early stages, I'm not going to discuss details, but I will say that we do both of the above -- we provide a better product than the pirated version (by hooking it into a service, among other things), and we provide it for free.
One warning: Be sure that this service is something people actually want. No one wants to subscribe to your newsletter. Be aware it is MY product they are offering for free. Irrelevant.
If they are offering it for free, and they're also delivering it faster, and in a better format -- and keep in mind, they very likely have day jobs, too -- then something is wrong with your model.
That's not to say that the pirates are right, but the moment you stop thinking of them as competitors and start thinking of them as thieving bastards, you lose.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
NO file sharing is thievery. At the worst it is copyright infringement, but it is NOT theft.
That's great if you have DSL. Or is the name misleading?
"If you think the law is wrong, change the law."
Laws in modern society aren't "changed", they are bought ie. bribed. Do you have the money to buy a change? Especially against telecom monopolies.
I thought so.
why can I not pay extra for the right not to be throttled? These throttlers are shortchanging their investors AND their customers. Shouldn't some sort of fiduciary responsibility class action lawsuits be occuring at least?
What you have described as the current situation is pretty much the definition of Fascism. (If you don't believe me, look it up.)
I do not think it has gotten quite that bad... but I do agree that the situation is in need of a great deal of improvement.
I ended up here because I was searching for a reason why my Comcast internet was so slow recently. I did all the things I am supposed to do, like make sure my software is updated and turned on and off everything, but I was still having problems.
Problems such as going to the iTunes store to buy two one hour episodes of Torchwood and instead of them downloading in the normal 15 minutes, it took FOUR HOURS. I used to enjoy watching some anime on YouTube in the evening and I can't even download a 9 minute file to watch. It simply won't load. I get a couple of minutes of it stuttering off and on.
This is like paying $50 a month for dial up. Alas.
My post was sarcasm, I just forgot to point that out..
How I maintain my performance:
Get a linux box to use as a firewall.
put in rules to control your _outgoing_ packet rate so that you don't drop the all-important TCP ACK packets as they leave your premises...
In particular throttle your outgoing bitrate to be about 98% of your advertised ustream bandwidth. That is, if you have 768kbits advertised, set the throttle to about 760kbits. Then if you know how you want to make sure that "short" TCP packets (less than about 70 bytes) have the highest priority.
This will reduce your network bandwidth _waste_ by up to two orders of magnitude (on a really crappy link, less if your link is okay, your mileage may vary).
By doing this you are helping _both_ yourself and your provider.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press