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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.
'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
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.
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.
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.
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.
The sad part (or is it the elegant part?) is the troll is so completely transparent, and yet so many bite on it without thinking about whether or not it could be a troll.
It somehow manages to push so many buttons that people who should know better reply to it before engaging their brains.
Now that I think about it, your post may also be a troll, and maybe it's so elegant that I've failed to recognize it as such prior to replying to it. Perhaps now I'm feeding a troll that was itself replying to a previous troll. Whoa. I think I need to go lay down, my mind has just been totally blown.
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.
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.
better title: `cox blocks around the clocks`
"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
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?
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
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.
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
Actually it's information superhighway robbery.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
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.
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!
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.
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!
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
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?!
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!
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.
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