FCC Chief Says Comcast Violated Internet Rules

Several readers sent in word that the FCC chairman, Kevin Martin, is calling for sanctions and enforcement actions against Comcast for resetting BitTorrent traffic. "Mr. Martin will circulate an order recommending enforcement action against the company on Friday among his fellow commissioners, who will vote on the measure at an open meeting on Aug. 1... Martin, a Republican, will likely get support from the two Democrats on the commission, who are both proponents of the network neutrality concept. Those three votes would be enough for a majority on the five-member commission."

Comments

BT Encryption

[rukkyg]

Since so many people enabled BT encryption, this whole idea of theirs has really backfired. Now, even if they were to shape some traffic to try to keep BT traffic in the network, so many people will now keep this encryption on that it won't work as well as it would have if they would have, in the first place, worked with the technology instead of against.

Re:BT Encryption

[Craig Ringer]

Such technology works even with encrypted BitTorrent. It doesn't need to know what's *in* the data streams, only that a given IP endpoint is communicating in patterns that match BitTorrent traffic. If such traffic is detected, spoofed RST packets can be sent to cause the host to treat the connection as half-open and respond with its own RST,ACK to close it completely.

Perhaps the particular implementation ComCast uses is easily tricked by encrypted payloads. Don't worry - even if that's so, it won't last.

Now, IP-level security like IPSec would do the trick, because you could identify fake RST packets by their lack of, or invalid, signatures. There is, however, no standard way to negotiate IPSec with a remote peer, despite the best efforts of the FreeS/WAN project.

Thus, in a world where the routers along the way are fundamentally trusted to do their job and route packets, you're not going to have much luck protecting yourself against this sort of attack by your provider.

Re:BT Encryption

[MikeBabcock]

As someone who still runs opportunistic encryption, I wish it would have worked out. It would be nice to have secure P2P connections for all sorts of traffic, whether its E-mail, chat, video conference or file transfers.

Personally, I always thought an online registry system like dyndns would be an excellent way to distribute keys. Update your keying data to match your current IP address using a pre-negotiated certificate with a known entity or registrar. Its very similar to their registration of names to IP addresses.

It wouldn't exactly be military grade security, but it would be a lot better than what we have now.

Re:BT Encryption

[Anonymous Coward]

I favor network neutrality but consumer-level Internet access has no guarantees. Comcast has every right to manage their private network the way they see fit. We've all seen the examples of Compuserve, Prodigy, AOL, and the others who tried to operate a closed network. The free market will select against them, given the opportunity.

I agree they have every right to do as they will where they are not a government sponsored monopoly. I am not free to lay down lines, the city granted comcast right of way they did not give that to me. I can't start a competing ISP. They also used forced citizens to allow comcast to run lines accross private property, so comcast is using a public goods. Personally I think government should have NO RIGHT OF EMINENT DOMAIN. Private property should be abosolote. Comcast would thefore be required to negociate an agreement with every property owner up and down the street they wish to run lines under. Had they done this I would agree that they would have every right to operate their network however they wish. They did not do this though so their network is not theirs at all its the public's and the public has the right to insist the FCC looks out for their interests and lays down some rules.

Again I would rather the government not be a party at all. I would love to send Comcast a monthy invoice for rent on a 1/4 in X 400 feet lease on some land but since I don't get to do that I think I do get to insist the same government that foced me to allow them to use my property make them play by some rules which are favorable to me in exchange.

Is Martin acting within his bounds?

[BadAnalogyGuy]

With Net Neutrality being a hotly debated issue at the moment, it seems a bit forward of Martin to act on either side of the issue. Comcast has not violated the law, and while it might be against Martin's view of the FCC's "principles", it cannot be held liable for actions that are not illegal.

If he goes ahead with this action and Net Neutrality is struck down, Comcast would have a good lawsuit to bring against the FCC and Martin personally.

Re:Is Martin acting within his bounds?

[nenya]

Comcast hasn't violated any federal statute per se, but the FCC enforces its regulations--and its interpretation of those regulations--just as vigorously. Your point would be better directed at the fact that the FCC hasn't done a rulemaking on net neutrality.

This, however, doesn't mean the FCC can't do this. Federal agencies frequently make rules through enforcement actions like this. The SEC does it all the time, and the FCC certainly has the ability to do so. Telling federal agencies they can't do something is largely a loser in court.

This is especially true in this case, because judges are all cable customers, and cable customers almost all hate their providers. Not the best legal reasoning, but it's served the FCC very well for the past decade. Almost every time the cable industry challenges an FCC it actions, it loses.

Re:Is Martin acting within his bounds?

[jeiler]

This in and of itself could be a good foundational precedent towards net neutrality. Martin's recommendation is precedent--combine that with Comcast's statement that issues with P2P throttling have "been firmly placed within the jurisdiction of the Federal Communications Commission, an administrative agency whose authority to regulate Internet broadband access companies' services is well-established."

IANAL, but it looks like Comcast has hoisted itself on its own legal petard.

Re:wow, a sudden outbreak of commonsense?

[Gewalt]

Nothing. This is another example of the Bush administration supporting their loyal Ma Bells by acting in a hostile manner towards the telco's competitors, the cable companies. This is not sudden, and it is definitely not driven by common sense.

The problem is not addressed

[MikeRT]

Increasingly, ISPs are getting weasely with their terms of service. "Unlimited access" that's not unlimited, shafting entire protocols, etc. How about changing fair advertising laws and such to make it so that you cannot hide behind the fine print, but that you must give your customer either a print out or a web page the describes, bluntly, in itemized terms, what all of that legal gobbledeegook really means?

Of course, if you had to publish a list that most high school graduates could grok in 10 minutes or less of reading, you'd undermine the position of the lawyer-as-secular-priest, and that's just unacceptable.

You want proof that societies don't evolve? Just look at the fact that the role priests used to play has been taken over by lawyers. Where people used to take every question to the priest for divination, now it's taken to lawyers.

Monopaliztion At It's Best

[HEdwards2007]

This is just another case of the major companies trying to monopolize on the average American. They are simply using the BitTorrent limits as an excuse to be able to regulate all network traffic that goes through their servers. They remind me too much of the Geek Squad. All up in you business and no need to be there :)

Re:Interesting...

[Yungoe]

Hell if customers should be informed and able to make competent purchasing decisions... informed and self-interested customers would utterly destroy Comcast's entire business model.

One of the traditional problems that has stopped self-interested customers from destroying Comcast's Business model has been the fact that they are the only high-speed service available. That is changing. The moment that Verizon offered Fios to my house, we switched. So far, I have yet to hear anyone say, "We are staying with Comcast." Further, I think that the blocking issue we are discussing here is only a symptom of the broader problem, that being deplorable customer service.

Customers need not be up to speed on this particular issue. All they have to do is call the customer service department.

Re:Interesting...

[yuna49]

Numerous states have attempted to block access, by law, to what they deem to be illegal content.

Are you talking about American states? Can you point me to a story that describes this practice? In general state governments have no jurisdiction over telecommunications traffic that crosses state lines; then it falls into the FCC's jurisdiction.

A state could pass a law that prohibits you from having child pornography on your computer, but I don't think it could pass a law prohibiting that traffic from entering the state.

I'm not saying you're wrong; I'd just like to see some examples.

Re:Interesting...

[penguin_dance]

Yes, I think the real *crime* here is that Comcast is charging customers the same, but is not treating them the same.

Which leads to the next question: Is there a class action suit pending? Because this reminds me of the NetFlix lawsuit. It was found that Netflix (which charged a flat monthly rate for movie rentals) was purposely slowing the deliver of movies to customers who had a fast turnaround. Chavez, who filed the lawsuit claimed you really couldn't rent unlimited movies as NetFlix advertisment claims and that they purposely throttled customers back to 12 movies a month so light users got preference. NetFlix's TOS even stated this, but they lost the lawsuit anyway and the Chavez who filed got $2,000, his lawyers got $2.5 million. Customers got a 1 month free upgrade. (woo hoo)

Re:Interesting...

[CauseWithoutARebel]

A state could pass a law that prohibits you from having child pornography on your computer, but I don't think it could pass a law prohibiting that traffic from entering the state.

Pennsylvania is the most recent state I recall hearing about, but I know there have been others as well. So far, the attempts to initiate these blocks have been shut down in court battles, but if one should eventually stick, it could present some interesting challenges.

As a hypothetical, the mere existence of 4chan is not illegal, nor is it inherently illegal to access it, but it has been blocked before by ISPs - notably in Europe, but it's a potential here as well - on the grounds that the content on 4chan is not acceptable to the communities those ISPs serve.

A community or state may pass a law to block 4chan, deeming it inappropriate by the standards of the community, and this FCC ruling may wind up in contention with that blocking as the ISPs would need to notify their customers and ensure that complying with the community law wouldn't clash with the FCC's regulatory ruling.

I can see the ruling going different ways. Existing demands to block content have already been ruled on, and the ruling has been that ISPs cannot be held responsible for not delivering illicit content into a community when a member of that community is actively requesting it, but legislators are a tricky bunch and continue to try and press laws that circumvent the court's findings. This FCC ruling would seem to throw yet another wrench in the gears.