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Comcast Allegedly Asking Customers to Stop Using Tor
An anonymous reader writes Comcast agents have reportedly contacted customers who use Tor and said their service can get terminated if they don't stop using Tor. According to Deep.Dot.Web, one of those calls included a Comcast customer service agent who allegedly called Tor an “illegal service.” The Comcast agent told the customer that such activity is against usage policies. The Comcast agent then allegedly told the customer: "Users who try to use anonymity, or cover themselves up on the internet, are usually doing things that aren’t so-to-speak legal. We have the right to terminate, fine, or suspend your account at anytime due to you violating the rules. Do you have any other questions? Thank you for contacting Comcast, have a great day."
Update: 09/15 18:38 GMT by S : Comcast has responded, saying they have no policy against Tor and don't care if people use it.
Users who try to use anonymity, or cover themselves up on the internet, are usually doing things that aren’t so-to-speak legal.
They have no evidence of you doing anything illegal, they cannot prove that everyone using Tor is a criminal, but even the hint of suspicion is apparently enough for them to cancel your subscription. I must ask, however, if such behaviour is "so-to-speak legal?"
This raises the question of why Comcast would care. For many years at least, the conventional wisdom among service providers and other carriers was that they'd prefer to NOT know what a customer uses the service for. If the ISP doesn't, and can't, know which sites customers are visiting, they can't be held responsible either legally or in regards to PR. I was shopping for a colo facility for the backup service I offer and the contract for one facility said "no porn". That was a definite deal-breaker for me - I most definitely do not want to look at what my customers are having backed up, and therefore become responsible for it. It would be a huge waste of my time to deal with any copyright violations, verify age reqirements, etc so the business is better off not know what the bits are. Just store the bits (or transfer them, in Comcast's case). That would save Comcast a bunch of money compared to monitoring and therefore needing to moderate the content.
Having worked for comcasts I can say, without doubt, your services can be suspended for less than this. If you try to use the internet while suspended you'll meet the walled garden. You won't be able to free yourself until your services are restored or you use another modem provisioned by comcast with internet service.
Comcast garuntees service to the house. Not to your modem. They garuntee the modem will work, if it's rented from them, not that it will be able to surf the internet. Everything within the house is your responsibility; which is why, unless you have their tech service plan, you are charged anywhere from 20-30 dollars for a tech visit per issue. Don't believe me? Open your cable box, remove a component or two, close your cable box, call in for troubleshooting. When they eventually conclude it is their cable box they'll send a tech. When that tech arrives and sees that the signal to the cable box is fine, he'll swap your cable box. This is a clear case of "it's your problem comcast"...even though it was crafted by you. After he reports the work completed your automatically charged a service call fee. It'll be on your next bill.
In the end, you signed a contract and are legally bound to continue to pay for almost any type of service inturruption. Even if the tech from before fixes your service and then destroys your equipment on the way out you are still charged for service to the house. It is possible to get a refund for most of these occurences, especially the one just detailed. Take your month service charge for internet (say 50 bucks for ease) and divide it by the number of days in a month (we'll go with 30) and you'll get $1.60 for each day without service from ANY rep that answers the phone. I seriously doubt you'd get a refund for this though. Even when internet becomes an unrefuted utility you'll have a hard time selling your desire for a refund to the powers that be outside of Comcast if the reason you were disconnected was due to fraudulent activity. Come to think of it...it'd probably be pretty stupid to say anything to any governement official, in regards to this, if Comcast has not already done so.
So is this clear proof that Comcast is claiming it is not a common carrier?
A common carrier transports packets and does not care what is in the packets.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
This.
Comcast came out and fixed my neighbors internet ( which they managed to kill with a shovel ) by removing my very active connection from the pedestal and connecting my neighbor to it :|
When I called Comcast about it, they said it would take at least TWO WEEKS to have a tech on site to fix the problem and it would also incur a service charge for their trouble. Even though it was Comcast's fault the service went dead to begin with and I explained their tech was why it went down during the service call next door from earlier in the day.
( This axed my internet, alarm system and cable btw )
Long story short version, I went out and fixed the damn thing by isolating which homes were what at the pedestal, labeling them for the incompetent techs that Comcast hires, and attaching my neighbors to a connection point that was not in use.
They'll just send you to collections where you can pay $10/month for the next 5 years. I've found collections easier to work with and typically reduce the amount owed. I prefer to work with collections. I've dragged some collections for several thousand dollars out with $10/month for several years until they contacted me and said they'll remove 20% of the amount remaining if I pay at all once and that's after they already removed 10% when they're were trying to get me to pay more per month.
Don't think I was trying to skirt paying, I had other more pressing bills and a lot of health issues during that time of my life.