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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.
Le monopole
Call to disconnect does not seem to work.
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?"
It is 2014 and anonymity is a crime, what country are we thinking of ?
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
It's called jawboning. They assert a position that is legally unproven and adopt an aggressive stance. This is tailor-made for the EFF.
This is why we need written rules for an open internet.
Comcast is a private sector business. Just as a subscriber can choose to stop subscribing to Comcast service, Comcast can make a business decision to stop doing business with any subscriber unless it is bound by a specific provision in its franchise contract with the city.
People with doors that can be locked are often engaged in activities that are not, so-to-speak "legal". As a result we will no longer mortgage houses that have locks.
Incognito mode is just browsing in a temporary profile without persistent cookies. It isn't an onion routed proxy network like For.
TOR and Incognito aren't even in the same ballpark...Incognito is only for basic local machine level anonymity, its even in the new page message: "Going incognito doesn't hide your browsing from your employer, your internet service provider, or the websites you visit."
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.
Aren't Oligarchy and Collectivism sort of mutually exclusive?
God I miss the Internet I knew in the 1990s, when you could reasonably expect that the average IQ of netizens was on average around 110.
I highly doubt they give a damn what you're doing, they're just upset that they can no longer sell the knowledge of what you're doing for auxiliary profit.
To whomever is getting calls like these, take the chance to install a call recorder. Ask for the operator name, and for a reference that proves the operator is really a Comcast representative such as "can you tell me my current service/plan?".
After all this, let them know you will continue using TOR, and sue them for breach of contract and intimidation if they go forth with their mischievous threats. You are allowed to use your internet connection according to their TOS, which does not bar TOR unless the FCC really let that slide. If Comcast themselves are trying to enforce the law-enforcement right to spy on you as approved by congress, they are infringing the law by abusing a right not theirs. Comcast can't also add policies ad-hoc unilaterally. Tell them you will not stop using the service, and that their communication to you is proof that you are most likely going to be targeted by law-enforcement agencies due to Comcast snooping and discriminating your internet usage.
You can sue them for discrimination out of the blue, just from that call, as they are probing your ability to be blacklisted.
You can sue them for breach of contract if they cut your line and/or suspend your contract like they said they would.
... it's "he said, she said."
Let's post it again when we have obtained the consumer's recording of the phone calls.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Neither of the links seem to say anything about whether or not the user was using Tor for browsing or operating an exit node. If they're running an exit node then sure, Comcast has every right to terminate the user, otherwise it's not especially clear if they're violating the acceptable use policy.
Comcast is exclusively run by assholes, but I'm not seeing any proof of this statement. People shouldn't get all up in arms about this claim until there's some evidence. I'm sure as hell not going to take some random asshole's word on it - I wouldn't even trust him to tell me if it's raining outside or not.
It isn't an onion routed proxy network like For.
Fhe Onion Roufer?
Turn in your equipment and cancel in person. Comcast has figured out if your willing to sit in their DMV like customer service center for 30-45 minutes they aint gonna keep you. Id rather sit quietly at a customer service center than try to argue with the phone guys who get paid to keep you.
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.
which about sums it up.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Hey, Comcast, continuing to charge me for a modem lease fee when I'm not leasing your piece of crap modem is not so-to-speak "legal". So why after dealing with your customer disservice personnel twice are you continuing to charge me an $8 a month fee for something you can't so-to-speak "legally" charge me?
This company needs to wither and die. The problem is the only other realistic choice where I live is AT&T. If I move across town I can get Time Warner who is almost as bad and about to be just as bad with the merger.
The public service commissions and the municipalities that grant them buildout rights are the only way to deal with this crap, as the FCC has proven useless.
If you're doing nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide.
-- some glib goddamned fascist, probably Benjamin Franklin
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
There's a difference between using the TOR browser and running a relay.
Aside from that Comcast is the enemy, look at who owns it.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Stop me from using TOR and I stop you from being my ISP.
Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
They would first need to prove illegal activity is happening, and that would be difficult, but then there are known exploits for some Tor applications that can be used to leak data which can give away this kind of evedence of your activity. The question is, would they go through the trouble to inject these exploits into your system so that they can find out what you are doing? Like unsecured DNS, or injections of web bugs into your open http traffic. That sounds illegal to me, and a clear invasion of privacy. Privacy is exasctly the reason for using Tor in the first place, so don't expect those kinds of users to sit back and say nothing when terminated.
Users who try to use anonymity, or cover themselves up on the internet, are usually doing things that aren’t so-to-speak legal.
Dear Comcast,
I notice that your customer list, vendor list, inter-company agreements, and engineering drawings are concealed. Why are you committing illegal acts?
~Loyal
I aim to misbehave.
The solution is not to cancel your Comcast service (assuming you live in the United States in many of the places with no legitimate competition).
The solution is to record your phone calls (when legal). For Android, my dad uses https://play.google.com/store/...
Then post your calls online (instead of transcripts).
Lastly, and this is the important part: call your local utility regulation board.
Don't forget: you are not the customer, the utility regulation board is the customer, you are just the one paying.
-- I was raised on the command line, bitch
This situation is what belch and fart smartphone apps are for.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
The TOR protocol was developed by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory to protect secure government online communications. So when a Comcast rep contacts you, ask him what business they have intercepting secure communications channels. And then ask him for his name and current location and request that he remain there until FBI agents can respons to his location. Then hang up.
Have gnu, will travel.
Isn't this exactly what guilty until proven innocent is?
Will spew whatever they think their bosses want them to spew to get that phone call under 30 seconds. Few people if any actually have any real understanding of these issues.
Unfortunately.
I recently moved and had CC for the previous year I was in my last place. I used a vpn almost all the time and my line stayed up pretty much 100%.
this year when I moved, I transferred CC to my new place and I continue to run a vpn. I now notice, for some reason, that after a few hours, I get a loss of ping to anything. if I stop my vpn, the default router is still unpingable. what 'fixes' it is to reboot the cable modem (and my access pfsense router, which then gets a new dhcp primary addr) and then things are good again for a few hours.
not sure if this is related, but if I don't use a vpn, the line stays up for days and weeks at a time. when I use a vpn, I get a few hours at a time.
might not mean a thing, but then again, it might. I can't quite tell yet. what I am planning on doing is designing/building a reboot/test loop so that my line will stay up even if I'm not home to notice that it went down.
I had to do that kind of thing with pacbell dsl about 10+ yrs ago (their alcatel, aka crash-catel modem was at fault back then; but same thing happened - I'd lose connectivity and only a reboot of the modem would bring it back again).
its not convenient but if this keeps my line alive, sigh, well, this is what I will have to do.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
can any of your smart people opine on the feasibility to mask the fact that one is even *using* TOR from their ISPs?
Clearly it was someone from the NSA ;) just trying to help :) --- If you believe comcast..
"Comcast refuted the claims made in Deepdotweb, stating that they had launched an internal review into the discussions reported above:
Customers are free to use their Xfinity Internet service to visit any website or use it however they wish otherwise. Like virtually all ISPs, Comcast has an acceptable use policy or AUP that outlines appropriate and inappropriate uses of the service. Comcast doesn’t monitor users’ browser software or web surfing and has no program addressing the Tor browser. he anecdotal chat room evidence provided is not consistent with our agents’ messages and is not accurate. Per our own internal review, we have found no evidence that these conversations took place, nor do we employ a Security Assurance team member named Kelly. Tor’s own FAQs clearly state: 'File sharing (peer-to-peer/P2P) is widely unwanted on Tor' and 'BitTorrent is NOT anonymous' on Tor.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com..."
http://www.hawknest.com/
Maybe the second "average" was "over time".
(I know. I'm a naive optimist.)
Naturally a disrespected & dis-satisfied COMCAST customer can simply take their money elsewhere. take away their profits ... they change or die. It's also accurate to observe among predators that if members of a pack suffer **accidents** assaulting some prey they then choose different prey. A broken limb here ... a bloodied snout there ... slashed eyeball someplace else; details don't matter. Negative re-enforcement adds up for any pack, jackles or biz-nazis. Any observant person can see this outcome; 'it's natures way of telling you somethings wrong.' And mother nature does such a fine job of teaching.
Comcast might be the only high speed internet available in many locations.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
I recently got a "bot" alert from Comcast saying one of my machines was infected:
Constant Guard(TM) Alert
Dear XFINITY Customer,
XFINITY identified one or more of your computers may be infected with a bot. You might have already seen an Alert from XFINITY informing you about bot activity.
We strongly recommend you take action to remove malicious software from your computers.
We appreciate your prompt attention to this important security notice.
Sincerely,
Constant Guard from XFINITY
What is Constant Guard from Xfinity?
Constant Guard is a comprehensive online security protection service provided by XFINITY Internet.
We help ensure your online safety with products and services to protect you, your computer and your family.
Constant Guard identifies infected computers by:
Getting data from reputable Internet research groups that specialize in bot identification.
Looking for malicious behavior exhibited by bots (such as spam, distributed denial of service attacks, and repeated connection requests to known 'command and control' channels).
Collecting this data to confirm whether one or more of your computers has been infected.
This is a service related email. Comcast will occasionally send you service-related emails to inform you of service upgrades or new benefits to you Comcast High-Speed Internet service.
Copyright 2014. Comcast. All other trademarks are properties of their respective owners.
Comcast respects your privacy. For a complete description of our privacy policy, click here.
Comcast
One Comcast Center, 10th Floor
1701 JFK Boulevard
Philadelphia, PA 19103-2838
I checked all my machines (haven't booted to windows in months, run linux on all other machines) I couldn't find anything, though I acknowledge the possibility of a linux bot somewhere. I also have Tor on one machine for private browsing, and recalled a news story about malware using a tor hidden service for command and control. My guess was that they identified a few Tor entry nodes as "bot c&c" servers, and started sending out alerts to anyone who connects to one.
In the mean time, I've also noticed much slower downloads than usual ( 500kB/s), usually when downloading updates to the various linux boxes. It wasn't until I saw this story that I connected the two though. In my wholly unscientific research by running speedtest applets, it seems I'm getting around 6Mbps to a server comcast runs, but 4 or less elsewhere, even in the same city.
As final anecdote, I tried to make this post over Tor, just to see if it stil worked - it seemed to be blocked at first (connections timed out), but resumed after restarting the Tor service. Results Inconclusive.
Is it just me, or does anyone else with Comcast now have the strong desire to start using Tor?
The greatest flaw is that the person at the call center would understand what Tor is.
I read somewhere that not only was Comcast doing their hotspot crap, but that they will also be doing javascript injection to insert ads on anyone browsing the web through it.
Obviously Comcast is sifting whatever data goes to/from their customers, not just for 'bots' but also for commercial and data broker value. Even this relatively passive activity is intolerable to me.
Does anyone even trust their DNS?
Frankly, these reported 'Tor' issues are just the tip of the iceberg, and not even all that interesting in terms of what customers should be up in arms about. It is far more likely to be related to abusing bandwidth (a legitimate concern for Comcast) than to actually running Tor.
People should be screaming about the level of monitoring that is clearly happening. But I guess consumers are mostly too stupid to understand just how badly their privacy is being trampled.
There is a solution. Run a VPN. If Comcast complains, cut the T.V. service and change to the business internet service (which actually costs less).
-Matt
I'm fairly certain you have to establish you know about the crime, or that you're providing a service that could only possibly be used for crime. By definition Tor defies either of those.
Neither am I willing to take the word of some random dude on the Internet. Barring any more proof, I don't think we should be putting any stock in this.
They used BIG Government for the subsidies and pay-outs. Then used little Government to lock out the competition. Just like Verizon has claimed to be a telecom when it suits their needs, and then claims "internet" isn't telecom when that suits their needs.
Who cares? The fact that Tor is detectable makes it useless. It doesn't blend. It stands out like a Al Sharpton at a Klan meeting.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
If you have access to VPN, enable it and route your traffic over it. Without the ability to view the encrypted traffic, they are at a loss to determine what traffic is being routed within the tunnel. That's what I might consider, anyway.
Finally, an easy way to cancel a comcast subscription!
http://boingboing.net/2014/07/...
Nice story, though inaccurate... http://arstechnica.com/busines...
Huh? It is a violation to RUN a proxy. Not USE a proxy.
Here is the text of what's forbidden, from TFA. Note the bold face on the word use (bold is from the original):
Agreed, the interpretation of this text could be ambiguous. The straightforward reading, however, is that it is forbidden to use proxy services. You're also not allowed to run them, but that's specified separately.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
"Do you have any other questions? Thank you for contacting Comcast, have a great day." This sounded like a dialog from a dystopian movie.
I know it will make me lose my conspiracy license, and please don't take this as any kind of positive endorsement of Comcast... but fact checking a bit, the "Comcast won't let me use Tor" lobby seems to be based on a blog post based on some reddit post that they read (though not linking the source, if you can call a reddit commenter a source) -- The other article is from BuisnessWeek, and quotes Comcast Blog Post themselves:
"We have no policy against Tor, or any other browser or software. Customers are free to use their Xfinity Internet service to visit any website, use any app, and so forth."
So... until Comcast gives me a call and says I have to stop, or until they change their public statement (which I would use to defend my position should I receive such a call)... Sounds dubious?
- Holy crap, I've got MOD points! Who thought that was a good idea.
It seems you're not familiar with how the internet works beyond your own modem.
Back when you had a dialup modem and you spent an hour a day online, your ISP had run a T1 line from thw nearest largw city to Yourtown, which supported 300 customers, each online an hour a day.
Next, your ISP spent $XX million deploying high speed lines and each customer used ten times as much bandwidth. That meant the ISP had to replace that T1 with a T3, which they were able to share with the local school system. Then customers started watching video , and therefore using more bandwidth. To provide the additional bandwidth, the ISP had to put in a T3 of their own, which again cost millions. Then Youtube showed up, customers used more bandwidth, and two more T3s were required for Yourtown. The ISP paid a ton of money for those two new T3 lines. Then Netflix, and the new OC-192 line for Yourtown.
The ISP's cost function is much like your own- if your housemates use more bandwidth, you'll need to upgrade from 10Mbps to 25Mbps. If their customers use more bandwidth, the ISP will need to upgrade from 1,000Mbps to 10,000Mbps. Along with the lines, they'll need to upgrade all their equipment from gigabit to 10 gigabit.
TROLL.
I do not think it means what you think it means.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
The straightforward reading, however, is that it is forbidden to use proxy services. You're also not allowed to run them, but that's specified separately.
No that's not a straightforward reading at all.
Lets drop the 'or run' to simplify it slightly and read that:
use dedicated, stand-alone equipment or servers from the Premises that provide network content or any other services to anyone outside of your Premises local area network.
now lets apply some plain structure:
use [ [dedicated, stand-alone equipment or servers] from [the premises]] that[ [provide network content or any other services] to [anyone outside of your premises local area network]]
now lets simplify a bit more:
use [ [servers] from [the premises]] that[[provide services] to [anyone outside of your premises]]
Clearly that reads one of two ways, either you are prohibited from providing services to others from your premises, or you are prohibited from using services from your premises that are reachable from outside your premise.
The first reading makes perfect sense.
The 2nd reading prevents you from accessing anything on the internet, unless it only reachable by you, which is ridiculous.
Clearly the straightforward reading is that the prohibition is on 'using' or 'provisioning' something on-premises that provides services to others.
Using a proxy service hosted off premises is not covered by that at all.
Further, any interpretation which does read as prohibiting the use of external proxy services would also prohibit the 'use' of external email servers, and web hosts, which is plainly ridiculous.
indeed it is http://ktetch.co.uk/2014/09/co... . I wrote that by approaching the matter the same way I did the claim of Comcast screwing with Bittorrent in 07. I found they were doing it in 07 (which led to TorrentFreak, who I work for, publishing about it, then the AP and EFF checking my results, and then the FCC starting the whole Net Neutrality thing). Not the case here, and there's no substantiation, and a lot of internal contradiction in the telling, as well as spouting absolute crap (the 6-strikes thing)
The straightforward reading, however, is that it is forbidden to use proxy services. You're also not allowed to run them, but that's specified separately.
No that's not a straightforward reading at all.
Lets drop the 'or run' to simplify it slightly and read that:
You're right: if you change what it says by deleting some of the words, then it says something different.
In the next sentence, it says in particular what you're not allowed to use or run, including proxy services.
Use or run: It's not merely that you're not allowed to run proxy services: you're not allowed to use them, either.
If that's stupid-- well, how about that.
As I said: the interpretation of this text could be ambiguous. You could do the lawyer thing and claim to interpret it the way you say. But the clear straightforward text is: proxies are listed on the list of things you are specifically not allowed to use or run.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
But the clear straightforward text is: proxies are listed on the list of things you are specifically not allowed to use or run
No.
The clear straightforward text is: proxies are listed on the list of things you are specifically not allowed to use or run on your premises for the use of people off your premises
You could do the lawyer thing and claim to interpret it the way you say.
That's not a lawyer thing, that's a basic reading comprehension thing.
I parsed the sentence and I showed you how I parsed it, so that if you disagreed with me you could point to the exact point you disagree with. If you feel there was an error in the parse, point at it.
Comcast blocks standard ports they don't want customers using. Granted, that's usually easy to get around, but if they're not blocking the standard port, I don't believe they're telling anyone to stop using it, unless it's someone contacting customers on their own at a local office.
Try to set up a simple email server; they're blocking that port.
Ops, I shuld have usd the prevuwe but in.
Slashdot, the Buzzfeed for misanthropic nerds!!!
You can interpret it that way. That's not the only way to interpret it.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
You can interpret it that way. That's not the only way to interpret it.
You took a structure like:
"You aren't allowed to prepare, eat, or serve sticky or messy foods while sitting in the car. Some examples of prohibited foods include donuts, chocolate fondue, ."
And then claimed that it said you aren't allowed to ever eat donuts.
Its plainly wrong.
official response: http://corporate.comcast.com/c... author even mentions that they use it themselves!
Does that mean we've finally found easier way to end a Comcast contract?
Tor is an Application.
Comcast is an ISP.
How can an ISP restrict an Application?
Casteism