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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.
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
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.
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.
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.
This depends entirely on what they mean by "using TOR." Their AUP definitely prohibits you from running a server or providing internet services to anyone, so running a TOR node is very definitely against their AUP. You are not allowed to use their network for unlawful purposes or "which a reasonable person could deem to be unlawful." If a reasonable person thinks that TOR is used to obscure criminal behavior, then Comcast is free to terminate service. It's not necessary that you actually do anything unlawful, or that you ever be convicted of a crime - Comcast gets to determine whether your activities can be deemed unlawful.
I prefer to think this flap revolves around internal miscommunication. Someone pointed out that running a TOR node violates AUP; someone else heard that using TOR is a violation; the lowly tech is forced to come up with a reason that even connecting to TOR would be verboten. The notion that anyone with policy authority would really decide that all TOR traffic is illegal content is just hard to accept. Which, of course, makes it excellent clickbait.
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.
The greatest flaw is that the person at the call center would understand what Tor is.
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.
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