If I'm correct to say that Bell is not touching the DSL connection, why did you say this in the grandparent comment? > 3) Bell is throttling P2P on Teksavvy's last-mile, even though it has little impact on their ability to provide service to it's own customers. Isn't DSL the last-mile?
I recognise the address 151 Front Street as that of the Toronto Internet Exchange, and, indeed, http://www.torix.net/ lists Teksavvy as a peer.
But what do you mean by TSI's own transit providers? What are these transit providers owned by Teksavvy? And why would Teksavvy bother with transit providers if they're already set up in the Toronto Internet Exchange exchange?
> No actually it has everything to do with encryption. > The way bell throttles is to intercept your packet on the way to its destination. > They then open the packet and look at its contents (yes this bothers me). > In a packet caring compressed data, there will still be an uncompressed header that will identify the protocol of the packet. > In an encrypted packet everything including the header is encrypted and garbled.
It's impossible to encrypt a packet header and still have the packet work. How could the packet be routed if its header was scrambled? It can't.
I'm telling you, that for most IP packets containing either compressed or encrypted data, they look exactly the same. Binary data with a very high entropy rate. Go ahead and examine it with tcpdump and wireshark, if you happen to have a Unix machine at home.
I have my doubts that Bell is actually doing any throttling at all, so I'm looking for more information on how it might be done. So far as I can tell they just learned about some protocols and throttled some of them.
You *still* didn't answer my question. I *know* that encrypted packets contain garbled data. So do all packets containing compressed data. My question was, how does Bell tell the difference? Fortunately, another user responded reasonably. Turned out it has nothing to do with encryption, like I suspected. In other words, using encryption doesn't help prevent throttling by your ISP.
> Your argument makes sense for some ISPs, but not for this specific situation: > 1) Teksavvy supplies it's own bandwidth, and only leases the 'last-mile' connection from Bell Canada. > 2) Teksavvy does oversell, but currently keeps up with it's traffic even at peak times. > 3) Bell is throttling P2P on Teksavvy's last-mile, even though it has little impact on their ability to provide service to it's own customers.
No they aren't. You can't throttle a single two-way DSL connection. Not only does it not make any sense to do so, it's impossible to interrupt a single electronic circuit to filter it, and if you did, it wouldn't be DSL anymore. Do you know what I'm talking about? If Teksavvy truly is using only the "last mile" then there's only one circuit involved, and you can't open it, filter it, and then close it. It can't be done. Either Teksavvy is using Bell Canada for IP connectivity, or Bell Canada is not filtering IP.
Somebody's lying here, and I'm very disappointed with Slashdot for not thinking of the above. You people suck.
> You saw what happened when NIN tried to host their own free downloads, most people had a hell of a time getting them.
Actually I didn't pay attention to that incident, and I have no idea what went wrong to cause what you describe.
My point is that the CBC should be able to host their own free downloads, without people having a hard time getting them. It's their job. They're the Canadian *Broadcasting* Corporation.
How on earth can you tell if a packet is encrypted? Encrypted data, without metainformation, looks almost exactly like compressed data, which includes all zip, gzip, jpeg, png, mpeg, wmv, and avi files on the Internet.
| I don't think it makes sense to advocate the wholesale destruction of 'Intellectual property' as a concept.
I am. The term intellectual property implies that there's a complete set of laws protecting intangible things like ideas or software. There aren't. There are only a few different laws sometimes protecting legal monopolies over some things, some of the time. It's nothing approaching normal property rights, which is good, because it shouldn't.
| If you cover up the lens, the cable box goes "Your papers, please." Then you'll have to type your SSN or passport number in with the remote before you can watch TV.
What's wrong with that? Then you'd go outside. And not trust your cable company. Both good things!
| I vaguely remember a story that a Roman ship was lost and some Roman remains found on a pacific island somewhere. | Mind you, it could have been a movie I saw once.
_Joe Versus the Volcano_ had Romans and Britons and Hebrews getting lost in the pacific. But I seem to recall something more serious that you may also be recalling. Don't know what it was though.
Slashdot Mirror
Why on earth would Bell throttle the "last mile" when they could throttle on their backbone and save bandwidth? I think you're full of crap.
If I'm correct to say that Bell is not touching the DSL connection, why did you say this in the grandparent comment?
> 3) Bell is throttling P2P on Teksavvy's last-mile, even though it has little impact on their ability to provide service to it's own customers.
Isn't DSL the last-mile?
Excellent information, thank you!
I recognise the address 151 Front Street as that of the Toronto Internet Exchange, and, indeed, http://www.torix.net/ lists Teksavvy as a peer.
But what do you mean by TSI's own transit providers? What are these transit providers owned by Teksavvy? And why would Teksavvy bother with transit providers if they're already set up in the Toronto Internet Exchange exchange?
It took a while, but from the forums I found out that the Globe and Mail was going to have an
article on this subject, and here it is:
| http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080326.RINTERNET26/TPStory/?query=bell
It says that Bell is definitely throttling for third party ISPs, and that's good enough for me.
Thanks, da_guy2!
> No actually it has everything to do with encryption.
> The way bell throttles is to intercept your packet on the way to its destination.
> They then open the packet and look at its contents (yes this bothers me).
> In a packet caring compressed data, there will still be an uncompressed header that will identify the protocol of the packet.
> In an encrypted packet everything including the header is encrypted and garbled.
It's impossible to encrypt a packet header and still have the packet work. How could the packet be routed if its header was scrambled? It can't.
I'm telling you, that for most IP packets containing either compressed or encrypted data, they look exactly the same. Binary data with a very high entropy rate. Go ahead and examine it with tcpdump and wireshark, if you happen to have a Unix machine at home.
I have my doubts that Bell is actually doing any throttling at all, so I'm looking for more information on how it might be done. So far as I can tell they just learned about some protocols and throttled some of them.
Great! Now for my next question. How could Bell possibly be throttling your packets if Teksavvy is your ISP?
You *still* didn't answer my question. I *know* that encrypted packets contain garbled data. So do all packets containing compressed data. My question was, how does Bell tell the difference? Fortunately, another user responded reasonably. Turned out it has nothing to do with encryption, like I suspected. In other words, using encryption doesn't help prevent throttling by your ISP.
> Your argument makes sense for some ISPs, but not for this specific situation:
> 1) Teksavvy supplies it's own bandwidth, and only leases the 'last-mile' connection from Bell Canada.
> 2) Teksavvy does oversell, but currently keeps up with it's traffic even at peak times.
> 3) Bell is throttling P2P on Teksavvy's last-mile, even though it has little impact on their ability to provide service to it's own customers.
No they aren't. You can't throttle a single two-way DSL connection. Not only does it not make any sense to do so, it's impossible to interrupt a single electronic circuit to filter it, and if you did, it wouldn't be DSL anymore. Do you know what I'm talking about? If Teksavvy truly is using only the "last mile" then there's only one circuit involved, and you can't open it, filter it, and then close it. It can't be done. Either Teksavvy is using Bell Canada for IP connectivity, or Bell Canada is not filtering IP.
Somebody's lying here, and I'm very disappointed with Slashdot for not thinking of the above. You people suck.
> Why should they?
Because it's professional.
> You saw what happened when NIN tried to host their own free downloads, most people had a hell of a time getting them.
Actually I didn't pay attention to that incident, and I have no idea what went wrong to cause what you describe.
My point is that the CBC should be able to host their own free downloads, without people having a hard time getting them. It's their job. They're the Canadian *Broadcasting* Corporation.
You still didn't answer my question. If they throttle by protocol, what does encryption have to do with anything?
Why the heck couldn't they host the .torrent file on their Web site? They should run their own tracker too, instead of using thepiratebay.org :-P.
(Local indignation--I'm Canadian.)
How on earth can you tell if a packet is encrypted? Encrypted data, without metainformation, looks almost exactly like compressed data, which includes all zip, gzip, jpeg, png, mpeg, wmv, and avi files on the Internet.
| I don't think it makes sense to advocate the wholesale destruction of 'Intellectual property' as a concept.
I am. The term intellectual property implies that there's a complete set of laws protecting intangible things like ideas or software. There aren't. There are only a few different laws sometimes protecting legal monopolies over some things, some of the time. It's nothing approaching normal property rights, which is good, because it shouldn't.
| If you cover up the lens, the cable box goes "Your papers, please." Then you'll have to type your SSN or passport number in with the remote before you can watch TV.
What's wrong with that? Then you'd go outside. And not trust your cable company. Both good things!
| I vaguely remember a story that a Roman ship was lost and some Roman remains found on a pacific island somewhere.
| Mind you, it could have been a movie I saw once.
_Joe Versus the Volcano_ had Romans and Britons and Hebrews getting lost in the pacific. But I seem to recall something more serious that you may also be recalling. Don't know what it was though.