Ok, the truth from an @Home SW engineer
A small background on Cable modem technology, your cable modem is not a brain dead network bridge with a little compression thrown in like you typical Telco modem or DSL device. A cable modem works as a kind of mini router and as a router can be configured to filter out traffic that broadcasts across your network. Like the infamous Windows file and print sharing broadcasts...
Q: "Why do we do this" you ask?
A: Well think of it this way... you network you are connected to is a data steam, do you really want someone spewing dirt into your clean stream and Rivers... NO. Additionally unsuspecting users systems could be damaged by a uncreative wan bee hacker, remember not all or half our users are techno savvy folk.
This does not mean we are firewalling you in it means we are keeping data that was never meant to go out of the users home networks off your broadband connection. It is wasteful and drives up the cost of your connection
On the optional http proxy note... you may want to turn them on because
1. Our proxies do not log so unlike AOL and smaller ISP's we do not resell your sit hits
2. We mainly store graphical information files of large content on the proxies to save from you having to (again) waste your connection and @Homes backbone on repeating the same request another user just did. Again is saves bandwidth and is saves Us/You in the end with hopefully soon a reduction in cost.
Erik,
@Home
Slashdot Mirror
Sadly yes,
We at @Home are working on a better way to educate our user base but yes you can't save every one and still believe in personal freedom.
Erik
@Home
Ok, the truth from an @Home SW engineer A small background on Cable modem technology, your cable modem is not a brain dead network bridge with a little compression thrown in like you typical Telco modem or DSL device. A cable modem works as a kind of mini router and as a router can be configured to filter out traffic that broadcasts across your network. Like the infamous Windows file and print sharing broadcasts... Q: "Why do we do this" you ask? A: Well think of it this way... you network you are connected to is a data steam, do you really want someone spewing dirt into your clean stream and Rivers... NO. Additionally unsuspecting users systems could be damaged by a uncreative wan bee hacker, remember not all or half our users are techno savvy folk. This does not mean we are firewalling you in it means we are keeping data that was never meant to go out of the users home networks off your broadband connection. It is wasteful and drives up the cost of your connection On the optional http proxy note... you may want to turn them on because 1. Our proxies do not log so unlike AOL and smaller ISP's we do not resell your sit hits 2. We mainly store graphical information files of large content on the proxies to save from you having to (again) waste your connection and @Homes backbone on repeating the same request another user just did. Again is saves bandwidth and is saves Us/You in the end with hopefully soon a reduction in cost. Erik, @Home