I'm kind of in the same boat as you. I run the free one on a Windows VM because I feel like I need something (It's Windows after all!) but I rely more on common sense and my perimiter security in the long run.
But, that said, I, as you, recommend it to people and occassionly support it (upgrades, etc.) for friends/family.
I did however hear such good things about it from everyone that when the management here wanted something a little beefier then desktop only AV we bought the server version for a Citrix server, the email version for Exchange and a network server edition that rolls out installs and updates to workstations. I have to say it's better then any pure commercial version that I've ever used. It's light but feature rich enough to make the job easier...
As far as I'm concerned once Peter Norton stopped being involved any product with the name "Norton" in it is bound to be crap... A shame really.
Furthermore, doesn't Free AVG only update once a week as well?
No, it defaults to daily but as with any good AV product (to your point) it is configurable by the user.
IMHO it therefore wins in the default department and doesn't differ in the configurable part.
As for shutting off if it's not updated, I don't know of any AV product that does that. As far as I'm concerned users already ignore the "urgent" messages from Windows XP and their AV, so shutting off the AV would most likely either go unnoticed or be ignored. At least with an outdated version your protected from some things, not saying that's enough, just better then nothing to clueless people that don't keep an eye on it...
Not to mention he was citing his credentials as a reason for his edits to be taken more seriously. It's not that he's just some guy editing a page and inflating his own importance at the same time by talking sh1t about his background; he's asking people to give his edits more credence based on his "background".
Actually I do think its a huge pain in the ass to click on it for almost every stupid thing. And don't tell me I can change permissions or I'm doing it wrong. It's not me I'm worried about; it's all my friends and family who fail to understand that there are alternatives to scrapping there two year old computer to get a new OS.
As for entering a password vs. clicking a button - sudo on Mac OS and Ubuntu Linux (and probably any other sane configuration of sudo out there) ask for the password and then cache it for while so you can perform a series of admin tasks. That is intelligent. Or I can use sudo to get a root shell or on some configurations su to root for what I need. I don't need to turn anything off temporarily (and potentially forget about it later), just one of a few ways to do something and I have root privileges for the time it takes me to get my root jobs done.
I, as you, hope that applications catch up to the new model but I can't believe that they will, not easily anyway. It's been the same since MS introduced security into the OS and I believe it will continue to be the same. There methods for dealing with privilege separation are just too flakey and have evolved too weirdly for anyone to take seriously. They've bred a culture of mediocrity. Just as MS does, app vendors don't spend the effort on security and design, they concentrate on "features" and "look-and-feel" changes because that's how they get the boxes to move off the shelves of Wal-Mart, Best Buy, etc.
Anyway, no one I support has Vista yet, but as soon as one does I am going to start counting a) how many ask me how to turn off UAC and b) how long it takes them to ask.
then the Novell-MS deal FUD would vanish and Novell would regain much of it's previous respect.
As much as it pains me to say it, I don't think it's about respect from the community any more with Novell. Sure they have some employees who seem to have drank enough of the kool aid to actually buy into their interoperability arguments but IMHO the people responsible for the deal at the top are looking to cash in on the short term, not further build the community.
I would love to see them take the position you describe and they will regain my respect if they do; but I'm not going to hold my breath!
It would be at some level in linux's interest to have the distros look at some kind of mutual marketing strategy to help people sort out
First off, I agree with you 100% about Linux adoption being dependent on clear choices and direction for users that don't have the skills to decide for themselves.
That said, in whose best interest is it? As an example, I'm a Debian guy now, use it for almost everything. But if I decide I want to start a business tomorrow selling PC's with Linux the first thing I'm going to do is settle on two, maybe three configurations. I'll sell a light server (console tools only, light on resources, perfect for a firewall), a "GUI" server (Ubuntu, maybe Etch with all the GUI server tools I can find, perferabbly web based) and a Desktop (Ubunutu out of the box, would have to think about whether or not to install the codecs and binary drivers based on legal issues). Or something like this anyway, I'm not going to actually sell PCs and don't have business model ( as if you couldn't tell:-).
My point is that I don't think you'll ever get the "guru" community to give up making new distros and promoting them over each other. What we'll hopefully see is Vendors picking a few distros, or one, to work with and then offering various levels of software for a) different hardware configs (server vs. laptop) and different needs (media PC, desktop, server, etc). Using different distros can actually help this process as a lot of them are created already for specific purposes.
Even though MS sells all their choices and (somewhat IMHO) clearly labels them users are still confused by the choices. Heck even with XP I always have people asking "What's the difference between home or pro?, Tablet and media center?", etc. And sure, they could get the info themselves by looking it up, but I think users will always ask a friend or a guy in a best buy before they'll take the time to look it up themselves.
Bottom line is, no one "owns" all and everything "Linux" at the moment so it's in the best interest of those who want to sell it to trim the choices down for users.
My mother has been instructed on how to get updates and fixes. She even updates her virus software every day. And in 15 years of having a PC, she's never had a virus or spyware, or even seen a bsod (or know what that term means) so obviously she is doing something right.
Of course, what she also has besides her computer is a son who knows her limits who sat it up:-)
Then she is perfectly capable of using Synaptic. I love it when people come along and say "My old granny has to be able to do it." Like Granny is stupid or something and then go on to say "She can surf the internet, knows how to find all the cool setup.exe files she needs to load programs, set up her own printer, get pictures off her camera, keep anti spyware and anti virus up to date, write c compilers, balance the national debt, blah, blah, blah".
Anyone who can a) decide they need some software that didn't come with their PC, b) find and download said software in the form of a "setup.exe", c) remember where they put it when they downloaded it!:-), d) click it, read whatever installer messages appear, complete it and then run the program should have no problem whatsoever pulling up Synaptic, finding the software they need and hitting install.
It's always the same, people act like Windows is so easy the minute you get it. They forget that they've used it for years, got used to the dumb sh1t and quirks, it evolved (slowly, erratically) to become easier, there are a lot of people around to help, either intuitvley figure it out or they already know, etc...
Windows has a lot going for it that Linux doesn't because of it's market share but being "easier to use" is a side effect not technical superiority.
Linux loses for me since I do not want to spend the time to fiddle with it
Anyone who trots out this tired old line hasn't tried Linux in a while. Ubuntu, Mepis, Fedora, hell if your time is so valuable paying for Linspire is an option, all install just about everything you need out of the box to get work done.
Oh, playing games? Not on a Mac, at least not that many and my guess is that's not what you mean.
The only other thing I can think of that may take time to get setup on Linux but not on a Mac is audio/video. Not sure about what a Mac comes loaded with out of the box and what you have to download and install yourself but all of the distros I listed above have quick, painless ways to install codecs and players in minutes*.
So, um, yeah, Vista sure is pissin' off people and OEMs...
Why? I have the perfectly useful BSD operating system. I use Linux out of convenience, but switching to BSD will not be a hardship.
So you just joined in on the discussion today to bitch about your little pet peeve? Convenience is what most people want out of software, thus the wide adoption of DOS/Windows over the years. Convenience seems to be worth a lot to people.
The "monkeys" of which you speak are responsible for a lot of the convenience you enjoy. If you decide tomorrow that RMS is a dick and you refuse to use Linux anymore because the commonly distributed userland that comes with it is by those "monkeys" who keep clamoring about "freedom" (very inconvenient that freedom nonsense) and switch to BSD what are you going to do for userland tools? I'm not sure, I'm genuinely asking, what common set of tools do you generally get with a typical BSD flavor? Have they written their own compiler? Is Xorg or XFree86 BSD licensed? MIT you say? OK so, check, you get graphics...
Anyway I could go on, the fact is, most OSS or FOSS or however you want to label it these days is licensed GPL. Whether or not most of it ends up GPL3 remains to be seen.
At the end of the day it boils down to this for me; I don't like every little thing that RMS says. But that's OK, he wouldn't want me to anyway I imagine. But I am grateful for what RMS did. I hear people say that if Linus had known about BSD he never would have written Linux (I think Linus himself is quoted as saying that). And maybe this wildly famous kernel we have would have never existed, thus never being released as a GPL product. So we'd end up with a BSD base and some GPL tools. With all due respect to the BSD crowd if that had happened I don't think we'd be sitting here discussing OSS right now. The corporate IT world would have snagged up such a system, taken the best of it and left the BSD "source included" systems lying in a ditch to die. Linux, as a GPL product, had the necessary momentum to replace commercial *nix in the marketplace because it works so well but managed to survive because of that inconvenient freedom thing.
Linux surviving and then thriving in the marketplace isn't as much about it's technical superiority, we've seen over and over how that doesn't mean a win in the market[place, its success is largely due to the license.
I see that google caches of some of it are still available. I couldn't find anything at archive.org though on the WBM.
A quick glance at Groklaw shows more links to the Iowa site then copies of the docs. What a shame the public record gets so quickly covered up once the money starts changing hands.
I totally agree... It sucks to say to people - "I don't know why it does that, I don't know why it worked yesterday and not today. It's just like that. Maybe it was an update you installed?"
There is just no telling day to day what MS will do next, how they will totally change things on people for no apparently good reason, break behaviour that people depend on in the name of some new, already broken security model and just generally, and very arbitrarily, create new and interresting ways to generate hostility toward IT people.
I just got to the point where I say, "I don't know why it does that, mine doesn't do that..."
Too true. And while the recording industry is spending billions in R&D on making DRM that works but is easy for people there are people in the other camp making it easier for the hypothetical grandmother in the GP post to crack DRM. When does the arms race end?
Hey, thanks for taking the time to respond. What you say is all in line with what I beleived but it's nice to hear it from someone more in the know then I am...
(That said I won't treat it as sound legal advice! Not without paying you first anyway...:-)
Really? I get the impression they are more concerned with ensuring people connect to/through their routing and server products. If the client is free and every OS on the planet implements it then Cisco edge products continue to look attractive to companies and give them reasons to upgrade those old, dusty routers.
I wouldn't knock NAC just yet, it's rough still, but it has a lot of potential to help people that are not so talented at security keep themselves a bit safer on the 'net (which is good for everyone IMHO). And, as long as it *does* take off, open source clients practically guarantee server side improvements based on user and developer feedback.
Eh, so it's more OSS then FLOSS, I'll still reserve judgment for a later day...
Your example is a harsh reminder that ignorance is usually no defense for breaking the law. To take it a step further; if the person sending you the "mysterious link" was law enforcement would it then be some form of entrapment? Or if it was the RIAA? I mean what if it was something that claimed to be free, legal, too-good-to-be-true, but then it's not? It's just a sting setup to catch you downloading music or movies... Is your ignorance of your infringement still irrelevent?
Just curious, although I'm extremely concerned with where the laws are heading regarding so-called-IP, I keep myself clean by sticking to free content...
I don't know if I'm talking apples and oranges here but the impression I got from this is that just because you somehow facilitate infringment doesn't automatically imply guilt. Intent is required. But maybe I'm stretching what appies to facilitation to apply to actual infringment... As I said, IANAL either!
Since when is one required to put music purchased on iTMS on an iPod?
No one is *required*. But if one does...
I think the point the GP is making is where else can you put music bought from iTMS? And don't say you can play it on your PC or Mac if you run iTunes. That's not what we're talking about.
The point I keep seeing repeated over and over while also seeing it refuted with opposite-thinking replies is that if you buy music from iTMS you can't move it to another player, at least not without violating the DMCA. (at least I think this is the case, I stand open to correction!)
Yeah that's a good point, it's not easy to tell why it may be slow.
OTH though you begin to get a pretty good feel for what's going to work and what's not after you use it for a while. As an example, I've noticed a lot of BT aggregation sites are starting to show stats on seeders v. leachers, availability, avg. speed, etc. If things look good on "stats" but you're slow then you can infer a bit there. Granted this applies to those who know how to use BT (E.g. know when they're firewalled or not).
Another indicator comes from friends/families and other networks. If I go to my brother's house, show him how to get Grateful Dead shows from thetradersden after using it myself for a while now and it's slow I will suspect his ISP. Naturally I'd double check the FW, double check thetradersden stats for the torrent and try a few random torrents before I reached that conclusion...
I guess, knowing what I know about BT, I assume that a lot of people that need to worry about their ISP throttling them are savvy enough to test things and determine what may be casuing them problems.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm kind of in the same boat as you. I run the free one on a Windows VM because I feel like I need something (It's Windows after all!) but I rely more on common sense and my perimiter security in the long run.
But, that said, I, as you, recommend it to people and occassionly support it (upgrades, etc.) for friends/family.
I did however hear such good things about it from everyone that when the management here wanted something a little beefier then desktop only AV we bought the server version for a Citrix server, the email version for Exchange and a network server edition that rolls out installs and updates to workstations. I have to say it's better then any pure commercial version that I've ever used. It's light but feature rich enough to make the job easier...
As far as I'm concerned once Peter Norton stopped being involved any product with the name "Norton" in it is bound to be crap... A shame really.
Furthermore, doesn't Free AVG only update once a week as well?
No, it defaults to daily but as with any good AV product (to your point) it is configurable by the user.
IMHO it therefore wins in the default department and doesn't differ in the configurable part.
As for shutting off if it's not updated, I don't know of any AV product that does that. As far as I'm concerned users already ignore the "urgent" messages from Windows XP and their AV, so shutting off the AV would most likely either go unnoticed or be ignored. At least with an outdated version your protected from some things, not saying that's enough, just better then nothing to clueless people that don't keep an eye on it...
Not to mention he was citing his credentials as a reason for his edits to be taken more seriously. It's not that he's just some guy editing a page and inflating his own importance at the same time by talking sh1t about his background; he's asking people to give his edits more credence based on his "background".
Solution?
1) Ignore the laws. Release the software from an unfriendly neighbor country.
2) Lobby.
3) Lawyer up.
4) Start shooting lawmakers.
Ooh... A new
Actually I do think its a huge pain in the ass to click on it for almost every stupid thing. And don't tell me I can change permissions or I'm doing it wrong. It's not me I'm worried about; it's all my friends and family who fail to understand that there are alternatives to scrapping there two year old computer to get a new OS.
As for entering a password vs. clicking a button - sudo on Mac OS and Ubuntu Linux (and probably any other sane configuration of sudo out there) ask for the password and then cache it for while so you can perform a series of admin tasks. That is intelligent. Or I can use sudo to get a root shell or on some configurations su to root for what I need. I don't need to turn anything off temporarily (and potentially forget about it later), just one of a few ways to do something and I have root privileges for the time it takes me to get my root jobs done.
I, as you, hope that applications catch up to the new model but I can't believe that they will, not easily anyway. It's been the same since MS introduced security into the OS and I believe it will continue to be the same. There methods for dealing with privilege separation are just too flakey and have evolved too weirdly for anyone to take seriously. They've bred a culture of mediocrity. Just as MS does, app vendors don't spend the effort on security and design, they concentrate on "features" and "look-and-feel" changes because that's how they get the boxes to move off the shelves of Wal-Mart, Best Buy, etc.
Anyway, no one I support has Vista yet, but as soon as one does I am going to start counting a) how many ask me how to turn off UAC and b) how long it takes them to ask.
then the Novell-MS deal FUD would vanish and Novell would regain much of it's previous respect.
As much as it pains me to say it, I don't think it's about respect from the community any more with Novell. Sure they have some employees who seem to have drank enough of the kool aid to actually buy into their interoperability arguments but IMHO the people responsible for the deal at the top are looking to cash in on the short term, not further build the community.
I would love to see them take the position you describe and they will regain my respect if they do; but I'm not going to hold my breath!
It would be at some level in linux's interest to have the distros look at some kind of mutual marketing strategy to help people sort out
:-).
First off, I agree with you 100% about Linux adoption being dependent on clear choices and direction for users that don't have the skills to decide for themselves.
That said, in whose best interest is it? As an example, I'm a Debian guy now, use it for almost everything. But if I decide I want to start a business tomorrow selling PC's with Linux the first thing I'm going to do is settle on two, maybe three configurations. I'll sell a light server (console tools only, light on resources, perfect for a firewall), a "GUI" server (Ubuntu, maybe Etch with all the GUI server tools I can find, perferabbly web based) and a Desktop (Ubunutu out of the box, would have to think about whether or not to install the codecs and binary drivers based on legal issues). Or something like this anyway, I'm not going to actually sell PCs and don't have business model ( as if you couldn't tell
My point is that I don't think you'll ever get the "guru" community to give up making new distros and promoting them over each other. What we'll hopefully see is Vendors picking a few distros, or one, to work with and then offering various levels of software for a) different hardware configs (server vs. laptop) and different needs (media PC, desktop, server, etc). Using different distros can actually help this process as a lot of them are created already for specific purposes.
Even though MS sells all their choices and (somewhat IMHO) clearly labels them users are still confused by the choices. Heck even with XP I always have people asking "What's the difference between home or pro?, Tablet and media center?", etc. And sure, they could get the info themselves by looking it up, but I think users will always ask a friend or a guy in a best buy before they'll take the time to look it up themselves.
Bottom line is, no one "owns" all and everything "Linux" at the moment so it's in the best interest of those who want to sell it to trim the choices down for users.
My mother has been instructed on how to get updates and fixes. She even updates her virus software every day. And in 15 years of having a PC, she's never had a virus or spyware, or even seen a bsod (or know what that term means) so obviously she is doing something right.
Of course, what she also has besides her computer is a son who knows her limits who sat it up
Then she is perfectly capable of using Synaptic. I love it when people come along and say "My old granny has to be able to do it." Like Granny is stupid or something and then go on to say "She can surf the internet, knows how to find all the cool setup.exe files she needs to load programs, set up her own printer, get pictures off her camera, keep anti spyware and anti virus up to date, write c compilers, balance the national debt, blah, blah, blah".
Anyone who can a) decide they need some software that didn't come with their PC, b) find and download said software in the form of a "setup.exe", c) remember where they put it when they downloaded it!
It's always the same, people act like Windows is so easy the minute you get it. They forget that they've used it for years, got used to the dumb sh1t and quirks, it evolved (slowly, erratically) to become easier, there are a lot of people around to help, either intuitvley figure it out or they already know, etc...
Windows has a lot going for it that Linux doesn't because of it's market share but being "easier to use" is a side effect not technical superiority.
Linux loses for me since I do not want to spend the time to fiddle with it
Anyone who trots out this tired old line hasn't tried Linux in a while. Ubuntu, Mepis, Fedora, hell if your time is so valuable paying for Linspire is an option, all install just about everything you need out of the box to get work done.
Oh, playing games? Not on a Mac, at least not that many and my guess is that's not what you mean.
The only other thing I can think of that may take time to get setup on Linux but not on a Mac is audio/video. Not sure about what a Mac comes loaded with out of the box and what you have to download and install yourself but all of the distros I listed above have quick, painless ways to install codecs and players in minutes*.
So, um, yeah, Vista sure is pissin' off people and OEMs...
* assumes broadband connection is available.
Why? I have the perfectly useful BSD operating system. I use Linux out of convenience, but switching to BSD will not be a hardship.
So you just joined in on the discussion today to bitch about your little pet peeve? Convenience is what most people want out of software, thus the wide adoption of DOS/Windows over the years. Convenience seems to be worth a lot to people.
The "monkeys" of which you speak are responsible for a lot of the convenience you enjoy. If you decide tomorrow that RMS is a dick and you refuse to use Linux anymore because the commonly distributed userland that comes with it is by those "monkeys" who keep clamoring about "freedom" (very inconvenient that freedom nonsense) and switch to BSD what are you going to do for userland tools? I'm not sure, I'm genuinely asking, what common set of tools do you generally get with a typical BSD flavor? Have they written their own compiler? Is Xorg or XFree86 BSD licensed? MIT you say? OK so, check, you get graphics...
Anyway I could go on, the fact is, most OSS or FOSS or however you want to label it these days is licensed GPL. Whether or not most of it ends up GPL3 remains to be seen.
At the end of the day it boils down to this for me; I don't like every little thing that RMS says. But that's OK, he wouldn't want me to anyway I imagine. But I am grateful for what RMS did. I hear people say that if Linus had known about BSD he never would have written Linux (I think Linus himself is quoted as saying that). And maybe this wildly famous kernel we have would have never existed, thus never being released as a GPL product. So we'd end up with a BSD base and some GPL tools. With all due respect to the BSD crowd if that had happened I don't think we'd be sitting here discussing OSS right now. The corporate IT world would have snagged up such a system, taken the best of it and left the BSD "source included" systems lying in a ditch to die. Linux, as a GPL product, had the necessary momentum to replace commercial *nix in the marketplace because it works so well but managed to survive because of that inconvenient freedom thing.
Linux surviving and then thriving in the marketplace isn't as much about it's technical superiority, we've seen over and over how that doesn't mean a win in the market[place, its success is largely due to the license.
Personally I'd only pay that much for the eXtreme eDition! Ultimate. A kids toy I tell you...
I see that google caches of some of it are still available. I couldn't find anything at archive.org though on the WBM.
A quick glance at Groklaw shows more links to the Iowa site then copies of the docs. What a shame the public record gets so quickly covered up once the money starts changing hands.
I totally agree... It sucks to say to people - "I don't know why it does that, I don't know why it worked yesterday and not today. It's just like that. Maybe it was an update you installed?"
There is just no telling day to day what MS will do next, how they will totally change things on people for no apparently good reason, break behaviour that people depend on in the name of some new, already broken security model and just generally, and very arbitrarily, create new and interresting ways to generate hostility toward IT people.
I just got to the point where I say, "I don't know why it does that, mine doesn't do that..."
Enjoying the latest offerings from the music industry... well, you've crossed the line in to fantasy there.
Hmmm... I suppose so, I always was a pie-in-the-sky dreamer type.
Too true. And while the recording industry is spending billions in R&D on making DRM that works but is easy for people there are people in the other camp making it easier for the hypothetical grandmother in the GP post to crack DRM. When does the arms race end?
Question; would this hypothetical monkey be able to get me a beer while I enjoy the latest offerings from the lords of the music industry?
If so, I'm in, where do I sign up?
Hey, thanks for taking the time to respond. What you say is all in line with what I beleived but it's nice to hear it from someone more in the know then I am...
:-)
(That said I won't treat it as sound legal advice! Not without paying you first anyway...
Really? I get the impression they are more concerned with ensuring people connect to/through their routing and server products. If the client is free and every OS on the planet implements it then Cisco edge products continue to look attractive to companies and give them reasons to upgrade those old, dusty routers.
I wouldn't knock NAC just yet, it's rough still, but it has a lot of potential to help people that are not so talented at security keep themselves a bit safer on the 'net (which is good for everyone IMHO). And, as long as it *does* take off, open source clients practically guarantee server side improvements based on user and developer feedback.
Eh, so it's more OSS then FLOSS, I'll still reserve judgment for a later day...
Indeed, I see your point.
Your example is a harsh reminder that ignorance is usually no defense for breaking the law. To take it a step further; if the person sending you the "mysterious link" was law enforcement would it then be some form of entrapment? Or if it was the RIAA? I mean what if it was something that claimed to be free, legal, too-good-to-be-true, but then it's not? It's just a sting setup to catch you downloading music or movies... Is your ignorance of your infringement still irrelevent?
Just curious, although I'm extremely concerned with where the laws are heading regarding so-called-IP, I keep myself clean by sticking to free content...
>> IANAL, but copyright infringement must require intent, no?
No. Copyright infringement is a strict liability offense. Intent is not required.
IANAL either but I just read this today and it seems to disagree with what you're saying... groklaw article on Capitol v. Foster
I don't know if I'm talking apples and oranges here but the impression I got from this is that just because you
somehow facilitate infringment doesn't automatically imply guilt. Intent is required. But maybe I'm stretching
what appies to facilitation to apply to actual infringment... As I said, IANAL either!
Don't forget why all us criminals encrypt our data!
Since when is one required to put music purchased on iTMS on an iPod?
No one is *required*. But if one does...
I think the point the GP is making is where else can you put music bought from iTMS? And don't say you can play it on your PC or Mac if you run iTunes. That's not what we're talking about.
The point I keep seeing repeated over and over while also seeing it refuted with opposite-thinking replies is that if you buy music from iTMS you can't move it to another player, at least not without violating the DMCA. (at least I think this is the case, I stand open to correction!)
I heard differently from this guy.
... an open-source religion? license it with the gpl so it can be distributed freely and not require payment to participate in. ...
/ducks
Oh we already have one of those... It's called GNU!
Yeah that's a good point, it's not easy to tell why it may be slow.
OTH though you begin to get a pretty good feel for what's going to work and what's not after you use it for a while. As an example, I've noticed a lot of BT aggregation sites are starting to show stats on seeders v. leachers, availability, avg. speed, etc. If things look good on "stats" but you're slow then you can infer a bit there. Granted this applies to those who know how to use BT (E.g. know when they're firewalled or not).
Another indicator comes from friends/families and other networks. If I go to my brother's house, show him how to get Grateful Dead shows from thetradersden after using it myself for a while now and it's slow I will suspect his ISP. Naturally I'd double check the FW, double check thetradersden stats for the torrent and try a few random torrents before I reached that conclusion...
I guess, knowing what I know about BT, I assume that a lot of people that need to worry about their ISP throttling them are savvy enough to test things and determine what may be casuing them problems.