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Censorship Government The Courts The Internet Businesses News

Comcast May Face Lawsuits Over BitTorrent Filtering 378

An anonymous reader writes "It's been widely reported that Comcast is engaged in a sneaky form of Internet filtering. The company is terminating its customers' BitTorrent sessions by sending misleading data onto the network. The end result is that instead of targeting key heavy users, Comcast is instead engaged in an all out war against P2P protocols. In an interview with CNET, the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Fred von Lohmann states that Comcast is 'throwing a spanner in the works of the Internet, hoping that this will somehow reduce bandwidth usage overall.' Other lawyers seem to have smelled blood, and are circling in the water. Lohmann reveals that '[The EFF has] already been contacted by attorneys who are considering legal action against Comcast.' Could Comcast be facing a class-action?"
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Comcast May Face Lawsuits Over BitTorrent Filtering

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  • by anthonyclark ( 17109 ) on Tuesday October 23, 2007 @01:37PM (#21087843)
    YAY, I have a tiny chance of receiving $7.32 off my comcast bill in 6 years time!
    • "YAY, I have a tiny chance of receiving $7.32 off my comcast bill in 6 years time!"

      Unfortunately, to get in on the lawsuit, you have to submit an online form - and the cost of sending those few hundred KB of information over a Comcast line will doubtless cancel out that award.
    • The point of such a lawsuit is not so much for you to personally profit by $7.32, it is that they will have to pay millions of people $7.32, plus millions of dollars more to very expensive lawyers.

      The point is that after paying so much money for doing something so stupid, they'll be less inclined to do stupid things in the future.

      I hope that this actually happens, so that somewhere, at some time, some executive might realize, "Gosh, it would have been a lot cheaper and more PR-friendly if we had just up

      • The point is that after paying so much money for doing something so stupid, they'll be less inclined to do stupid things in the future.

        In theory, yes, but in reality, no. The real point is to knock a tooth or two out of a giant in the industry with expensive, time-wasting resources defending a lawsuit which basically enhances the competition's position in the industry since they are not a part of the expensive legal proceedings. That's probably not a written rule, or maybe not even an intention of the laws that allow class-action lawsuits (IANAL so I don't really know), but it still hurts Comcast. And no, there won't be much learning go

      • No, after spending millions of dollars for doing something stupid, they'll increase the monthly price for cable internet access by $10 and recoup their losses.
    • by whoever57 ( 658626 ) on Tuesday October 23, 2007 @01:54PM (#21088163) Journal
      There was a report showing that Comcast was also interfering with Lotus Notes traffic. [blogspot.com]
    • by Dunbal ( 464142 )
      You could always short their stock. Looking at their performance this year (on a slide down $5 since May), I doubt it's going to get better... Then you could make more than $7.32 :)
    • by LWATCDR ( 28044 )
      Don't forget an outright ban on bit-torrent on the Comcast network.
    • I don't want money. I want them to stop shaping [all] traffic/mangling packets.
    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      YAY, I have a tiny chance of receiving $7.32 off my comcast bill in 6 years time!

      I was just thinking how much I don't miss Comcast. Even though DSL isn't 6 or 60 Megs up/down like I would expect from a Utopia [utopianet.org] connection, at least I don't have to deal with Comcast's Frankenstein behaviour.

      Personally I hope as a nation we consider the Internet "Important" to our economic future. If so then why are we not building a National Infrastructure as proposed by Clinton/Gore int he 90's? I'm talking about NII. From
    • I'd join this class action. I'm a Comcast customer and I can't stand the way they try to restrict Internet activity when they often claim service is "unlimited".

  • Comcast (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jcicora ( 949398 ) on Tuesday October 23, 2007 @01:37PM (#21087853) Journal
    Personally I hope they do get sued. While I do think our society is overly litigous, and Comcast does have the right to modify traffic on the network they own, I don't think they have the right to lie or mislead about it. And isn't this the same Comcast who had the unlimited plan with bandwidth caps?
    • One should hope so (Score:5, Interesting)

      by KingSkippus ( 799657 ) * on Tuesday October 23, 2007 @01:50PM (#21088073) Homepage Journal

      Could Comcast be facing a class-action?

      One should hope so. See, here's the deal.

      If I were on Comcast's Internet service, I would be paying for the ability to communicate with other people to accomplish various legal tasks. And if there is anything to learn in the past few days immediately following the release of Gutsy Gibbon, with Ubuntu.com completely hosed as far as I can tell, there are legitimate, much-needed, legal ways to use peer-to-peer services. If this isn't the fundamental reason for signing up with an Internet Service Provider, to be able to communicate with other computers, what is?

      If they had told me up front that they would be resetting peer-to-peer connections, I might be mad, but at least I'd know it up front and could choose to sign up with a service that doesn't do so. If these were technical problems that forced their actions as a resolution, then I might agree that taking necessary action to restore service is a Good Thing. If there really were no legitimate uses for peer-to-peer networks, as the RIAA and MPAA would have everyone believe, then I would still disagree, but at least I would understand.

      As it is, though, none of those things are true. Comcast is still denying that they are deliberately causing connections to fail, in spite of the incontrovertible proof that has been offered, and that only after Comcast said nothing at all to their customers for... well... we don't know how long. As it is, it's not in response to connections being down, it was planned out and implemented while nothing was broken in response to some hypothetical situation that might arise. In fact, in having problems with Lotus Notes, Comcast has actually broken something else that was working before in order to fix a problem that didn't exist to begin with!

      In short, if I were on Comcast's Internet service, I would be paying them to deliver network packets, that's all. At best, Comcast has engaged in an egregious breach of contract by deliberately interfering with my ability to get packets from A to B. At worst, they are guilty of deliberately and secretly impersonating someone they're not, and if I'm not mistaken, that's a crime. They might be lucky if they can get out of this with just a class action lawsuit.

      I'm not on Comcast's Internet service, thank goodness, although I am on AT&T's, and believe me, it's not much better. All of this stupidity just makes me long even more for more competition in this space for something else to come along. I never that I'd see the day when, "We won't interfere with your Internet connection!" would actually become a selling point, yet here we are.

      If I can indulge in a bit of tinfoil-hattishness, it really makes me wonder. The RIAA and MPAA are a huge media creation conglomerate. As mentioned, they hate, HATE, HATE peer-to-peer software, even with all of its legitimate uses. As some of you may know, Comcast is more than just an Internet service provider, they also happen to be the largest media provider company, and they're facing increased competition from telcos and satellite providers. Who wants to bet that Comcast has been either paid off or offered sweet deals on media content in trade for pushing the RIAA's and MPAA's agenda of controlling what applications can and can't be used on the Internet?

      Something to think about...

      • ...They might be lucky if they can get out of this with just a class action lawsuit.

        While I wish I could share your optimism that a Big Bad will get hit hard, given the track record of class actions against similar Tech Big Bads seem to have no negative effect on the company. (Sony, Microsoft.)

        What would be great is if the threat of charter removal loomed over their head, but IF Comcast got dissolved, how would that affect their monopoly situation? There's no *real* fear. Comcast will still be around.

        It'
      • by profquad ( 1177433 ) on Tuesday October 23, 2007 @02:48PM (#21088969)

        and could choose to sign up with a service that doesn't do so

        Lucky.
      • Just in case anyone hasn't noticed, the Communications Workers of America have conducted a worldwide survey of internet access speeds. What they found is that Japan is number one with 61 Mb/s. We're didn't even place. You can read about that, here.http://www.itwire.com/content/view/13184/1066/ [itwire.com]. I guess the MPAA and the RIAA don't have very much pull in Japan.
      • I would be paying for the ability to communicate with other people to accomplish various legal tasks

        Western Union used to print disclaimers on every telegraph form, which is plain English translated to:

        It will get there when it gets there.

        The deferred service - the night letter rates - are cheaper.

        I never thought that I'd see the day when, "We won't interfere with your Internet connection!" would actually become a selling point, yet here we are.

        It has been a selling point from day one.

        But your T1 ser

    • Re:Comcast (Score:5, Insightful)

      by UncleTogie ( 1004853 ) * on Tuesday October 23, 2007 @01:50PM (#21088081) Homepage Journal

      Comcast does have the right to modify traffic on the network they own

      Really? Where does it end? Modifying emails because they disapprove of the content? What if your cell phone company monitored your phone conversations, and bleeped out words they didn't like?

      This is obnoxious on so many levels it's not even funny...

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by DJCacophony ( 832334 )
        Telephone lines have common carrier status, so they can't do that
        Internet lines were denied the same designation, so they can, hence network-non-neutrality
        The idea, however, is that if they do that, they will lose all their customers, and be sued for it, too.
      • Comcast has absolutely no right to modify the traffic of their customers, just like the phone company has no right to change what I say on the phone. And just like the postal office has no right to modify the letters I send while they are in transit.

        And this isn't even about modifying traffic. It is about Comcast deliberately injecting false data into the network with information falsely claiming that it was sent by parties other than Comcast.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      Comcast does have the right to modify traffic on the network they own.

      As long as they have a government granted monopoly on local cable service, they have the right to provide fully functional cable internet service to any resident who requests it and is willing to pay the fee specified in the contract between Comcast and the municipality.

      Companies getting to chose who they do business with is great - I kicked people out occasionally when I owned a retail store - but it simply doesn't apply to utility co

    • Re:Comcast (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Shakrai ( 717556 ) on Tuesday October 23, 2007 @02:42PM (#21088869) Journal

      and Comcast does have the right to modify traffic on the network they own

      I disagree. I'm paying them to transport my traffic. Granted, I don't have an SLA, but even without an SLA I have the right to expect best-effort delivery. Sending me forged packets to trick my client into dropping connections doesn't seem like "best-effort".

      In lieu of upgrading their network (god forbid they invest some of that money they are making back into the infrastructure), perhaps they should look at some sort of traffic shaping scheme? Prioritize VOIP, ssh, telnet, gaming, etc, etc, packets over large downloads (ftp or http) or bittorrent, which get best effort delivery. That would be fair to everyone concerned and even if they deployed it nationwide it would only come into play on nodes that are overloaded. I've never seen my node overload, probably because I live in a neighborhood full of old people, so for people in neighborhoods like me it wouldn't even come into play. For people in neighborhoods full of script kiddies they'd get better latency on interactive stuff, while the script kiddies wouldn't lose that much bandwidth overall (how much does VOIP or ssh take?).

      Bittorrent is obviously the heavy hitter, but if the service providers think it's their only problem they are going to be rudely surprised in a few years. Recall the story about The Daily Show putting all their archives online? I blew through 600 megs of bandwidth in about half an hour messing around on that site. What will happen when video becomes even more popular then it is today? Will they adopt the Verizon Wireless solution of banning such activity or will they actually (*gasp*) invest in some upgrades?

  • by Bob9113 ( 14996 ) on Tuesday October 23, 2007 @01:41PM (#21087903) Homepage
    Comcast is 'throwing a spanner in the works of the Internet, hoping that this will somehow reduce bandwidth usage overall.'

    Honestly, I have to give Comcast this point. I was thinking about signing up with Comcast, but now will be going with Copowi [copowi.com] instead. That'll save Comcast some bandwidth.
    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Aladrin ( 926209 )
      I once had '#1 abuser' title at an ISP and I call tell you this: They don't care.

      They -want- all the heavy users to leave and leave them with only light users that pay full price. It's their dream situation.
  • Well, it's not like you could get the three years of crappy service back, right?
  • by Kevin DeGraaf ( 220791 ) on Tuesday October 23, 2007 @01:42PM (#21087945) Homepage
    This isn't mere filtering (which would be bad enough). This is intentional, specific, active tampering. These TCP RST packets are spoofed forgeries. That's much more evil.

    Passively dropping packets in an attempt to shape traffic or implement some QoS policy is one thing. Actively "jamming" connections is quite another.

    • I'd take it a step farther and call it fraud.
    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      Spoken like someone with only a limited concept of network equipment. Let's roughly break down filtering techniques into two broad categories:

      1. Physically between the two endpoints
      2. Able to see both endpoints but not stop them from communicating

      Both techniques have their plusses and minuses. In the first case, the filter can literally filter the packets. That is, it simply drops them rather than forwarding them on. The downside is that if the filter machine goes down then the two endpoints cannot com

      • by Bozdune ( 68800 )
        Hey, how come this isn't modded up? You may or may not agree with the parent poster, but s/he certainly makes some interesting points.

        Nice post, Jimithing, even if I don't agree with your EFF rant...
      • You've already hit on the appropriate solution in your rant there, and it doesn't involve breaking anyone's service.

        The problem with this is that you have to have real QoS equipment to get all this done.

        They just need to invest in the proper equipment for shaping, not randomly close people's connections. Hell, as someone else already pointed out, WoW's patcher uses a BitTorrent derivative. Not being able to grab a 200MB patch because some gremlin is randomly spamming us with RSTs isn't going to make me a

        • Sure. You're right. They could use proper QoS and no one would know the difference. But in the specific cast of BitTorrent, sending RST to both sides effectively does QoS without really breaking the protocol. BT will simply retry. You will get your 200MB patch, just more slowly.

          The thing I take issue with is the idea that something with basically the same end result is somehow illegal because you are able to observe that it's being done as opposed to real QoS which no one would have noticed except for

  • I love the smell of gunpowder in the morning !!! Nothing straightens the greedy out like a good legal battle !!
  • by 8127972 ( 73495 ) on Tuesday October 23, 2007 @01:48PM (#21088047)
    ..... If an actual lawyer could comment on the possibility of any sort of lawsuit. While the article does reference this [ypdcrime.com], it isn't clear if this could be done on a federal scale. That leaves the whole issue of a potential class action lawsuit up in the air IMHO.

    Having said that, I hope it scares the crap out of Comcast (and any other ISP dumb enough to try this).
  • by Protonk ( 599901 ) on Tuesday October 23, 2007 @01:49PM (#21088053) Homepage
    Big question: Can ISP's be considered common carriers? If so, how does that limit their ability to shape traffic? does it at all?

    Little question: Does the packet shaping and interdiction violate the agreement that comcast made with users? does it violate upstream agreements with other providers?

    the big question isn't likely to be solved by this lawsuit. It is the question we want answered, and quickly, but any lawsuit is likely to stem from some violation of contract erms or some misrepresentation in advertising, not the existential question of Comcast's nature as a common or a private carrier.

    The little question might be enlightening, but I doubt it. This policy might have been implemented after consulting the legal depatment and determining that the TOS for Comcast users was draconian and one sided enough to permit this sort of meddling. Alternately, it may have been the result of a business action distinct from legal consulation. Comcast may have been dumb enough to think that their users would be able to notice or test this phenomenon. My money is on a combination of the two notions. comcast probably cleared "packet shaping" in the abstract with legal, but failed to note this wrinkle in the method with them.

    they will probably argue in court that they have the right to provide their definition of QOS to buyers, and this requires that they stop "illegal" traffic. They will presumably go through great pains to paint Bittorrent as illegitimate, and justify their actions on that front. They will also bring up the likely fact that residential broadband users have no uptime/QOS clause in their contracts, a fact that will become much more important than the supposed illegality of traffic.

    That is where the meat will be. What sort of QOS/uptime/bandwidth promises are made internal and external to the contract. Not very fun stuff, but them's the breaks.
    • Big question: Can ISP's be considered common carriers? If so, how does that limit their ability to shape traffic? does it at all?
      Quick answer: no Cable Internet providers are not common carriers.
      • by Protonk ( 599901 )
        True, as we construe it today. But our reasoning for calling phone providers common carriers is about as situational as they come. Assuming we continue the regulatory trend, we could see regional monopolies by cable providers (along w/ the rise of Voip and the decline of landline use) that might bring rise to a similar argument made as was made re: AT&T.
    • Comcast isn't engaging in traffic shaping or some other QoS type thing, they're sending out RSTs to both ends of the connection with forged addresses on the IP packets to terminate the connection completely. While Comcast could surely make an argument that they have the right to provide packet shaping to maximize the capabilities of their network, this is something far more nefarious.
      • by Protonk ( 599901 )
        I agree with you that this is what is going on. that doesn't mean that the intent is distinct from the of packet shaping. Arguably, if they can argue that they have the right to limit classes and content of traffic, then they can argue that they have a wide variety of means with which to do that.

        I still think they are wrong, for the record, I'm just speculating on how a court case would proceed.
  • For quite some time, the swing in favor of "big media" has been moving in some extreme directions where every technology vendor and provider seems to be ruining their own products, services and indeed their businesses in order to pander to "big media." (Technology vendors such as ISPs, Microsoft, various hardware makers come to mind) But now with threats of litigation against one of these technology providers, perhaps the pandering to big media may decrease... and perhaps after that, even the government w
  • Heh... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Otter ( 3800 ) on Tuesday October 23, 2007 @01:50PM (#21088083) Journal
    If you're one of the aggrieved filesharers and you're willing to submit your hard drive and IP records for discovery, you're either:

    1) The one guy out there actually downloading Creative Commons-licensed Ogg Theora files

    ...or...

    2) A complete idiot

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by icydog ( 923695 )
      Right, because nobody downloads Linux distros?
    • They're doing it for more than just file-sharing. iChat, for example, is suffering. I can no longer video-conference my parents across the Atlantic. At first I just blamed it on bandwidth issues, but it only seems to be a problem when I initiate the connection from a comcast network (home). Others [apple.com] are seeing the same.

      Lotus notes is similarly affected. It seems that if you transmit small bursts of packets, Comcast give you the bandwidth you've paid for. If you start streaming data, or the volume of data goes
  • by fohat ( 168135 ) on Tuesday October 23, 2007 @01:51PM (#21088091) Homepage
    that broke the internet's back for me. I've already ordered DSL service to replace my current Comcast connection. As soon as it is up and running I'm taking both my cable box and my modem back personally, and explaining that the reason I am cancelling is due to Comcast's complete disregard for customer service in that they constantly lie to their customers about having "unlimited" service as well as messing around with packets they ought not be messing around with.

    Not everyone is so lucky, I read so many posts in other threads saying that Comcast is their only option for broadband. Hopefully that will change for them. I have a friend in a rural area who was able to sign up for sprint wireless broadband, because comcast wont run their cable 20 feet across the road to his house. The only issue with the sprint connection is it is not incredibly reliable, but for the most part his link stays up while he is using it.

    UnFair thee well, Comcast...
    • that broke the internet's back for me. I've already ordered DSL service to replace my current Comcast connection. As soon as it is up and running I'm taking both my cable box and my modem back personally, and explaining that the reason I am cancelling is due to Comcast's complete disregard for customer service in that they constantly lie to their customers about having "unlimited" service as well as messing around with packets they ought not be messing around with.

      Be sure to bring a claw hammer with you.

    • by aaronl ( 43811 )
      Most of the Sprint EVDO cards have an external antenna connector. It might help out a whole lot for him to try a well placed external... I'm using one of the Pantech PX-500 PCMCIA cards, which aren't even that great. The only reason that I've seen a disconnect is because of signal strength, so far.
  • It would seem to me that the result from a class action on these grounds would amount to a precedent-setting case in network neutrality, which could be a good thing or a bad thing depending on how the court handles it.
    • Network neutrality laws, as currently drafted, would forbid discriminating based upon the source or destination of traffic, not based upon the type of traffic. This is often misunderstood, partly because of FUD spread by big network operators. They do not restrict traffic shaping or even completely blocking a given type of traffic.

      • by kabloom ( 755503 )
        Thanks for the explanation.

        Nevertheless, it is a related issue, and when a case like this goes to court, the result may be a judicial decision as to what is fair behavior on the internet (which legislation aims to achieve), but which may not have direct basis in legislation, but may allow for considerably more judicial wiggle room than if there were a basis in legislation.
  • Pirillo (Score:4, Interesting)

    by LordKaT ( 619540 ) on Tuesday October 23, 2007 @01:53PM (#21088133) Homepage Journal
    Chris Pirillo went on a rant last night on his live stream, and with good reason: Comcast was apparently blocking his legitimate traffic to our Exchange server, as well as traffic to Google and Microsoft Live. We could confirm this much last night on Skype: it was either limited to him or his immediate area. Both Google and the Exchange server were working for us, as well as other Seattle-area Comcast subscribers. The beautiful thing about this? He upgraded to Comcast Business to avoid just this bullshit.
  • I bet lawyers are salivating. With 9 million subscribers, all of whom are directly or indirectly affected by Comcast's actions, you've got a pretty sizable number of people who might sign on. Granted, all the people in the class action suit will get next to nothing. But the lawyers won't have to worry about paying for their children to eat for a while.
  • begin distributing youtube videos via bittorrent, this problem would find a quick resolution?
  • According to this document [fcc.gov] at the FCC's website, cable modem service is not subject to common carrier regulation. While I'm no lawyer, and my knowledge of what exactly the regulations surrounding a "interstate information service" are, if any exist, but a lot of the posts here seem to be assuming that they are a common carrier like most other Internet service is, and that's just not the case.
  • 1) Lawyers file class action lawsuit that says P2P traffic is being blocked.
    2) Comcast rebuttal says that all the traffic is illegal.
    3) RIAA, the Business Software Alliance, say, "oh ho, you can figure out that this traffic is illegal.. why are you allowing it at all?"
    4) Comcast agrees to halt all "illegal" traffic, winning the 1st lawsuit, after being joined by RIAA and co, and they agree to drop their lawsuits against Comcast.
    5) P2P is dead, killed by ISPs that follow comcast's lead.
    • Don't be silly.

      If all the traffic was illegal then RIAA would already be able to outlaw it.

      They have repeatedly FAILED to do that against bit-torrent, because NO, all P2P is NOT illegal.

      So you left out the following step:

      2.5: Judge throws out Comcast entire argument because he declares that as per the precedent, P2P traffic has already been declared legal per se, while individual examples might contain illegal things, it is up to Comccast to prove that they are ONLYU blocking the illegal stuff, which t

    • by skintigh2 ( 456496 ) on Tuesday October 23, 2007 @02:58PM (#21089097)
      Point #2 is already moot: the AP journalists who conducted the tests were downloading the Bible. I DARE Comcast, the RIAA and BSA to argue that reading the Bible should be illegal.
  • Can a tcpdump wizard provide an example of how one might detect the reset?
    • I'm not a wizard, but I play one in D&D.

      Try something along the lines of:

      tcpdump -i en0 'port 80 and tcp[tcpflags] & tcp-rst !=0'
      Change the interface name and port number to suit your needs.
    • by Shagg ( 99693 )
      Look for a TCP packet with the reset flag. Or was that a trick question? :)
  • I think this was a pretty underhanded move by Comcast, and the conspiracy theorists among us can probably find the RIAA behind the move. I don't think it's right.

    Having said that...

    Remember when the Green Card Lottery spam first went out? Everyone was up in arms about it, threats and lawsuits were coming from all sides...sound familiar? And that stopped the spam problem dead in it's tracks, right?

    Same thing here. This is just the first volley. They're testing the waters. In 5 years it'll be commonplac
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • by myth_of_sisyphus ( 818378 ) on Tuesday October 23, 2007 @02:31PM (#21088711)
    On your BitTorrent client.

    I turned it on yesterday and am getting unheard of download speeds: over a 1000 kB/sec. in some cases. I've never seen speeds that high. I use Comcast. And my uploads are getting better so my ratio doesn't ban me from my favorite site.

    (Just for linux iso's of course.)
  • by bizitch ( 546406 ) on Tuesday October 23, 2007 @06:07PM (#21092213) Homepage
    I fired off a nastygram to Comcast with a link to that MSNBC article and asked them flat out if it was true or not

    I got the following response

    "I understand you have some concerns over recent web gossip that has
    suggested Comcast is blocking or hindering customer access to
    BitTorrent. My name is Armin and I will be glad to assist you.

    Mark, we do not block access to any P2P (Peer To Peer) applications,
    including BitTorrent. We respect our customers' privacy and don't
    monitor specific customer activities on the Internet, or track
    individual online behavior, such as which websites are visited.
    Therefore, we do not know whether any individual user is visiting
    BitTorrent or any other site.

    Additionally, Comcast does not "throttle" bandwidth (limit throughput on
    the network). Comcast also is not traffic shaping or packet shaping.
    We have a responsibility to manage our network to ensure that our
    customers have the best broadband experience possible. That means we
    use the latest technologies to manage our network to provide a quality
    experience for all Comcast subscribers. This is standard practice for
    network operators around the world. I do not have specific information
    to provide to you regarding the details of how we manage our network, or
    vendors that may be used.

    I hope that I was able to effectively address your concerns. If you
    have any further questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to contact
    us back."
  • by Kaenneth ( 82978 ) on Tuesday October 23, 2007 @08:07PM (#21093587) Journal
    Comcast forged the packets that appeared to come from the address they claim was assigned to me at that time.
  • by BillX ( 307153 ) on Wednesday October 24, 2007 @02:09AM (#21096291) Homepage
    For the last several months, attempting to send messages or connect to the chat feature in Gmail from Comcast (and only Comcast; plugging the machine in at work does just fine) consistently fails with a "please try again" or similar generic error message. Adding an 's' (as in, https:/// [https] ) to encrypt the traffic fixes this.

Numeric stability is probably not all that important when you're guessing.

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