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Comcast Sued Over P2P Blocking
Posted by
samzenpus
on Wed Nov 14, 2007 11:37 PM
from the let-us-pirate-music-at-a-reasonable-speed dept.
from the let-us-pirate-music-at-a-reasonable-speed dept.
CRISTAROL writes "Comcast has been sued by a California resident for blocking BitTorrent and other traffic. 'John Hart describes himself as a Comcast customer who has seen performance hits when using "Blocked Applications" targeted by Comcast's traffic management application, Sandvine. In his complaint, Hart says that Comcast severely limits "the speed of certain internet applications such as peer-to-peer file sharing and lotus notes [sic]." Comcast accomplishes this by "transmitting unauthorized hidden messages" to the PCs of those using the applications.' The lawsuit comes on the heels of an FCC complaint over the same issue."
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An anonymous reader writes "Comcast has been singled out as discriminating against filesharing traffic in quantitative tests conducted by the Associated Press. MSNBC's coverage of the discovery is quite even-handed. The site notes that while illegal content trading is a common use of the technology, Bittorrent is emerging as an effective medium for transferring 'weighty' legal content as well. 'Comcast's technology kicks in, though not consistently, when one BitTorrent user attempts to share a complete file with another user. Each PC gets a message invisible to the user that looks like it comes from the other computer, telling it to stop communicating. But neither message originated from the other computer -- it comes from Comcast.'" This is confirmation of anecdotal evidence presented by Comcast users back in August.
[+]
Technology: FCC Complaint Filed Over Comcast P2P Blocking 178 comments
Enter Sandvine writes "A handful of consumer groups have filed a complaint with the FCC over Comcast's "delaying" some BitTorrent traffic. The complaint seeks fines of $195,000 for each Comcast subscriber affected by the traffic blocking as well as a permanent injunction barring the ISP from blocking P2P traffic. '"Comcast's defense is bogus," said Free Press policy director Ben Scott. "The FCC needs to take immediate action to put an end to this harmful practice. Comcast's blatant and deceptive BitTorrent blocking is exactly the type of problem advocates warned would occur without Net Neutrality laws.""
[+]
Technology: Vuze Petitions FCC To Restrict Traffic Throttling 159 comments
mrspin writes "Vuze, an online video application that uses the peer-to-peer protocol BitTorrent, has petitioned the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to restrict Internet traffic throttling by Internet Service Providers (ISPs). Vuze has been keenly aware of Comcast and the "bandwidth shaping" issue. Vuze filed its "Petition for Rulemaking" (PDF) to urge the FCC to adopt regulations limiting Internet traffic throttling, a practice by which ISPs block or slow the speed at which Internet content, including video files, can be uploaded or downloaded. As readers may remember, back in May, Slashdot discussed the issue of packet shaping and how ISPs threaten to spoil online video."
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Entertainment: Comcast Targets Unlicensed Anime Torrenters 352 comments
SailorSpork writes "According to a thread on the forums of AnimeSuki, a popular anime bittorent index site, Comcast has begun sending DCMA letters to customers downloading unlicensed fan-subtitled anime shows via bittorrent. By 'unlicensed', they mean that no english language company has the rights to it. The letters are claiming that the copyright holder or an authorized agent are making the infringement claims, though usually these requests are also sent to the site itself rather that individual downloaders. My question is have they really been in contact with Japanese anime companies, or is this another scare tactic by Comcast to try and reduce the bandwidth use of their heavier customers now that their previous tactics have come under legal fire?"
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Comcast Sued Again over P2P Throttling 73 comments
Dr. Eggman writes "Ars Technica brings us news of a disgruntled Washington D.C. Comcast customer who has filed a lawsuit against Comcast over claims of false advertising. The complaint seeks punitive damages, class-action status, and attorneys' fees. The customer claims Comcast advertised 'unfettered access to all the content, services, and applications that the Internet has to offer.' We discussed a similar lawsuit brought against Comcast by a Californian customer back in November, as well as the FCC investigation into Comcast's practices. While Comcast confirmed reception of the new lawsuit, they declined to comment on it directly. Spokesman Charlie Douglas was quoted saying, 'To be clear, Comcast does not, has not, and will not block any Web sites or online applications, including peer-to-peer services, and no one has demonstrated otherwise.'"
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Ha (Score:5, Interesting)
The article was blocked just a few seconds ago. COINCIDENCE? hmm?
About time (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:About time (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:About time (Score:5, Insightful)
1) My cable went out at 12am. At 1am I dedcided to give their tech support a ring. I called the number, selected the broadband option, entered my phone number and within 30 seconds I was connected to an AMERICAN technician. I told him I thought our entire cable system went out. He logged into our local node and confirmed our entire area was out.
This being a Saturday night I asked him if it would be fixed over the weekend. To my suprise he said it would be fixed in a couple hours after rolling a truck. Sure enough, I wake up at 8am and all was better.
This is about the 6 call to Comcast and every call has been answered promptly by an American and handled in the upmost professional manner. The same cant be said for SBC/ATT 1st level phone support.
2) I subscribe to their 8Mb/768Kb plan and consistantly receive 8Mb plus transfer rates. The Speedboost to 16Mb is AMAZING! I purchased TF2 over Steam and started the 7GB download. To my suprise I was receiving it at 1.5MB-2.0MB/sec and it was completed in 60min!!!! The same couldn't be said for ATT's DSL.
Sadly, I may be moving soon and out of the Comcast area. At least AT&T's DSL is cheaper than what it used to be (and hopefully the same reliability).
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Re:Pay to steal (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Pay to steal (Score:4, Insightful)
P2P != stealing in such a broad sense.
Many companies these days use P2P such as bittorrent to distribute files, free games, Enemy Territory, True Combat Elite, et cetera can be had via bittorrent. No stealing, all legal. This is not even to mention to sharing of Linux and other free, public domain files that can be spread freely.
Go crawl back into your perfect little hole.
Parent
Re:Pay to steal (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Pay to steal (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:About time (Score:5, Insightful)
Show me where in the fine print it says they have the right to perform a man-in-the-middle attack on my communications. In fact, it's even more ironic, because their AUP doubtless has the same clause that my ISPs AUP has: You will not forge any IP header or datagram to make it appear as though it came from someone else.
There are any of number of solutions to the problem of p2p traffic they could have taken. Like traffic shaping, QoS prioritization, canceling the accounts of massive bandwidth users, etc, etc. They crossed the line when they started forging packets in an attempt to disrupt communications.
Parent
Government-granted monopoly leads to no alt. ISP (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the antitrust laws might have something to say here, although it's a bit of a stretch. In any case, how can we codify the fact that providers with effective monopoly status should have an additional burden of service to their customers? I do wonder if this is bigger than limited net neutrality legislation.
--
Educational microcontroller kits for a digital generation. [nerdkits.com]
Re:Government-granted monopoly leads to no alt. IS (Score:5, Insightful)
You'd be correct in doubting it. IANAL, but:
It would seem to be that 1) Comcast has a scheme to make money (by having less in bandwidth costs), and 2) they fraudulently transmit interrupt signals to accomplish this.
Really, they should be prosecuted in criminal court, not sued in civil court.
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Re:Government-granted monopoly leads to no alt. IS (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Government-granted monopoly leads to no alt. IS (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Government-granted monopoly leads to no alt. IS (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, phone companies offer restricted numbers, unlisted numbers, and the like. It's possible to set up an account that only accepts calls from specific numbers. This doesn't interefer with their common carrier status. Presumably ISP's could work in exactly the same way.
I am Canadian though, so things could be different south of the border.
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Re:Government-granted monopoly leads to no alt. IS (Score:5, Informative)
With all due respect, that's not really accurate. I wrote a 'Net Neutrality For Dummies' column [livejournal.com] in our local weekly, so I won't repeat myself unnecessarily. Suffice it to say that nobody minds having traffic rules. What we don't want is to have traffic rules that get selectively enforced according to the whims of a given Internet provider.
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Re:Government-granted monopoly leads to no alt. IS (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know how many times I had had an application break or a server stop responding properly because SBC or TimeWarner decided to block some port in an effort to slow some worm or virus. They then give you the run around when asking what happened to the port. Nobody knows and claims it must be something wrong with your equipment so you end up checking everything again to finally find out that they blocked something and it took a day or two for them to get the memo to the people that answer the damn phones. That or they incorrectly flag some traffic as malicious with their filtering software and "clean" it, resulting in a corrupt DBF file set or incomplete transactions.
It would be a different story if they gave you the ability to opt out first but historically we haven't found out about anything until something is down for half a work day or corrupt or some other situation that causes a bunch of headaches. We pay for the internet, not some cut up representation of it. We should get everything we pay for.
Parent
Re:Government-granted monopoly leads to no alt. IS (Score:4, Interesting)
Because, if they don't i can sue them for False Advertising, Mis-representation of merchandise involved, delibrate intent to defraud, and a raft of state laws.
Its simple and legal. Use the same arguments they use to make you pay.
Non-Emotional, robotic motions to legal recourse.
What it does it matter to them, if i use torrent to download SG-Atlantis or a Linux distro.
They can't claim to police my activities in the same way Walmart can't question a buyer of handguns in its Keene, NH store just because its store clerk felt like it.
If i were the person who sues comcast, i would send out a subpoena demanding ALL emails relating to this PLUS pull network administrators on oath to say it.
I bet Comcast would settle before going to court.
Parent
Comcast shouldnt stand in our way (Score:5, Interesting)
What we really need is some clever client-side programming. A p2p client (or standard) that does some clever encryption, sends data hidden through other streams, etc. I'm not a network programming guru, but it seems like these programs can (or should) keep a step ahead of whatever recognition software that gets through the approval process for comcast servers.
Sandvine (Score:4, Informative)
The local newspaper had an article [baheyeldin.com], which I blogged about a few days ago, on Sandvine's technology and how it is involved in the Comcast debacle.
Can Comcast block spam? (Score:5, Interesting)
Tomorrow??? (Score:4, Insightful)
They want to know how much they can get away with. Stopping them now will be much better than fighting with them later!
Re:How about legal use of bittorrent? (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:How about legal use of bittorrent? (Score:5, Insightful)
Comcast, however, is forging RST packets. They're taking the traffic and altering the content of it.
No legitimate QoS solution does this. Delay the content, fine. Slow the transmission rate of the content, fine.
Discard the traffic and generate a forged reply? Not fine.
Parent
Re:A good precedent (Score:5, Insightful)
If Comcast were simply prioritizing packets, that would be one thing. However, the contention is they are spoofing packets back to the clients. Think of it this way, you type in a web address and get back an error message saying the host wasn't available and that error was being generated *by the carrier*, and not the actual website. In that case, the carrier is impersonating the destination and returning false information.
Comcast claims they are not doing this, although some critics have claimed they have irrefutable proof that they are in fact doing that.
As always, the devil is in the details.
Parent
Re:A good precedent (Score:4, Interesting)
Except that Bittorrent is a very widely-used protocol. The fact that World of Warcraft alone uses it puts that in the realm of "the ordinary person". Said ordinary person doesn't have to specifically know they're using the protocol; if Comcast were screwing with HTTP, they would be messing with a protocol widely used by ordinary people despite the fact that most web surfers don't have the first clue what it is. We're not talking about Gopher here.
This is in addition to the fact that this mythical "ordinary person" has a reasonable expectation that when (s)he is promised high-speed downloads, that this will occur regardless of the specific technical means used for the download, and that the ISP will not take steps to deliberately interfere with this. One would also presume that the ordinary person would not expect his or her ISP to be deliberately committing what amounts to a denial-of-service attack against its customers by forging packets.
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