US Cable Support > Comcast HSI > Comcast is using Sandvine to manage P2P Connections

reply to koitsu

Re: Evidence: Comcast to Comcast P2P is also interfered with

reply to koitsu

reply to EG

Re: Comcast is using Sandvine to manage P2P Connections

said by EG
ge = gigabit ethernet.

te = ten gigabit ethernet.

p, po, pos = Packet Over Sonet (an OC-3 or faster connection).

1-1, 1-2, 1-11, 6-1, 9-1, 2-2, etc. = slot and port.

ar01, cr01, ur01 = probably a router name ?

reply to funchords
I have comcast & I checked my speed & it's a fast 6 mb per second, but every time I try to download a movie off of just about any site I try....it'll start off ok...but realy slow....downloads like 6-14 kbs & uploads like .04-6 kbs.....upload steadily drops off to nothing while download struggles along....then all of the sudden the torrent stops & it tells me that "access is denied". What's up with this? My port is properly ported....fire wall was taken down....so that's not it. Is this because of that sandvine thingy you talked about....just wondering. I'll go to Quest before I'll put up with this for much longer. Comcast sucks! I agree with the guy that said they sould be spending that money on more equiptment to make our internet faster & better & able to carry more info.... lazy Comcast bast**ds!

reply to mystica
Thanks for expanding

reply to funchords
I think you are right to voice your concerns. As an employee with comcast, we get a lot of calls about this. The fact remains, 99% of the @$$clowns in the world are not using Torrent for legal use. I am guilty foremost. However, if you are resourceful enough. You can find ways around this like: Torrent SeedBoxs

The one I use:

»torrenflux.wewillhostit.com

is a great means of torrenting a file to a server and downloading it to your machine via tar'ed legitimate traffic.

If you guys are interested in such a thing, email the admin @ admin@wewillhostit.com and mention me, Steve. He will take care of you.

if you want to host your own torrentflux, good luck finding the binaries.

God Bless

reply to funchords
Yea, right. In that case, I don't really need broadband for my home. Just broadband at the server.

Bottomeline, if comcast want to ban bittorent, just say so in explicit language. Say ban bittorent in usage agreement and on comcast website.

Whether people using bittorent for legal use or not is not comcast's concern, comcast just don't want heavy user. Period. In that case, say so publicly.

run programs, equipment, or servers from the Premises that provide network content or any other services to anyone outside of your Premises LAN (Local Area Network), also commonly referred to as public services or servers. Examples of prohibited services and servers include, but are not limited to, e-mail, Web hosting, file sharing, and proxy services and servers;

Touché!

reply to funchords
Very nice and easy guide to defeat Comcast's questionable (and wrong imo) practices reguarding good 'ol 'Network Management'.
Dead easy way to use SSH (aka a secure connection) so that you may get what you pay for.

»torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-over-ssh-071014/

reply to FairTriplePlay

reply to NormanS
Who said anything about massive amounts of data?? Hello?? Not everyone who thinks Comcast is wrong is a filesharing bw hog!!
I also gladly pay for the most expensive tier offered (Blast! 16/2) as well as digital cable WITH the HD package not to mention the NFL pack and my digital phone service. CC is making max profit from my subscriptions. I'd be different if I was d/ling 400GB a month and only paying for the minimal 6MB connection and nothing more.

@espaeth...I'm sure your right, I'm not well versed in these counter measures. By the grace of the internet gods, somehow my connection isn't being hammered by sandvine as much as others. Avg number RSTs are between 15% and 20% allowing me to seed at full speed after completion (140-160k). Only measure I've taken is enabling crypto and lazy bit field even tho these steps have been deemed useless against sandvine.

reply to funchords
I see your point...guess ssh isn't the best choice to defeat sandvine.

It's indeed a balancing act...just wish CC would be up front with their customers i.e. No set limits and the denial of hindering bit torrent protocol (thru forgery at that...). They need to rethink a bit in the PR area...at very least.

reply to funchords
I seem to not be able to even connect to Limewire. are they blocking total access to it?

reply to hobgoblin

reply to funchords
Has anyone had any problems with sandvine using other protocols beside bittorrent. I was experiencing disconnects accompanied by rst packets when trying to transfer a file from my house to my parent's house when using either ftp or scp. About 4MB would transfer, then the connection would be killed, no bad errors on either end, just that it was disconnected.

Connections:
1: Comcast connection where sandvine is implemented. I have seen it when using bittorrent, never checked for the rst packets but performance drastically changed one day and it has all the symptoms.
2: ATT connection from a small wireless company. This connection does not have an externally routable address, everyone is on a big lan.

What I was doing:
I wanted to transfer a file from my house (comcast) to my parent's house (ATT). I have set up on my parents computer a script that runs every 5 minutes which checks for the existence of a reverse ssh tunnel to my computer and creates it if it doesn't exist. Unfortunately I didn't write down all the errors so they are from memory. I tried to scp the file through the tunnel but after about 4MB I got an error, remote host had disconnected or something like that. It also killed the tunnel. After it was re-established I tried again to no avail killing the tunnel again. The next time I ssh'ed into my parents computer and tried issuing the scp command from their computer, still disconnected but didn't kill the reverse tunnel. The same thing happened when I tried to transfer the file via ftp, it would transfer for a little while then disconnect.

The whole thing was eerily similar to what my bittorrent traffic looked like before I started using an ssl enabled tracker. So, I fired up wireshark on my computer and through ssh, started wireshark on my parents computer displayed on my screen. Before I continue, let me say that I haven't really used a packet sniffer before for anything other than showing my friend how easy it was to spy on his instant messaging a couple years ago when I was on dialup and all the other computers on the lan at my house were routed through mine. I did however, thanks to the smart people I have read information about sandvine from, know that I would be looking for rst packets. I then started transferring a file and waited for the disconnect. Wireshark made it really easy for me, the rst packets were in red and stuck out like a sore thumb. All the packets before them looked normal, the source and destination matched up between the computers and everything made sense. The rst packtets however didn't. On my computer there is no record of any rst packets going out, they all show they are incoming from my parents computer. On their computer it is the same story, no record of the packets going out but incoming from my computer.

Strange, my computer has no record of sending those packets and neither does my parents. That is what is same thing that is happening with bittorrent traffic, right?

Now, I have been running bittorrent pretty solid for the last couple weeks without any problems seeding and have uploaded about 75GB of data. Forced encryption, ssl enabled tracker, and disabled dht take care of that.

I called up comcast and started complaining but the person I was talking to refused to help me because I had a 3rd party router, he told me I had to connect directly or he couldn't do anything. Describing the problem I compared it to the forced disconnects that they were doing to bittorrent seeders and he told me that this wasn't happening (is this still their official position?).

Anyways, when I connected directly to the modem it assigned me an new IP address and I don't have the problem anymore.

Questions:
Does someone who knows more about sandvine know if what I am describing makes sense?
Will this problem come back if I upload a large amount of data via bittorrent?
Has anyone else seen this before?

ps. Yes, I know all you have to go on is my word but if it happens again I will be sure to save the dump from wireshark, and document all disconnect errors. Is there anything specifically that I should test/log if i run into this issue again?