I wanted to take a moment to address the never-ending battle regarding the " don't allow servers" clause in customer TOS.
Almost every provider I've used (and that's quite a few, across different states as well) has had that clause, and it pretty much describes what I like to refer to as a "common sense" scenario -- which is, you can't do things like run an FTP server, an HTTP/HTTPS server, yadda yadda. It isn't a clause that says "you can't run a program that listens on a port" (which is what many people claim the TOS refers to - see below). It's the fact that they don't want you pushing tons of upstream traffic (that is, traffic from your PC to another user; e.g. other user is downloading data from you), because they're very likely billed on a 95th-percentile use on their circuits.
Here's some common applications that you use every day that *do* listen on a port (and most have never taken the time to figure out why or what purpose it serves):
* AIM -- when client A sends client B a file, client A listens on a dynamically-allocated port which client B connects to
* ICQ -- identical to AIM, but in reverse (the recipient opens the listening port, negotiates, then individual sending the file connects to that)
* IRC DCC -- same methodology as AIM
* MSN Messenger/Windows Live Messenger -- same methodology for AIM, and also does the same for Remote Assistance, Voice Chat, Webcam, and games
* Remote Desktop (Microsoft Terminal Services) -- listens on TCP port 3389
* SSH server -- TCP port 22
* SSH tunnelling -- usually binds the listener to 127.0.0.1, but that's entirely up to the tunnel configuration
* Yahoo Messenger -- same methodology as AIM
Comcast doesn't consider your use of these protocols as you "running a server". BitTorrent clients (as described by n2f
) work the exact same way as above. Thus, I grow tired of people arguing "BitTorrent makes you violate your TOS 'cuz it listens on a port!", because there's a bazillion other protocols that are fair-use that work the exact same way.
The clause is about upstream bandwidth usage, plain and simple.