 RickPremium,MVM
join:2001-02-06
Waterbury, CT | I'm sorry but.... BBR's persistence in presenting this issue in a negative light is disturbing.
A company does not have to tell all about how they police their network from abuse. But yet, you somehow feel that "honesty" is the best policy in this case because "mom said so".
Well, I doubt that Mom encourages her little darlings to steal and trade copyrighted material.
And folks, raise your hands if you REALLY believe that that isn't what 99.9999% of bit torrent is really all about.
BBR says this.
"So is using hardware to send forged TCP packets with the RST (reset) flag set blocking or delaying? Does it matter? "
Of course it matters. There is a world of difference between blocking someone from doing something..and shaping and managing the way it impacts your company and customers.
I mean if that's not the case, why have lines at movie theaters? Everyone should just be able to jump over the counter and print out their own tickets and let it be a free for all.
The vast majority of people using these bit torrent services are not only breaking the law, but they're also the ones consuming the massive amounts of bandwidth that cause the rest of us problems. But it's important to remember that even given this..comcast is not cutting them off. Not blocking their access. They're managing it to keep the service viable and a good one for the rest of us.
Again, it's rather disturbing to see BBR continually present this issue as Comcast doing something wrong..in favor of the very small percentage of people who abuse this and other networks.
Network neutrality is not the issue here. The issue is flagrant abuse of isp's networks. And their right to control it.
Network neutrality does not have to say Comcast or any isp has to give someone 400 gigs a month of access for 42.95/month.
That is unreasonable..and damaging to the rest of us who want to use the service either modestly or, even heavily for that matter.
That kind of flow of data surpasses anything and everything reasonable. And it's coming from the bit torrent users.
If these people don't want these issues..they should divide up their services among ISP's..or buy their own T1 or more lines to the internet.
That is not what a residential service should be all about.
In closing, I'll say that I really think that BBR should get on the side of what's right here..and stop presenting comcast and others in the negative light you are.
You risk becoming much less as a website I think..something along the lines of a renegade website here to promote pirate bay or something.
I've always viewed BBR as being mainstream..but on the cutting edge of technology. Not out to rip companies for protecting and preserving the rights of we users.
Comcast is not wrong with what they're doing.
Not at all.
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The Coyote captured the RR! Roadrunner Rick is now Comcastic! |
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| and just a quick question,
Do you think a sandvine box is free? If not how much do you think it costs to buy them for a entire network?
My objections to this technology are mostly around the cost of implementation vs. upgrading the network.
If i were management i would shortlist the most congested nodes on the network and see how many we could upgrade for the same money as the sandvine boxes. |
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 jester121Premium
join:2003-08-09
Lake Zurich, IL
 ·voip.ms
| You're not Comcast management. But you're welcome to send a resume to Comcast with your ideas and maybe they'll want to hire you.
You can also buy a bunch of their stock and get on the board of directors, and change things that way.
Your real objection is that you aren't getting your own way. |
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salahx
join:2001-12-03
Saint Louis, MO | reply to Rick
While I agree BBR often vilifies Comcast in favor of abusers, this is not one of those cases. Enough users have been adversely affected by this to cause a major news outlet, the AP, to test for this. Not everyone, maybe not even most users of BitTorrent. A major Linux distribution, Ubuntu, just release a new version (7.10, Gutsy Gibbon) a Linux distribution heavily rely on BitTorrent.
Furthermore, I have technical reservation with what Comcast is doing, TCP is intended to be a network-friendly protocol; there are other packet games Comcast could play to make this more subtle and less customer affected, but by playing RST games this can only lead to "arms race" by switching to UDP, which this trick doesn't work on. And nobody ever wins an arms race.
Comcast has done some questionable things, but this particular measure is ill-conceived. While the majority of Cocmast subscribers have probably never heard of BitTorrent (although they may use WoW which uses it). a significant minority does. Comcast equivocation on this issue is reprehensible. The public has already figured out what going on ANYWAY, its time for Comcast to come clean and stop the equivocation. Heck, we impeached a President over this kind of equivocation.
As I said earlier - this time, its not just a case of pirates vilifying Comcast. Many legitimate users are being affected. Sure, maybe it minority, but a large minority, many orders of magnitude of those who hit invisible quotas. Comcast has been honest with its subscribers in the past (the invisa-quota thing is controversial but its not like these subscribers weren't warned. The KNEW they had it coming). |
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 NightfallMy Goal Is To Deny YoursPremium,MVM
join:2001-08-03
Grand Rapids, MI
 ·Site5.com
 ·Comcast
·Callcentric
| reply to backness
said by backness:and just a quick question, Do you think a sandvine box is free? If not how much do you think it costs to buy them for a entire network? My objections to this technology are mostly around the cost of implementation vs. upgrading the network. If i were management i would shortlist the most congested nodes on the network and see how many we could upgrade for the same money as the sandvine boxes. With the amount of data needs growing, adding more bandwidth would only delay the issue at hand. Bittorrent takes as much as it can get. I have seen school T3 and above networks go to a crawl by just 20-30 users on it with file sharing software and sharing gigs of data. Even if you add more bandwidth, the problem won't go away because P2P isn't going away anytime soon. |
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NightfallMy Goal Is To Deny YoursPremium,MVM
join:2001-08-03
Grand Rapids, MI Reviews:
·Site5.com
·Comcast
·Callcentric
| reply to Rick
I do agree Rick.
While I am not a fan of traffic shaping, I do see this as a good step in making things better across Comcasts network. I know someone who was on a overloaded node and he complained about it over and over again to Comcast over a 6 month span. Since he didn't have alternatives, he stuck with them. Then, as if a miracle happened, his line started working. Comcast said it was due to upgrades in his area. Ironically, it all started about the time this discussion on traffic shaping started up, so I can only assume that it had a impact on him.
As usual, excellent post Rick. Well thought out. |
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NightfallMy Goal Is To Deny YoursPremium,MVM
join:2001-08-03
Grand Rapids, MI Reviews:
·Site5.com
·Comcast
·Callcentric
| reply to salahx
said by salahx:While I agree BBR often vilifies Comcast in favor of abusers, this is not one of those cases. Enough users have been adversely affected by this to cause a major news outlet, the AP, to test for this. Not everyone, maybe not even most users of BitTorrent. A major Linux distribution, Ubuntu, just release a new version (7.10, Gutsy Gibbon) a Linux distribution heavily rely on BitTorrent. Furthermore, I have technical reservation with what Comcast is doing, TCP is intended to be a network-friendly protocol; there are other packet games Comcast could play to make this more subtle and less customer affected, but by playing RST games this can only lead to "arms race" by switching to UDP, which this trick doesn't work on. And nobody ever wins an arms race. Comcast has done some questionable things, but this particular measure is ill-conceived. While the majority of Cocmast subscribers have probably never heard of BitTorrent (although they may use WoW which uses it). a significant minority does. Comcast equivocation on this issue is reprehensible. The public has already figured out what going on ANYWAY, its time for Comcast to come clean and stop the equivocation. Heck, we impeached a President over this kind of equivocation. As I said earlier - this time, its not just a case of pirates vilifying Comcast. Many legitimate users are being affected. Sure, maybe it minority, but a large minority, many orders of magnitude of those who hit invisible quotas. Comcast has been honest with its subscribers in the past (the invisa-quota thing is controversial but its not like these subscribers weren't warned. The KNEW they had it coming). While you do mention the legit uses, and there are some, as you said they are the vast minority. Another thing that you aren't thinking about is the fact that people are leaving these torrents turned on for days if not weeks or months for that matter. People who play WoW don't download patches like that all the time. Same with people distributing Linux distros. In my mind, your comparison is not valid with people leeching off torrent sites.
The AP news outlet that reported on this used our own members data in the report. The AP didn't do any kind of testing on this at all. It wasn't like they noticed. A few people noticed, and the AP picked up the story from news off this site.
The amount of people affected by this will be very minimal. Sure, you may piss off some bittorrent users, but at the same time, how many people are you going to make happy who were on overloaded nodes due to P2P technology? Personally, I think its a wash either way. Make the torrent users happy, piss off people on overloaded nodes. Make the torrent users unhappy by packet shaping, make the people on overloaded nodes happy.
Its a mean catch-22. |
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 N3OGHYo Soy Col. "Bat" GuanoPremium
join:2003-11-11
Philly burbs
kudos:1 | reply to Rick
said by Rick:BBR's persistence in presenting this issue in a negative light is disturbing. I don't think so. It gives folks who think to the contrary (like yourself) a forum to express their opinions. This gives you an opportunity via the site to convince (or try to) others that your viewpoint is correct.
I won't argue a lot of the points you made. Most people using Bit Torrent are using it for illegal activities, but some are not.
Comcast absolutely the right to run their network they way they see fit. I totally agree with you there.
But, be honest and open to your customers as to what you're doing with their data.
All told, I think BBR bashes all ISP's equally. Comcast just happens to be in the cross hairs more than often this week.
I mean, the story was picked up by the AP, and was on the front page of the Drudge report. It is news...
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Petty people are disproportionably corrupted by petty power… |
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 swhx7Premium
join:2006-07-23
Elbonia | reply to Rick
said by Rick:A company does not have to tell all about how they police their network from abuse. But yet, you somehow feel that "honesty" is the best policy in this case because "mom said so".
No, it's not because "mom said so", it's because internet is an increasingly important part of modern life and we need it to work right and not be deliberately sabotaged by the people we depend upon to provide access.
said by Rick:Well, I doubt that Mom encourages her little darlings to steal and trade copyrighted material. And folks, raise your hands if you REALLY believe that that isn't what 99.9999% of bit torrent is really all about.
It is none of the ISP's business what's in the traffic. Its only legitimate job is to deliver all of it as well as possible.
said by Rick:... massive amounts of bandwidth that cause the rest of us problems. ...Network neutrality is not the issue here. The issue is flagrant abuse of isp's networks. ... Network neutrality does not have to say Comcast or any isp has to give someone 400 gigs a month of access for 42.95/month. That is unreasonable..and damaging to the rest of us ...
Yet another failure to understand the issue. Network neutrality is not an issue of bandwidth or traffic amounts. No one objects to limits on bandwidth or traffic amounts. ISPs are entitled to limit bandwidth and traffic amounts by requiring customers to pay for better grades of service if they want to use more. This has nothing to do with network neutrality. It is deliberately confused with it as a pretext and smokescreen for for anti-neutrality policies.
Network neutrality means freedom from traffic discrimination. It means the ISP's role is only to deliver packets, not to favor some destinations or protocols over others. Discrimination is what Comcast is doing, and it has nothing to do with amounts of traffic, and it should be outlawed.
said by Rick:I really think that BBR should get on the side of what's right here..and stop presenting comcast and others in the negative light you are.
BBR is doing what's right by presenting the news that readers care about. You perceive it as bias because it's not partial to Comcast, and your favorable attitude to Comcast is based on a misunderstanding of the issue as I have explained above. |
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| reply to Rick
said by Rick:A company does not have to tell all about how they police their network from abuse. But yet, you somehow feel that "honesty" is the best policy in this case because "mom said so". Some of these same ISPs used to sell the so called "pink contracts" to spammers and then deny they had anything to do with them. And many ISPs have a problem with zombie machines on their network yet refuse to do anything about it.
Only be honest when it works in your favor?  |
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 ThalerPremium
join:2004-02-02
Los Angeles, CA
kudos:3
 ·DSL EXTREME
| reply to Rick
said by Rick:But yet, you somehow feel that "honesty" is the best policy in this case because "mom said so". Alright. Please illustrate to me where and when honesty is not the best policy, especially in customer relations.
said by Rick:And folks, raise your hands if you REALLY believe that that isn't what 99.9999% of bit torrent is really all about. Clearly you've never had to download large content files anytime in the last decade, have you? Sorry, but if you can't use BT at broadband speeds, then the ISP line is rendered nigh-useless to many legitimate online uses.
said by Rick:The vast majority of people using these bit torrent services are not only breaking the law, but they're also the ones consuming the massive amounts of bandwidth that cause the rest of us problems. Then go after those customers, it's just that simple. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater never made any headway with emerging technologies. Remember the whole VCRs = piracy debate many years back? Same failed logic.
said by Rick:Network neutrality does not have to say Comcast or any isp has to give someone 400 gigs a month of access for 42.95/month. Nobody was talking about Comcast's invisible broadband caps. What we're talking about is Comcast getting in the way of folks legally using their bought-and-paid-for broadband pipe in a nominal manner.
said by Rick:You risk becoming much less as a website I think..something along the lines of a renegade website here to promote pirate bay or something. Well sign me up. I'll be a rebel, maybe even get a subscription to Consumer Reports while I'm at it.  |
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| reply to Rick
said by Rick:BBR's persistence in presenting this issue in a negative light is disturbing. It's called the light of reality.
And folks, raise your hands if you REALLY believe that that [piracy] isn't what 99.9999% of bit torrent is really all about. And Lotus Notes, too?
BBR says this.
"So is using hardware to send forged TCP packets with the RST (reset) flag set blocking or delaying? Does it matter? "
Of course it matters.
Good. Because sending forged RST packets is "blocking". |
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| reply to Nightfall
Your tag is "My goal is to deny yours". How appropriate to a Comcast apologist on this particular topic. Maybe it should be Comcast's new slogan. |
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| reply to Rick
My Shill Radar went bonkers reading this post.
The point is that Comcast is using doublespeak to deny shaping, blocking ... anything that looks remotely unethical. Whether it is or not isn't the issue here. The issue is that Comcast can't come clean about any policy once word gets out. Caps, shaping, billing - nothing. This company loves to blow smoke up its customers' collective arse. |
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NightfallMy Goal Is To Deny YoursPremium,MVM
join:2001-08-03
Grand Rapids, MI Reviews:
·Site5.com
·Comcast
·Callcentric
2 edits | reply to russotto
said by russotto:Your tag is "My goal is to deny yours". How appropriate to a Comcast apologist on this particular topic. Maybe it should be Comcast's new slogan. With other ISPs and even schools, colleges, and institutions doing the same thing, maybe my tag can be applied to all those as well. :P
You forget that this isn't anything new and has been going on for a long long time. Go troll somewhere else. |
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 asellusPremium
join:2004-09-24
malaysia | reply to Nightfall
Just because a protocol is 99.9999% can be used for copyright infringement, does it mean it should be delayed/blocked? It is like China saying Internet can be used for abuse/revolt/piracy/Taiwan etc and lets block/delay them.
Comcast has a clear TOS that says those users that do copyright infringement can be kicked out from service. Why Comcast does not enforce that? Making assumptions that Bittorrent == Bad will surely hit plenty of innocents, just look at Lotus Notes users and some Comcast users who are not able to go to some sites (read Techdirt/Ars Technica forums for more info).
Alreadym the over-ligitious America already smells of some potential civil-action lawsuits because of this. This is what you got if Comcast do something and it hits innocent users. |
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NightfallMy Goal Is To Deny YoursPremium,MVM
join:2001-08-03
Grand Rapids, MI Reviews:
·Site5.com
·Comcast
·Callcentric
| said by asellus:Just because a protocol is 99.9999% can be used for copyright infringement, does it mean it should be delayed/blocked? It is like China saying Internet can be used for abuse/revolt/piracy/Taiwan etc and lets block/delay them. Comcast has a clear TOS that says those users that do copyright infringement can be kicked out from service. Why Comcast does not enforce that? Making assumptions that Bittorrent == Bad will surely hit plenty of innocents, just look at Lotus Notes users and some Comcast users who are not able to go to some sites (read Techdirt/Ars Technica forums for more info). Alreadym the over-ligitious America already smells of some potential civil-action lawsuits because of this. This is what you got if Comcast do something and it hits innocent users. I hate to break it to you, but yes. If there is a protocol or software taking up an obscene amount of bandwith and 99.9999 percent of it is all illegal, then it should be blocked. You compare ti to China saying the Internet can be used for abuse/revolt/etc. Except that the internet here is uncensored. The analogy just doesn't add up.
I do agree with you on that. Why doesn't Comcast just police this issue? Probably because it would be a PR nightmare. What they are facing now is much less of a nightmare than turning off someones connection and having them rant to the local newspaper. As it is right now, the news picks up on it, reports it, and the general public pretty much says "meh". The only ones who are really bitching are the file sharers and the tech gurus.
Still, it would be nice to just see Comcast cutting the connections of their abusers.
As for the rest of the field, I think this is a great opportunity for DSL, FIOS, and other services to toot their horn about their connections not being packed shaped. |
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 Jodokast96Stupid people really piss me off.Premium
join:2005-11-23
Erial, NJ
kudos:2 | said by Nightfall:As for the rest of the field, I think this is a great opportunity for DSL, FIOS, and other services to toot their horn about their connections not being packed shaped. See my previous post. |
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 RolfRFJPremium
join:2003-06-18
Colorado Springs, CO | reply to Rick
Rick, you are frankly quite full of it. Why should I have to experience a problem every 3 months or so when I download the latest Ubuntu or FC or SLED. That is, in fact, the only time I use Bittorrent and now I can no longer do that--don't paint me with your broad brush! Once Qwest stands up the new lines they are laying right now all over Colorado Springs, Comcast will no longer have me as a customer.
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"But if I say, "I will not mention him or speak any more in his name," his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot." (Jer 20:9 NIV) |
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asellusPremium
join:2004-09-24
malaysia | reply to Nightfall
said by Nightfall:I hate to break it to you, but yes. If there is a protocol or software taking up an obscene amount of bandwith and 99.9999 percent of it is all illegal, then it should be blocked. You compare ti to China saying the Internet can be used for abuse/revolt/etc. Except that the internet here is uncensored. The analogy just doesn't add up. I do agree with you on that. Why doesn't Comcast just police this issue? Probably because it would be a PR nightmare. What they are facing now is much less of a nightmare than turning off someones connection and having them rant to the local newspaper. As it is right now, the news picks up on it, reports it, and the general public pretty much says "meh". The only ones who are really bitching are the file sharers and the tech gurus. I also hate to break it to you, that a protocol should not be blocked just because vast majority of the the traffic is illegal. Illegal traffic should instead be dealt with by cutting those who done it from the service, not by punishing the protocol itself which has MANY valid usage. If Comcast does that no one can complain.
My analogy of China is valid. China is Comcast, they own their own Internet network and they uses Great Firewall (Sandvine) to block what they desire, so they are generally the same. What's stopping Comcast from blocking http-video-streaming if too many users started using it?
And you say that there are no public reaction? Maybe general public, but not those over-litigious civil-suit attorneys, which has already started considering using the same law that brings down Verizon (»arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20···ans.html) to bring Comcast to court.
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