funchords
Hello
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join:2001-03-11
Washington, DC
 ·Verizon Online DSL
 ·Skype
1 edit | reply to ztmike
Re: Comcast is using Sandvine to manage P2P Connections
I tested this on Friday night (actually 1:15 early Saturday morning).
Comcast has stopped attacking Gnutella and ED2K. There was only background interference on either protocol.
On the other hand, Comcast had nearly doubled its attack on BitTorrent, the amount of interference had increased from 40% of established connections being attacked to 75% of established connections being attacked.
I note with great effort that Comcast has told the FCC as well as the world that they:
1. ...do not attack any single protocol -- and up until Saturday, that was true (whether or not it was relevant, I'll leave up to you to decide). But now BitTorrent is the only protocol that I see being attacked.
2. ...only interfere with P2P traffic during times of congestion -- which has never been true. I have tested this at all hours across different days of the week. The results always show interference. Up until Saturday, the levels of interference have been virtually the same. You can go back and read message #1 of this thread -- what started this for me is that I couldn't upload on Gnutella -- ever. When I tested this with the EFF -- and there were only two people in our "swarm" running then -- we were reset by Comcast. The same thing happened to the AP..
Robb Topolski -= funchords.com =- Hillsboro, Oregon
"We don't throttle any traffic," -Charlie Douglas, Comcast spokesman, on this report. |
|
espaeth
Digital Plumber
Premium,MVM
join:2001-04-21
Minneapolis, MN
·voip.ms
·Vitelity VOIP
·Callcentric
·VoiceStick
·ViaTalk
 ·Comcast
·Embarq
| Given that:
1) Comcast appears to be attempting to restrict the total number of TCP sessions established for P2P outside of their network.
and
2) P2P outbound traffic will persist 24x7 for popular content.
How are you determining that the connection is "idle" while they are acting on the traffic? |
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funchords
Hello
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join:2001-03-11
Washington, DC
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| said by espaeth  :Given that: 1) Comcast appears to be attempting to restrict the total number of TCP sessions established for P2P outside of their network. and 2) P2P outbound traffic will persist 24x7 for popular content. How are you determining that the connection is "idle" while they are acting on the traffic? I believe you are replying to my very first message. If I am right, then my answer is: by monitoring the connection with a packet sniffer, I can determine precisely when an established connection is being interrupted.
Comcast is attempting to restrict the total number of TCP sessions, but they are doing this by tearing down established connections, not by preventing them from occurring in the first place. Because the connections are being attempted and established, I can view them with a packet sniffer.
To answer your question about the "idle" state, please see »www.bittorrent.org/beps/bep_0003.html as a reference and continue reading below...
After the BitTorrent handshake is completed with a peer, the uploading client's protocol conversation enters an alternating state of active file transferring or idle status conversation. What I was saying in the original message is that Comcast/Sandvine was interrupting those connections during those idle states.
I made that distinction because this choice is less harmful all-around than interrupting the connection after the file data transfer had begun. If Comcast/Sandvine waited until the file data transfer had begun, any data sent but not acknowledged by the BitTorrent protocol would be a waste of Comcast/Internet and personal resources. By interrupting the connection when it does, the wasted resources are avoided.
Although they made the better choice, there still is significant damage done that would be true no matter when Comcast chose to interrupt. First, if the Comcast peer is the peer with a unique or rare piece, it becomes unavailable or less available. Also, the Comcast peer cannot establish a good community ratio as easily. And, some users may observe this behavior and falsely conclude that the strangely-behaving Comcast peer is attacking the swarm rather than participating in it.
Good, thoughtful, question on your part.
--
Robb Topolski -= funchords.com =- Hillsboro, Oregon
"We don't throttle any traffic," -Charlie Douglas, Comcast spokesman, on this report. |
|
z9_87
Ill - Ini
Premium
join:2001-09-23
Urbana, IL
clubs:
| As a recent insight transfer I can tell you something is wrong. 1 torrent going downloading at 100kB/s (1/10th our speed) and the entire internet is slowed to a crawl. Stop the BT, and everything is back to normal in a few minutes. This is one of the biggest things I've been afraid of.
I think if competition were allowed, comcast would be bankrupt.
--
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." - Benjamin Franklin |
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NormanS
Premium,MVM
join:2001-02-14
San Jose, CA
·Pacific Bell - SBC
| said by z9_87 :I think if competition were allowed, comcast would be bankrupt. I was not aware that competition was prohibited.
--
Norman
~Oh Lord, why have you come
~To Konnyu, with the Lion and the Drum |
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z9_87
Ill - Ini
Premium
join:2001-09-23
Urbana, IL
clubs:
| yeah sorry, late night rant. It's just the whole franchise thing. We can't have 2 cable companies, and well they probably couldn't both make it in this small of an area anyways. But this stuff is really dumb and if there were 2 options basically equal, one having the slowing down this internet garbage because I want a couple 4gb iso files, guess who wins.
--
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." - Benjamin Franklin |
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funchords
Hello
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join:2001-03-11
Washington, DC
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| Comcast reports that they are not affecting downloads in any way. (Perhaps foolishly,) I tend to believe that is true.
Since you changed ISPs, are you sure that your upload speed is adjusted correctly?
If you have the 6 Mbps tier, your upload speed limit should be set to 38 KB/s or less. If you have more than one P2P client in the house, divide that 38 KB/s between them.
If that helps, it is because we have prevented P2P from causing packets to be lost or dropped on the upload side. When the upload path is bottlenecked, then downloading slows. That setting will keep P2P from overwhelming your most likely bottleneck -- the cablemodem.
--
Robb Topolski -= funchords.com =- Hillsboro, Oregon
"We don't throttle any traffic," -Charlie Douglas, Comcast spokesman, on this report. |
|
z9_87
Ill - Ini
Premium
join:2001-09-23
Urbana, IL
clubs: | from what I've been told, it should still be 10/1. |
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funchords
Hello
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join:2001-03-11
Washington, DC
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| I'm not familiar with that tier, but Comcast does buy other companies and sometimes keeps their tiers the same until the rest of the network catches up.
Take a speed test -- I recommend the Java-based speed tests here at dslreports.com.
1. Note the upload test results, in Kbps (example 890 Kbps).
2. Drop the final digit from that result to convert to the approximately correct upload speed limit setting (example 890 Kbps becomes 89 kB/s)
3. Input that number into your P2P software as the upload speed limit. If you use more than one P2P client, then divide that number between them.
Then -- restart your client. If it's BitTorrent, wait 20 minutes before looking at your speed (it takes a while for the protocol to match you with the best peers in the swarm).
HTH.
--
Robb Topolski -= funchords.com =- Hillsboro, Oregon
"We don't throttle any traffic," -Charlie Douglas, Comcast spokesman, on this report. |
|
