AP Discovers Comcast Traffic ShapingTalks to our forum user who first discovered practice... ( old news - 11:47AM Friday Oct 19 2007) tags: business · bandwidth · cable · networking · ComcastTipped by jjoshua  A few months ago, an astute user in our forums started noticing that Comcast (in addition to their invisible download limits) was using Sandvine traffic-shaping hardware, installed at the CMTSs, to limit the effectiveness of BitTorrent seeding. The goal is to manage BitTorrent traffic without tipping off mainstream users that it's being done. Here's how it works, according to resident user Robb Topolski, who has been dissecting the practice for months: "The Sandvine application reads packets that are traversing the network boundary. If the application senses that outbound P2P traffic is higher than a threshold determined by Comcast, Sandvine begins to interrupt P2P protocol sequences that would initiate a new transfer from within the Comcast network to a peer outside of the Comcast network. The interruption is accomplished by sending a perfectly forged TCP packet (correct peer, port, and sequence numbering) with the RST (reset) flag set. This packet is obeyed by the network stack or operating system which drops the connection." When asked about the practice, Comcast consistently denies any application blocking, but chooses their words carefully. Ultimately, our users found they could get around the practice by enabling forced encryption on many BitTorrent clients. So far, the game of cat and mouse had been ignored by major outlets, given that the sanctity of TCP/IP doesn't make compelling mainstream news fodder. The Associated Press changed that today by testing and confirming the practice using a copy of the Bible. The AP reporter gets the stock response from Comcast about the use of Sandvine gear, but also speaks to Topolski and BitTorrent companies (some of them obviously video competitors) impacted by the practice. It didn't take long for network neutrality supporters to lambast Comcast.
Related:- Comcast Installs DOCSIS 3.0 In Two New Markets
- What's Behind Comcast's Sudden Love of P2P
- Comcast Begins Testing 'Protocol Agnostic' Network Management
- Comcast Confirms New Throttling Tests We Reported Yesterday
- Comcast To Deploy Femtocells
- Comcast, Cox, Trot Out Their Worst 'Bandwidth Hogs'
- Beating Comcast's Sandvine On Linux With Iptables
- Comcast Expands Switched Digital Video Trials
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 |  | LeftOfSanity
join:2005-11-06
Felton, DE
| Re: Net Neutrality is NOT about being protocol neutral said by TK Junk Mail :Net neutrality was about being content provider neutral. It had nothing to do with being protocol neutral. Trying to tie protocol neutrality in to Net neutrality is just an attempt by the music and video thieves to protect the mechanisms of theft(that is their P2P systems). Comcast is merely protecting their network from a peer to peer protocol that is extremely network management unfriendly. I agree. It's their network. Move on if you don't like it. | |
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knightmb
join:2003-12-01
Franklin, TN
 ·Comcast
 ·Vonage
 ·Speakeasy
| Re: Net Neutrality is NOT about being protocol neutral said by LeftOfSanity :said by TK Junk Mail :Net neutrality was about being content provider neutral. It had nothing to do with being protocol neutral. Trying to tie protocol neutrality in to Net neutrality is just an attempt by the music and video thieves to protect the mechanisms of theft(that is their P2P systems). Comcast is merely protecting their network from a peer to peer protocol that is extremely network management unfriendly. I agree. It's their network. Move on if you don't like it. Or go Business Class. So far my BT is full power, no limitations, not even using encrypted links. I've pumped out more than 100GB in the last few weeks according to BT counter and the only reason it doesn't go more is because I'm using the built in scheduling to limit transfer rates during the day (business hours) and let it go full throttle at night between midnight and 8:00AM.  | |
| | | 
EverAndAnon
@verizon.net
 from:
jap
| Managing a network is one thing. Falsifying network data/packets to defraud your customers is another.
Network neutrality is all about providing a neutral network regardless of how you define it.
And there's nothing neutral about this. | |
| | | | espaeth
Misanthrope
Premium
join:2001-04-21
Minneapolis, MN
·Comcast
·Embarq
| Re: Net Neutrality is NOT about being protocol neutral said by EverAndAnon :
Managing a network is one thing. Falsifying network data/packets to defraud your customers is another. Ok. So what's the difference in net effect if they filter this traffic by blocking it outright vs closing the connection with TCP resets? | |
| | | | | rahvin112
join:2002-05-24
Sandy, UT
| Re: Net Neutrality is NOT about being protocol neutral Public knowledge. If they admitted and were forced to put in their advertising that they toss the packets, instead of denying they do it and sending forged packets, I wouldn't have a problem with it. Consumers would be able to make real decisions about what service they want and whether they wish to stay with a provider who is making determinations about what kind of traffic they will allow to pass.
Under the policy Comcast is currently operating under they don't even acknowledge that they are intercepting the communication and interfering with it. This leads people to believe that the problem isn't with the Comcast service. To me it's fraud, it should be an announced policy that is forced to be carried in their advertisements so consumers can make informed decisions about their Internet provider. The real test on how fraudulent the behavior is relies on whether Comcast would be willing to make the knowledge public. In fact their own careful wording and pseudo-denials indite their fraud. They won't talk about it publicly because they know it will cost them customers. That's what's dirty about it, and that's why it should be illegal. The policy is in every single way counter to what they say and imply in their advertisements.
It saddens me every time people get up and defend what is essentially false advertising. As a country we were pioneers in making sure that advertisements were truthful and supported by fact. Thanks to the political polarization of this country pioneered by the Neo-cons we are abandoning all the ideas that made this country strong. Ideas like truth in advertising and use of the public airwaves for the public good. | |
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Combat Chuck
Too Many Cannibals
Premium
join:2001-11-29
Verona, PA
| said by espaeth :Ok. So what's the difference in net effect if they filter this traffic by blocking it outright vs closing the connection with TCP resets? No Bittorrent if they go the other way. Someone call the Judean People's Front, crack suicide squad.
--
Mooooooo!!! | |
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jap
Premium
join:2003-08-10
038xx
·Verizon Online DSL
| said by espaeth :Ok. So what's the difference in net effect if they filter this traffic by blocking it outright vs closing the connection with TCP resets? See my post here. I think it answers question. Though your phasing "net effect" suggest a dismissal of ethics, legality, customer relations and intelligent technical management. | |
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jap
Premium
join:2003-08-10
038xx
·Verizon Online DSL
| Re: Net Neutrality is NOT about being protocol neutral said by EverAndAnon :
Managing a network is one thing. Falsifying network data/packets to defraud your customers is another. Correct. And this article should not be titled "shaping" for the same reason. It's easy to assign BT packets a low priority relative to others and I support that practice. Complete neutrality has never existed and is a pipe dream.
Note that Topolski analyzes Comcast as falsifying peer responses only at the boundary and not within their own network. That's both a cost-cutting move and a marketing manipulation which he rightly emphasizes. Sandvine is lying in the name of users both in connection requests/acceptance and in BT-specific communications by changing message packets which say "I need this chunk to complete this file piece" to "I've completed this file piece." It's fundamentally different to lie in someone else's name than to prioritize packets network-wide.
It surprises that Comcast is relying on packet headers to ID the BT protocol when protocol (header) encryption has been a push-button feature in all dominant clients for over a year. It's a piece of cake to ID by user connection patterns ... just not at the boundary. Unlike Topolski's expressed opinion I consider the boundary-only practice a poor one even if it was done above board. It's a walled garden approach, albeit a half-step at the moment, and antithetic to global openness of the internet. Content originates from all over the world and Comcast's practice, if adopted by others, means content would have to be imported to each network by some other transport like FTP then re-published via p2p. Stupid and utterly anti-customer, anti-user.
Limiting both throughputs by protocol and connections per second at the account level during periods of high network load is perfectly reasonable. It solves all the loading issues of P2P and it's verifiably above board. I am continually mystified by the stance & behavior of ISPs on their responses to p2p. Neither the business practices nor technical aspects are obscure or complicated. P2P users would be happy to have their traffic slow down during peak times if they were confident traffic was elsewise unmolested. It's not like p2p content is time-critical like VoIP. | |
| | | | | espaeth
Misanthrope
Premium
join:2001-04-21
Minneapolis, MN
·Comcast
·Embarq
edit:
October 20th, @07:32PM
| Re: Net Neutrality is NOT about being protocol neutral said by jap :And this article should not be titled "shaping" for the same reason. It's easy to assign BT packets a low priority relative to others and I support that practice. Complete neutrality has never existed and is a pipe dream. It's really easy to talk about this and discuss the theory of it, but the actual implementation of such a system is plagued with complexity and technology limitations. Anyone who has ever implemented large scale IDS/IPS deployments knows all about the scaling factors that make this challenging. For this to work as you suggest the inspection probes would need to be placed in-line at all of the points that are being monitored today so that the packets could be touched/marked. Then you have the problem of how you place the traffic into a different class of service. Traffic shaping means queuing, and that's going to require memory on your routing hardware. Assuming right now Comcast is able to get everything done with a single queue per end-station attachment, what you propose would double the number of queues each CMTS needs to manage (one regular and one P2P queue for each end station), which could potentially drive expensive CMTS upgrades or even CMTS splits where adding more capacity to the existing hardware isn't possible.
said by jap :Note that Topolski analyzes Comcast as falsifying peer responses only at the boundary and not within their own network. That's both a cost-cutting move and a marketing manipulation which he rightly emphasizes. Sandvine is lying in the name of users both in connection requests/acceptance and in BT-specific communications by changing message packets which say "I need this chunk to complete this file piece" to "I've completed this file piece." It's fundamentally different to lie in someone else's name than to prioritize packets network-wide. That's reading *way* too much into what is taking place. Sandvine isn't interacting with the BT protocol, or touching the payload of packets at all. It's sending a packet with the RST bit set to 1 in the TCP header. To a certain degree it is a cost cutting move, but really it's a matter of balancing access to somewhat limited resources at the edge of the network.
I find it interesting that people are treating network communications between machines as the equivalent of constitutionally protected human free speech. The only way that legal argument is even plausible is if you personify the packets in an effort to describe what is taking place. If you're going to go on a moral tirade about injected RST packets to close connections in the name of bandwidth mitigation, then you better have the same fervor in arguing against satellite providers who are performing ACK spoofing to allow TCP connections to overcome latency limitations and allow for higher transfer rates. If something is legally wrong, it's not just wrong in the cases where you don't benefit from it. Manipulation of protocols is a common practice; technologies like random early detection intentionally discard certain TCP packets to trigger TCP to make flow adjustments, Intrusion prevention systems will inject TCP resets for connections where malicious signatures are detected, and routers will spoof the ARP response of devices off-segment to allow machines with improperly set subnet masks to still function.
said by jap :It surprises that Comcast is relying on packet headers to ID the BT protocol when protocol (header) encryption has been a push-button feature in all dominant clients for over a year. It's a piece of cake to ID by user connection patterns ... just not at the boundary. Unlike Topolski's expressed opinion I consider the boundary-only practice a poor one even if it was done above board. It's a walled garden approach, albeit a half-step at the moment, and antithetic to global openness of the internet. Content originates from all over the world and Comcast's practice, if adopted by others, means content would have to be imported to each network by some other transport like FTP then re-published via p2p. Stupid and utterly anti-customer, anti-user. I'm not sure what you are defining as "the boundary"; this implmentation is most likely taking place at the distribution / aggregation layer between the individual CMTS hardware and the upstream Internet access routers. According to posts in the forum this connection limiting is taking place even between connections that only take place on Comcast's network. This make sense because the key point of contention is not the Internet access circuits; Internet bandwidth is dirt cheap and easy to come by, especially when you have your own nationwide fiber backbone like Comcast has built out. The key limitation is the capacity available between the cable modem and the cable head-end -- that's a tougher nut to crack which carries greater expense.
I do believe that you're invoking the freedom of the Internet incorrectly here. This isn't censorship on the content, this is a limitation on the method of distribution. The freedom of the Internet is indeed a great thing, but there are costs involved in moving bits. The premise of the network has always been that as long as you were willing to pay for the cost of distribution you can pretty much move whatever content you want (subject to legal restriction). The issue here is that people have a very distorted view of how much of the actual transport costs their $42.95/mo covers. The cost model works quite well for normal traffic (surfing, email, youtube, typical downloading) but breaks horribly when heavy P2P loads are applied. There's only 2 ways out of this: reduce consumption or raise prices. If Comcast had their entire user base vote on what should be done, I think you know how that'd turn out. | |
| | | | | | | | | | Jah_rankin
join:2006-11-12
Clinton, MD | Re: Wrong! You Have me Rolling on the FLOOR. Well where did you get that anaalogy from???? | |
| | | | Jah_rankin
join:2006-11-12
Clinton, MD
| said by qworster :By doing what they are doing, Comcast is FORGING data! They are pretending it comes from YOU, when it does not. Your comment of: "It's their network" does not hold a DROP of water! I'll bet if you said on the phone: "I love you" to your girlfriend or wife and Nynex forged the packets soin your voice it came out: "FU*K you, bitch!", you'd be screaming bloody murder! But why can't they do that? After all, it's their network! R I G H T??? You are FUNNY, You Have me Rolling on the Floor, How did you get to this analogy???? | |
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jap
Premium
join:2003-08-10
038xx
·Verizon Online DSL
| Re: Wrong! said by Jah_rankin :You are FUNNY, You Have me Rolling on the Floor, How did you get to this analogy???? Probably qworster arrived at his/her conclusion by reading & comprehending the article. Data sent by your computer to another is intercepted and altered to say the opposite of what you sent. That's how Sandvine works.
Your chiding claim of humor is misplaced. | |
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WRONG
@nextweb.net
from:
jmn1207
| Trying to tie a particular protocol to piracy is asinine.
BT is an ever increasingly common method for distribution of legal software.
This has nothing to do with Piracy and everything to do with Comcast not being able to support the speeds they advertise.
To compete with telco wireline competition they make these huge multi-megabit promises, then on back side establish these phantom monthly DL caps and institute bandwidth throttling in their struggle to live up to these "BMW" speed claims. | |
| | 
morbo
Complete Your Transaction
join:2002-01-22
00000
clubs: | in some situations it is both. | |
| | 
ieolus
Support The Clecs
join:2001-06-19
Duluth, GA | I don't believe anyone has the right to forge TCP packets. They are fucking with the fundamentals of the Internet here, not just "their network".
--
"Speak for yourself "Chadmaster" - lesopp | |
| | axus
join:2001-06-18
Washington, DC | Kindly tell us what Network Neutrality is about, then | |
| | | 
RARPSL
join:1999-12-08
Suffern, NY
| Re: Net Neutrality is NOT about being protocol neutral said by axus :Kindly tell us what Network Neutrality is about, then Being a "Dumb Pipe" - ie: Transporting the packets the user sends (and asks to be returned to his computer by the computer at the other end of the session) without altering them and/or inspecting their payload content for use in deciding if to trigger content dependent special handling. This does NOT mean that the content of the TCP/IP Headers can not be inspected since that inspection is required to route the packets. The packets must also not be mis-routed (such as routing the long way to increase latency) based on the destination IPN. This also does not preclude using IPv6 QoS headers/flags to support time critical handling such as for Streaming Video or VoIP but this must based on the Flag Requests ONLY not on what IPN is in the Headers (ie: You must not give one treatment to your ISP VoIP and another to Vonage or Skype VoIP. | |
| | 
r81984
Tough to beat.
Premium
join:2001-11-14
Morgan City, LA
·Insight Communicat..
·AT&T Midwest
| said by TK Junk Mail :Net neutrality was about being content provider neutral. It had nothing to do with being protocol neutral. Trying to tie protocol neutrality in to Net neutrality is just an attempt by the music and video thieves to protect the mechanisms of theft(that is their P2P systems). Comcast is merely protecting their network from a peer to peer protocol that is extremely network management unfriendly. You have no idea what you are talking about!
Do you work for Comcast????
Net Neutrality means EVERYTHING on the internet.
How stupid do you have to be to say protocols are not part of the internet???
--
»www.ryanoneill.us | |
| | | | | espaeth
Misanthrope
Premium
join:2001-04-21
Minneapolis, MN
·Comcast
·Embarq
edit:
October 19th, @02:03PM
| Re: Net Neutrality is NOT about being protocol neutral said by DaveNJ :But there doing in it, in a completely improper manner. Why not just impose rate limits ? or even better lower its priority on there network. But to send forged packets, and then say were protecting our network is lame. Differential prioritization would mean significant changes to how Comcast handles traffic, which would likely require more/different hardware than what's currently in place. Limiting the number of connections a bittorrent client can make (by closing some of the connections with resets) achieves the same rate limiting effect without adding more single points of failure in path and making the data delivery chain overly complex. | |
| | 
Hangmn
Don't Fight It...It's Inevitable
Premium
join:2000-04-08
Philadelphia, PA
| OMG what a troll..If I as a consumer starting spoofing packets I would be accused of a DDoS, which is illegal. This practice is in effect illegal. Plus I believe there are merits to truth in advertising. If a service is advertised as unlimited then that would go by the definition of unlimited:
un·lim·it·ed /ʌnˈlɪmɪtɪd/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[uhn-lim-i-tid] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–adjective 1. not limited; unrestricted; unconfined: unlimited trade.
2. boundless; infinite; vast: the unlimited skies.
3. without any qualification or exception; unconditional.
Does sending tcp resets sound unlimited to you? Or is there a neo-con dictionary that is unpublished?
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»davescustompc.com | |
| | | qworster
join:2001-11-25
Los Angeles, CA | Worse-you could be accused of terrorism! If YOU OR I did this, we'd be committing a federal felony. Doing a computer crime like this gets investigated by Homeland Security.
But I guess when Comcast does it, it's AOK-especially by many of you.... | |
| | 
RangerTX
Premium
join:2006-05-17
Los Angeles, CA | TCH is that an official or unofficial statement made on behalf of comcast?
--
i am not a lawyer but I do play one on the internet | |
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EverAndAnon
@verizon.net
| Re: Net Neutrality is NOT about being protocol neutral What?! I'm paying $60/mo for service*--both upstream and downstream, and I actually want to use it?! Shame on me. (*but I'll be dropping Comcast presently)
"99% illegal"... you so funny. Make up some more statistics, why don'tcha. You clearly don't use Linux. (Actually, the courts have been striking down TOS clauses as illegal over the past year or so. You can expect to see more of this.) | |
| | 
zachary1
you talkin' to me?
join:2004-03-07
right here | It's not stealing, it's sharing.
Screw the haterz, keep sharing! | |
| |
unhappyComcaster
@rr.com
| Shaping traffic based on bandwidth management needs is one thing.
Providing a bandwidth limit for customer who use more than a certain allotment is tolerable if it's noted in the contract and not applied in a discriminatory way.
Stopping it altogether is denial of service.
Think about the outcome if all ISPs do denial of service based on protocol. Everyone will will start encrypting everyting. What was gained? Nothing. | |
| | bicker
join:2007-05-10
Burlington, MA
| said by TK Junk Mail :Net neutrality was about being content provider neutral. It had nothing to do with being protocol neutral. Trying to tie protocol neutrality in to Net neutrality is just an attempt by the music and video thieves to protect the mechanisms of theft(that is their P2P systems). Comcast is merely protecting their network from a peer to peer protocol that is extremely network management unfriendly. Absolutely. I don't want my service adversely affected because other folks are excessive users. As a matter of fact, if they cannot do THIS, then I want the authorities to require Internet service be provided by metered bandwidth -- pay per megabyte uploaded and downloaded. Un-metered service REQUIRES respect for other users of the service. | |
|
JasonD
@comcast.net
| get over it people internet access is a privilege you pay a company to provide, not a right. you don't own the line, the equipment, hold the peering contracts, the providers do. traffic over their connections are only as equal as the providers grant. every major providers TOS clearly states this. don't like it? leave. that's how free markets work. | |
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See 15 replies to this post | |
N3OGH
They both suck, we're so screwed
Premium
join:2003-11-11
Philly burbs | This is now the top story on Drudge report Wow, this story is now the top story on he Drudge report.... | |
| abu maryam
join:2006-05-16
Columbia, MD | Comcast SUCKS I am so happy that I am not a comcast customer. And if I was I wouldnt think twice about dropping their shady service.
I encourage others to do the same. | |
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See 7 replies to this post | |
espaeth
Misanthrope
Premium
join:2001-04-21
Minneapolis, MN
·Comcast
·Embarq
edit:
October 19th, @12:03PM
| P2P and Oversubscription are natural enemies P2P traffic mitigation techniques are not going away anytime soon. Broadband networks are built to accommodate "normal" traffic patterns which have random bursts that tend to balance out the load. That's how with a single 38mbps downstream channel cable companies are able to provision multiple 16mbps connections with everyone appearing to be able to hit their maximum transfer speed.
P2P software operates under the assumption that there's all this "idle" bandwidth available to be tapped for transfers. The problem is that on an oversubscribed network your "idle" capacity tends to be your neighbors' "use" capacity. For being a "free" method of distributing content, P2P has expensive implications on capacity planning and network architecture.
There's only a few approaches to take with this, and any option that gets chosen is going to be unpopular.
1) Throttle traffic types that disrupt the experience for the overwhelming majority of your customer base
2) Convert to a usage-based billing system to fund infrastructure upgrades in areas where heavy use occurs
3) Increase the rates for everyone so that the oversubscription ratios can be lowered. | |
| | Ulmo
join:2005-09-22
San Jose, CA
·Comcast
·SONIC.NET
| Re: P2P and Oversubscription are natural enemies Thank you for a well written post.
It is true that BT is heavy in net use; optimally, content would be distributed in a less burdensome way. However, protocols and business practices for such more optimal distribution have been very slow to be created and meet each other. Business practices overcompress with suboptimal codecs and overly low resolutions and bitrates and other problems and generally set the quality standard too low, and have incapable pricing models (advertising vs. pay per use, and supposed cream-skimming which in fact simply bankrupts various PPV attempts with all of the Libertarians quick to support such attempts), and distribution models follow suit, being designed not to be the most efficient, but instead designed to be the most efficient at what is left over, which generally is much different, and not so efficient, but does well what it is designed to do (i.e., the current BT situation). | |
| 
CKizer
Raptus Regaliter
Premium
join:2003-01-29
Tijeras, NM | Problem solved. Qwest DSL is up and running. Comcrap has been fired.  | |
| |
See 6 replies to this post | |
fightinfilipino
@mindspring.com
| i am constantly amazed and disappointed... at the responses of people on BBR/DSLReports boards on topics such as Net Neutrality.
if Comcast is indeed filtering bandwidth based on specific protocols, THEY SHOULD SAY AS SUCH. telling customers that they aren't doing such filtering is deceptive.
furthermore, restricting specific protocols IS restricting specific internet services. THAT is counter to Net Neutrality. it is the SAME problem as ISPs degrading or blocking bandwidth for IP-based phone services that compete with the ISPs own internal phone service. this is HORRIBLY problematic.
also, if we're talking about the U.S. here, we should be working towards approaching internet access as if it were an essential utility accessible by ALL. if we want to be competitive in emerging technological fields, we can't be letting horribly-run corporations ruling over segments of internet users like fiefdoms. we need a country-wide strategy for broadband that drives increased capacity and open access. | |
| | 
telcolackey
The Truth? You can't handle the truth
join:2007-04-06
Death Valley, CA
| Re: i am constantly amazed and disappointed... Why should you be amazed and disappointed with people that have a different opinion than you do?
said by fightinfilipino :
we need a country-wide strategy for broadband that drives increased capacity and open access.
Ah.. yes... we need more government. That is the answer.[/sarcasm] As far as open access, we already have it. The words "Net Neutrality" are thrown around way to much. Each day someone posts FUD about "XXX Blocking". All of these turn out to be BS and make the poster look like chicken little.
In the case here, broadband ISPs (not just Comcast) are using traffic shaping to address problem areas, and in reality, running p2p 7x24 is violations of almost every broadband ISPs ToS. p2p is essentially "re-selling"(1) of the bandwidth ISPs sold you (not the world)
Understand not everyone will agree with the "Internet should be free and paid for by business, taxes, more government". Some of us think the speed and price are good, the free market is good and would rather avoid more taxes/government.
(1) providing your bandwidth in exchange for p2p download privs. | |
| | | Ahrenl
join:2004-10-26
North Andover, MA
| Re: i am constantly amazed and disappointed... 1. There's no free market here.. move along.
2. I don't request more government, just correct government, there's plenty government in this business to go around.
3. Net neutrality is thrown around WAY too much, but mostly by people who don't understand it. It's still very important. | |
| | | jvanbrecht
join:2007-01-08
Bowie, MD
| Not totally true, bittorrent and p2p are not the same thing. P2P is an over arching description of traffic between 2 entities. Bittorrent falls under that, as does kazaa and all those other file sharing tools. The major difference, is that many of those file sharing tools allow a user to transfer a file, or many files to another user, where as bittorrent is designed to distribute the load, 1 user downloading small portions of a file from many users, this distributes the load, and is not technically acting as a server in the traditional sense of the word "server".
You are not reselling anything, you are part of a legitimate connection, now if you tried to charge someone for your participation in data transfer, that is selling/reselling.
Also, traffic shaping is one thing, sending tcp resets, is totally different, and could technically constitute a criminal violation by comcast, yes it is there network, no they are not allowed to eavesdrop on your conversation (in the terms of data movement), same way Verizon/$telco cannot arbitrarily listen to you talking to you mother (don't even bring up the NSA stuff, thats a different ball game). I work in the IT security sector, and trust me, I know well the limitations an entity is allowed to use on traffic in transit, and technically what comcast is doing is illegal. | |
| karlmarx
join:2006-09-18
Nashua, NH
·Fairpoint Communic..
| The more they tighten their grip The more the developers will find a way to get around it. The easiest solution would be to tell the client to IGNORE RST packets. That's what comcast is ILLEGALLY DOING. This is no different than an operator listing to your phone call, and saying to both parties "I've got to hang up now".
Of COURSE the developers will build an application to get around this. Don't be surprised if the next version of your favorite torrent client has the ability to ignore RST packets, and continue to communicate. There are MANY other ways to establish the status of the communications, but RST is the standard way to end a conversation.
Comcast will continue to spend billions trying to stop something they CANNOT STOP. Period. As long as I have the ability to address my information to another host, I can send it. If I NEED to, I can encrypt it, so they CAN'T tell what it is. If I REALLY need to, I can encapsulate it in a standard protocol like http, which they CANNOT block. PERIOD.
--
Stick it to the MAN. Support your local torrent sites. Proudly providing 100mb of upstream for all your TV, Movie, and MP3 needs. | |
| |
See 6 replies to this post | |
cableties
Premium
join:2005-01-27
Levittown, PA
| Hey Karl...others... This may be off-topic but, I'd like to see some investigative reporting of the disparity between business broadband and the consumer, the regions and the dysfunctionalities of the contracts and communications companies.
For example, I once contacted Comcast to get their Business internet package. Our building is located in an industrial park (not a AAA-space business park but still has clients like Freightliner, Staples, ...) and unless we pay the tab for them to run broadband trunk from another road, we have to use the telco's options (which is also pretty steep). Oddly, we have fiber running into our building POE (dimark). Our only option are the resellers (Cavalier, XO...).
It kills me that my home internet is 3-10x faster than my work connection, and 30x cheaper. (yes, we can debate QOS, facility for server traffic, routers...but I see such a discrimination on region)
Just curious...keep up the great work! | |
| | | chrysrobyn
join:2001-09-06
Austin, TX
| Antagonistic questions all around Everybody is concerned with "is it right", "it isn't right", getting the service paid for, mitigating customers using more than their fair share, etc. Why don't they work together?
Say Comcast finds and hires two developers of BitTorrent apps. I'd hope Azureus is one, but uTorrent is #1, I think. In order to work together, a Torrent client needs to detect where the network is "free" and where it hurts the ISP more. If my neighbor and I are using the same Torrent, we should have all caps removed and be screaming data at each other (dare I suggest a DOCSIS tier for caps within a neighborhood? very far out thinking). Maybe traffic within an ISP, but outside of a city has a higher cost, maybe connections that leave the ISP altogether cost ten times as much as that. This is known as tiered Torrents. I've lost the paper that documented it, but it's been implemented in the academic world for study, but I've not seen it released to the public.
Simplest, a torrent client could traceroute every new peer. Peers within the first "hop" or two have a cost of 0-0.5 (or something very low), peers a few hops away may be 1-5, peers that leave the ISP are 10. Heck, maybe each hop increases "cost" exponentially. Currently, the only factor that matters is how much clients share. We're not talking about a cost in dollars for the customer, by the way, we're talking about a cost against a weighted connection table for potential clients. Clients will be more "hesitant" to connect to clients far away, but will not necessarily refuse to do so. If there are 100 suitable peers, and we wish to connect to 50, you start with the list earlier in your traceroute, and everyone on the other side of your ISP is the same.
Everybody wins in this scenario. The network is more efficient, the ISP pays less. The user doesn't care, except that they get easier access to clients that aren't throttled. The ISP's biggest worry is the bandwidth that goes to another ISP -- if they can keep that constrained while the customers still get their data, everybody wins. Very popular torrents will likely be able to find a hand full of seeds within one large ISP.
The downside, aside from programming complexity, is that there are some fat servers out there that will now "cost more" and the maximum download may go down because you don't connect to them. But, if it keeps your ISP from throttling so much, even that may be a win. | |
| deadzoned
Premium
join:2005-04-13
Baton Rouge, LA
·Cox HSI
| It would be interesting... I will say this first: I have never used any type of Torrent software before so I know next to nothing about it. My opinions below stem from what I have heard and read, nothing more and nothing less, so I could be completely wrong about how I understood these things to work.
Anyway...
It would be interesting to see what would happen if everyone were to completely stop using Torrents and started using things like E-Mail clients and Web Mail services instead to send larger files.
I mean isn't the concept of a Torrent better for the Broadband Companies bandwidth issues since it breaks a large file up into smaller pieces before sending it?
What is better? Sending a 5GB file to someone all at once through G-Mail or using a Torrent? I don't know myself, so I guess I am asking.  | |
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Net Neutrality is NOT about being protocol neutral
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