UPDATED By Ars Technica: Comcast Could Face Lawsuits Over P2P Discrimination - Overclock.net

Nasgul · 10-23-07

Quote:

ISP Giant Compares Its Filtering with a Busy Signal

Lawyers and privacy groups are reportedly “circling the waters” over Comcast, who stands accused of using an aggressive kind of traffic shaping that impersonates individual P2P users and compels their computers to automatically disconnect.

Comcast’s actions are perfectly permissible under the terms of use described in its contract with customers, which states that Comcast reserves the right to “refuse to upload, post, publish, transmit or store any information or materials, in whole or in part, that, in (its) sole discretion, is … undesirable or in violation of (the) agreement.”

However, many are concerned that Comcast’s actions with regards to BitTorrent traffic – that is, impersonating users’ computers – may not entirely be legal as many states have laws regarding impersonation. In the state of New York, for example, section 190.25 of the penal code describes the crime of “criminal impersonation in the second degree,” in which one may not “[pretend] to be a representative of some person or organization and does an act … with intent to obtain a benefit or to injure or defraud another.”

While legal grounds may be shaky at this point, the EFF has reported that it has received numerous calls from various firms that are considering legal action.

Meanwhile, Comcast has adjusted its response. The original response, says Brad Stone of The New York Times, seems to have caught Comcast’s PR department off-guard. The new response reads, “Comcast does not block access to any Web sites or online applications, including peer-to-peer services like BitTorrent … we have a responsibility to provide all of our customers with a good Internet experience and we use the latest technologies to manage our network so that they can continue to enjoy these applications.”

The reality, however, is more complicated says Stone. Speaking on anonymity, a Comcast internet executive told The New York Times that Comcast was indeed manipulating traffic, through data management technologies designed to conserve bandwidth. As part of that process, the company will attempt to delay P2P traffic to preserve other users’ quality of service. He described the process as being akin to the busy signal in a phone call: users are perfectly able to hang up and try again later.

“In cases where peer to peer file transfers are interrupted,” writes Stone, “the software automatically tries again, so the user may not even know Comcast is interfering.”

http://www.dailytech.com/Comcast+Cou...rticle9381.htm

UPDATE: 10-24-2007:

Quote:

As the evidence that Comcast is doing something untoward with BitTorrent and other traffic on its network has mounted, the cable company has tried clumsily to fend off accusations of wrongdoing. The latest developments come in the wake of several conference calls held by the ISP in which it attempted to make a case for its practice of sending forged TCP reset packets to interfere with some P2P traffic.

Timothy B. Lee, who is a regular contributor to the Tech Liberation Front blog as well Ars Technica, was invited to sit in on one of yesterday's conference calls, along with folks from a handful of think tanks. According to Tim, the Comcast engineer on the call said that the Lotus Notes problems were a known side effect of Comcast's traffic shaping practices, one the company was trying to fix. The engineer also "seemed to implicitly" concede that the accounts about the forged packet resets were accurate.

Delaying as a blocking tactic

The company still claims that it is isn't blocking BitTorrent and other P2P traffic, just "delaying it." In a statement given to Ars earlier today, a Comcast spokesperson denied that the company blocks traffic. "Comcast does not block access to any Web sites or online applications, including peer-to-peer activity like BitTorrent," the spokeperson told Ars. "Our customers use the Internet for downloading and uploading files, watching movies and videos, streaming music, sharing digital photos, accessing numerous peer-to-peer sites, VOIP applications like Vonage, and thousands of other applications online. We have a responsibility to provide all of our customers with a good Internet experience and we use the latest technologies to manage our network so that they can continue to enjoy these applications."

Comcast VP of operations and technical support Mitch Bowling put it this way. "We use the latest technologies to manage our network so that our customers continue to enjoy these applications. We do this because we feel it's our responsibility to provide all of our customers with a good Internet experience."

Another Comcast executive told the New York Times that the company "occasionally" delays P2P traffic, "postponing" it in some cases. His rather clumsy analogy was that of getting a busy signal when making a phone call and eventually getting through after several attempts. "It will get there eventually," is the takeaway message.

That's a distinction without any meaning. If someone is preventing my calls from going through and giving me a busy signal, the effect is the same. At the time I am trying to make the call, it's being actively blocked; calling it "delayed" is merely an exercise in semantics. Comcast is, in effect, impersonating the busy signal and preventing the phone at the other end from ringing by issuing TCP reset packets to both ends of a connection.

What's particularly troublesome is that Comcast's FAQ leaves customers with the impression that all content will flow unfettered through its network. One entry states that Comcast engages in "no discrimination based on the type of content," saying that the ISP offers "unfettered access to all the content, services, and applications" on the Internet. Another FAQ entry informs customers that Comcast does not "block access to any Web site or applications, including BitTorrent."

What did I do wrong?

Comcast's attempts to clarify its traffic shaping practices are having the opposite effect of what the company intends. As is the case with its nebulous bandwidth caps, customers can find themselves running afoul of what appears to be an arbitrary limitation imposed by the ISP. As a result, Comcast's customers don't really know that what they're paying for, aside from a fast connection that may or may not give them access to the web sites and applications they want. The company's public comments on the traffic shaping issue are intended to leave the impression that, like the bandwidth cap issue, this only affects a handful of bandwidth hogs. But judging by the comments we've seen from our readers and on other sites, there are either a lot more bandwidth hogs than Comcast leads us to believe, or the company's traffic shaping practices extend further than is being disclosed. Without some transparency from the ISP, we're left to guess.

Comcast has a handful of options to choose from. The company can own up to what it's doing and tell customers how to avoid running afoul of its BitTorrent regulations. Comcast could also continue on its current course, keeping its opaque traffic management practices in place. The cable giant's best option may be dropping the practice of sending false TCP reset packets altogether.

There are a couple of reasons that the third option may be the best choice for Comcast. First, it may be against the law. An Indiana University PhD student and Cnet contributor believes that the illicit reset packets may violate state laws in Alabama, Connecticut, and New York against impersonating another person "with intent to obtain a benefit or to injure or defraud another" (language from the New York law). In sending out the spoofed packets, Comcast is impersonating the parties at either end of the connection.
When the market can't sort things out

Legal concerns aside, Comcast is providing net neutrality advocates with plenty of ammunition. Comcast is not running a neutral network right now, and its traffic shaping choices are degrading the broadband service of many a Comcast customer.

In a perfect free market, customers would be free to pack up in leave Comcast for greener and more open broadband pastures, but the competitive landscape in the US doesn't always provide that kind of choice. More than a few Comcast customers are faced with the choice of Comcast or dial-up, leaving them with the Hobbesian choice of hoping their data packets can evade Comcast's traffic shaping police or not having broadband service at all.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...lanations.html

Licht · 10-23-07

Oh yes, I like the sound of this. If we cannot get net neutrality, we will sue them till we made our own net neutrality with a combination of legal and physical fear.

*Murlocke* · 10-23-07

Good. It should be illegal to block internet in the way they do.

Who would buy a car if you coudln't drive it between 9pm to 5am and in certain states? Not many. And I think comcast will lose alot of customers even if they win the lawsuit.

vwgti · 10-23-07

I wish someone would do something about hughesnet, thats what I have as its the only so called broadband I can get. And all my ports are blocked, they say there not but I always yellow triangles in utorrent and I never get anything. This peeves me.

Licht · 10-23-07

Quote:

Originally Posted by vwgti

I wish someone would do something about hughesnet, thats what I have as its the only so called broadband I can get. And all my ports are blocked, they say there not but I always yellow triangles in utorrent and I never get anything. This peeves me.

If you are using Microsoft Windows Vista, the firewall is GOOD. You need to completely open the port. (Under options in µTorrent you can set the port, then open it in control panel.)

Quote:

Good. It should be illegal to block internet in the way they do.

Who would buy a car if you coudln't drive it between 9pm to 5am and in certain states? Not many. And I think comcast will lose alot of customers even if they win the lawsuit.

Yeah man, i hope they crash.

joemaniaci · 10-23-07

Like I said in previous posts about this subject before. If the ISP's are running out of bandwidth, I would think most customers would prefer paying a couple extra bucks a month for upgrades than to have to worry about how much control they have over the service that they are paying money for.

IIowa · 10-23-07

Comcast wrote a check that their @ss can't cash. They flew off the handle selling high bandwith w/o the servers/power needed to for fill the promise. It's about time someone did something.

JeremyFr · 10-23-07

Quote:

Originally Posted by IIowa

Comcast wrote a check that their @ss can't cash. They flew off the handle selling high bandwith w/o the servers/power needed to for fill the promise. It's about time someone did something.

Actually all ISP's outsell there capacity, thats how things work, every single ISP in this country sells 10-1000x there actual capacity.

Wanna know why???

Because if you have say 1Gbps of capacity/backbone. Now you turn around and sell 1000 10Mbps connections to customers. you've just sold 10Gbps of bandwidth when you've only got 1Gbps capacity. But here's the beauty to it. Those 1000 Customers will never ever all use there connections to full capacity simultaneously, repeat NEVER.

Every ISP does this, they will continue to do it till the end of time. The problem is exactly like what is happening here where you have customers using a disproportionate amount of your capacity as compared to the rest of your customer base. Being that you own the entire network that your customers are riding on you should have full legal right to maintain and manipulate that network as needed to provide all your customers an equal positive experience.

Trust me on this, pissing off a few 15 year old kids over slower Torrents vs. the rest of there paying customer base is not going to hurt them.

Remember the old saying "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few"

rduffy123 · 10-23-07

Yea dont advertise rates if you cant back them up. It should be illegal for them to do this considering you are paying for a certain speed. And who decides what normal internet use is? We all know everyone uses the internet for websites but frankly that does not eat up a lot of speed.

Havok1123 · 10-23-07

Quote:

Originally Posted by JeremyFr

Actually all ISP's outsell there capacity, thats how things work, every single ISP in this country sells 10-1000x there actual capacity.

Wanna know why???

Because if you have say 1Gbps of capacity/backbone. Now you turn around and sell 1000 10Mbps connections to customers. you've just sold 10Gbps of bandwidth when you've only got 1Gbps capacity. But here's the beauty to it. Those 1000 Customers will never ever all use there connections to full capacity simultaneously, repeat NEVER.

Every ISP does this, they will continue to do it till the end of time. The problem is exactly like what is happening here where you have customers using a disproportionate amount of your capacity as compared to the rest of your customer base. Being that you own the entire network that your customers are riding on you should have full legal right to maintain and manipulate that network as needed to provide all your customers an equal positive experience.

Trust me on this, pissing off a few 15 year old kids over slower Torrents vs. the rest of there paying customer base is not going to hurt them.

Remember the old saying "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few"

To me thats like sayign that if you watch TV more then the "average" person they can just cut your service for a bit to bring you back down to the "average" persons fewing rate. Manipulating the netowrk so you can appear to give everyone an equal experience because you cant back up the bandwidth needs of the customers your aggressive marketing has grabbed from DSL is misleading.

I used to work for comcast and I can tell yo uthat if they wanted to they could increase the ammount of bandwidth if they chooce to spend the money but they dont instead they choose to shaft the customers that pay them everymonth instead of upgrading the plant they have...if you cant handle the ammount of traffic your subsribers are paying for you either need to refund money or pay the money to meet the demnd.

Sorry you didnt get your copy PC Gamer this month but we didnt have enough paper for all are subscribers so youll get one next month and the other guy wont...to make it equal since we cant meet the demand weve placed on ourselves by takin your money.

Yeah BUMP that!

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UPDATED By Ars Technica: Comcast Could Face Lawsuits Over P2P Discrimination

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