Posted on 10/19/2007 8:15:40 AM PDT by PittsburghAfterDark
NEW YORK - Comcast Corp. actively interferes with attempts by some of its high-speed Internet subscribers to share files online, a move that runs counter to the tradition of treating all types of Net traffic equally.
The interference, which The Associated Press confirmed through nationwide tests, is the most drastic example yet of data discrimination by a U.S. Internet service provider. It involves company computers masquerading as those of its users.
If widely applied by other ISPs, the technology Comcast is using would be a crippling blow to the BitTorrent, eDonkey and Gnutella file-sharing networks. While these are mainly known as sources of copyright music, software and movies, BitTorrent in particular is emerging as a legitimate tool for quickly disseminating legal content.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
So, take away p2p and Usenet and I would have no reason not to drop back to dialup at less than $15 a month. (Spent a fair amount of time Freeping on a dialup account while on vacation, with a stripped down browser it works just fine.)
I'm sure that I am not the only one, and that's the dilemma that every broadband provide will have to deal with.
Why would you do that? If I have paid for a 1.5mbps pipe I should be able to completely utilize every bit of that pipe. Whether it is on port 80 or port 32459.
That is how you can selectively affect one service and not another.
And if an ISP gets annoying and decides to filter a specific port, then we just change the port we're using to pass our traffic. ISPs can't filter all 65535 TCP and all 65535 UDP ports or no traffic will pass at all.
However, it involves comparison and computing power. Can’t simply test every email, website and P2P, upload and download on the fly.
I’d like to know how that works. I imagine that by tweaking the compression options, using different encoders, transcoding, and modifying the id3 tags you could come up with several hundred digital signatures for the same piece of music.
OK. There are tools that can open non-encrypted traffic to examine it. There are methods to open even encrypted traffic if you own the switch (MITM stuff). However, if you've got hundreds of thousands of subcribers, how do you examine everything going through. How can you tell a legitimate non-DRM .mp3 mile that was purchased from iTunes (yes, they're selling some non-DRM polluted music now as are other services to meet growing demand) from one that the user ripped from a CD and is passing to a friend? How can you tell that the user isn't passing the ripped CD that he owns to another computer as a backup? How can you tell that the user didn't record that music himself (ie. musician) and is sharing it free of charge? Technically, you can inspect the traffic. But you can't practically discern the legitimacy and legality of the data.
So rather than spend the money to upgrade their bandwidth, they cut the services?
Excellent point.
Remember, DVD encryption was broken with seven lines of Perl.
I remember. And they tried to ban that Perl code, which then spawned its wild and widespread distribution across the Internet. Heck, I saw posters, T-shirts, and even neckties with that code on it. Which further proves your point.
“So rather than spend the money to upgrade their bandwidth, they cut the services?”
Uh, yeah, as does every ISP. Like any other business, they try to cut costs and maximize revenue.
IN fact, the last Comcast contract I saw said “best effort” or words to that effect. If you want guaranteed bandwidth, you need to get your own fiber uplink to a major backbone — call Level3, UUNet, etc etc.
“However, it involves comparison and computing power. Can’t simply test every email, website and P2P, upload and download on the fly.”
Do a google for “Carnivore”. It’s a Clinton-era thing... remember? Has the capacity to monitor emails looking for threats? It has been retired, no doubt replaced by something better.
What happens is that a user has a suspicious pattern of behavior, and then you investigate it. It’s a little like cops who target homes that use 10X the electricity they did last year looking for grow lights and pot plants.
Look — the Internet was created by the Dept of Defense. Do you think for a minute that anyone’s traffic is anonymous? It’s like going 90 on the Interstate with a pack of traffic — you might not see a cop, but the cops do show up from time to time, and some place along the line, you’re gonna be the one pulled over.
It's the provider's backbone, and you agreed to certain limitations when you signed up. It's pretty much that simple.
I don't recall any such limitations. And, even so, if they're advertising internet speeds falsely, then they should be prosecuted.
PING
So far, so good and from what I can tell, the DSL is just as fast as the cable modem. I guess only time will tell if it's down as often as Comcast was, which was often.
Cost effective???? Not according to the Industry itself... RIAA anti-P2P campaign a real money pit, according to testimony
During an occasionally testy cross examination, a Sony executive said what many observers have suspected for a long time. The RIAA's four-year-old lawsuit campaign is costing the music industry millions of dollars and is a big money-loser for the record labels.
shhh it's a secret
00001001 11111001 00010001 00000010 10011101 01110100 11100011 01011011 11011000 01000001 01010110 11000101 01100011 01010110 10001000 11000000 00001001 00111111
bttt
Base64 - CfkRAp1041vYQVbFY1aIwA
zero niner foxtrot niner one one zero two niner delta seven fower echo tree fife bravo delta eight fower one fife six charlie fife six tree fife six eight hotel charlie zero
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