“You can’t assume that music sharing is illegal. There is test between layers 3, 4 and 5 (the layers that ISPs handle) that can tell you whether music sharing (ie. downloading or uploading .mp3 or other sound files) is legal or illegal.”
Yes, you can KNOW. I’ve got the tools myself that allow me to have every email, every web page, every music file that you send to be reassembled on my computer. If I’ve got those tools, I assume that Comcast does as well.
“I not for net neutrality either. But if I’m paying for 1.5mbps download speed, I should get it no matter what it is that I’m downloading.”
The AP article was very clear — the upload speed was the only one affected. And, if your Comcast contract is like the ones here, neither is NOT guaranteed by any means.
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.