Umm...use another internet provider?

@Mojosan: Umm... there are none?

then youre shit out of luck. stop using bittorrent for illegal purposes and maybe comcast wont have to bitchslap you back ito line.

their network, their rules. dont like it? switch to dialup, pirate.

Their only defense is probably that Sandvine does more than just P2P blocking. They also have network security products. But I agree that knowing Comcast they probably are just lying to us.

@jerkius: Um. How about those of us using bittorrent for LEGAL purposes? I regularly rely on bittorrent for downloading ISO images of various linux distos. Some newer games now utilize peer file transfers similar to bittorrent for distributing patches. Hell, just go to www.bittorrent.com and check out what's available there LEGALLY from content providers like MTV, Comedy Central, etc.

Also, the technology that Comcast is using is also apparently throttling legit applications like Lotus Notes.

Uhm, I think we're all forgetting that violation of net neutrality is still *illegal*. It doesn't matter what you're shipping over BT; Comcast's pipes are protected by law to not give preference to any particular data type. They are not just being assholes; they're violating the law.

@f0nd004u:
Actually, it isn't illegal, there isn't a law either way about traffic shaping. It's amoral and despicable but not illegal. If it's illegal, please cite the law. Well, there might be laws on the books in some states about faking someone else's identity, which is what they're doing by sending out forged RST packets.

This wouldn't be so bad if their ToS mentioned their right to cut you off or restrict certain types of data. Cause nobody reads ToS agreements anyway and it would have covered their asses.

So happy to see this kind of fact exploration! I feel so proud - nice job!

It should be noted that some ISPs will actually limit bandwidth for accounts they deems as high traffic:

[www.azureuswiki.com]

@jerkius: Some of my friends run a startup doing online distribution (mostly) of extreme sports videos. Their underlying technology is based on BitTorrent technology, though it's heavily extended and wrapped. Certainly, Sandvine's technology would interrupt connections to, from and between their clients -- but there's certainly nothing illegal about it.

BitTorrent has commercially significant noninfringing uses, and this kind of action makes the 'net less of the level-ground venue it has been where anyone with a good idea and minimal capital can launch a business (or a noncommercial venture). This kind of action may not be illegal at present, but even so it's certainly anything but kosher.

@jerkius: And when did downloading an iso of Fedore Core 7 become illegal? Exactly....

@jerkius: Thank you for helping me get to know the "flag comment" button.

In other news, haha. Comcast 0, everyone else 1.

By the way, what if Comcast is blocking web connections to a certain server? There are two I know of that are blocked specficially on Comcast and no others...

@jerkius:
You've made this same point on several posts. Anything substantial to contribute?

@scoobydoo: They're technically not lying, they're taking the Fifth. They didn't say they didn't contract Sandvine, just that they "won't comment on it".

The problem with the traffic shaping is also the limitation of software design. It isn't just protocol-oriented, it is behavior-oriented as well.

Comcast isn't doing this to play pirate police or anything of the sort, they are trying to save money. They don't have the network to handle so many people, so they start throttling. They don't want to upgrade their networks because it will cost money they don't want to spend.

The issue? When doing throttling, Comasst is also more than likely doing false advertising at the same time. I am sure they advertise their internet as High-Speed or something of that nature. If it isn't High-Speed when you need it to be, than it isn't High-Speed.

Comcast can try and twist this all they want, but nothing will change the real reason they are doing it, and that is because they are cheap. Many companies take profits and use them to improve their products and services. Comcast is content to sit on what they got till it stops rolling in profits.

another legal use of bit torrent that people don't even know they're using it are games like World of Warcraft that use bit torrent type file sharing for their updates. I'm sure others are doing this as well.

@bugmenot2:

[en.wikipedia.org]

Thats the article on net neutrality law in the US. The FCC stipulates that an ISP cannot discriminate against or for any certain type of internet traffic. Telcos have been lobbying against this legislation for years.

OH HAI! I did some free Consumerist research. Here is what I found:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sandvine provides deep packet inspection systems to a "Tier 1 US Service Provider" (5+ million residential high speed customers, which could only be either Comcast, Time Warner Cable, AT&T, or Verizon. [sandvine.com press release copy from Broadband Today]

Deep Packet Inspection and Net Neutrality [sandvine.com press release / Reuters] - Yes. Indentifies Comcast as one of Sandvine's customers.

This Sandvine PDF Document describes Deep Packet Inspection as "A form of computer network packet filtering that exmaines the data part of a through-passing packet, searching for illegal statements to decide if the packet can pass. A classified packet can be redirected, marked/tagged (i.e., for enhanced Quality of Service), BLOCKED, rate limited and reported to a reporting agent in the network.

This Sandvine Prospectus [PDF Document] defines Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) as "A form of computer network packet filtering that examines the data part of a through-passing packet, searcing for pattern or behaviors in order to enable classification of the packet. A classified packet can be redirected, marked/tagged (i.e., for enhanced Quality of Service), BLOCKED, rate limited and reported to a reporting agent in the network.

The PDFs docuemnts (above) DO NOT list Time Warner Cable, AT&T, or Verizon as a customer. It DOES list Comcast as a customer.

Read this quote from Comcast once again, and you tell me how it compares with the reality of Deep Packet Inspection: "We also respect our customers' privacy and don't monitor specific customer activities on the Internet or track individual online behavior."

COMCAST: YOU NEED TO PULL YOUR PANTS BACK UP. BUSTED!

Sorry.
PDF #1 and PDF #2

Sandvine's document [2004] on P2P traffic issues for ISPs. - Lots of great gems in here. Lots of background on why an ISP would hate P2P traffic.

More explanation of Deep Packet Inspection, which is used in "stateful policy management". It clearly says that it listens in on P2P conversations. (Although it lists one nice benefit of potentially redirecting traffic between members on the same ISP, to reduce overall traffic.)

"As P2P continues to thrive, service providers block P2P traffic at their own peril." (Not subscriber friendly, and does not improve Brand Integrity.)

I think jerkoff, I mean jerkius, is a troll, or Comcast employee, or works for the RIAA, given this is his only comments and he never responds when his nonsense is shown to be garbage.

Sorry. Even more stuff. Session Management: BitTorrent Protocol "Managing the Impact on Subscriber Experience - Some good quotes:

"The primary goal ... is to decrease upstream bandwidth without impacting the subscriber's experience."

"Session management provides the flexibility to set the number of connections that are allowed between network regions (internal vs external for example). Setting this value to zero blocks all connections of the specified type, either unidirectional or bi-directional."

"In general, to achieve any savings, the limit must be selected such that there is on average less than one unidirectional upload per seed."

What all of this seems to tell me is that they've got a limiter in place that limits the number of outbound (upload) CONNECTIONS going outside of the Comcast network. Once they've reached the limit, new connections are prevented, until the overall number on their network dips below a certain threshold.

As mentioned in one of my posts above, they seem to also be using software to encourage BitTorrent transfers to happen inside of their network without touching the public Internet.

So, this looks like a very aggressive traffic management policy that invidivually looks at your packets, sees where the upload (seed) is going to, and if it is going off-network, it'll be compared against a global limit. If all subscribers combined exceed that limit, the upload is blocked.

So, yes, net neutrality issue. "If you're not uploading a file to a user on our network, we reserve the right to limit the number of our customers who can be uploading at any one time."

Another failed attempt of a company trying to implement damage control and what their employees are allowed to say.

If you tell one lie, you need to tell another to cover up the first lie, and so on and so on.

Summary of findings:

* - Sandvine produces a high speed traffic switch (PTS 14000).
* - Sandvine says they contracted with a Tier 1 US ISP for the PTS 14000.
* - Broadband Today limits the list to Comcast, Time Warner Cable, AT&T, Verizon
* - Sandvine lists none of the above as customers, except for Comcast
* - The traffic switch uses Deep Packet Inspections
* - The "Deep Packet Inspection" devices listen into customers' traffic
* - It can limit the number of BitTorrent uploads that go to the Internet
* - It can enforce this limit by blocking uploads after a certain global threshold

Gee wiz, not everyone who uses bittorrent uses it for 'evil pirating'. What about developers, or other open source moguls who for some reason only release certain things on BT.

Everyone I know uses BT, and only a small handful do it for illegal purposes (that I know of!).

Thing is, this can be used to 'listen' to your personal information as well. Encrypt traffic? Comcast doesn't like that, you might be doing Bitorrent or P2P! I wouldn't be suprised if in the future our encrypted bank sessions, private emails, and more are logged and catagorized, if they aren't already. Most ISP's are keeping records of our internet usage as it is.....

@jerkius: I looked at your comment history and all you've ever posted is this same damn rant. It's getting tiring, and apparently you either are a paid shill, incredibly ignorant (whether willfully or not) of what the word "assume" breaks down into, of the fact that you have absolutely no proof of your ridiculous accusation, of the fact that by your logic anyone who uses any protocol that can transfer files is a crook, and I could go on and on and on and on.

I'm flagging this stupidity, even though I know others already have, because I don't think we need to be enlightened by your "opinion" any longer. Once was okay. Twice, maybe. This many times? Enough already.

@ShadowFalls: They sold the capacity. People want to get what they paid for. They can either stop overselling their capacity or upgrade their network, not lie to their paying customers.

This isn't just a problem in the states...BritishTelecom does the same damn thing on their lines, as well. Paying for Top-tier speeds, and getting near dial-up capability is a constant issue for me. They've oversold the pipe, and now limit my speeds to maintain a service to all of the customers on my line. This includes a high school, a hospital, and a few major businesses.

It's a crappy setup, IMHO.

There is one thing that must be held in account. The internet we know and use today is something that taxpayers mostly paid for.

Since it was heavily subsidized by DARPA and also ARPANET. Much of the backbone structure is in place due to funding by the people of the US. Them same citizens continue to pay for it.

How soon they forget the hand that fed them. They worry more about what they think will bring about the greatest return and not what the driver of the wide area network really is. The consumer!

The FCC needs to uphold the (ISP's) to the contract they offered to the American people when they were handed the keys. Fine caretakers they turned out to be.

Uhmmm... since sandvine is used, could it be possible that they began to use it for the digital voice product first? You know, to use during those times that the network is congested so they can give packets from their digital voice product a higher priority? So they don't get caught up in the congestion and all, you know... Just a thought.

Industry shilliness (if that's actually a word) has been dealt with. Thanks to all who brought it to my attention.

@f0nd004u:

Um, I think you're forgetting that this just isn't true. Comcast is NOT a common carrier, they provide, legally, an information service, so they don't have to provide open access. So long as they don't try to inspect the individual content (i.e. blocking porn torrents while allowing others), they're in the clear as far as safe harbor provisions go.

@Buran:

They sold a service. You want 12Mbps CBR. That's 8 T-1s, or about $3200/month.

@mantari: "The primary goal ... is to decrease upstream bandwidth without impacting the subscriber's experience."

I wonder why only upstream and not downstream as well. Bandwidth is bandwidth, yesno?

@howie_in_az:

The way the cable network is built, there's a lot more downstream capacity available than upstream (overall, it's about 20:1). Remember, it was originally built as a 1-way distribution network for television programming.

@justaguy2

1. They advertise "UNLIMITED INTERNET ACCESS", just what the hell does that imply to you?
2. Comcast is a common carrier, They are like the 3rd or 4th largest ISP in the US.
3. 12Mbps does not require 8 T1s or 3200 a month. Hell my FIOS connection is faster than that and is only $45/month

@jerkius
Stop being a tool and learn something before you post.

@howie_in_az

Thats why TimeWarner has the best up stream bandwidth of any cable ISP, close to 2Mbit, been that way for a very long time although they are starting to throttle that back in some areas. Comcrapstic offers upto 12Mbit down but only 768kbps max up.

@Logan26:

1. It means Unlimited, within the realm of the TOS. I agree, they should include some hard bandwidth caps in the TOS.

2. Just because they're an ISP doesn't mean they're a common carrier given the legal definition of common carrier. Cable modem is an information service legally, not a communications service.

3. 12Mbps _CBR_ - that's Constant Bit Rate. Your FiOS service is, like Comcast's, a "best efforts" service. They say up to 20Mbps, but they don't actually promise anything - if you only get 56kbps, your only recourse is to cancel. If you want a Service Level Agreement that actually guarantees you a given bitrate, you need to get a T-1/3/whatever, which will set you back about $400 for each 1.5Mbps of capacity.

@howie_in_az: Why only upstream being throttled? From reading all of Sandvine's documents, they point out that customers are extremely sensitive to their download speeds being throttled. Yes, you can use Sandvine services to restrict user download bandwidth and such, but you end up with screaming users.

Sandvine thought that, although it would have a lesser impact on traffic, it would be much less consumer unfriendly to put a limit on the _number_ of BitTorrent uploads on their network. Or... users probably wouldn't notice a thing.

Further, they only interfere with the upstream connections of torrents that aren't currently being downloaded. So if you're seeding (because you're providing a new file, or because you've finished download a file), you're upstream _connections_ are a target.

So doesnt this only prove they have a relationship, but not what the tasks/goals of Sandvine are. Obama is related to Cheney. Does that make him responsible for the evil Bush master plan?

@JustAGuy2:

1. The make no mention of their TOS when the Unlimited Internet flashes on the screen, matter of fact, the onl time anything about anything legal or TIS related comes in the last 4 seconds of the commercials in very small print and UIA is no longer talked about or on the screen. So yes, they are very misleading with their advertising.

2. the cable itself is the communications service and that cable along with all equipment needed for the interenet is apart of that service. Specially now that they are offering telephone service of THEZIR own, not from one of the big telecoms.

3. My FIOS is a constant 15/2 line no matter the number of people on the same line. Thats the nice thing about FIOS over cable, its constant, not reliant on the number of other on my same connection line. Another thing to mention, is TW compared to Comcrapstic, has much better lines for internet service. I live in the boonie of NC, the nearest TW hook up was 50 miles from me, but my speeds were the as the guy living 1 miles from the same hook up point I was on. In Comcrapstic land, your lucky if you get 50% of what they advertise that far away from the junctions.

The *very last* bit of this article is FASCINATING - [news.therecord.com]

Quote: "As usual, most of Sandvine's revenue came from a single customer which Sandvine refers to as "Customer A."

I would love to know if that is Comcast (the article suggests it does) - There are comments about most of the money coming from the US.

I'm mostly curious not that comcast IS doing it, but what other companies are (We think Rogers in Canada is, but no proof) - And if there *are* other companies doing this, how is it that Sandvine was so easily caught, but not others?

Also, how is it that Sandvine, which before their IPO in 2006 hadn't made a profit, is now *apparently* the toast of the town? If all their money is coming from the states, their investors have to be sweating the conversion rate.

(Full disclosure: I live maybe 10 minutes from Sandvine's HQ, and have to fight the urge daily to paper the parking lot with notes on how evil packet-shaping is. Especially considering that at the school they graduated from, pirated movies are shown in the student centre. (unless they truly are "for our consideration". I'm just sayin'. - They're showing the simpsons movie on Nov 10, when the film won't be released on DVD until mid-december)

@Buran:

That is exactly what I am mentioning. Comcast wants to sit on what they have and meanwhile still increase their number of customers at the same time.

Comcast has been doing it for awhile, they keep selling the same product even when they can't supply what they have sold.

Now, what if I was selling nothing but foot long hot dogs and I ran out. I then find some regular-sized hot dogs and still proceed to sell the regular-sized hot dogs in a foot long hot dog bun, meanwhile charging the same price. Would that be ok with you? Would that be ok with anyone who has no other choice? This is what Comcast is doing.

Many would see this as fraud, even the law sees this as such. Definitely when you knowingly do it such as Comcast has been doing.

Another thing, if they dont outline their limits in their TOS, which they dont, they should be hit with a class action suit by those they are affecting with their actions. Shame more people dont groupup when they get pissed off.