Comcast Sued Over BitTorrent Traffic Interference
Written by Ernesto on November 14, 2007It was to be expected, yesterday, a Comcast subscriber from California filed a suit against Comcast in which he calls upon the ISP to stop interfering with his BitTorrent traffic.
We first reported that Comcast was actively disconnecting BitTorrent seeds back in August. Comcast of course denied our allegations, even though we had proof, and they continued to do so.
Jon Hart, a Comcast subscriber from California couldn’t take it anymore and decided to take legal action. He filed a class-action lawsuit on Tuesday and demands that Comcast stops the BitTorrent traffic interference. In addition he wants Comcast to pay him, and all other Comcast customers in California, damages for not giving him the “crazy fast speeds” they advertised.
Threat Level asked Comcast for a response to this news, but the spokesman put them off with his default response: “Comcast does not, has not, and will not block any websites or online applications, including peer-to-peer services”. Semantically speaking they are totally right, they don’t block any applications or websites, they do however, actively disconnect peer-to-peer connections, making it impossible for many users to seed files on BitTorrent.
Hart is not the only one taking action against Comcast, the people behind SaveTheInternet have also formed a coalition and plan to demand $195,000 for all the customers who are affected.
Comcast is using an application from the broadband management company Sandvine to throttle BitTorrent traffic. The application is installed at the cable modem termination system and breaks every (seed) connection with new peers after a few seconds. This means that Comcast is not simply slowing down connections, they actually disconnect peer-to-peer transfers.
We wish Jon all the best, let’s hope justice will be served. In the meantime, here’s an article that explains how to bypass Comcast’s BitTorrent interference.
Previously: Anti-Piracy Outfit Threatens ShareConnector Admin at his Front Door
Next: Police Charge Man in Movie Camming Crackdown
72 Responses (Add yours or TrackBack)
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Hell yeah, its about time someone did this.
More power to ya Jon!
I heard rumeurs that they are working with the gouvernment and military and lobby organisations for a new kinds of tracking system for bittorrent and other protocols so they can protect hollywood silverspoon crybabies.
apparently it didnt work propperly, and messed up packets sent by the protocols.
now this have one major flaw:
if it messes up packets, disconnecting users. why would they keep doing it?
We all know how fast those rumeurs can spread.
I hope the subscribers get their refunds and that comcast burns in hell mowhahaha :)
Good luck! ;-)
YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO KEEPING DEMONOID’S TORRENTS ALIVE?
KEEP SEEDING
FOR UTORRENT USERS: PUT ON THE TORRENTS WHICH ARE RED COLORED AS MANY TRACKERS AS YOU CAN. ALL ACCOMPISHED FILES YOU GOT COULD BE UPPED ELSEWHERE AND THEY WOULD NEVER DIE. JUST KEEP SEEDING
WORKS WITH ME
we, russians, hate comcast together with u. we will send a diarrhea beam to him.
превед, медвед!
я тоже
[quote comment="213662"][quote comment="213621"]“Stealing His Film”
but ConCast stopping bittorrent downloads is a good thing aqccording to TorrentSneak.com
[/quote]
Not everything on BitTorrent is “stolen”.[/quote]
Exactly, BitTorrent is widely used for spreading copyrightfree files. One of the many examples is Linux. An ISP should just provide the internet connection they get paid for, they should NOT dictate what can or cannot be done with the internet connection. It’s like me selling a book but demanding that you don’t read it on sundays. That’s retarded.
~Fransw
~Fransw
We Serbs also are agree with our Russian brethren! We will send feces beam to their faces! Fuck ConCrap for not allowing us to leech our American friends!
Србија! Земља личера!
то се е видело всички славяни сме против
[quote comment="213590"][quote]
There are some regional differences, apart from that, seeding files is mostly affected, not downloading.[/quote]
I can still upload at my maximum upload speed too.[/quote]
sure you can. Your a leecher aint ya?
Offtopic:
does anyone know what happened with Bitlet.org? Because I need to share some files with friends, and service doesn’t work…
I actually know Jon, and he runs a BT site that posts live shows for the band The Radiators…who allow fans to tape their shows, and freely distribute them. He’s not sharing any copyrighted material to the best of my knowledge. So, actually, he is a very good plaintiff for this action…he has so-called “clean-hands”.
“Exactly, BitTorrent is widely used for spreading copyrightfree files. One of the many examples is Linux.”
Short version: ROTFLMAO.
Long version: Download the sources. Read them. You only need to understand English, no programming skills required. You will realize that Linux is not free of copyright. I would really appreciate if people without a clue, no matter what intentions they have, would shut up a little more often. By now the terms, “theft”, “copyright”, “p2p” and many others have lost any meaning. They have been degraded to buzzwords with little to semantics left.
Україна з Вами!!!
All Ukrainian leechers wish you good luck in this battle against comcunt!!!
Will this have any impact on Rogers customers in Canada, I wonder? Has anyone figured out a way around their P2P traffic shaping hardware, other than VPN? My upload speeds are still dead, even with transport encryption enabled.
haha, comcast is going to lose…
@39
Linux is free to distribute due to the licenses the software was written under. Quit being a picky little bitch about it.
43: I can stop being a bitch. Can you stop being a dimwit?
Why isn’t Rogers getting all this attention =( My upload barely goes over 10kbs, which destroys me on private trackers. Somebody sue those guys =/
[quote comment="214257"][quote comment="213590"][quote]
There are some regional differences, apart from that, seeding files is mostly affected, not downloading.[/quote]
I can still upload at my maximum upload speed too.[/quote]
sure you can. Your a leecher aint ya?[/quote]
nope seeding ratio at 0.5-1.00 too lazy to check.
[quote comment="214045"]We Serbs also are agree with our Russian brethren! We will send feces beam to their faces! Fuck ConCrap for not allowing us to leech our American friends!
Србија! Земља личера![/quote]
Would that Russian person be me? XD
So what? Nothing will change.
Comcast will put a $5 credit on a few people’s bills, and in 6 months they’ll just add another service option/level for $25 more a month.
“You want to do P2P? Pay us more money!”
Just my estimate.
Its all going to turn into this right here.
http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e110/keithdrone/netnuetrality5z6vt4n.jpg
[quote comment="213578"]fuck comcast[/quote]
I’m still not clear exactly what Comcast is being sued for. Customers pay them to access the internet. If Comcast chooses to limit the use of the internet by its paying customers, it seems they should have a right to do so. Companies change policies all the time; this isn’t actionable and will be laughed out of court.
We wish you luck in your battle in a room filled with spineless creeps
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