FCC Hearing: Comcast Uses Hacker Techniques
Written by Ernesto on February 26, 2008Today is an important day for network neutrality, as the FCC’s Broadband Network management hearing has been discussing Comcast’s attempt to slow down BitTorrent traffic. One of the panelists said Comcast uses “hacker techniques” to manage their network.
When we first reported that Comcast was actively disconnecting BitTorrent seeds, we never expected that it would lead to a FCC hearing, but it did. Let’s hope it’s for the better.
The second half of today’s hearing (pdf link) started with a number of network and technological experts telling us about the Internet, its history, and its makeup. Of main contention was the line between acceptable, and unacceptable traffic management.
Wise things were said, and the panelists made some good points about the unfairness of the traffic management tools that Comcast uses. There was emphasis on the TCP reset, which means that a few seconds after you connect to someone in a BitTorrent swarm, a peer reset message (RST flag) is sent by Comcast and the upload immediately stops.
Richard Bennett (co-inventor of the twisted-pair system for ethernet, and its protocol, 1BASE5) targeted those opposed to any sort of traffic management in his opening statement saying, “if we can’t control network management, we’ll have to shut down the internet”. David Clark, of the MIT computer science lab, opened by saying that ISPs can either see enemies, or they can see partners, and suggesting that right now, they see the former. He, like almost all the panelists, called the current usage of Sandvine technology ‘troubling’, and said that the user should pick the Quality of Service (QoS) level, not an ISP.
Daniel Weitzner, Director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Decentralized Information Group summed up bad traffic management with: “Maybe it’s a bit like the old adage about pornography ‘I know it when I see it’. In this case I know what Comcast is doing is in the camp of unreasonable. These are techniques that hackers would use to deny service to any application on the web, very similar in that regard. It might be interesting to hold a panel of security experts to talk about those kind of mechanisms, I’m certainly not one. But, forging data on the internet is probably outside of the realm of reasonable, and any standards body would deem it to be.”
However, one of the most succinct criticisms of Comcast’s actions came from Prof. David Reed, of MIT’s Media Lab, who suggested that any ISP that didn’t follow the standard solutions evolved over the last 30 years should not advertise themselves as an Internet provider, but instead as a company “offering selective access to portions of the net only”, a description many of Comcast’s customers will probably agree with.
The FCC questioner continued the panel discussion, and pointed out that one of the problems might be that there is no actual data on how busy the network was, something that, from his point of view, would be helpful in determining whether the TCP resets are a unreasonable form of network management or not.
One of the panelists (sorry, they all sound the same) immediately replied to this by pointing out that congestion was not important. He compared the TCP reset to a conversation between two people where a third party - who pretends to be one of the persons engaged in the conversation - says “Stop, this conversation is over”. He added: “I find it uncomfortable that someone in the middle is creating a message to you that appears to come from me, I have a lot of trouble with that.”
At the beginning of the hearing FCC chairman Kevin Martin said that they were willing to step in if needed. Let’s hope they will. Feel free to file a comment if you want to let the FCC know what you think of Comcast’s haxxor skills. A video of the hearing will be available within two days.
Stay tuned.
Update: Apparently Comcast has paid people to attend the hearing to keep concerned citizens out.
Previously: Lawyers For ‘Imposter’ P2P Software Threaten Open-Source Team
Next: Most Popular DVDrips on BitTorrent (wk8)
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Want to get in to private torrent sites ???
http://p2ptalk.org/forums/register.php?referrerid=41
I work as a cab driver in the washington dc area, and there have been at least 20 different people calling for rides so they can sleep outside the supreme court just so they can try to get a seat. it’s sad. (calling someone now for a 30 dollar delivery of a pillow and blanket, its windy and about 31 degrees out here, they’re freezing just to get a seat, haha, by the way, it’s only 3am here)
funny thing is i have comcast, they just upped the upload to 3Mb/s without annoucing it here,and i’ve never had the problem with the throttling. maybe they thought if they did it everywhere else except where the government is that they wouldn’t be noticed. bunch of fucktards if you ask me.
i’m just glad ppl that r sharing don’t think of where internet trafic around here gets routed before going out. we have the NSA, CIA, NRO, FBI, Pentagon, DEA and ATF, NASA all in a 25 mile zone, and if you do some checking it usually hits at least 1 of them. There’s alot of shady shit in this area, if you lived here, like i do, u’d see it. the NRO has been spying on communications in this area for at least the least 12 years, i know cuz i have a family worker who works there. you should see the shit they do, it’s scary, sad and pitiful all at once.
Here in Asia, the future is looking very bright. Thanks, Japan!
——–
[Taken from cnn.com article]
…If the technology proves successful, subscribers with small dishes will connect to the Internet at speeds many times faster than what is now available over residential cable or DSL services.
The Associated Press said the satellite would offer speeds of up to 1.2 gigabytes per second.
The service initially would focus on the Asia-Pacific region close to Japan, a JAXA news release said.
http://www.savetheinternet.com/blog/2008/02/25/comcast-blocking-first-the-internet-now-the-public/
Comcast hired people off the street to fill up seats at it’s hearing so the interested members of the public can’t attend.
Comcast acknowledges paying ’seat-warmers’ before FCC hearing
By Mark Jewell
AP Business Writer / February 26, 2008
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Comcast Corp. on Tuesday acknowledged hiring people to fill seats before the start of a contentious federal hearing on how the company manages its broadband network, allowing its employees to take those seats when the filled-to-capacity hearing started.
Many people were turned away before Monday’s Federal Communications Commission hearing at Harvard Law School, leading critics to accuse Comcast of stifling debate over the company’s practice of favoring some forms of Internet traffic over others.
Full article here: http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2008/02/26/allegations_fly_in_fcc_hearing_aftermath/
@53, 54
So they’re trying to cheat even now? No wonder they cheat on their customers then. This company is really, really disgusting. I hope they’re out of business soon.
@55: Unfortunately I live in an area where Comcast is the only game in town. :(
maybe someone could make an application that can be used by Comcast users.
They will download and let it running in backround as a service.
App will generate random and unreasonable TCP and UDP traffic from many Comcast users some of the Comcast server connected to internet.
They can simply fill Comcasts pipes from inside traffic and Comcast can do almost nothing, but look how its small bandwidth is wasted. They will not be able to determine which traffic they can allow and which to block.
You can propably leggaly run such a app (just a packet gen) in background and complaining to your provider that he is blocking your internet access and therefore you want to cancel your agreement :)
In the end, stoping using Comcast services is really the only simple way out….
suxks balls
@12
I’d love to switch… Comcast seems to be our only high-speed option. Yes, a few blocks down, there is DSL. :\
TALK HARD! - Pump Up The Volume (movie)
What they do is illegal, unauthorized, and unwarranted. How would we go if we decided someone else’s business was interfering with ours, so we went and disrupted it? We’d get arrested and probably jailed. They should face trial like anyone else who tries to disrupt the Internet, like hackers sending viruses. How do they keep getting away with it? A thief can’t excuse himself by claiming his victim is a thief. So I can steal from everyone I know who’s ever stolen anything, and that’s ok? Not saying that file sharing is theft; that’s just preposterous.
Maybe it’s time we started disrupting their services as suggested.
P2P offers the corporations more than what some may think, its like the ultimate market research tool to see directly what the people are sharing and and how to relate to the masses.
commiecast the disgusting corporate whore
filthy demonstration of how not to operate a business
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