This has been suspected for a while, but the AP has pretty much proven it now:
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.
And how do they do that?
Comcast’s technology kicks in, though not consistently, when one BitTorrent user attempts to share a complete file with another user.
Each PC gets a message invisible to the user that looks like it comes from the other computer, telling it to stop communicating. But neither message originated from the other computer — it comes from Comcast. If it were a telephone conversation, it would be like the operator breaking into the conversation, telling each talker in the voice of the other: “Sorry, I have to hang up. Good bye.”
OK, besides the fact that I don’t think ISPs should “pick and choose” what type of traffic to allow or from where (unless the source is clearly providing only illegal things), I find this pretty bad because Comcast is basically “lying” to your computer - pretending to be the other computer(s) you’re connected to.
My first thought on this is: “isn’t this illegal?” Comcast is basically spoofing another computer your connected to on the bittorrent (or other P2P) network.
I use Comcast, but I don’t think I’ve run into the specific problems that I’ve seen here, though I do think that my upload speeds are slower than they should be - which could be affected by this. Then again, when I was at my parents house and used their DSL, I downloaded faster on their DSL which is supposedly only a quarter as fast than my cable, so maybe it is affecting it, and I just didn’t have a point of reference to compare it to.
I don’t necessarily mind ISPs throttling traffic as a whole if someone is just gobbling up bandwidth. But picking and choosing what to throttle and what not to I think is bad. Even if one argued that unlicensed anime fansubs are illegal, and thus this is no problem, just going around to some of the techie sites like Slashdot will quickly show you that there is a great deal of legal downloading going on over bittorrent as well. However, Comcast’s method doesn’t care whether it’s legal or not.
Edit: Does anyone have the Verizon DSL (and if you do, what speed?) I thought about getting Verizon DSL before just because it was cheaper than the cable internet, but the last time I tried I think my DSL modem blew out my laptop’s ethernet port and it wouldn’t work and I got all mad, and returned the damn thing to Verizon, but I’m thinking of trying again and being more patient this time.
I think part of it before was that I had a crappy modem, and I got JUST the modem and tried doing wireless though my already existing wireless router instead of getting their combined box. I’ve heard some bad things about Verizon being slow and dropping people off a lot, but the reviews at DSL Reports seem to be for the most part positive. I was just wondering if anyone else had experience with using it.
