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Comcast Corp. actively interferes with users who share files online by blocking traffic (msn.com)
12 points by gscott on Oct 19, 2007 | hide | past | favorite | 6 comments


The really interesting thing about this is that they might be running afoul of some kind of data forgery laws. Comcast is sending RST packets that appear to come from the other BT client, so they're forging packets with the source address set to the remote BT client's address. Just terminating the connection would be legal apparently, but since they're forging packets the legality of this action is suspect.

Source: http://www.cnet.com/8301-13739_1-9769645-46.html


"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."

Comcast has the right to manage its network, but this obfuscation of the source of the blocked upload is totally unethical.

Comcast is not my provider, so I have no direct knowledge of what it is like to deal with them and I am reluctant to base my opinion solely on MSM reports. But, if this is any indication of how they operate, I count myself lucky I'm not one of their customers.


And by doing so it might convince a court somewhere that the practice is resonable and decide to make other ISPs do the same thing.


Today it's P2P, tomorrow it will be online video and music, and after that, they might even go after blocking individual sites.


Cox Communications appears to do this as well; at least in Arizona.


Ugh, users will run into problems and have no idea why. If comcast wants to manage its network they should at least have a public policy for how they do that.

Oh well, maybe people will start encrypting more of their traffic.




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