RE: Comcast blocking p2p uploads

Has anyone (any lawyers here on the list?) investigated the
legality
of this action?  With the FCC eliminating common carriage
limits on
ISPs, it seems that blocking traffic to/from particular IP
addresses,
etc., is acceptable.  But from this description of Comcast's
activities,
it appears that they are using active measures to interfere
with their
customers' actions (fooling their customers' equipment into
believing the 
machines at the other end have terminated the interactions).
 Could not 
this be construed as violating DMCA and a dozen other laws
that have been
invoked against malicious hackers?

Andrew Odlyzko


  > On Fri Oct 19, Scott Berkman wrote:

  I agree, they have been doing this in select locations for
some time.  I
  live in Atlanta and have seen this happening for about the
3 months, but I
  have friends in the suburbs that have (or had) no issues. 
I imagine they
  have been deploying their traffic shaping in more and more
headends.  Here
  is some actual operational details:

  It is reported that Comcast is using an application from
Sandvine to
  throttle BitTorrent traffic. Sandvine breaks every (seed)
connection with
  new peers after a few seconds if it's not a Comcast user.
This makes it
  virtually impossible to seed a file, especially in small
swarms without
  any Comcast users. Some users report that they can still
connect to a few
  peers, but most of the Comcast customers see a significant
drop in their
  upload speed.

  The throttling works like this: A few seconds after you
connect to someone
  in the swarm the Sandvine application sends a peer reset
message (RST
  flag) and the upload immediately stops. Most vulnerable
are users in a
  relatively small swarm where you only have a couple of
peers you can
  upload the file to. Only seeding seems to be prevented,
most users are
  able to upload to others while the download is still
going, but once the
  download is finished, the upload speed drops to 0. Some
users also report
  a significant drop in their download speeds, but this
seems to be less
  widespread. Worse on private trackers, likely that this is
because of the
  smaller swarm size

  Although BitTorrent protocol encryption seems to work
against most forms
  of traffic shaping, it doesn't help in this specific
case.

  Comcast is making no effort to determine if the traffic
they are blocking
  is legal or not.  No one blocks all web traffic because
some sites have
  illegal content or questionable/undesired material.

  Personally I think this is inappropriate behavior for an
ISP and I hope it
  causes a mass exodus of Comcast customers.

    -Scott

  -----Original Message-----
  From: owner-nanogmerit.edu [mailto:owner-nanogmerit.edu] On Behalf Of
  Clinton Popovich
  Sent: Friday, October 19, 2007 3:02 PM
  To: 'Steven M. Bellovin'; nanognanog.org
  Subject: RE: Comcast blocking p2p uploads


  This is old news man, that's been happening for at least 3
months now.

  Clinton Popovich
  Systems Administrator
  Nauticom Internet Services - An NPSI Company
  2591 Wexford-Bayne Road, Suite 400
  Sewickley, PA 15143
  Tel: 724-933-9540
  Fax: 724-933-9888
  Email: crpopovinauticom.net
  Web: http://www.nauticom.net

  -----Original Message-----
  From: owner-nanogmerit.edu [mailto:owner-nanogmerit.edu] On Behalf Of
  Steven M. Bellovin
  Sent: Friday, October 19, 2007 2:51 PM
  To: nanognanog.org
  Subject: Comcast blocking p2p uploads


  http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/techno
logy/AP-Comcast-Data-Discrimination.
  ht
  ml
  http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/techno
logy/AP-Comcast-Data-Discrimination-
  Te
  sts.html

  Not a lot more I can say, other than argghhh!


  		--Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbi
a.edu/~smb