Comcast Interferes With File-Sharing

By Blocking BitTorrent, Company Inadvertently Makes Case For Net Neutrality

(CBS)  The advocates for network neutrality have an unlikely new ally in Comcast. The cable TV company, which is also one of the nation’s leading high-speed Internet providers, is officially opposed to proposed legislation that would force it to treat all of its customers equally. But its recent actions have actually strengthened the argument that something must be done to protect consumers against an oligopoly of providers that can control what we can do with our own DSL and cable modems.

Last week the Associated Press reported that “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.” Specifically, the AP said that the company was blocking the ability of subscribers to upload files using the BitTorrent file sharing network.

This has nothing to do with copyright enforcement. While BitTorrent can be used illegally to share copyrighted files, it is also used by many to legally share all sorts of digital files. The company behind BitTorrent has even announced deals with major TV and film studios to use its peer to peer technology to speed up the delivery of media to customers. Some software developers are also using BitTorrent to efficiently distribute very large files.

Although Comcast has been tight-lipped about its policies, company spokespeople have been quoted by the AP and others as saying that it doesn’t “block access” to BitTorrent or other applications but that it does use technology to monitor and control network traffic.

To grasp what Comcast is allegedly doing it’s important to understand the basics of how BitTorrent and some other peer to peer file sharing networks operate. If I want to download a file from BitTorrent, say a promotional video from an independent band, I would use a piece of software to find that file. But instead of finding a single computer that stores that file, the software might find several computers that have it and order it up in “bits” with pieces of the file coming from different machines across the Internet. In order for me to get those bits, each machine would have to be able to send me a portion of that file. All of this is perfectly legal as long as no copyrights are being violated. Some content providers love it because it reduces the cost of distribution and greatly speeds up the downloading process by spreading it around the Internet.

Reports indicate that Comcast is getting in between the sharer and the person making the request by sending a fake message to the computer dong the sharing saying that the requester no longer wants that file. That message causes the session to end. The Electronic Frontier Foundation says that the company is also doing this with files from the Gnutella file sharing network and blogger Kevin Kanarski, who works at a Lotus Notes manager, has reported that he and other Lotus Notes users “have experienced dropped connections in Lotus Notes when sending e-mail with attachments from a Comcast Internet connection.”

Comcast has not officially commented on these allegations other than to tell the AP and others that it needs to protect its network from a very small cadre of abusive customers who use far more than their share of Internet bandwidth. Responding to a question from a moderator at a panel at last weeks’ Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco, Amy Banse, president of Comcast Interactive Media, reportedly told the audience that the company is trying to guard against the .01% of “what we call excessive use.”

As a Comcast customer I understand the need for the company to protect my bandwidth from abusive neighbors who might slow down my service by over-using theirs, but there has to be a better way to do this. If what the AP and many others have said is true, it strikes me that what Comcast is doing can best be described as hacking and impersonation by falsely sending out messages that appear to come from a legitimate user attempting to download a file. Their motivations might be noble, but their methods are scary.

It’s like a government agency engaging in illegal search and interrogation methods in the name of homeland security, not that that ever happens.

I’m not about to drop my Comcast service because the alternative - where I live - is a much slower DSL line from AT&T but Dwight Silverman, my friend and colleague at the Houston Chronicle has blogged that he’s thinking of canceling his Comcast service. “I never thought I'd say this, but AT&T's DSL is starting to look good.”

The irony of this is that it’s giving ammunition to the net neutrality forces that want Congress to pass legislation requiring service providers to treat all applications equally. Comcast along other cable providers and phone companies has argued that such legislation is unnecessary because they don’t discriminate but the SavetheInternet.com Coalition worries that “the nation's largest telephone and cable companies - including AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and Time Warner - want to be Internet gatekeepers, deciding which Web sites go fast or slow and which won't load at all.”

Until now, the big providers and their supporters have won the day, but I suspect that the tide might soon change. Not only is Comcast on the hotseat but so is Verizon Wireless which recently rejected a request from Naral Pro-Choice America to send out text messages over its cellular network. The phone company claimed it had the right to block “controversial or unsavory” messages. To its credit, Verizon revised its policy the day it was exposed in the New York Times but its initial decision sent a chilling message to anyone who thought that the phone in their pocket actually belongs to them to use lawfully as they see fit.

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A syndicated technology columnist for over two decades, Larry Magid serves as on air Technology Analyst for CBS Radio News. His technology reports can be heard several times a week on the CBS Radio Network. Magid is the author of several books including "The Little PC Book."

[michellem99-2009]

I am about to dump Qwest as they give me the run aground..Their DSL is good..very good..their business manner well that needs work..I have signed up to get Comcast broadband..They say it is better..I don''t know.

[Reedrock]

You do a good job of summing up how the entire argument behind "net neutrality" is baseless.

What is so ironic is how your solution for "protecting" customers from an "oligopoly" is to enforce a totalitarian monopoly. So you''re asking people to go from having a choice of two or three services where they must factor speed, quality, and reliable access to one where the federal government has COMPLETE control of everything. How is this is any way better?

I know what you''re going to say: "But we don''t want the government to control it, just make sure ISP''s are distributing bandwidth." Please, wake up from your Marxist dreamworld.

Do you honestly believe that this government that has been spying on its citizens, disregarding the constitution, torturing people around the world, will somehow play nice once they regulate all of the traffic that is flowing through the internet. This is the last bastion of freedom for many Americans, and you are inviting the government to step in and meddle with it because of bad service by companies.

Have you not seen the corporatism that has taken over this country? If you think the internet is not fair now, just wait until the feds control it all and it''s up to which company lobbies the hardest to see who gets bandwidth.

Please, before you ask the government to do anything, think about history, and think about the consequences if they control what you ask.

[cyberbian-2009]

Excuse me!
Aren''t there rules about journalisitic integrity?

"Interferes with file sharing" No, No, No.

Launches denial of service attacks against their own customers!

Violates Federal Internet Security Laws Hacking and launching attacks against their customer base!

Hmm. . . Big advertisers are they?

No individual member of the "General Public" would get that kind of treatment. You are giving corporate entities superior status to the individual.

This undermines the freedoms, rights, and libertys of every American. Thanks to you, we are all diminished! We are now all second class to the institutions which we pay for, and which are there to serve us!

[michellem99-2009]

i am so glad I did not dump Qwesr as I like their DSL as yer not sharing it with others. I have their fastest speed as I hate to wait. I bought the modem so I own that. I have to have that as there is times I look things up when talking to my parents.

[brianbwb-2009]

Posted by reedrock

Believe me, I share your concern and you are correct in most of your assessment, but there is an important part you leave out.

The ISPs already do the bidding of the government, spying on you, because they are either afraid of losing their license, or they are secretly being paid for it, so you fear that which already is.

Second, they purport to sell you a service which they do not provide, if they say 512, or megabit broadband, that is what you pay for, so that is what you should get.

The excuse that the bandwidth is limited to max "x" number of users suggests the ISPs should not sell to more people than they can serve according to the contract to provide unlimited broadband.

Third, ISPs should be absolutely neutral. I, a music and video producer, could benefit from sending and receiving files with associates in other countries, as it would save my the time and expense of courier services, except that it doesn''t work. Companies like Comcast think every audio file or video file must be being pirated, so they choke off legit users as I would be if it worked.

Common law regarding property is being perverted by those seeking to get money they did not earn, trying to make you pay every time you use a product. If that were applied to cars, lets say, when you buy a car to give to your son, he also must pay the car company for what you already paid for.

They also interfere with email, calling many messages I have sent as spam. Seems to be related to attachments.

[lochlan-2009]

I guess we are living in China now. Censoring the citizens for the sake of big business.

[michellem99-2009]

I should my room mate had thier cable serivce to watch TV. We never knew if the bill would be higher or the same each month for the same service.
I have DSL thru the phone compamy..UNLIMITED...There has only been 2 or 3 times I couldn''t get on the net and that was to much traiffic too many at one time . I get right on the net. No problems..

[cnjcc]

It''s worth noting that basic differences between cable internet and DSL is what''s prompting cable companies to do "bandwidth load management". With DSL, you get a dedicated connection to the internet that''s your''s alone. Cable internet, by contrast is deployed in clusters of typically around 50 homes ... meaning that all 50 are sharing the same pipeline. This is why you may notice your surfing speeds drop when the kids get out of school and start downloading music, or sharing files, or doing online interactive gaming. There are also security concerns where (absent some serious blocking techniques) an amateur hacker can get into computers within the same 50 home cluster fairly easily. At least today, DSL is a better choice both for net neutrality and security.

[random_radar]

If we give government officials power to decide what is allowed on the internet, pretty soon government officials will be deciding what goes on the internet. Unbelievable but true...

[michellem99-2009]

I say go with DSL..I have serurity on computer. A fire wall is a must plus the works..

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[friend9nine9]

[part A] Comcast is lying. Besides simply "delaying traffic," it was my experience that they not only monitored my bandwidth and ultimately terminated me as a user (for a year) "for using excessive bandwidth" ... but that they also used my bandwidth as a piece of download tracking information that triggered the stopping and OPENING of downloads ... which is far more serious a problem than merely delaying individual downloads. I don''t think that Comcast''s extensive record of interfering with downloads (and bandwidth use) is the real issue. I think it is their decision to MONITOR downloads that is the bigger problem for the Internet. That is, they are acting as a midstream and (ultimately) downstream censor, and using their ability to monitor bandwidth usage as the triggering device for electronic snooping into what is being downloaded by their customers. Either they look at the individual''s record of URL contacts and DEDUCE that the downloads are P2P (etc.)-related, or (more likely) they divert downloads and (a) look closely at the names of them, or (2) use relatively simple technology to open them and determine whether the customer "should" be allowed to download such things (i.e., as music, videos, books, etc.).

[friend9nine9]

[Part B] Note that Comcast''s ads say: "unlimited access to the Internet" ... which they later interpret as meaning that broadband customers will be able to "connect at any time" and NOT that we can use our broadband connection as much as we want. That "bait and switch" tactic is essentially an unfair business practice that warrants an investigation of their practices since the supposed meaning of the phrase is not made clear until the first notification of "excessive bandwidth" use. In my case was terminated. But in conversations with the mysterious Comcast "fair use" people [which smacks more of COPYRIGHT interest than interest in bandwidth usage] it quickly became clear to me that my privacy had been violated by Comcast, and that they were not merely monitoring bandwidth but "browsing" downloads ... and probably by decompressing them. Comcast''s practices are no doubt illegal and HIDING UNDER the guise of bandwidth policing. They are, in fact, exercising censorship of downloads moving through their Internet traffic--that broadband customers (like I was for years) are paaying for. There is constitutionality issue about the way Comcast achieves their version of what the Internet SHOULD look like.

[friend9nine9]

[Part C] Comcast aspires to play Big Brother, and I question whether that is a legal use of the inevitable power they wield on the Internet. What power? In many parts of the country they have a virtual monopoly on high speed Internet access. Try replacing your Comcast broadband with DSL and you will quickly learn the nature of Comcast''s power o nthe Internet.