[CoLoCo] Off-Topic: FCC To Investigate Comcast

[telecon at infosyndicate.net]

On Thu, Jan 10, 2008 at 10:44:16PM -0500, TheZorch wrote:
> It hasn't been proven but its under investigation and a few network 
> specialists in different places says this can happen, but Comcast is 
> using their equipment to send out uPnP packets to disrupt Bitorrent 
> sessions.  This can affect the use of Ubuntu's software update and 
> download systems which I discovered to my surprise are Torrent based.  
> Anyway, a few network admins have been finding usual problems on their 
> networks in relation to uPnP and traced it to Comcast's server.  If they 
> can prove its Comcast then they have a lot to answer for.

apt-get, and synaptic use http for updates, not torrents.

Sniff the traffic and watch it.

What comcast is doing is forging reset packets between torrent clients.

This does effect things gOS, which uses a torrent as it's preferred download,
and OpenOffice which also provides torrents for downloads.

Comcast's theory is that torrents are mostly used for illegal file sharing,
and that it is ok to to limit it by forging resets.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071021-comcast-traffic-blocking-even-more-apps-groupware-clients-affected.html
is probably a good place to start.

It is possible that there are some state laws written such that what comcast
is doing is actually criminal, but I don't think anyone has looked into that
side of it.