Comcast tries p2p throttling
I guess this is the entertainment industry's vision of the future: ISPs that interdict file-sharing. Bravo to the AP's Peter Svensson for a troubling bit of investigation that produced two pieces today, one on Comcast's practice of sending bogus reset messages to p2p users in the act of uploading, and a sidebar suggesting how Comcast was doing it.
What bothers me about the stories is that Comcast appears to be taking SafeMedia's approach to anti-piracy, to wit, wholesale blocking of material regardless of the legality of the distribution. That kind of behavior helps fuel the push for Net neutrality. Not surprisingly, the folks who favor Net neutrality regulations -- including Public Knowledge and Free Press -- jumped all over Svensson's revelations. Said Gigi Sohn of Public Knowledge,
"There is a right way to manage traffic and a wrong way. The right way is to let consumers know how much bandwidth they can use, as companies in other parts of the world do. The wrong way is to take control of a consumer’s computer to throttle their use of the network that Comcast simply doesn’t like."
One of the main reasons lawmakers and federal agencies have cited for not imposing Net neutrality requirements so far is the lack of evidence that telecom companies were discriminating inappropriately against different kinds of online traffic. Funny, but evidence seems to be streaming in from Comcast, Verizon Wireless and AT&T -- three of the strongest opponents of neutrality rules. Now let's see whether the Senate Commerce Committee takes up the suggestion by Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) to hold hearings that could lay more groundwork for a bill.
Subscribe to this Blog - What is RSS?
I think that they are also giving preference to their own VOIP traffic over other VOIP services. If you ask their customer representatives, they'll claim that their internet phone services aren't technically "VOIP" and that it has higher quality then other VOIP services. Seems to me that the technology is the same, but if one had dedicated bandwidth vs. slower default speeds for the competitors, I could see how Comcast could make these claims. I don't think any of this would be controversially, except Comcast has been granted local monopolies that restrict choices for consumers. I can't wait for Verizon to get to San Francisco, so that I can buy Fiber and a more compelling TV experience from a competitor. In the meantime, I have to pay $10 more for Comcast, then what they charge in Alameda (5 miles away from SF) because in Alameda, their is a cable competitor and they can't get away with monopolistic prices.
Posted by: Davis Freeberg | October 19, 2007 at 11:27 AM
SafeMedia Corp., Boca Raton, Fl., does more than just blocking, it only reads the transmission of what they call contaminated files, illegal copyright music, movie and software files using DNA fingerprint tech, and a library of some 700 contaminated P2P networks. It does not read or get into encrypted files, only the transmission of them, it saves bandwidth, which is the biggest asset and it is really the most affordable. In the long run when it goes on market, it will also save the movie and music industry billions of dollars from Internet Piracy and universities the headache of policing its students and those pesky RIAA pre-litigation letters for students downloading illegal music. Bottom line, it works. We tested here at our company Local Area Network, and I have a 15 and 13 year old son who used to download music over LimeWire free until we put the Clouseau to the test. The bottomline it works, the drawback, now our kids are charging our AMEX credit cards for legal Itunes, but hey for 99 cents a pop, it sure beats getting zapped with a $225,000 jury award for downloading 24 illegal songs like the lady in Minnesota experienced. And believe it or not MPAA, RIAA and ASCAP all know about this technology. Not sure why they are sitting on it, but that's what industry analysts and the media should be focusing on: Entertainment Politics surrounding the best technology to prevent illegal file sharing. Ther is a major ISP and a handful universities testing this technology, and there is ISP interest in Germany, Mexico, Brazil and Canada, because their customers are complaining about a slower service due to all the P2P video and audio streaming. Also, those countries are crackdown on piracy of copyright materials. Even the UK is looking at a ban on P2P filesharing, and retired General Wesmoreland told a Congressional hearing recently that P2P networks are the "Next National Security Threat."
Posted by: Aida Mayo | October 25, 2007 at 12:12 PM
CORRECTON: It should be General Wesley K. Clark, who said P2P networks are the next "national security threat." not Wesmoreland.
“We found more than 200 classified government documents in a few hours search over Peer-2-Peer networks,” said Retired General Wesley K. Clark
at a recent Government Reform Committee hearing (7-24-07). Describing it as the new national security risk Clark said, “We found everything from Pentagon network server secrets to other sensitive information on P-2P networks hackers dream about.”
Clark, now the chairman and CEO, of Wesley K. Clark & Associates, and a board member of Tiversa, Inc., which conducts 350 million searches per day, compared to Google’s 150 million daily searches.
“If everyone knew the scope of the risk of P2P networks, America would be outraged and demand solutions” Clark suggested regulation and mandatory defensive active monitoring programs, especially for sensitive government documents. “If you wait for the lawsuit, you have waited too long.” Clark noted that many of our national information security leaks were fresh, complete and often were distributed on home computers over P2P networks.
Posted by: Aida Mayo | October 25, 2007 at 12:34 PM
I rarely comment on blogs but yours I had to stop and say Great Blog!!
Posted by: mark | April 14, 2009 at 05:50 PM