Link: AP Tests Comcast’s File – Sharing Filter
"In two out of three tries, the [bittorrent] transfer was blocked. In the third, the transfer started only after a 10-minute delay. When we tried to upload files that were in demand by a wider number of BitTorrent users, those connections were also blocked."
Here’s yet another reason why Comcast and the rest of the cable TV mini-monopolies will never get a dime of our money. The reporter tested Comcast’s bittorrent-blocker by trying to download a public domain file — the Bible — from computers in several locations. They discovered that Comcast is blocking bittorrent. While they’re not blocking it everywhere across their network, the block is implemented at the protocol level, which means that if you want to use a Comcast cable modem to share a video you shot or a song you wrote using bittorrent, you’re out of luck.
I wonder what happens when game developers and others start adopting bittorrent more broadly to distribute demos and patches? I’d also be interested to know the technical details of how bittorrent gets blocked — it seems like it would have to be something that bittorrent clients could defeat if they knew more about what’s going on.
I hope Comcast loses a bunch of customers over this.
Related posts:
World of WarCraft has been distributing patches with BitTorrent since launch using their own client.
Comcast has years of customer hostile policies like this. It’s too bad; I’d prefer cable to ADSL. But if the ISP is actively evil? Forget it.
There’s a standard encryption protocol in Bittorrent clients now that try to hide from this kind of thing. But it’s still somewhat vulnerable to traffic analysis. I don’t know where the arms race stands today.
I have a little sympathy for Comcast; they’re trying to control bandwidth. But they’ve gone way beyond a little QoS oriented traffic shaping to actively disrupting application protocols. That’s wrong.
You know would we even be able to play games online if the networks went unmanaged? I know this isn’t the most popular position, but come on – bandwidth is limited and in order to make everyone can do they want ISP’s have to manage and this is the best way to do it.
I don’t know who you’ve been listening to, or who you work for, but you’re uninformed.