Cox pulls a Comcast with eDonkey Comcast isn't the only American ISP throttling peer-to-peer file sharing traffic. Cox Communications is pulling exactly the same trick. According to Robb Topolski - the networking guru who first revealed that Comcast was busting BitTorrents back in May - Cox is using some sort of network hardware tool to sever connections on …
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"Cox actively manages network traffic through ... protocol filtering. Cox does not ... discriminate against any specific services in any way"
Unless the service just happens to use a filtered protocol, I guess.
Meh.
Are these ISPs offering 'all-you-can-eat' style connections?
And if there is a 'pay-as-you-go' option, do they still play funnies with the RST on it?
Seems to me that the service sold, and to be managed, is simply the delivery of customers' data. So any management should consist of ensuring sufficient bandwidth for the demand they have taken money to supply, and the routing the data in the best possible manner.
Deliberately introducing what is effectively errors into a customer's data stream isn't management; at best it's discrimination. In effect a type of data apartheid. It sounds a highly immoral practice, so no doubt has the legal court's blessing.
Surely these RST packets must be sent from the IP address of the customers system.
I can see a couple of issues with this.
If the ISP is sending packets on your behalf that you are not sending yourself and sending them from your IP address they are claiming to be you. Under US case law I though you were your IP address. In piracy cases the fact that the traffic came from your IP address is accepted as evidence that you sent the packets. So if they are inserting packets into your communication they are claiming to be you and must therefore be guilty of identity fraud. Isn't this a criminal offence?
Secondly, the flip side to this argument is that if your ISP is sending network packets on your behalf then the likes of the RIAA can no longer use your the fact that traffic came from your IP address as proof that you sent them. All you would need to do is put Cox on the witness stand and get them to admit under oath that they do send extranious packets from your IP address and there is no longer any proof that you sent any particular packet. There is reasonable doubt that the packet could have been sent by your PC or it could have been sent by the ISP.
Interesting dilemma?
The current versions of Emule allows obfuscated connections and
there is an option to allow obfuscated connections only.
I wonder if that could beat that filtering?
All that talk earlier about servers being taken down didn't really
matter because eMule also uses Kademlia for non centralized servers.
"To help our customers make the most out of their Internet experience, we take proactive measures to ensure that bandwidth intensive applications do not negatively impact their service."
Folks, if I'm a P2P user you don't help me making the "most out of" my Internet connection when you interfere that way. Instead you should live up to the terms and conditions the customers was lured by into signing the contract and provide appropriate bandwidth for everyone.
If you accept more users than your network can handle and they simply use their connection as advertised ("cable modem technology that gives you a boost of speed for video, photos, music and any large file access") you are the problem, not them.
Or are you just trying to find a way to sell your on-demand video services?
...we wouldn't have to do this to ya. -- Cox
I never have used P2P or online gaming, but I expect this to be Cox's answer to break the net neutrality stuff. On the other hand, if Cox had their own way, you'd pay double for "P2P and online gaming support", and throw the *@$#*#!! RST in anyway.
It's a conspiracy, I tell ya! A Conspiracy!! ;-)
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