The revelation that Comcast is degrading BitTorrent traffic has spawned many blog posts on how the Comcast incident bolsters the blogger's position on net neutrality – whatever that position happens to be. Here is my contribution to the genre. Mine is different from all the others because ... um ... well ... because my position on net neutrality is correct, that's why.
Let's start by looking at Comcast's incentives. Besides being an ISP, Comcast is in the cable TV business. BitTorrent is an efficient way to deliver video content to large numbers of consumers – which makes BitTorrent a natural competitor to cable TV. BitTorrent isn't a major rival yet, but it might plausibly develop into one. Which means that Comcast has an incentive to degrade BitTorrent's performance and reliability, even when BitTorrent isn't in any way straining Comcast's network.
So why is Comcast degrading BitTorrent? Comcast won't say. They won't even admit what they're doing, let alone offer a rationale for it, so we're left to speculate. The technical details of Comcast's blocking are only partially understood, but what we do know seems hard to square with claims that Comcast is using the most effective means to optimize some resource in their network.
Now pretend that you're the net neutrality czar, with authority to punish ISPs for harmful interference with neutrality, and you have to decide whether to punish Comcast. You're suspicious of Comcast, because you can see their incentive to bolster their cable-TV monopoly power, and because their actions don't look like a good match for the legitimate network management goals that they claim motivate their behavior. But networks are complicated, and there are many things you don't know about what's happening inside Comcast's network, so you can't be sure they're just trying to undermine BitTorrent. And of course it's possible that they have mixed motives, needing to manage their network but choosing a method that had the extra bonus feature of hurting BitTorrent. You can ask them to justify their actions, but you can expect to get a lawyerly, self-serving answer, and to expend great effort separating truth from spin in that answer.
Are you confident that you, as net neutrality czar, would make the right decision? Are you confident that your successor as net neutrality czar, who would be chosen by the usual political process, would also make the right decision?
Even without a regulatory czar, wheels are turning to punish Comcast for what they've done. Customers are unhappy and are putting pressure on Comcast. If they deceived their customers, they'll face lawsuits. We don't know yet how things will come out, but it seems likely Comcast will regret their actions, and especially their lack of transparency.
All of which – surprise surprise – confirms my position on net neutrality: there is a risk of harmful behavior by ISPs, but writing and enforcing neutrality regulation is harder than it looks, and non-regulatory forces may constrain ISPs enough.
Front page posts
I can't get off of Comcast right now (I'm under contract till next spring, and Verizon doesn't yet have FIOS to my house), but the minute I can go, I will. And this incident (along with the fact that my comcast service is more than bit spotty) will be one of the stated reasons.
I'd have a lot less trouble with them doing stuff if they'd just admit what they are doing. They have spent DAYS trying to pretend nothing is wrong when clearly, something is wrong. All they had to do to avoid this storm of criticism was to admit what was going on from day one.
When will they learn?
[...] Original post by Ed Felten [...]
Want to lose this fight? Keep calling it "Net Neutrality".
What we're fighting against is extortion, plain and simple.
So why is Comcast degrading BitTorrent? Comcast won’t say. They won’t even admit what they’re doing, let alone offer a rationale for it, so we’re left to speculate.
Ed,
According to Brad Stone, writing in The New York Times BITS blog, “Comcast: We’re Delaying, Not Blocking, BitTorrent Traffic” (22 Oct 2007):
The executive declined to talk in detail about the technology, citing spammers or other miscreants who might exploit that knowledge. But he insisted the company was not stopping So why is Comcast degrading BitTorrent? Comcast won’t say. They won’t even admit what they’re doing, let alone offer a rationale for it, so we’re left to speculate.file transfers from happening, only postponing them in certain cases. He compared it to making a phone call and getting a busy signal, then trying again and getting through. In cases where peer to peer file transfers are interrupted, the software automatically tries again, so the user may not even know Comcast is interfering.
When I compare this report to the AP's report of their testing, then I'm left to speculate that Comcast is being intentionally deceptive.
You wrote, "If they deceived their customers, they’ll face lawsuits."
Whatever your stance on network neutrality, there's another issue concerning the appropriate role of the FTC, and other public agencies, in regulating unfair practices in the marketplace. It's a pretty fringe position to advocate that market mechanisms alone are sufficient to deter deceptive practices.
Arggh. Messed up blockquote above. Just read Brad Stone's post that I linked to. And do consider the possibility that the reporter messed up. But then contrast the unamed executive's statements with other Comcast press statements, elsewhere.
P.S. Ed, when will your blog here get a preview on comments? If there's one thing that might pursuade me to stop commenting here, the lack of preview would be it. Of course, maybe you think that's a feature....
Ned,
I didn't mean to imply that the market alone, without the threat of legal enforcement, can cope with all forms of deception.
What I meant to say is that serious deception can be deterred (or punished) by legal means; and in the absence of such deception the market can operate.
Ed, I disagree that this confirms your position that there isn't something to worry about. My belief is that this confirms the position of the skeptics that the ISPs are bound and determined to play games, and that in the long run, just having hackers and activists monitor what they doi. It remains to be seen whether Comcast actually stops doing whatever it is they're doing, and I think it's considerably optimistic to assume that in the future people will be able to figure out what is going on and stop the ISPs from doing it.
Frankly, I think it's likely that the major ISPs start to collude to enforce these sorts of restrictions. AT&T has already indicated that they are going to play games with their backbones.
"what we do know seems hard to square with claims that Comcast is using the most effective means to optimize some resource in their network."
Actually, I'd say the opposite - what we know seems to indicate they are making very reasonable choices.
Look, there are hard cases, but this isn't one of those hard cases.
No business can afford to sell server-level bandwidth at home-use-level cost.
It's that simple. BitTorrent is a huge bandwidth-hog. It's designed to suck-up as much bandwidth as it can, for file-transfers.
And anyone who would appoint themsevles as czar is by definition confident they'd make the right decision. After all, aren't you confident in what you wrote in the quote above?
[...] Original post by Brianary [...]
There is a reason to apply traffic shaping policies to traffic that is not responsive to network congestion, as described in RFC896. But somehow I doubt that this is the primary motivation here.
No business can afford to sell server-level bandwidth at home-use-level cost.
Seth,
Whether that's true or not, take a look at Comcast's High-Speed Internet Fact Sheet, available from the "press room" at their site.
Do you think that Comcast's "Fact Sheet" is sufficiently informative in New York?
I disagree with your fundamental presence: BitTorrent is an efficient way to deliver video content to large numbers of consumers — which makes BitTorrent a natural competitor to cable TV. BitTorrent isn’t a major rival yet, but it might plausibly develop into one. Which means that Comcast has an incentive to degrade BitTorrent’s performance and reliability, even when BitTorrent isn’t in any way straining Comcast’s network.
Comcast is in the content delivery business. Historically, the content they delivered has been fixed bandwidth channels of 6 MHz wide video/audio. In the recent past they used some of those 6MHz channels for packet data delivery. In the age of digital set-top boxes, can there be much of a distinction between the broadcast video/audio channels and the narrowcast video/audio files? Isn't there a trend towards just-in-time delivery of video entertainment (where the users selects what they want to see) versus just-in-case delivery (broadcasting all of those channels whether I watch them or not)? If Comcast were more with it, I'd think they'd be looking for a way to improve their capability of being a common carrier of all types of content, not just the pre-programmed video channels.
Ned, I think there's an attempt to rationalize the ranting against Comcast within "geek morality". The problem is that geek morality recognizes the negatives of bandwidth-hogs - people who use too much of a shared service are in the wrong. And Comcast's High-Speed Internet is a shared service. The way people try to argue out of that, is to focus obsessively on construing Comcast as offering a guaranteed individual service, which then gives the geek moral permission to rant at Comcast for not living up to the contract. However, the contract is pretty clear, no servers on home service. That's a big problem, since it means the geek is violating the contract, a major sin, and puts Comcast in the right. The geek reaction is to try to say BitTorrent isn't a server (laughable), or that since overall defining a server is difficult, the contract is not meaningful. But again, this is not a hard case, since BitTorrent's mission in life is file-serving. Hence trying to bring in everything else.
So, my answer to you is that whatever dubious representations Comcast may have in terms of selling its service, this case, right here, this particular situation, is not one of them.
I think my argument about net neutrality isn't whether or not a czar would investigate Comcast now, but rather what would happen when Comcast starts to offer "Home Service Plus" which is exactly the same as the current service, but doesn't "delay" BitTorrent traffic. On the one hand, Comcast would be admitting exactly what they're doing, but on the other hand they're charging extra for one protocol versus another. The whole "Pay Per Protocol" is what I want to avoid by encouraging this nebulous idea of Net Neutrality.
I agree that if Comcast starts dropping speeds of certain classes of traffic that the market would help punish them, but that assumes that they have competition. The trouble comes when your only broadband provider doesn't offer you sufficient service through the only cable line coming to your home. I'm not riddled with choices here, (DSL is just too slow) but if I have a choice I will buy the fastest connection possible.
I really am not able to dig up my neighbor's back yards and put new lines in, so I have to try to squeeze everything I can through the one that Comcast happens to have put in my back yard. If there is anything I can do to improve the market competition for the radio frequences going through that hunk of copper in my back yard, I'll do it.
Seth, if Comcast wants to limit bandwidth usage, they have much more direct means at their disposal. It makes no sense to specifically target BitTorrent when they could target bandwidth usage in general.
That is, if they don't want people maxing out their upstream 24 hours a day, they could simply look at overall bandwidth usage, and punish the users whose upstream usage they deem to be excessive. It doesn't matter what protocol they're using - bits are bits, and someone who's constantly sending huge email attachments is just as much of a bandwidth hog as someone who's constantly seeding torrents.
The fact that they ignored this *simpler* means of achieving the alleged goal of bandwidth conservation, in favor of a complicated and secretive method that targets one specific protocol, suggests that their goal is, in fact, something else entirely.
Jesse, how many people send connection-saturating email for hours at a time? And why punish people - and what are you going to do to them? Comcast in fact isn't after BitTorrent per se, they appear to be after file-sharing servers.
What would it take to get people to consider that this makes sense? A foot-stamping of "They must do exactly like I would do it, from my armchair!", is not reasonable.
So which is it, Seth?
"Note 99% of individual Internet users download and don't upload except in a trivial sense."
- or -
"No business can afford to sell server-level bandwidth at home-use-level cost."
No business can afford to sell what you (rather subjectively) call "server-level" bandwidth for 1% of their customers? Check out the amount of subsidies the telcos have gotten from the taxpayers, and what we've gotten in return. Compare that to other countries. The US is near the bottom for broadband speed.
Comcast needs to throttle their customers? Great, but they have to own up to it. They don't get to say "unlimited" in every mailing and on the side of every bus if they don't really mean it. They set up that expectation, and they need to come clean if they can't keep up any more because they blew all of our tax subsidies and overpriced service charges on CEO yachts and bubblegum instead of infrastructure.
Don't insult us all with the "geek morality" condescension, Seth. Extortion is wrong. Bribery is wrong. False advertising is wrong. Your thinly-stretched rationalizations notwithstanding.
And what happened to STAYING OUT of it, Seth?
Brianary: The answer to your question is that the 1% running filesharing servers can saturate the connection for the other 99%. This is exactly why server-level traffic can't be supported on home-use-level plans.
"Unlimited" doesn't mean "feel free to set-up a server for all the bandwidth". They aren't unclear about it, and the people construing it as such are plainly in the wrong.
Same way "Staying out" doesn't mean never writing comment in a favorite blog (though sadly, I have come to regret even that).
If Comcast keeps forging reset packets (which is reportedly the way they throttle traffic) for people who upload without downloading, doesn't that ultimately increase bandwidth consumption?
I'm more than a little wary of the idea that lawsuits or customer choice will have any significant impact on Comcast's behavior. What are the damages for having some small (and arguably TOS-violating) part of your traffic disrupted?
Without regard to whether Comcast's goals are legitimate, it seems that their tactics may be illegal under wire fraud statutes. They are *forging* packets, leading one customer to believe that another said something that he didn't.
It's as if my mom and I were sending streams of post cards to each other, and someone at the post office decided we were sending too many. So he creates a card saying "Go away, I hate you," forges my name to it, and sends it to my mom. He simultaneously sends me one with my mom's forged signature.
Is anyone aware of any criminal investigations here?
However, the contract is pretty clear, no servers on home service.
Seth,
From Comcast High-Speed Internet FAQ:
Do you block access to peer-to-peer applications like BitTorrent?No. We do not block access to any Web site or applications, including BitTorrent. Our customers use the Internet for downloading and uploading files, watching movies and videos, streaming music, sharing digital photos, accessing numerous peer-to-peer sites, VOIP applications like Vonage, and thousands of other applications online.
So, while the contract may be very clear to you, your answer is contradicted by Comcast's customer support.
They say that BitTorrent is an acceptable use. And they say that uploading files is an acceptable use.
Ed:
Yes, net neutrality is slippery to define, and would be difficult to enact into law.
But what about a more modest approach, simply legislating transparency in service bandwidth and protocol carrying by the ISP, making it hard for them to legally hide what they do?
That avenue seems to have some promise, especially in markets where folks have some choice.
EF
Ned: That's right. They don't prevent you from using BitTorrent in an absolute sense. They do try to tamp it down, to keep it from saturating the network. This is good.
The TOS provision against servers is not enforced fanatically and rigidly. Only when something threatens to become a big problem, and only to an extent to keep it from doing lots of damage. That's also good.
It really tells you something - or should - that this minor bit of traffic management is being flamed as, literally, a Federal crime.
@Seth:
To repeat much of what was said above, but hopefully more concisely (and politely):
The issue here is that
a) If they were worried about too much internet traffic, they should drop packets, not forge TCP RST packets.
b) They should do "traffic management" of heavy users NOT specific protocols.
c) If the Comcast claim that "heavy users are using too much bandwidth" is true then comcast needs to change its service plans and/or reprice them. They state (from the link above) that Comcast offers un-capped transfers at the listed bandwith. That agreement means I can fully utilize those transfer rates, 24/7 for the whole month. If that is unrealistic, then the fault is Comcast's for offering and advertising a service it cannot or will not deliver, not the customer's for actually using the service to it's full extent.
In fact, Slashdot had this similar (in my opinion at least) case earlier this week:
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/25/1237202
I run my own mail domain on a server. I'm perhaps more technically literate than some but I am certainly not particularly unusual in Silicon Valley. So riddle me this...
I keep a log of all the SPAM I reject. Its a ton. And as everyone knows, and you can prove easily to yourself, most of that spam comes from one source. ZOMBIE PCs ON BROADBAND NETWORKS. Yup, that precious bandwidth that Comcast is trying to get back by shutting down BitTorrent users could easily be gotten back if they would shut down the zombies running on their network. This is the real story Ed, why don't they do this? This would be both useful (people would cheer) and no one (except the spammers) would be pissed off at them. How could they do this?
Sure tracking a bunch of dynamic IP hopping encrypted BotNets might be tough but to talk to my mail server they have to connect it on good old port 25, defined back in the stoneage of networking. So as a first approximation Comcast could block *ANY* originating packet which is headed for port 25 outside their network. If you're a legitimate Comcast user you'll have set your PC to use their mail host (convieniently something like smtp.comcast.net) if your a spammer you don't want your filth going through a choke point where bayesian filters can weed it out. Next if your a legitmate customer you probably don't tell the mail server your connecting to that your return address is somewhere not on Comcast's network. Another EASY EASY way to filter out needless traffic.
And once you can't send spam from Comcast's users, you've just made botnets based on Comcast connected PCs less valuable. Taking money right out of the botnet operator's pockets.
Instead, Comcast goes after BitTorrent users ? Isn't that like arresting the security guard at a superfund site because he tossed his cigarette butt on the ground?
--Chuck
Ed, you are correct that "There is a risk of harmful behavior by ISPs, but writing and enforcing neutrality regulation is harder than it looks ...". All one has to do is look at our tax code to see how "neutral" regulation has become a morass.
Nevertheless, the mantra of let the market solve these problems has become quite tiresome for the same reason: "It is much harder than it looks".
1. Few people have the technical knowledge to uncover the misuse of technology by a company. If I recall correctly, it took over one year before the Sony Rootkit debacle was accidental discovered. Of course once it became public knowledge, a firestorm of protest arose.
2. Even if technological abuse is uncovered, proving it can be a very difficult and time consuming process. On an individual basis, we have virtually no chance. One can only hope that activist organizations such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation would have the power to stand-up to large corporations.
3. The apologies of corporations appear meaningless. When caught - "Oops Sorry about that.", and they move onto a new scam. What continues to bother me about the response of the do-not-regulate crowd is the continued insistence that market forces will somehow "solve" this malfeasance. The fact that corporate misconduct continues is proof that the market is imperfect. So why don't the do-not-regulate people demand that corporations modify there behavior to be ethical? If individuals steal from corporation, they go to jail. If a corporation steals from an individual shouldn't there be a demand by the do-not-regulate crowd that it be similarly punished?
4. Speaking of corporate punishment. There have been numerous articles on class action lawsuits related to corporate misconduct. Yet when reading about these settlements, including my own personal experience, I fail to see how corporations are even being punished. The class action lawsuits seem to end with no admission of guilt and the defrauded consumer only gets a coupon off his/her next purchase from the company that you should not even being doing business with.
5. Finally, if companies don't want to be burdened with onerous regulation, simple logic dictates that they would not do undisclosed underhanded activities to steal from their customers. Logically it seems we need regulation, however imperfect, based on continued and long term corporate misconduct. The market has not solved this problem and there is no expectation it would do so in the future.
Seth, you wrote, "Jesse, how many people send connection-saturating email for hours at a time?"
Not many, I imagine, but that's not the point. The point is, if they want to reduce bandwidth usage, they can target it directly. That would be simpler, more fair to the BT users who *don't* use excessive bandwidth (e.g. stop seeding once the share ratio reaches 1:1), and it would catch excessive bandwidth use from other protocols (email, FTP or game servers, etc.).
You wrote, "And why punish people - and what are you going to do to them?"
Cap their bandwidth usage or ask them to upgrade to a higher service level. Pretty simple. Figure out how much bandwidth a customer can use without disturbing the network, and if they want to use more than that, charge them for it.
You wrote, "Comcast in fact isn’t after BitTorrent per se, they appear to be after file-sharing servers."
I think you're mistaken. They are specifically targeting BitTorrent seeds, and seeding is a normal part of the BT protocol. You don't have to be a "file-sharing server" in order to seed a file; downloaders are expected to stick around seeding after their file is done, at least until they've uploaded as much as they downloaded.
In a technical sense, every BT user is a "server" because they accept incoming connections and send data upon request, but I must point out that every Xbox gamer is also a server in that sense. Millions of people use cable modems to play video games online, and the matchmaking system of popular games like Halo is designed so that the games are hosted by players. Just like BitTorrent, acting as a "server" is an inherent part of the protocol - but of course Comcast doesn't want to upset all those gamers.
@Tito Villalobos
"If they were worried about too much internet traffic, they should drop packets, not forge TCP RST packets."
This is wrong. It just adds to the congestion, since the server will retry.
"They should do "traffic management" of heavy users NOT specific protocols."
If a certain application is a big problem, in practice it makes sense to focus some attention on that protocol.
[Pre-emptive: "Gotcha! You said above they were targeting traffic, but now you said specific protocol, so which is it, huh huh huh?" - the two aren't exclusive, the idea is that focusing _some attention_ on a protocol can be done as part of a overall server management]
"then comcast needs to change its service plans and/or reprice them"
People are violating their service plan.
"That agreement means I can fully utilize those transfer rates, 24/7 for the whole month."
I GIVE UP! If the very clear NO SERVERS contract provision does not convince you, then it's futile for me to say anything further.
@Jesse
"if they want to reduce bandwidth usage, they can target it directly"
Do you know this for a fact? Are you absolutely and completely certain that you know the best way of handling the specific situation they face? So confident that if they aren't doing what you think they should do, it must be a sham reason rather than you're mistaken?
I addressed the "targeting" point above.
Y'know, this is really tedious, and I'm not cut out for it :-(
Seth, I congratulate you on your stamina. The horde is whacking on you harder than the Red Sox whacked the Rockies, and you stood up to them.
No servers on the residential account, boys and girls; there's a whole other service plan if that's what you want to do. If you wants to play, you gots to pay.
@Seth:
"The answer to your question is that the 1% running filesharing servers can saturate the connection for the other 99%."
Is this a problem in countries that have actually invested some money in network infrastructure? Can you even confirm that this has ever actually happened? Is this even physically possible, given their topology?
Besides, I doubt that most BitTorrent users have the program completely unthrottled, or else they wouldn't be able to do anything else with their connection.
"This is exactly why server-level traffic can’t be supported on home-use-level plans."
If I have set up a web server to remotely control my lights, or sprinklers, or DVR, is that morally wrong in your view? This is a very old-school, broadcast-media, top-down, authoritarian view of the Internet. We're moving beyond that. Everyone is a potential "server" now, whether Comcast has prepared for it or not.
"“Unlimited†doesn’t mean “feel free to set-up a server for all the bandwidthâ€. They aren’t unclear about it, and the people construing it as such are plainly in the wrong."
Can you provide a link to a Comcast definition that clarifies "unlimited"? Are you making your own assumption about it? Does it justify misrepresenting my traffic by sending reset packets? Couldn't they simply throttle heavy traffic, or are they just hoping that less-technical users will give up after things stop working, and assume there was something wrong with their software?
And yes, construing "unlimited" as actually meaning "unlimited" is unforgivably wrong. Clearly these customers need to be punished for abusing whatever bandwidth Comcast feels like giving them. And Comcast should be able to call that level of service anything they want, because we're just home users.
"They do try to tamp [BitTorrent] down, to keep it from saturating the network. This is good."
I'm guessing you don't use much BitTorrent, Seth. You seem to have significant contempt for those that do. You also seem to think they are the cause of all network congestion; not companies that take tax dollars and refuse to increase capacity as usage increases, not code to eavesdrop and log communications for the government, not botnets, not YouTube or Skype or high-def video podcasts or podcasts in general. BitTorrent isn't evil, it just does the same thing that CacheFly and others do, just more dynamically, and at a price that we plebs can afford. BitTorrent isn't evil, and singling it out to tamp down isn't "good".
@enigma_foundry:
"Yes, net neutrality is slippery to define, and would be difficult to enact into law."
Why can't we just call it extortion, and make it illegal to charge specific websites to ensure their traffic is not "lost"?
I disagree with the contention that running BitTorrent automatically classifies a computer as a server. If Comcast believes BitTorrent is server software, it should classify BitTorrent as such and clearly communicate that to its customers. Otherwise, customers should continue to treat it as a client application for downloading large files efficiently.
I think most coverage glosses over the legit uses for BitTorrent. For example, Silkroad Online http://www.silkroadonline.net is a free massively-multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) distributed using BitTorrent. Silkroad competes in the same game genre as World of Warcraft. To get the game, you download an 850 MB file. Without BitTorrent you would download the game from a single server limited by the number of simultaneous connections it has available. Because it takes a long time (one to three hours) for each person to completely download such a large file, subsequent downloaders will wait for quite a long time before they can begin their own downloads. Making the game available as a BitTorrent distributes the game more efficiently, separates the large file into bits and pieces, and allows users to connect to each other to download portions that another user has. Instead of setting up a server room to handle traffic for those few people, the company can set up one or two seed computers and distribute its game to many in a shorter time period (theoretically, at least).
Comcast plays a monopoly role in almost every single instance it operates in. It controls prices at its whim and fancy. When will its misbehavior begin conversations about breaking it up like AT&T once was? Because if it continues to mistreat its customers and slows innovation in the telecommunications market, it will one day end up on the chopping room floor.
I think "net neutrality" should be respun as "consumer choice." As of today, there is no real choice. I'm hoping that municipalities and municipal utilities start laying thick fiber like they do sewers, water lines, and roads. Then any company can trip over themselves to provide real and good service to me.
Please.
BitTorrent, operating as a seed after a download has completed, is clearly a server. It sets there and takes requests for files from elsewhere on the Internet and serves up files to them. This is exactly what an ftp server does.
Cable modem networks have limited upstream bandwidth, and there is often a crunch between interactive users (web surfers) and non-interactive users like BitTorrent. Why isn't it appropriate to delay the non-interactive user so that the interactive user sees good performance?
This is Network Engineering 101, folks.
Oversubscribing bandwidth is a reasonable business model, and I for one am glad to have capacity available for when I need it. If the only connection available to my home were based on the expectation that I'd use 100% of it all the time, I'm sure it would be painfully slow compared to what's currently available.
People who DO use 100% of their bandwidth all the time are the tragedy in this commons. Comcast must do something or everyone's connection will be dog-slow. I suspect that killing bittorrent upload connections is simply the most expedient way they currently have. It also allows them (for a time) to continue to offer very simple Internet connection services (e.g., flat monthly fee, one size fits all, no metering).
Sooner or later, the next big thing in peer-to-peer filesharing will come out and its transport layer will be encrypted. Comcast won't be able to masquerade as anybody and their current countermeasures will cease to be effective. It's my hope that Comcast is taking the time available to set up a reasonable solution to the bandwidth hogs. Perhaps something involving metering, which I doubt they can just switch on right now. I hope they don't just start throttling encrypted traffic - things will get *very* ugly in that case.
@Seth:
"If a certain application is a big problem, in practice it makes sense to focus some attention on that protocol."
Not when the general problem of excessive bandwidth use can be tackled *directly* with less controversy and less effort.
"People are violating their service plan."
That's an amusing claim, since Comcast's customer support (as quoted earlier) says they allow BitTorrent, and they explicitly support other "server" activities like Xbox Live matches.
"Do you know this [that Comcast can target bandwidth usage directly] for a fact?"
Yes, I do. It's basic networking, and they already do something similar - look into their PowerBoost feature, which dynamically changes the upstream and downstream caps. They also keep track of users who are using excessive bandwidth - it's easy to find reports from people who've been warned for violating the unwritten limits of their supposedly unlimited service.
@Richard Bennett:
"No servers on the residential account, boys and girls"
So, all those residential users hosting Halo games are violating their service contracts? And Comcast, by providing tech support for Xbox connections, is encouraging users to violate their contracts?
Apparently, yes. So the rule is you can violate your contract as long as you don't make a nuisance of yourself, but if you do, you're history.
That's fair.
Would it also be fair to ask for all the billions in dollars in telecoms subsidies back?
This is Network Engineering 101, folks.
Richard,
First, the vast majority of Comcast's residential broadband customers are not network engineers. I know it, Comcast knows it, Comcast's customer's know it, and I suspect you know it, too. Comcast's customer's are surely should be expected to rely on Comcast's customer support FAQs—whether or not the contract is unclear or ambiguous enough to require extrinsic evidence for its interpretation.
Second, as Steve Bellovin recently pointed out, Comcast's characterization of RST as just a delay is wrong:
That won't fly. Stating that the software will retry assumes a certain model of software. Perhaps some particular clients will retry. Others may not. The semantics of a TCP Reset are quite well-defined; there's even an Internet Best Current Practice that warns against other inappropriate TCP Resets.
Mr. Bellovin's blog entry points to BCP 60, and I'd call your attention specifically to section 2.3 which "recommend[s] that the TCP reset not be used as a congestion control mechanism, because this overloads the semantics of the reset message, and inevitably leads to more aggressive behavior from TCP implementations in response to a reset."
I'd also call your attention to STD 7, on p.82,
RST A control bit (reset), occupying no sequence space, indicating that the receiver should delete the connection without further interaction. [...]
Of course, you know all that networking 101 stuff, I merely point it out for the benefit of those who might be able to understand the difference between "delay the connection" (not what the standard says) and "delete the connection" (what the standard says.)
Ned, you're engaging in sophistry. The TCP RST that Comcast uses to throttle BitTorrent is quite effect in its solution space. They've apparently found a way to discover BitTorrent from its traffic profile, and stifle excessive seeding connections when the Comcast network is busy. We know this mechanism works because would-be bandwidth hogs complain about it.
You can search the RFCs high and low and not find any mention of how to throttle applications that circumvent backoff and slow start by queueing multiple connections, which is what BitTorrent does. This is an app that doesn't want to play by the conventional rules of Internet traffic, so other measures are required.
And we do know from experience that BitTorrent will retry later. You don't have to be a network engineer to see it happen, just run a test of your own, as I have.
As a sometime network engineer, "net neutrality" regulations seem to me very, very difficult.
Here in Japan, you buy your fibre connection from one of three providers (NTT, KDDI or Usen), and then in the case of NTT, at least, you pick one of twenty or thirty ISPs. It's the same with DSL. This works well; if I don't like one ISP due to poor connectivity, tech. support, or whatever, I can switch my connection to another. This is a solution to the problem that can't be gamed.
Strange that in a socialist country like Japan they can manage to create a competitive market for this, yet in a "capitalist" country like the U.S., they grant Internet access monopolies to local loop carriers.
cjs@cynic.net
@Richard Bennett:
"They’ve apparently found a way to discover BitTorrent from its traffic profile, and stifle excessive seeding connections when the Comcast network is busy. We know this mechanism works because would-be bandwidth hogs complain about it."
What makes you think it applies only to "excessive" connections, only when the network is busy, and only "would-be bandwidth hogs" are affected? Do you mistakenly believe that all seeding is excessive and only bandwidth hogs do it, or do you know something about Comcast's BitTorrent interference policy that the rest of us don't?
"You can search the RFCs high and low and not find any mention of how to throttle applications that circumvent backoff and slow start by queueing multiple connections, which is what BitTorrent does. This is an app that doesn’t want to play by the conventional rules of Internet traffic, so other measures are required."
It circumvents the conventional rules of internet traffic by opening multiple connections at once? You must be kidding! Web browsers, Usenet clients, and download managers all do that. BitTorrent doesn't do anything special that can't be handled by the same mundane bandwidth restrictions used for other traffic.
Seth
you have it backwards,
>> “If they were worried about too much internet traffic,
>> they should drop packets, not forge TCP RST packets.â€
>>"This is wrong. It just adds to the congestion,
>> since the server will retry.
If you drop packets the server will retry, a TCP RST will shut down the connection creating a complete disconnect with no retry.
Forged TCP Resets are a standard practice for firewalls, IDS and IPS systems. Every firewall product that I use has the ability to send a Forged TCP Reset. Most IDS or IPS (Intrusion detection systems, Intrusion prevention systems) can send a reset to break a session it does not like.
Bill Tedeski
Network Engineer
How can your forge your own name?
>>They are *forging* packets, leading one customer to
>>believe that another said something that he didn’t.
Comcast not the customer owns the IP address that is on the packet. If would be different If I were to program one of my systems to send a reset with my next door neighbors IP address, but in the case of Comcast they own the IP.
Bill Tedeski
Network Engineer
"Figure out how much bandwidth a customer can use without disturbing the network, and if they want to use more than that, charge them for it."
This is exactly what my current ISP does. There's even a usage-tracking page I can check. If I go over a certain amount of transfer, they charge an extra buck fifty for every additional gig, or 100MB, or some such of transfer.
"Comcast not the customer owns the IP address that is on the packet. If would be different If I were to program one of my systems to send a reset with my next door neighbors IP address, but in the case of Comcast they own the IP."
This "justification" doesn't wash IMHO. Your argument justifies the landlord in my apartment building forging my signature on snail-mail because "he owns the address that is on my mail; I just lease it". Somehow I suspect the courts would look dimly upon my landlord if he actually did forge my signature on a snail-mail, and even more dimly on his defense attorney if said attorney tried to argue justification with an argument like you just made.
Spuds your analogy does not work. Your landlord can use the address of the building all he wants. But he can't use your signature. You own the signature he owns the building.
In fact your landlord can change your apartment number if he chooses. He owns the building, not you.
The IP address is not your signature. It is the building address. The address you own is the MAC (Media Access Control) address that is burned into your equipment. That is the address you own, assuming that you own and not lease your cable modem.
Bill Tedeski
[...] news@mmosite.com wrote an interesting post today on “Comment On Comcast And Net Neutrality By Dan B.” Here’s a quick excerpt: For example, Silkroad Online http://www.silkroadonline.net is a free massively-multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) distributed using BitTorrent. Silkroad competes in the same game genre as World of Warcraft. To get the game, … [...]
...testing...
@Seth:
I'm sorry about this, but it sure felt like I was being accused of something for occasionally downloading linux distro ISOs via BitTorrent, and that I should just accept interruption or sabotage because I'm a home user.
(cont.)
Sandvine is likely to have bugs, and I suspect I've already seen the effect of that when I tried to get to Google on two separate days and got a "Connection was reset by server" for several hours. It's the same reason I don't run Vista: I don't need the DRM layer there adding more hassle to my life.
(cont.)
All of the US telcos have really let us down with lousy bandwidth (1) and terrible upload speeds (2), while taking $200 billion dollars from taxpayers (3). Complaints about bandwidth saturation just further underscore this point for me, and anything that shakes the complacency of the telcos seems good to me.
(1) "Top 30 Countries for Broadband Internet Access"