[100215] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Comcast blocking p2p uploads
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Steven M. Bellovin)
Fri Oct 19 16:35:18 2007
Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2007 19:58:47 +0000
From: "Steven M. Bellovin" <smb@cs.columbia.edu>
To: "Christopher Morrow" <christopher.morrow@gmail.com>
Cc: "John C. A. Bambenek" <bambenek@gmail.com>, nanog@nanog.org
In-Reply-To: <75cb24520710191226n751ccd9m1a58ff2535f8fc72@mail.gmail.com>
Errors-To: owner-nanog@merit.edu
On Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:26:14 -0400
"Christopher Morrow" <christopher.morrow@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10/19/07, John C. A. Bambenek <bambenek@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > I love how the framed it as "data discrimination". Let's just be
> > honest... 99% of it was illegal traffic taking up far more than
> > their fair share of bandwidth.
>
> is there really anyway to really know how much of it was
> legit/legal/illegal??
Nope. And BitTorrent is trying to be very legit; see, for example,
http://www.forbes.com/home/technology/2007/10/08/brightcove-fox-paramount-tech-cx_ag_1009bittorrent.html
Besides, legal issues should be dealt with by the legal process. If
nothing else, there one has guarantees of due process and the right to
contest the charges.
>
> Also, I'll channel Sean Donelan now: "ISP's... damned if they do,
> damned if they don't" It's a funny world out there :)
>
> (also, how is it that Comcast is getting dinged on this but BT or
> other carreirs doing similar 'rate shaping' for p2p traffic are NOT?)
>
Personally, I see a big difference between rate-shaping and sending
RSTs. (I suppose you could view RSTs as allocating 0 bps, but that's
not a helpful distinction.)
That said, I don't approve of other carriers sending RSTs, either; I
simply happened to see the articles on Comcast today.
--Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb
