Comcast now makes it near impossible to seed torrents.

[Polygon]

http://torrentfreak.com/comcast-throttles-bittorrent-traffic-seeding-impossible/

im pretty upset about this, since i use comcast. Sure i can still DOWNLOAD torrents, but i feel bad that i can no longer upload them so the swarm stays alive....

And just for the record, encryption does not stop it, currently the only way to get past it supposedly is to either make firewall rules to stop the RST flag (reset connection flag) or to use torrents via a VPN or SSH .

and you can also 'still' seed, but only to other comcast users.

opinions? comments?

[kinematic]

opinions? comments?

Don't use Comcast.

[Kingsley]

Good, I never seed much anyway.

[st33med]

I hate Comcast. I still have it for high-speed cable (waiting till Fios comes to my county), but we ditched cable for satellite. They had really bad service, slow boxes, and lots more down-time than satellite. Seriously.

I even hate their broadband because it is not that fast as it says it is (max 550Kb/s download?). Dropped packets are worse. I can understand restricting seed usage, but annihilate it all together? Come on, it's not that bad.

[Polygon]

Again, its not eliminated...... completely. You can still seed if the peer is on a comcast connection.

and again, where i live, i only have two choices, quest or comcast. and trust me, quest is like 10x WORSE then comcast, they randomly take our internet down on random days for long periods of time, and comcast has actually been pretty good. (900kb/s download 90kb/s upload)

so how do we not use comcast if its essentially our only choice?

[Ralob]

it is ridiculous. i cannot stand comcast- damn monopoly. this is the stuff that engages me. i spend over 50 bucks a month for their service and they screw you in any way possible. if i could switch I would. but there is no alternative where i live.

[Tundro Walker]

Again, its not eliminated...... completely. You can still seed if the peer is on a comcast connection.

and again, where i live, i only have two choices, quest or comcast. and trust me, quest is like 10x WORSE then comcast, they randomly take our internet down on random days for long periods of time, and comcast has actually been pretty good. (900kb/s download 90kb/s upload)

so how do we not use comcast if its essentially our only choice?

This is starting to sound a lot like the airlines issue. Because of the way air travel is handled by the government and corporations together, everyone hates it. You stand in long lines, to get frisked, treating like crap, and then wait on the tarmac for hours before take-off. Then you're delayed getting to where you need to go, or you have to wait an hour for your luggage to show up (if it shows up). Etc, etc.

It's like, as consumers, we're slowly being trained to expect crappy service, and when selecting service it's not a matter of choosing the best, but choosing the least crappiest.

America pushes for Capitalism, and this is what comes of it. Corporations don't want to provide good service. They want to segregate the service they currently provide so they can start charging "premium" packages and such for certain types of traffic. For Net Neutrality, folks were worried about the cable companies trying to turn the net into a cable TV business model. This isn't the case. They want to turn it into a cell phone business model...each cable company has its own network, and you get charged for "roaming" out-of-network. And, instead of getting charged "by the minute", you'll get charged premiums depending on what you're downloading / uploading. IE: watching movies on YouTube will net you premium charges vs. checking your email or surfing text-only html pages.

This needs to get nipped in the bud soon, or it's only going to get worse. They'll keep taking consumer rights inch by inch, because they know you can slowly erode freedom over time without folks complaining too much.

[init1]

http://torrentfreak.com/comcast-throttles-bittorrent-traffic-seeding-impossible/

im pretty upset about this, since i use comcast. Sure i can still DOWNLOAD torrents, but i feel bad that i can no longer upload them so the swarm stays alive....

And just for the record, encryption does not stop it, currently the only way to get past it supposedly is to either make firewall rules to stop the RST flag (reset connection flag) or to use torrents via a VPN or SSH .

and you can also 'still' seed, but only to other comcast users.

opinions? comments?
Can you do this using a proxy, or something similar?

[jfinkels]

This is a despicable move by a company with little interest in the greater good of humanity and the growth of community.

[FuturePilot]

That doesn't seem fair. It's like censorship.:shock:

[Depressed Man]

Does using encryption help any?

[GFree678]

Does using encryption help any?
From what I remember about the Slashdot reporting of this, Comcast sends RST packets to disable seeding, or at least cripple it. It doesn't slow down torrented packets, it breaks seeding capability at the source of each seeder, which is why encryption doesn't do squat here.

EDIT: Polygon already mentioned the RST stuff, but I know for sure encryption won't work. The methods used are different.

[LookTJ]

That's it! I'm officially telling my dad to get rid of comcast when he gets home(Sept 25).

[misfitpierce]

Encryption could allow you to do so sometimes... And if you keep right clicking every now and then and refreshing tracker... That seems to work.

[LookTJ]

Can someone post a tutorial of how to stop rst packets on a router?

[Depressed Man]

That's it! I'm officially telling my dad to get rid of comcast when he gets home(Sept 25).

That'd probably be the best bet. Speak with your wallet. :)

And boy am I glad now that I get free satellite internet (company benefit for one of my parents). Even if it's latent at least I can torrent with it (well before I get FAPPed though the limit is pretty high thanks to a business connection).

And I don't think Maryland uses Comcast as its internet provider (though it does for TV I think..).

[LookTJ]

That'd probably be the best bet. Speak with your wallet. :)
It's probably gonna be AT&T or Verizon.

[Depressed Man]

Haha you have one more choice then me at least in this town. I think the only two providers here (besides 56k and satellite) are Verizon and Comcast. And now if that free benefit ever gets taken away I'm going have to recommend Verizon.

[macrohard]

http://www.whalesalad.com/2006/08/27/tunneling-bittorrent-over-ssh/


:lolflag:

[jfinkels]

That doesn't seem fair. It's like censorship.:shock:

It's a monopolistic practice at its worst.

[Tabenx]

comcast has actually been pretty good. (900kb/s download 90kb/s upload)
Sounds like we have the same comcast plan. I've had a lot of problems with them though, our connection was down for a month and we had called the repair guy down after one week of internet problems (took 3 more weeks for him to get here) and then another week to fix the problem. I'm just waiting for FIOS to come to my area then I'm dropping comcast immediately.

[Polygon]

i read in a comment that this command will make iptables block RST packets



sudo iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 28400 --tcp-flags RST RST -j DROP

**NOTE: Replace 28400 with whatever port or port range you want

but i tried it and i cant seem to get it to work.... any help?

[o3rat]

Man, this sucks. While I'm up at school the only choice for off campus internet is comcast.... Bastards! I wish gI could switch, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

Maybe they will just get enough lawsuits and just stop doing this.

[CityofAsh]

I believe this will bite comcast in the *** eventually while Verizon Fios Spreads over the cable market with theyr 20 mbit fiber. I have no problems with torrent uploads on fios and i can upload at more than 1,200 KBPS ;)

[starcraft.man]

I believe this will bite comcast in the *** eventually while Verizon Fios Spreads over the cable market with theyr 20 mbit fiber. I have no problems with torrent uploads on fios and i can upload at more than 1,200 KBPS ;)

Damn it! I want a fast line like that. I only got two choices though in my area up here, and the one that's faster than I am now has a horrible privacy policy and actively hands over information on it's users to many groups encouraging things like the RIAA suits. I just can't abide by that.

As for the topic, yes I heard. Comcast (and the rest of the ISPs) have forgotten that their purpose is embedded in their name. Provide Internet Service. Period. They're purpose was never to throttle bandwidth for some protocols, limit bandwidth monthly or even to send these damn seeding reset flags (which, has been asserted as internet fraud since they are spoofing both ends of the connection to the other. This has been cited as illegal in many states.).

These companies have sat on their butts doing little to nothing in the way of building networks while they profited like mad men. Meanwhile, the demands for bandwidth in this content (rather than communication) driven net have grown exponentially (mainly due to video streaming like youtube, p2p services like joost/bittorrent and the growing number of connections per switch/area). Yes Canada and the States are huge, and difficult to wire cheaply. That isn't an excuse for this poor behaviour to their customers.

Oh and one more disparing thing that the ISPs started doing is booting some of their "unlimited" bandwidth customers. The term unlimited now seems to mean until we decide your using too much.

These providers need a swift and sudden kick in the back, followed by a complete pummelling. If they/the free market can't deliver equitable, fair and guaranteed service to the masses (the internet IMO is becoming an essential service) then maybe it's time to do what Quebec did to the electric companies, nationalize. You will find we have one of the best and cheapest networks of electricity, we even export our excess.

[psusi]

You can not ignore RST; it is how connections are closed. Comcast is literally closing the connection, and there is nothing you can do to stop them from doing that, other than making it look like something else so they don't close it, or switch to a non fascist ISP.

[Polygon]

You can not ignore RST; it is how connections are closed. Comcast is literally closing the connection, and there is nothing you can do to stop them from doing that, other than making it look like something else so they don't close it, or switch to a non fascist ISP.

your not ignoring RST packets everywhere, only on a specified port (which should be the port that your bittorent client is using)

[psusi]

your not ignoring RST packets everywhere, only on a specified port (which should be the port that your bittorent client is using)

It still won't work... best it will do is make the connection look like it is hung and just sit there useless until it times out.

[wolfen69]

Good, I never seed much anyway.

if there were more people like you, bittorrent would die quickly.