Comcast goes after its own subscribers again

Busted for throttling BitTorrent users and raked over the coals by the FCC, Comcast recently switched tactics. This seemingly random act of sharing, going into a limited cooperative agreement on bandwidth use with BitTorrent, the very company they were so at odds with before, had the internet scratching their collective heads. Then the other shoe dropped.

Comcast is now using a much more nefarious scheme to hamper users’ online experience. Instead of just throttling bandwidth used in P2P transfers like BitTorrent, Comcast is also going after usage through users’ browsers. They are doing this by forging packets and blocking internet access connection attempts from the browser.

The news was broken out of the University of Colorado Systems Research Lab. The lab conducted anonymous traces of Comcast’s interaction with user browsers and found that the way Comcast was handling TCPwas disrupting regular surfing of the internet and on occasion other activities like email. It would be my guess that the Comcast users who have recently reported issues with applications like instant message services and Twitter are victims of this terrible practice as well.

Comcast has contacted the University to give their spin on the story. To the university’s credit, while they acknowledged the communications from Comcast, they also left their study online for all to see. Good for them. We must hold the stewards of our internet accountable for their actions or risk losing the internet as we know it an all of the innovation and work opportunities it has generated.

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