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Comcast has been in the news recently for blocking high-bandwidth traffic in an attempt to keep people from using their Internet "too much". If we're lucky, this story about them possibly getting sued for it is true. As bad as Comcast is in service and customer service, it would be nice to hold their feet to the fire when they get caught doing bad stuff intentionally.

Oh, and if you missed it, Comcast has been trying damage control without much success.

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I already reported on Comcast blocking Peer-2-Peer filesharing traffic, but apparently they've extended the blocks to enterprise software (in this case, Lotus Notes).

When Lotus Notes users attempt to send e-mail with larger attachments over Comcast's network, Notes will drop its connection. Instead of a successfully sent e-mail, they're greeted with the error message, "Remote system no longer responding." Kanarski did some digging and has managed to verify that Comcast's reset packets are the culprit.

It should be noted that everything that has been reported as being blocked by Comcast are things that cause high traffic on Comcast's networks. Even though people pay for their high speed Internet, Comcast will be damned if they actually let you use it. I mean, I've never been dropped from Comcast service for using their Internet "too much" like some people, but I definitely can't get decent service to save my life.

For example, if I start one download at about 100kB/s, the rest of my Internet connection limps along like a two legged cat! So much for my 6 megabit connection speed.

Something is seriously wrong with Comcast and I hope some regulator comes down on them hard soon.

AT&T

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AT&T (a.k.a the evil empire that won't die), is going to start filtering Internet traffic to remove copyrighted material in transit.

Fortunately, there's no chance this will work for long. First there's the SET technology for filesharing that uses generic chunks from files unrelated to copyrighted material to speed up sharing. If this gets implemented, not only will it improve filesharing speeds and allow people to finish files that have lost their seeders/sources, but it will prevent AT&T from filtering copyrighted material without blocking legitimate shares as well.

Secondly, it won't be long until filesharing networks introduce a quick encryption to packets that scramble them randomly using an IP address so the chunks of data won't be recognized by AT&T filters. I'm sure there are plenty of other techniques as well, but one thing's for certain: even honest non-hackers and non-sharers are still rooting against the copyright holders and AT&T.

I mean, come on! The article says the copyright companies lost billions of dollars due to filesharing? All they're doing is talking about the value of the files they know have been shared without taking into account that many of the people who are downloading these files would never have bought them in the first place! They're not losing money they would have had, they're losing money they never would have had.

As the article itself says, the RIAA and MPAA should just focus their money and resources in finding ways to turn downloaders into honest customers (perhaps cutting prices? Offering slick downloadable options? Removing all DRM so people can do what they want with it?)