Comcast user sued his ISP over BitTorrent
A California man filed suit in state court Tuesday against internet service provider Comcast, arguing that the company’s secret use of technology to limit peer-to-peer applications such as BitTorrent violates federal computer fraud laws, their user contracts and anti-fraudulent advertising statutes. Plaintiff Jon Hart, represented by the Lexington Law Group, argues that Comcast’s promises of providing internet connections that let users “Download at Crazy Fast Speeds” are false and misleading since Comcast limits downloads by transmitting “unauthorized hidden messages to the computers of customers” who use peer-to-peer file sharing software. Hart wants the court to force Comcast to stop interfering with the traffic. He also wants the court to certify the suit as a class action and force Comcast to pay damages to himself and all other Comcast internet subscribers in California.
The suit (.pdf), which also claims the BitTorrent blocking is an unfair business practice, was filed in California Superior Court in Alameda County. In the suit, Hart says he upgraded to Comcast’s Performance Plus service in September specifically to use the “blocked applications,” and that nothing in the 22-page terms of agreement with Comcast indicated that the company throttles traffic. Comcast refuses to plainly explain what it does to control BitTorrent traffic, but independent analyses have shown that Comcast is severely throttling internet traffic that is using the popular file sharing protocol BitTorrent by sending fake “I’m finished” messages to users’ BitTorrent programs. Those fake packets are also alleged to affect users of the mainstream business application Lotus Notes. The lawsuit charges those fake packets violate the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. I will closely watch this case and inform you all about the results.
Source: Wired, TGD
Comments(42)
I’d never use Comcast. How can you have any faith in your ISP when Comcast continually screws up such as this. I hope Comcast fails.
It’s about time someone had the legal kahoonies to stand up to the Big Boy ISPs who have been blatantly screwing their own customers by refusing to upgrade their own lines and throttling users and their applications instead…
I hope this guy wins BIG TIME.
LOL MARTIN I LOVE THAT IMAGE !!
Aren’t they really breaking the law by impersonating a user??
I just hope he wins, not that I really care, I live in thE UK, but it just goes to show to these fat cats that this sort of stuff is simply not acceptable by any means.
I too love that image!
Would love to re-use it!
Anyone against that?
This is kind of weird but I just got off the phone with comcast and upgraded to Comcast’s Performance Plus service package. Then I logged on to RL and see this! I still not sure if I see any performance advantages does anyone know what the upload is supposed to be? They told me 8mbs but did not specify the upload speed. Could this be worse the the basic package I had? Will they throttle my bit torrent?
Fantastic! Stick it to them!
“Aren’t they really breaking the law by impersonating a user??”
This is how it works:
You are a comcast user and you start downloading a torrent. You connect to a tracker and get peers. This is normal. Then, comcast has software that sees this, and forges an RST packet, which looks like it’s coming from the bittorrent user, the RST packet resets the connection. To your session, it appears that the end user has reset your connection.
They are breaking the law by forging those packets to look like it’s from the bittorrent session, when in reality that packet is coming from comcast.
That’s technically impersonation. Hopefully if this actually makes it to court, they get a reasonable judge.
There are various people with criminal records and some even in jail, over similar issues pretending to be someone else, be it forging packets, phishing attacks or whatever.
People use their services because in most places there is no other choice in broadband. Shame monopolies are now apparently legal.
^ @7
You just got screwed by comcast.
Comcast FTL.
I hope they have to pay out the ass. Its not enough that they are a multi billion dollar company, but then they go and steal money from someone and not provide the bandwidth there paying for. In my opinion every customer who prescribes to there internet should be included in the lawsuit and they all should receive a settlement.
@7
There are other means of downloading that wont be throttled, and are way faster.
@12 – john
What are you doing here then ?
I have comcast and my DL speed for torrents seems good, and I always finish the download, but my upload speed is horrible.
It will only upload at around a max of 50kb/s I have utorrent set to allow a higher upload speed, but my speed maxes out around 50.
but downloading is fine, and get things at a great speed. I just let things seed much longer to compensate for my low upload speed.
Had a similar issue here in Canada earlier this year with Rogers cable. They put out a meassage to its subscribers to bring in their old modems for upgraded newer ones. BAM! Next to no speed for torrent downloads. Called tech support and they admitted to me that they were putting the brakes to torrent file sharing. Needless to say dropped them the next day and found a smaller more reliable high speed provider.
Don’t be afraid to ask up front if they block torrent downloads before you sign up.
Cogeco does the same thing in Canada, however I was; ok I ‘SEEMED’, to be able to get around it using Privoxy. Speeds were faster proxying the tracker server/peer-peer communications than if I just ran through the DMZ or open port. We’ve since moved/changed ISP’s so it’s no longer an issue, but proxying the tracker traffic seemed to confuse the ‘block’.
GL!!
well kind of stupid to block it sins its what moste ppl who have high speed internet use it fore… i mean dont bite the hand that feeds you…
urmm what i acctual meant was that Offocrse i have my high speed 10Mbit/s to get my pr0n fast from my paysites… ermm
Great share on info @Martin!!!!
More information on this when u get it would be appreciated!
Cheers!
If you pay for a fast broadband service you should get a fast broadband service.Too many Isp providers have got all their details in way too small print.
Without downloads to dl,who would want expensive broadband?
No one.
Good luck Mr Hart.
Apparently NTL/virgin media do the same thing in UK
lol @16. T0$$3r
@14 JM
Better up then my crap dsl .. I have to throttle my own uploads to max @ 18K. it’s the only way I can also use it for other things. Takes forever to balance my ratio’s
“I just hope he wins, not that I really care, I live in thE UK, but it just goes to show to these fat cats that this sort of stuff is simply not acceptable by any means.”
BIGGEST ISP (UK) VIRGIN HALVES BANDWIDTH AFTER 4PM TIL MIDNIGHT AFTER U HAVE USED 350MB ON YOUR LINE BET U DIDNT KNOW THAT!
God bless Sweden
@13
To see what new releases there are as far as programs and movies. I gave up on torrents a long, long time ago. There risky because you never know who is seeding them on the other end, and if that person has a slow upload then it will take forever. This isnt a designated Torrent site. You dont see torrent anywhere in the site name do you. Its really just a info site on releases.
I hope those Comcast f*cks BURN for this.
I really do.
if so this guy is trying to sue the company so he can download ILLEGAL warez at fast speed
…. ROFL i wonder who will win
hummmm, argue hes downloading paid for porn, or trans. a home movie between friends, now that would win, post ur homevid(anything…eating) then if they slow ur paid bandwidth on bit.t u have won
HA! I KNEEEEWW IT. Comcast has been doing this for almost 2 years now. I was constantly uploading Dreamcast games for EmuParadise and then one day all of a sudden it got difficult to get any connections, even downloaders complained. I finally gave up the whole thing. I still download but I don’t really bother seeding anymore (up speed sucks anyway compared to down speed). And already we got 2 emails from Comcast this year about using BT to download stuff, and since it’s been a long while since the 2nd email and no follow-up, I figure they just let it go. After seeing this I can see why they let it go. I think they know they’d be S.O.L. in a court battle. I hope this dude wins. Hopefully this will get national attention and people from other states will get involved too. All I see on TV is Comcast commercials all the time, it’s annoying. Earlier this morning I saw a new Comcast commercial with a sort-of well-known actor (I know his face but not the name) pretending to be a TV news anchor. Apparently work must be hard to come by in Hollywood. Wanda Sykes (however you spell it) is doing the voice of a talking apple in Applebee’s commercials now too. Saaaaaad.
msg to bigk & any other users in the uk, Virgin Media do a similsar thing, & its called traffic management, i’ve got 20megbbi, & if I exceed any number of kbs, while d/loading serv is restricted for 4hrs!!!!
AOhelL do it to me in the UK. Evenings between 6 and 11 I’m lucky to get 60k dl. Outside of that I get 7-800k. But with RS and torrent, I still dl aprox 20-30gig p/week
AA.
traffic management has it’s purpose, but not to artificially choke bandwidth when more is available.
I can understand that if they are hitting a ceiling on bandwidth to choke the higher user to make room for the lower, but to choke it when there is no other demand for it is just wrong.
@whoami?
That IS why they are throttling, they are hitting their bandwidth ceiling. Pay attention, please.
A couple corrections;
Comcast isn’t interferring with Bittorrent downloads, they’re preventing Comcast users from seeding files. People can still download, they just can’t upload.
As for asking them ahead of time; Comcast support personel have been instructed to be evasive when answering calls from the public. They’re told to say that they don’t block the use of any particular application. This is true, they interfere with some of the functions of various applications.
Why are all the individual opinions and comment, reflecting “me” thinking when you all should be getting organized, to lobby your governments, which can make new laws for sharing to be made legal?
You P2P users are NOT willing to stand up? Not willing to help another do your bidding?
Talk about a worthless bunch of turtles, wanting but NOT willing to help even one of your own!
Does anyone think “FREE” cost nothing? Point being, if you want P2P and sharing your culture, stand up and be heard, care about what you think is important…
Comments are just single opinions, but get your government to pass new laws, and then you got the system working for you…
Who’s system do you want it to be anyhow? Yours, as in the people or some “fat cat” written above?
Here’s your chance, to unite… to take back your people’s rights!
Help spread the word to unite… to change the laws to support P2P, file sharing, and to NOT allow the corporations to stick it to you…
Why should MPAA be the only one’s to unite… to work against you folks? Who is bigger, MPAA, RIAA or the people?
I think you all need to wake up, your NOT sheep, and these are NOT lions… Their just greedy profit capitalists…
benefiting from others to redistribute their works… in the billions… be software, music, and innovations…
Is this their world or do we get organized, and make a difference for us “we” the people?
Help yourself, join and be heard as by us all…
@34 Alex
Nowhere is it stated that comcast throttles when their (comcasts) bandwidth capacity is near critical, only that they are throttling users who have high usage and targeting specific applications. That is throttling users based on an artificial cap, not the total bandwidth available.
@Rekrul
Please read the comments from a few days ago regarding the Man From Earth release. The community is now in agreement that we will compensate the people involved in producing various digital media whenever we download it.
Rlslog.net will soon include Paypal links for each release to make it easier to carry this out for everyone. You are correct, there is no free anymore, that concept does not work.
Please re-read the comments on that post so you can see how wrong you are about the people involved in producing all types of digital media.
They are not greedy profit capitalists as you call them.
Just a reminder:
Torrents are being used for “legal” purposes too.
A good example is that “America’s Army”, being developed by the U.S. Army is distributed by torrents.
http://www.americasarmy.com/downloads/torrent.php
So if some ISP tries to claim that they block P2P because it is only used for “illegal” purposes… …there’s your response.
I have Comcast and despise it. I can’t wait until Verizon FiOS arrives in my area. Luckily they said it will be available in about six months.
PIPEX in the UK do exactly the same thing (throttling). And as if that wasn’t bad enough, their customer service is diabolical as well.
$#@! PIPEX!.. $#@! them in the a$$!…
@9 Bob
It’s actually a monopoloy but rather an oglipoly. The difference being some companies, such as cable, electric, gas,
and formerly the telephone company would have the specific use of one area because they all run wires or pipes or some sort of framework for their business.
“Download at Crazy Ass Speeds”
Its about time. My ISP is far more better. Costly but Satisfactory