Comcast's Throttling Plan Has 'Disconnect User' Option

newtley writes "Comcast's new people, not protocols scheme may mean high speed for some, but by no means all. It's also created a draconian 'disconnect' option for use against anyone who fails to toe the Comcast line. But, says Robb Topolski, the Net protocol expert who originally uncovered Comcast's blatant efforts to control its customers, the plan does offer key take-aways, telling P2P users on Comcast how to do what they do without the risk of corporate interference."

Question

[clang_jangle]

I don't do a lot of torrenting -- only when I really want something I can't find for sale, or to download "legit" stuff -- but I've found that TOR works really well against comcast's nonsense. It isn't like I'm downloading much, maybe ten to fifteen GB on a busy month (and zero most months). Before I found TOR, I'd start a torrent and my connection would be cut off within an hour or two. I could reestablish it by powercycling the cable router, but then would have it happen again in a few minutes. Then, I started spoofing my MAC address, which seemed to buy a few hours each time before the same thing would happen. Finally, I installed TOR and now it just works, at least with rtorrent.
I have read that some people believe that using torrent over TOR is abusive, but I never saw an explanation of why that would be so. If I operate a node (give back) it's fair, isn't it? And if not, why not?

Warning! Don't read referenced articles!

[lancejjj]

telling P2P users on Comcast how to do what they do without the risk of corporate interference.

I've already watched a Netflix movie and downloaded a couple iTunes this month.

So I haven't read the referenced articles, as I'm afraid that doing so might exceed some Comcast quota.

Re:Heh heh heh...

[lancejjj]

They should put into place a system whereby the speed of your access is inversely proportional to the amount of data you transfer. Thus, when people first sign on to this service, they'll be impressed by its speed. But as time goes on, it'll slow down increasingly, until Google's homepage takes a year to load.

Comcast has that option already. It's called "Comcast High-Speed Internet".

Re:Comcast is just playing by the FCC's rules.

[billcopc]

Yep that's the feeling I get as well. If Comcast wanted to play nice, they'd simply throttle after the cap was reached.

Frankly, if some kiddie was chugging 250gb of furry pr0n each month, I'd limit that user to 128kbit.

Re:Comcast is just playing by the FCC's rules.

[the_B0fh]

Damnit, what do you have against furry pr0n?! Some of the finest people I know are furries! Or so they say. *ahem*

Re:Chill pill people

[MyLongNickName]

He really means Windows Ultimate Edition, but doesn't want to be ostracized by the rest of Slashdot.