Comcast Invests in P2P 76
AHTuttle writes to mention Comcast, recently under fire for throttling P2P traffic, has decided to invest in a P2P video-delivery startup called GridNetworks. "Seattle-based GridNetworks on Monday said that Comcast would make an unspecified investment in the company and collaborate on developing so-called peer-to-peer file-sharing techniques that are 'friendly' to Internet service providers."
Neutrality, schmeutrality (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Neutrality, schmeutrality (Score:4, Insightful)
but I worried about the idea that they'll try to force subscribers to load their P2P software on any/all machines that want to connnect, even if you don't WANT to use ANY P2P. This is just pure paranoia on my part of course, unless I'm right.
Why not "legally" turn ALL their customers into "bots" via the seducing promise of better video sharing on "their" P2P network. I'm just saying...
Re:Neutrality, schmeutrality (Score:4, Insightful)
Even with all the corruption in ISPs, I doubt that it will be passed. Because the effort of monitoring it and the effort of making a cross-platform P2P application would take tons of effort if they want at least some business as it would have to be ported to Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows CE, The Xbox, The Xbox 360, iPhone OS, Mac OS X, Earlier versions of Mac prior to OS X, Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DS, PS3, PS2, Gamecube, Linux (all distros), FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, other versions of *BSD, UNIX, Solaris, various cell phone/PDA OSes, other Internet appliances, and all this software has to be not just maintained for older versions, but new versions yet to come out. So no, I don't think this will happen for a long while...
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Overall, I don't see why Microsoft would object to something like this. In fact, I think that they'd be happy to have the dominant p2p protocol restricted to windows only, as it would give them the upper hand.
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tried the demo, needed windows, funny thing one of the demo thing was "Elephants Dream". Looks like the application is a
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The only reason for an ISP to sponsor their own implementation is to gain control over it, most likely so they can either charge extra for it or so they can provide preferential placement of c
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The "network friendly" solution proposed by the ISPs will probably be a centrally controlled network and link to an ISP server for peer coordination but also so the ISP could exercise control over what happened on the network.
In this case if the RIAA wanted to stop a file and catch pirates It would become very easy.
They would go to the ISP which would delist the file from all controlled clients and report all who had downloaded it, essentially nuking the file from their network.
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I am wondering if this might be the start of the evolution of US-based ISPs to follow the model we have here in Australia - more content made available locally on each network.
Is anyone really surprised? (Score:5, Interesting)
Meanwhile, I still have issues with BT... (Score:3, Insightful)
First post w00t!
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Have you tried any of the better, private trackers?
Are your ports properly forwarded?
Is your client configured correctly?
Etc, etc, there are so many things that you could be doing wrong, I wouldn't be so quick to blame your ISP. Not completely ruling it out, but I'd doublecheck everything first.
Re:Meanwhile, I still have issues with BT... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Meanwhile, I still have issues with BT... (Score:4, Interesting)
That's true, but don't fall into the trap of thinking it must be so.
We recently moved to a VOIP system at my work, and we have a lot of employees who work from home. Some of them are having problems. They can make a call, it connects, but no audio. One of my first thoughts was, "Stupid ISPs blocking traffic to sell their voice service". Our tech from the company we bought the system from took a phone that worked fine connecting to our office from their office to his house where he has Comcast and it failed the same way, lending another data point on that side.
I took my phone home today, plugged it in and it works fine and I'm also on Comcast in the same area.
My boss did the same and we had a nice clear conversation.
So I can't blame Comcast on that one. I'd like to blame my users (obvious next step), but as of right now, I think it's probably just an issue with certain brands of home firewall/routers. Of course, if more than two
users had even responded to our request for issues, I might have more data upon which to base my opinion.
So, while it's good to keep in mind that they're sleazy operators and *will* lie about it, other things still fuck up
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We use their 'soft phone' and it is so hit and miss that me and the other remote workers routinely forward it to landlines.
Nothing better than calling a client and they can't hear you.
Cisco VoIP is a piece of shit, but it bought the CIO another year in his tenuous job.
Stay the fuck away from it. Long on promise, short on delivery.
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It's from Intertel. Luckily, the soft phones and hard phones at least seem to be screwing up the same when they do.
I gave up on Cisco after dealing with them once. When you need to pay for an account to log in and download software that only does anything if you own their hardware, then that's a level of sleaze I just won't deal with
We had DOA hardware that they refused to deal with until we paid extortion.
Fuck Cisco.
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*blue_l0g1c is away - gone, if anyone talks in the next 25 minutes as me it's bm being an asshole
<blue_l0g1c> HAHAHA, DISREGARD THAT. COX SUCKS!
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Re:Meanwhile, I still have issues with BT... (Score:5, Informative)
Slow down there, champ. The BitTorrent protocol uses an approximate tit-for-tat strategy -- more peers will upload to you if you upload to more peers. This can take a while, which is why BT speeds generally trend up slowly, although I'll admit 30 minutes is a bit much even in my experience (I used to have comcast, now have at&t -- they're both crap, in short). It's all explained in this very clear and easy to read paper by Bram Cohen (the original protocol author) : Incentives Build Robustness in BitTorrent [www.sics.se] (PDF link).
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That baby will be born dead. (Score:5, Insightful)
And the commercial product will not become widely adopted and displace the other P2P applications. To do that it would have to be about 10 times as good an application and there isn't that much headroom available. (As for slowing down the other P2P applications, see above.)
Finally, it won't even be able to compete equally on a level playing field because it will certainly be hobbled with DRM.
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Don't they understand (Score:5, Funny)
Sheesh!
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They do understand. (Score:1)
ISP Friendly Means... (Score:2)
It'll be like their DVR offerings. (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sure some content will be disallowed on their P-2-P systems, so I won't use that either.
Perhaps we should give Comcast a break (Score:2, Interesting)
Do they really care if you're downloading newestLinuxDistro.iso or newestDVDrelease? I wouldn't think so.
On the other hand, if Comcast was my ISP, I would prefer faster p2p over normal web browsing. I want an open Internet. Period.
Re:Perhaps we should give Comcast a break (Score:5, Insightful)
No, they're not. How does using method A vs method B change the amount of megabytes of data that user X wants to download? It's irrelevant, unless you can prove to me that their "method" uses less "overhead" (the amount of stuff in each packet that isn't actual data). But downloading 400MB via bittorrent, limewire, Kermit or a binary dump is still going to amount to a 400MB download.
However you may have a bright future in either marketing or politics.
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It reduces the load on their upstream peering/transit links if you use an intelligently designed protocol that understands subnet affinity. That does, in fact, make that ISPs internet faster and more reliable for everyone.
BitTorrent is really an awful way to distribute data, from a network engineering perspective. A CDN or mirror network works much better, but is also more accountable and takes some effort to set up, so it's not suitable for mass infringement, pirate bay style.
There are big gains for Comcast to be had in P2P (Score:1)
What it _can_ do for comcast. (Score:3, Insightful)
Back when "the internet was monitized" and companies started charging for everything by "actual us" as opposed to "bandwidth promised" these super-smart companies discovered that they had footbulleted themselves. Now they pay X to get an OC12 but then then pay Y to actually transmit data over that link. E.g. live by the meeter, die by the meeter.
So if comcast can get you to use _th
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But downloading 400MB via bittorrent, limewire, Kermit or a binary dump is still going to amount to a 400MB download.
However you may have a bright future in either marketing or politics.
Have you ever used Bittorrent at home and then tried to surf the web - Vs. - downloading off a mirror and surfing the web? bittorrent is very very chatty. 400 packets via bittorrent is far less data than 400 packets from an FTP site.
Do a tcpdump on a machine running bittorrent and then one downloading any other way. 400MB may be 400MB, but most of the packets with bittorrent are establishing connections and do not have any data toward that 400MB.
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Antitrust (Score:5, Insightful)
No, we don't have a problem with P2P...as long as you're using ours. Yeah, I know, people will always find a way around it as long as there's a network somehow connecting two computers, but that's not the point.
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What this screams is desperation. Comcast really hasn't a clue in this area and it's showing more and more every week.
Legal is key (Score:3, Informative)
How exactly does one download a rental from a peer?
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Can't speak for anyone else, but if it gets that bad then I can find a better use for the $110/month I pay the bastards for internet and cable.
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i imagine that eventually frustration if nothing else would drive most of Comcast's users to use "their" software...
It also stands a solid change of driving Comcast's users to Verizon, AT&T, Sprint Broadband...
I realize that Comcast has a total monopoly on broadband in many areas, but not in mine. I have zero problems with calling up Verizon, or AT&T, or even DirecPC if it ever came to that.
(this probably explains why I don't really see any heavy P2P throttling in my area, as opposed to areas in which Comcast is the sole provider. I wonder if anyone has done any sort of differential study based on monopoly
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Re:Legal is key (Score:5, Informative)
Therein lies the clue you appear to be missing - not all BT traffic is illegal. Bittorrent has shown itself to be one hell of a sweet distribution channel during times when new releases of legit content and applications come out, which takes bandwidth pressure off of mirror servers.
Also, all questions of legality and illegality aside, I honestly don't see any improvements in bandwidth that come from Comcast's forging of RST packets. If anything, it would only increase the amount of crap traffic and excess traffic (mostly caused by peer reconnects, re-establishment of connections lost, seeking new available connections, etc)...
You'll find few if any people in here that have anything against buying legit software. The objections come from two places:
1) Comcast is perfoming 'man-in-the-middle' attacks on their own customers, regardless of whether that attack may be justified (pirated material) or not (legit material). Conceptually, if they can do that, then what's to stop them from pretending to be you in any other context? It's a violation of many things, including existing anti-hacking laws.
2) What right does Comcast have to interfere with legitimate traffic?
I already know the argument - it's their network, take it or leave it... great: so let's strip the artificial monopolies they've been granted by state and local government, and remove any special privileges that they've been enjoying from said governments. Until they are willing to give those up, then they should and must be subject to us, the customer base.
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Here is how it works.. BT is broken on Comcast. Nothing downloads fully except the super popular DL of the day such as the latest Ubuntu release on day one. After the D/L is done, within 3 hours your UL is dead. Total UL was only 75 Meg. Felt like a leach for providing so little. (Tested with Gutsy. Mirror DL
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Really I mean if Comcast is forging RST packets the next logical step is to ask what else are they willing to forge? You cant really trust their network anymore since they'll be happily impersonating you if they feel it in their own best interests
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The point is, there is quite a bit of legal traffic being generated via BT, and Comcast is interfering with it in ways that involve impersonation and MiTM attacks.
That said, even if 100% of BT traffic was piracy, one is not allowed to fight civil violations with criminal acts, which is exactly what Comcast is doing.
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A) This program will be proprietary and won't work on platforms other then Windows and possibly Mac
B) Doesn't include a repository of all lega
appearance is everything (Score:2, Insightful)
Did anyone else.. (Score:1)
Seriously? I am impressed. (Score:4, Insightful)
A corporation which has a fiat monopoly in many places (granted by local governments) has been using their monopoly to degrade one company's service. A practice for which they are already under investigation by congress. And now they are investing in that company's competition.
I gotta say that again, because I can barely believe it.
A company which has government granted monopolies in many communities has been degrading a company's service. They have come under congressional scrutiny for this behavior. And, while still under investigation, they are investing in a competing company.
The chutzpah is truly impressive. I haven't seen a pair like that in a very long time.
How completely pathetic is our monopoly abuse enforcement that a company would actually try this? would think this is a low-risk move?
Comcast investing in p2p is equivalent to (Score:2)
P2P Threatens ISP Middleman Content Monopoly (Score:3, Interesting)
If bandwidth were to start growing like CPU power grew, every cable television company will be competing against every cable television company in every city market for content delivery. That means eventually a la carte cable television channels. Why is it that allegedly oversold bandwidth doesn't have the slightest effect on the delivery of cable television content?
It looks like Comcast wants to move in on P2P so they can try to dominate it, eventually infest it with commercials, and control it so that it doesn't threaten their content delivery business. Right now almost every Comcast cable television customer is paying for a whole bunch of commercial infested crap they don't really want. Who has time to watch all 200 channels of crap being sent through fiber optic cable 24/7? Comcast could increase internet bandwidth a *hundred fold* if customers could start choosing to knock out the total waste of bandwidth caused by delivery of content nobody wants to watch, including HD bandwidth hogging versions of content nobody wants to watch.
It's imperative for Comcast's long term business survival that they become a P2P middleman, or they are screwed. Since they can't shut down P2P without politically unfeasible anti-trust violations (threatening every web site, every VoIP business, everything on the internet), they are going to try and grab a hold of P2P and use their dominance to try and shape P2P. You damn kids consumers trying to skim the skim, trying to middleman the middleman.
This is Comcast 2.0, as in become the 2 between the Ps.
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When they deploy their 250GB a month cap, they make more money allowing p2p than blocking it.
If Comcast were to upgrade their plant to unlimited bandwidth forever, it would not allow them to sell somewhere they don't have infrastructure, IE, other providers markers. Car analogy incoming. Just because I upgrade I-75 to 20 lanes each direction, doesn't mean I can now drive to california faster. I-75 doesn't go to California.
If everyone was allowed to select the shows they wanted to watch, ala carte, ban
Got it! (Score:2)
1. Buy your own p2p network
2. Throttle every one else's p2p networks with Sandvine
3. Profit!
Seriously, if there were any reason for net neutrality, this is it....What's next? Throttling Vonage?goodbye Sandvine! (Score:1, Funny)
Y'know Comcast... (Score:2)
developing so-called peer-to-peer file-sharing techniques that are "friendly" to Internet service providers."
If you'd give us data detailing how your network is set up and IP addresses are allocated, we (OSS in general, but specifically uTorrent, Azureus, Transmission, etc) would be perfectly happy to do this for free. It's a win-win - expensive uploads stay (increasingly) in your network, the customer (no, not advertisers - the subscriber) gets better speeds, and you don't get your asses handed to you for investing in an OBVIOUS COPYRIGHT CIRCUMVENTION TECHNOLOGY!!!111!1!
Mmkay? It's not that hard
April Fools? (Score:2)
RFC 3514 (Score:2)
Nice way to discriminately filter (Score:1)
Check mate, Comcast wins.
It's not for you (Score:2)