Comcast Sued Over BitTorrent Traffic Interference
Written by Ernesto on November 14, 2007It was to be expected, yesterday, a Comcast subscriber from California filed a suit against Comcast in which he calls upon the ISP to stop interfering with his BitTorrent traffic.
We first reported that Comcast was actively disconnecting BitTorrent seeds back in August. Comcast of course denied our allegations, even though we had proof, and they continued to do so.
Jon Hart, a Comcast subscriber from California couldn’t take it anymore and decided to take legal action. He filed a class-action lawsuit on Tuesday and demands that Comcast stops the BitTorrent traffic interference. In addition he wants Comcast to pay him, and all other Comcast customers in California, damages for not giving him the “crazy fast speeds” they advertised.
Threat Level asked Comcast for a response to this news, but the spokesman put them off with his default response: “Comcast does not, has not, and will not block any websites or online applications, including peer-to-peer services”. Semantically speaking they are totally right, they don’t block any applications or websites, they do however, actively disconnect peer-to-peer connections, making it impossible for many users to seed files on BitTorrent.
Hart is not the only one taking action against Comcast, the people behind SaveTheInternet have also formed a coalition and plan to demand $195,000 for all the customers who are affected.
Comcast is using an application from the broadband management company Sandvine to throttle BitTorrent traffic. The application is installed at the cable modem termination system and breaks every (seed) connection with new peers after a few seconds. This means that Comcast is not simply slowing down connections, they actually disconnect peer-to-peer transfers.
We wish Jon all the best, let’s hope justice will be served. In the meantime, here’s an article that explains how to bypass Comcast’s BitTorrent interference.
Previously: Anti-Piracy Outfit Threatens ShareConnector Admin at his Front Door
Next: Police Charge Man in Movie Camming Crackdown
73 Responses
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fuck comcast
What the hell? I have comcast high speed internet 800 kb’s maximum and I can still download stuff from bit torrent with my maximum download speed. So why is everyone complaining? I don’t encrypt my BT connections.
Also It was like this before, and always was like this.
[quote comment="213580"]What the hell? I have comcast high speed internet 800 kb’s maximum and I can still download stuff from bit torrent with my maximum download speed. So why is everyone complaining? I don’t encrypt my BT connections.[/quote]
There are some regional differences, apart from that, seeding files is mostly affected, not downloading.
[quote]
There are some regional differences, apart from that, seeding files is mostly affected, not downloading.[/quote]
I can still upload at my maximum upload speed too.
This could certainly backfire on him if he is sharing copyrighted material.
Lets go after Rogers!!!! Hell I swear we were the guinea pigs for Sandvine… Anybody with me??
Wooo hooo! I like this! Someone with BALLS! These lying cretins need sueing bigtime. Instead of increasing their pipeline they chose to block a popular application. I have read recently (here or zero paid) that P2P accounts for like 60% (?) of internet traffic. They need to improve their network instead of advertising speeds they can’t deliver. Screwing customers is a step in the wrong direction. I have also heard that compared to other countries, like South Korea as an example the USA is maybe 20 years behind in high speed interent.
I can’t imagine WHY, with corporate Hollywood buying off our spineless, sold out US senators…making HUGE campaign contributions and constant lobbying to stop P2P. And all to protect their corporate cashflow. P2P should not be a criminal offence. Canadian Law agrees with me.
THIS SHOULD BE A CLASS ACTION SUIT AND ALL COMCAST USERS SHOULD JOIN IN. I WILL ;D
Mr. Rogers? hes already dead! lol j/k, seriously though, I really dont think this guy is dumb enough to leave copyrighted material on his comp, I mean, sue a major national company and then have incriminating evidence ON YOU? thats jsut stupid, hopefully this fuy knows what he’s doing, and if they do even change it, it affects all 50 states, not just Cali.
[quote comment="213578"]fuck comcast[/quote]
agreed.
That’s true Cracker Jack but it’s not just a simple as deleting files you share. I am pretty sure that shit is embedded in places most don’t know about that would serve as evidence.
If I was him, I would get rid of my hard drive completely and pray comcast does not have records of anything.
He may thing he’s some tough shit now but you jump in the fire with corporate big wigs you better know wtf you doing because it’s cutthroat.
If Jon Hart didn’t refuse the arbitration agreement concast had been sending out back in the summer then the case will probably be dismissed (implied consent to arbitration means he couldn’t, technically, bring suit).
http://comcast.net/arbitrationoptout
Damn i like this guy. Jon, i wish you best of luck. I certainly hope you win and hopefully comcunt will back down.
[quote comment="213598"]Wooo hooo! I like this! Someone with BALLS! These lying cretins need sueing bigtime. Instead of increasing their pipeline they chose to block a popular application. I have read recently (here or zero paid) that P2P accounts for like 60% (?) of internet traffic. They need to improve their network instead of advertising speeds they can’t deliver. Screwing customers is a step in the wrong direction. I have also heard that compared to other countries, like South Korea as an example the USA is maybe 20 years behind in high speed interent.
I can’t imagine WHY, with corporate Hollywood buying off our spineless, sold out US senators…making HUGE campaign contributions and constant lobbying to stop P2P. And all to protect their corporate cashflow. P2P should not be a criminal offence. Canadian Law agrees with me.[/quote]
Dude you read my mind =]
Two days ago BTJunkie changed IP address and it’s been inaccessible for comcast users. This shows that they have some other system that even involves web traffic, I’m sure if digg.com changed IPs comcast DNS servers would acknowledge the update! The new IP: http://85.17.217.65
[quote comment="213598"] I have also heard that compared to other countries, like South Korea as an example the USA is maybe 20 years behind in high speed interent.[/quote]
I don’t think high speed internet has been around for 20 years :p
[quote comment="213621"]“Stealing His Film”
but ConCast stopping bittorrent downloads is a good thing aqccording to TorrentSneak.com
[/quote]
Not everything on BitTorrent is “stolen”.
[quote comment="213640"]Two days ago BTJunkie changed IP address and it’s been inaccessible for comcast users. This shows that they have some other system that even involves web traffic, I’m sure if digg.com changed IPs comcast DNS servers would acknowledge the update! The new IP: http://85.17.217.65/quote
It’s working for me, and has been with no problems.
[quote]Not everything on BitTorrent is “stolen”.[/quote]
How can you steal something just by sharing it over the internet anyway?
Some of the sources to some releases were probably stolen (as in, someone steals a workprint from a studio or something), but I don’t think many are, but that doesn’t mean downloading it is stealing.
Go to BitTorrent.com one may legally download movies, music for a fee. Other legal sites exist as well. I personally have sent a freind of mine a copy of Linux over P2P, this is totally legal. So p2p is not always used for piracy. I also understand the US Government uses it to transfer files…its a great protocol!
rofl. stupid isp. and i bet the techs who made this hack to interfere with the torrent traffic thought they were so clever…
[quote]Wooo hooo! I like this! Someone with BALLS! These lying cretins need sueing bigtime. Instead of increasing their pipeline they chose to block a popular application. I have read recently (here or zero paid) that P2P accounts for like 60% (?) of internet traffic. They need to improve their network instead of advertising speeds they can’t deliver. Screwing customers is a step in the wrong direction. I have also heard that compared to other countries, like South Korea as an example the USA is maybe 20 years behind in high speed interent.
I can’t imagine WHY, with corporate Hollywood buying off our spineless, sold out US senators…making HUGE campaign contributions and constant lobbying to stop P2P. And all to protect their corporate cashflow. P2P should not be a criminal offence. Canadian Law agrees with me.[/quote]
/agree
heh im filing a lawsuit too, i cancelled comCRAP last week cause of the bittorrent bullshit. Hell yeah fuck a comcrap
I would no be surprised if comcrap got paid by big media to do something like this.
Good luck!
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