Comcast's BitTorrent filtering method may violate criminal impersonation laws

[mandy]

Within the last few weeks, there have been a number of reports by Comcast customers claiming that their BitTorrent downloads and uploads have been capped or worse, blocked...

{Comcast is} sending a reset (or RST) packet to the Comcast customer, pretending to be from the host at the end of the BitTorrent connection. This RST packet is the TCP equivalent of stating "I don't want to talk to you anymore, please terminate the connection". It is extremely important to note that when Comcast creates and sends this packet, they do not identify themselves as the the source of packet, but instead impersonate one of the parties involved in the BitTorrent connection. This is where things get rather shady.

Last year, researchers from Cambridge University analyzed the Great Firewall of China and found that it used falsified RST packets to terminate connections that matched keyword filters...

Ok, so the Chinese government and Comcast are using the same censorship techniques. Why should we care? The Chinese government doesn't have to pay attention to US law, but Comcast, being a US company, does...

full article: http://www.cnet.com/8301-13739_1-9769645-46.html

[Kristijntje]

A related article: US Senators call for investigation of ISPs content blocking practices:

Two Senators on Friday called for a congressional hearing to investigate reports that phone and cable companies are unfairly stifling communications over the Internet and on cell phones.

Sens. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., and Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, said the incidents involving several companies, including Comcast Corp., Verizon Wireless and AT&T Inc., have raised serious concerns over the companies' "power to discriminate against content."

They want the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee to investigate whether such incidents were based on legitimate business policies or unfair and anticompetitive practices and if more federal regulation is needed....

full article: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gQkdh...AD8SH4PD80