
Comcast Is Threatening to Cut Off Customers Who Use Tor - bndr
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/comcast-threatening-cut-off-customers-092817979.html
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ufmace
I know it's popular in tech circles these days to hate on Comcast, and I'm not
saying they don't deserve the hate or that they wouldn't do something like
this, but I'm not buying this one just yet. This is all supposedly statements
by 2 telephone support people.

The actual source article seems to be confusing running a connection to Tor
and the Tor browser with running a Tor relay node or exit node. Prohibiting
the Tor browser would be a bad move on the part of any ISP who isn't part of a
police state, but none of their document suggest that they're doing that. I
can understand them prohibiting running a Tor node on your residential
internet connection though. Almost all residential ISPs officially prohibit
running servers, though it usually isn't enforced as long as you aren't
pushing too much traffic. A Tor node can easily fall on those lines. I think
even the Tor project doesn't recommend running nodes on your home connection
rather than actual servers with server-class connections.

~~~
sailfast
Thank you for this. This may be a stupid question, but how would your ISP know
you were actively running a Tor (non-node) connection?

Obviously I need to read up on all the back-end tech but I would assume that
if it was easy to identify someone using Tor, it would no longer provide the
anonymity / security because it would clearly identify outliers.

It makes sense to ban someone running a node off their Comcast connection (not
because it's logical but because of their high traffic / server banning track
record) but for Comcast to detect a browsing session? Seems odd.

~~~
nitrogen
Using DPI or even just flow analysis (sizes, port numbers, destination
addresses, protocol (TCP/UDP) bits, and timings of packets), it should be
possible to distinguish between encrypted TOR and other encrypted protocols
with ease.

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w1ntermute
Sounds like a great way to cancel your Comcast service when they just won't
let you go:
[http://www.theguardian.com/technology/shortcuts/2014/jul/17/...](http://www.theguardian.com/technology/shortcuts/2014/jul/17/comcast-
customer-services-call-ryan-block)

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jrochkind1
Where I live, comcast is pretty much the ONLY broadband provider. There are
lots of places like this.

These are the risks of a monopoly on broadband internet access.

(Did you go send your comments to the FCC saying to treat ISP's like common
carriers yet?

1) Go to [http://fcc.gov/comments](http://fcc.gov/comments) 2) Click on
Proceeding 14-28 3) Say "I want internet service providers classified as
common carriers." )

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orr94
> Comcast Is Threatening To Cut Off Customers Who Use Tor, The Web Browser For
> Criminals

Uh, it's not "The Web Browser For Criminals". It's for people who want
anonymity. And being slightly pedantic, Tor is also not a web browser. Tor
Browser is.

~~~
ObviousScience
I find it hilarious that they pitch Tor as for criminals, despite the US
military being the largest backer (and source) of the Tor project.

~~~
fluidcruft
[insert typical libertarian talking points about government being criminals]

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cik
This is how it begins. First they come for TOR, then they come for VPNs.
Eventually, they come for your SSL certs.

~~~
smnrchrds
Done, done and done. Well, not necessarily in that order. Living in Iran
sometimes feels like living in the future. Unfortunately it's a slightly
dystopian future.

~~~
cik
It's also like the past. It blows my mind that the dystopian future we read
about is always the UK - and that so much dystopian fiction comes out of
Britain as well.

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Zikes
AT&T U-Verse admitted to actively disrupting my connection whenever I used
torrents.

~~~
mayneack
Was it based on connecting with the wrong tracker or identifying torrent
traffic?

~~~
Zikes
As far as I could tell it was by identifying the type of traffic.

I was primarily torrenting various linux distros, and I tried a wide variety
of them on various clients and systems. It was fairly consistent behavior,
even if I torrented a 'buntu distro on my phone and throttled it to a few KBps
my TV's Netflix would stutter, degrade, and ultimately drop out entirely
within a few minutes. If I stopped the torrent the connection would resume
normally a few minutes later.

One thing that really bothered me, though, was that every time I experienced
this problem I could go to speedtest.net and run their tool and get
consistently good results every time. Even when the rest of the internet was
bollocks. It makes me wonder if they intentionally toss speed test traffic
into one of their "fast lanes" to trick people into thinking they're getting
faster speeds than what they're actually getting.

~~~
cmdrfred
I've always thought this myself, what prevents them from doing so?

~~~
Zikes
Apparently, nothing. After I had narrowed the issue down to torrents, I called
AT&T and confronted them with the evidence. On the phone with me they directly
said "we do that to prevent illegal activity over our service lines."

No amount of "torrenting is not illegal" worked, and I didn't really expect it
to. They don't care about the legality, they only use it as an excuse to keep
customers from getting the full usage of the service they pay for.

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dj-wonk
The source article is more detailed and worth reading:
[http://www.deepdotweb.com/2014/09/13/comcast-declares-war-
to...](http://www.deepdotweb.com/2014/09/13/comcast-declares-war-tor/)

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kstenerud
The title of this posting is wholly inaccurate. Comcast is DENYING that any
threat to cut off Tor users occurred. They deny most points in the article on
DeepDotWebm including all alleged evidence, and have flatly stated that
customers can use Tor all they want.

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at-fates-hands
I got lucky. I went with Century Link when I found out the D-Mark is about 50
yards from my house and haven't looked back.

Dropped my bill by about $40/month and the customer service is a bit more. .
.reliable than Comcast.

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stevekl
I use TOR and I would really like to get a call from comcast so that I can
inform Comcast I am using a Navy funded project.

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illumen
Comcast denies this.

~~~
mark-r
I don't know much about how TOR works, but could you use it over a VPN so that
it's outside of Comcast's network before connecting to TOR? Surely they'd
never ban VPN.

~~~
herge
> Surely they'd never ban VPN.

Wait until all file-sharing is done through VPNs. Or maybe they'll require
people to pay for a "business" plan to use such a "business" feature.

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Nanzikambe
Could someone take these guys to court and force them to rebrand themselves as
a SISP (Some Internet Services Provider) ?

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doubt_me
1\. Be comcast

2\. How do I get the NSA off my back as much as possible?

3\. Oh lets threaten to cut off customers service because of Tor! that will
totally work (comcast logic)

4\. ....NSA still on our backs guys what do I do?

5\. Ban Tor

6\. Make NSA happy = TWC merger will happen

7\. NSA still not happy

8\. Spend millions on trying to kill net neutrality because the survival of
comcast/ twc/ NBC universal depends on it

