AfterDawn: Tech news

Cox also throttled torrent traffic

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 15 May 2008 6:51 User comments (25)

Cox also throttled torrent traffic

According to the Associated Press it seems that Comcast is not the only company guilty of throttling P2P traffic, Singapore's StarHub, and Cox Communications were equal offenders as well.
Comcast has been seen as the main offender for the last few months and saw backlash from net neutrality advocates, customers and the even the FCC. The AP however, says that a worldwide study of 8,175 Internet users, showed that 3 companies were indeed blocking the traffic, and that Cox was likely the worst offender.

Of the 151 Cox subscribers, 82 had their transfers blocked, read the survey. The Cox interference however, was different than that of Comcast. Cox only blocked seeding of a file downloaded through BitTorrent, thus reducing the amount of people the downloader can share the file with.

Cox's subscriber agreement does state that subscribers are signing up for "protocol filtering," meaning that the company "prioritizes some forms of Internet traffic over others," but spokespeople have said that BitTorrent is not particularly discriminated against.



Previous Next  

25 user comments

115.5.2008 19:30

No surprise here...

If they'd spend less money on advertising, they might have more for equipment and technicians.

215.5.2008 19:51

I've done some work for Cox and they are some shady people.

315.5.2008 20:03

So, tell me something new !

415.5.2008 22:18

Cox is only cable provider here and I also have Internet thru Cox. I've hated them for years. They offer so few HD stations it was hardly beneficial to get an HD set. They seem to be adding more every month tho. Their spoken name pretty much sums up what they are! LMAO

515.5.2008 22:37

I use cox and I love them. I don have the HD box but just regular cable, I hardly use torrents anymore as ive moved to usenet and don't see them throttling anything so maybe that 151 Cox subscribers don't apply to me (knock on wood 7 times)

I guess im gonna have to do some testing...hhmmmm

616.5.2008 00:59

Quote:
the company "prioritizes some forms of Internet traffic over others," but spokespeople have said that BitTorrent is not particularly discriminated against.

Rrrrrrrrrrrriiiight..........'rolls eyes'

716.5.2008 02:53
nobrainer
Inactive

vote with your feet ppl or if you live in an area of limited services lobby your congressman on the importance of net neutrality. Don't allow corporations what you can and can't do with a service you pay for.

video explaining net neutrality:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JP_3WnJ42kw

but comcast just keep talking out of their pipe!

Comcast Lied to FCC, Blocks BitTorrent Traffic 24/7

Originally posted by link:
May 15, 2008

New data on Comcast’s interference with BitTorrent traffic shows that the company misinformed the FCC this February. Comcast has always argued that BitTorrent upstream traffic was only blocked during periods of heavy network traffic, this turns out to be a lie.




This message has been edited since its posting. Latest edit was made on 16 May 2008 @ 3:10

816.5.2008 09:26

No surprise. It is cheaper and easier to have Sandvines attack than do what they had been doing. That took too much effort. I bet they bought Sandvines when Comcast did. That was what has been keeping tabs on all the users. If you want to resist and don't mind that you lose internet service for a couple of days you can switch to Bit Comet. Set it up to run in fully encrypted mode. BC is pretty much of a dreadnot. It has so much power it can't be stopped if it is running in an encrypted mode. Sandvines will probably retalliate by throtteling you so hard you will not have regular service for a few days after you stop down loading. On Comcast, it may be more relaxed on the weekends. It will eventually, train you to do as they prefer but maybe not as they wish. The other option is to limit your flows to 10 kb/sec. It ignores low usage on Comcast.

nobrainer, nice info! I love some one is checking up on them. Comcast says they are going along with net netrality but never leashed Sandvines as your nice graph shows. A friend of mine, a Comcast user, experianced a full scale Sandvines attack last night. Cox is no less sneeky and underhanded than Comcast. They will say one thing and do another. The FCC thing is just a setback.

I almost forgot, if you do chose to defy Sandvines, do it with a bang! Store lots of jobs before you start because you will not be able to collect them once the attack starts and maximize you downloads the first weekend. Sandvines has extensive trend analysis. If you show a downward trend in your defiance the punishments will be less than someone downloading less but their downloading trend is stable or on the rise. On the rise, gets the most punishment.

This message has been edited since its posting. Latest edit was made on 16 May 2008 @ 9:44

916.5.2008 12:30
emugamer
Inactive

Quote:
vote with your feet ppl or if you live in an area of limited services lobby your congressman on the importance of net neutrality. Don't allow corporations what you can and can't do with a service you pay for.

video explaining net neutrality:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JP_3WnJ42kw

but comcast just keep talking out of their pipe!

Comcast Lied to FCC, Blocks BitTorrent Traffic 24/7
Originally posted by link:
May 15, 2008

New data on Comcast?s interference with BitTorrent traffic shows that the company misinformed the FCC this February. Comcast has always argued that BitTorrent upstream traffic was only blocked during periods of heavy network traffic, this turns out to be a lie.



No doubt a lot of these companies are outright liars.

But at the same time customers should read before signing the dotted line. If you signed it, then you are getting what you paid for. We can lobby all we want about net neutrality, but that won't mean a thing when these companies justify throttling practices to the courts by stating infrastructure limitations and the right to assign each customer equal priority, even if it means capping someone's upload speed. Allowing limitless bandwidth to one customer does infringe on the rights of usage of other customers. It may be embellished a bit, but it's a fact that the pipelines were only designed using average customer usage data from a decade ago.

Some things are just not worth fighting for IMO. There's too much at stake for the companies and politicians involved for fair use rights to be carried through. Just roll with it and keep finding the loopholes. Newer technology will eventually catch up with internet usage habits. Movie streaming companies will fight with ISP's when either of the 2 are affected by these limitations by loss of customers. It's a see-saw. Customer takes, business suffers. Business takes, customers suffer. Customers leave, businesses kiss and make up. Everyone is happy for a day, and then the cycle starts again.

In the perfect situation, everyone is happy that net neutrality is a reality, but then everyone complains when they all can't get the speeds they want because their info path is bottle-necked.
This message has been edited since its posting. Latest edit was made on 16 May 2008 @ 12:39

1016.5.2008 12:54

emugamer, vote with you feet is easy for you to say. However, they only come down hard on customers that do not have good alternatives. I am lucky that I have some choices. I can go to DSL and get poorer service for almost the same money. I will vote with my feet if I have a better deal. I think I will not have that choice. Comcast will not put them into that kind of position. They only slam persons who do not have any choice. That is unethical but good business.

By doing this illegal stuff with sandvines, they can selectively beat up on their customers. Those in areas that have FIOS get no problems at all. I am middle ground except I have a discount rate. I am sure they take that into consideration. I pay only $5 more a month than DSL that is much slower. The service would have to get worse for me to jump ship.

1116.5.2008 16:31
emugamer
Inactive

Originally posted by Mez:
emugamer, vote with you feet is easy for you to say. However, they only come down hard on customers that do not have good alternatives. I am lucky that I have some choices. I can go to DSL and get poorer service for almost the same money. I will vote with my feet if I have a better deal. I think I will not have that choice. Comcast will not put them into that kind of position. They only slam persons who do not have any choice. That is unethical but good business.

By doing this illegal stuff with sandvines, they can selectively beat up on their customers. Those in areas that have FIOS get no problems at all. I am middle ground except I have a discount rate. I am sure they take that into consideration. I pay only $5 more a month than DSL that is much slower. The service would have to get worse for me to jump ship.
I didn't suggest the "voting with feet." But I agree that choice is key and unfortunately not available to most. I went from Cable to DSL. Slower speeds, but no harassment. Plus I changed my DL/UL habits to become less of a red flag. No more torrents, eliminating private trackers that have ratio requirements which would lead to me using UL bandwidth 24/7. Over the past week, I've increased my usage by about 8GB/day, but it's strictly DL and it's only during the hours of 11pm to 7am. If I don't get slapped with restrictions, then I will be convinced that there is merit the "capacity limits" argument (although I am still skeptic as to how much we're being lied to).

FIOS just reached my neighboring town. Hopefully within the next year or 2, it will hit my area.

1216.5.2008 21:28

Think I'm experiencing the "Cox Slapdown" as we speak.

I've been downloading some torrents and now Cox keeps dropping my connection. Frequently enough to screw up my router so it has to be reset frequently.

Got to post this before I lose connection again (been about every 15 minutes).

1316.5.2008 21:28

Think I'm experiencing the "Cox Slapdown" as we speak.

I've been downloading some torrents and now Cox keeps dropping my connection. Frequently enough to screw up my router so it has to be reset frequently.

Got to post this before I lose connection again (been about every 15 minutes).

1416.5.2008 21:30

Interesting,

It seems to be affecting my posting to ad also.

Was abel to load Yahoo via a new browser while waiting for my previous post to post.

1516.5.2008 21:32

Hey geestar20, what are the best links/threads on usenet for dvd dls?

1617.5.2008 12:59

PM sent -hobbit112-

1721.5.2008 08:06

emugamer, your guesses sound right.

hobbit112, are you encrypting your flows?

Cox and Comcast have been using Sandvines for probably a year or more.
I am sure it is the uploads that attract Sandvines attention but excessive bandwidth will do the same. It is the Sandvines application that is doing all the work. Cox had been using it to collect data but it has turned on the attack mode. It controls the gain on your node. It can also forge packets that can kill your session if you are not encrypting your flows. I believe its mission is to reduce network traffic especially during peak hrs. It has extensive trend analysis capabilities. It will try to train you to change your habits. I suspect the acceptable limits will slowly diminish as everyone gets in toe.

It ignores low level traffic and is more permissive to high flows on the weekends. It can be ‘vindictive’ and keep you throttled (shut down) for days after you have stopped all activity. The added punishment is applied to users that increase their activities or do heavy downloading during the week.

1821.5.2008 09:34

@Mez,

Yep, I'm encrypting my flows.

They've got me throttled down pretty much, I think my max dl speed might have hit 150kbs at one point but usually runs around 30 or less. They actually drop my connection periodically.

For backgound, I have Cox's lowest tier of internet.

192.6.2008 10:20

I noticed that Cox was killing my DNS when I run my Torrent client so I can't access email or browse the web so I found a service called Torrentprivacy.com that offers a foriegn address proxy service via a VPN tunnel (to the Netherlands).

I just got them installed yesterday and they seem to work altho I am running on a limited connection because I dont yet have the proxy info for my exsiting utorrent client (they include a copy of Utorrent that is already hacked with the proxy info).

The service runs about $15 a month but its worth it if you are a serious Torrent freak.

202.6.2008 12:24

Is that proxy service for your torrent or for your internet access? Some of the paid for proxy services have a fair through put.

212.6.2008 18:48

I think it was designed for Torrents but might pass through HTTP also, heres a quote from the site:

"Encrypted secure connection for BT downloads through SSH protocol"

I know that my ISP seems to have stopped throttleing my connection since I can do HTTP (DNS) while I run my Torrent client and I wasn't able to do that for the last 3 weeks.... Cox is my ISP.

223.6.2008 07:51

I was wondering if you forwarded your torrents through the proxy service.

2311.6.2008 22:28

i have cox at both my mom and my dad's. i use torrents alot at my mom's and my browser gets really slow. i hardly use torrents at my dad but i am always losing connection and having to reset my router. Could both of these problems be due to me using the torrents and cox throttling me. if so why dont i lose connection at my moms

2412.6.2008 09:15

Cox is a cable co so they are probably crap.

Does your mom has a wireless network. If so maybe someone else is using your mom's service.

2517.7.2008 10:16

Hello guys from Torrentprivacy team!

We would like to be in touch with you and ask any of the questions you have about privacy, lawsuits, torrent downloaders in the internet.

As for now I'd like to tell that we've been building our software for 7 months and at last created complex solution when you get 2x times security: from your ISP you're hidden by secure tunnel our program creates and from trackers and peers you're secured by our server which IP is left to them.

We're here now when laws are getting more and more strict and govenments and law organisations want to have a control in the internet. That's why we've created the service which gives you a little more freedom.

Feel free to aks question and I would be happy to answer.

Comments have been disabled for this article.

News archive