Recently, AP and others have caught Comcast red-handed intercepting internet traffic and changing the header/packet info.

Mostly, they seem to slowing down or halting BitTorrent traffic but they also seem to be intercepting/slowing/halting Lotus Notes traffic across the internet.

On the surface, they might seem to be claiming that all BitTorrent is “illegal” and slowing their network but when you really examine the issue, you have to wonder if Net Neutrality is already dead and that Comcast is playing judge, jury & prosecutor?

They loudly sell their service as much faster than DSL and it’s “unlimited.”

Verizon already learned a valuable and $1 million fine-induced lesson that “unlimited” is NOT subject to lawyerese as to what it means. Unlimited means just that.

Already, Comcast is treading on thin legal waters.

Next, while some of BitTorrent’s traffic might be perceived as illegal but is it Comcast’s place to judge? One of the many, many uses of BitTorrent and peer to peer (p2p) traffic is for distribution of large files such as Linux OS releases (such as Ubuntu last week) … illegal? Hardly? Warner Brothers LEGALLY sell their movies and uses BitTorrent to help distribute the load of large downloads. Who decided Comcast should judge what is legal?

What will Comcast declare illegal next?

If you buy a 10 MB camera and take 300 photos that are all 5 MB or larger and place them on all one HTML page, that might take a while to display and view – sucking up a lot of bandwidth, will Comcast play judge, jury & prosecutor and declare you illegal also?

Or it’s illegal to buy wine by mail in certain Southern states, why not just block those websites to save on bandwidth if you live South of the Mason-Dixon line?

Is using Lotus Notes illegal to Comcast since it appears as BitTorrent traffic?

This is a prime example of what happens when a corporation decides what parts of the internet they want to carry … don’t remember that part in the ads … nothing about 94% of the internet …

The excuse they use is they are throttling back bandwidth to assure that everyone has access – which sounds fine on the surface but what’s the reality?

THEY are PRE-JUDGING what will use up their bandwidth.

In the AP example, they tried to BitTorrent the Bible … hardly a copyright violation even according to the Vatican … yet, throttled back or not possible at all. How giant of a file could the Bible be? A few MB? Even an illustrated version – a couple hundred MB that should take seconds to upload or download.

They presume any BitTorrent or BotTorrent-like file will take down their network?

What is their network built of?

Is their network really so feeble that a few hundred MB will take down a section of the network?

But what’s worse is it’s pre-emptive?

Now I can understand if in the AP example they tried to upload and download 20 HD movies and TV shows, that would be understandable they use parse only some of the bandwidth for that user and proactively throttle or increase the available bandwidth depending on the usage for that node or neighborhood …

But apparently BitTorrent is set at .05% or ZERO?

ALL BitTorrent traffic?

Comcast has decide all BitTorrent traffic is not part of the word and selling point, “unlimited?”

And worse, by changing the packet information, they are purposely changing your file information … but perhaps in a perverse way, if you do send something illegal or incriminating, now you have an out – it’s NOT my file – the packet header clearly says it came from Comcast – that’s not mine. If you pull the logs like this one guy did, it’s all Comcast.

Like most people with limited brain power, Comcast does not seem to understand irony.

Next time your Congress rep says that Net Neutrality is not needed, here is a perfect shining example of Comcast taking over 100% of the infrastructure that we built with tax dollars – yes, they own the lines for the last 50 feet to your house – but the rest is ours … well, it used to be.