How to play the Comcast word game
Nov 26th, 2007 by Micheal Espinola Jr
Clearly, there is something going on (see: wrong) with Comcast’s definition of unrestricted Internet access (see: Comcast/BitTorrent interference lawsuit). They say they are not blocking anything, and in fact, they are telling the truth. So if you call Comcast to complain about a service problem; do not use that verbiage. If you do, and you are persistent, they can and will will deem you a disgruntled or uncooperative caller and ignore you.
What you need to do is play their word game.
Their word game is not to call the teakettle black – but to say that it is less reflective to light due to its dark color. I.e., they aren’t blocking ports outright – they are hindering normal communication or doing something to affect it in a way that causes it to fail.
By using this type of wording and phrasing, I was able to get Comcast to admit that they block ports – something they are currently denying in court and normally never admit to. See below for the quote I got from a tech support representative.
However, in case you were wondering, I was not calling to complain about BitTorrent. I was calling to complain about their interference with other protocols; in my case, it was RDP for use with Windows Remote Desktop, as well as DameWare. These protocols/services have begun to be “interfered with” for me in the past couple of months, although they used to work flawlessly. Now they do not work across the Comcast network at all. Being a network administrator and having knowledge that nothing has changed on my home or work networks, I knew the problem had to be with the man in the middle: Comcast.
Kevin Kanarski, working as a Lotus Notes messaging engineer, observed that Comcast is indeed interfering with other network applications. In the case of Lotus Notes, Comcast is sending a RST (reset) packet to both the client and server in the connection intentionally killed emails with large attachments.
So, in this case, Comcast is sending false packets to the client and/or server in order to reset the connection (TCP packet with an RST flag). RST-reset connections are immediately closed without without any acknowledgment/confirmation handshake regarding the request between the client and server. My knowledge of TCP/IP protocol operation is limited, but this is my understanding of the condition that the RST packets cause.
Unbelievably, this is the crux of a man-in-the-middle attack, and it’s being perpetrated by my own ISP!
However, as you can see: this is “interfering”, not blocking. And this is how Comcast is playing their game.
Them > We do not have that information, If you like, you can email abuse@comcast.net and they can check on that for you.
Me > abuse@ is for reporting service abuse. I am inquiring about the configuration of my account.
Them > That department does not only deal with abuse, they deal with any blocking of port numbers, or any problems with connection or email port number blocking.
Wait a second here – So, Comcast has a department that deals with port blocking – ergo Comcast is port blocking! Oh my stars and garters…
But this is just a start, and it’s where your and my fun begins, because abuse@comcast.net doesn’t get read by humans. If you send an email to that address, you’ll receive a boilerplate auto-reply e-mail response with links to common Comcast customer issue – although none of them will involve anything relating to port blocking/interference problems.
Comcast abuse line: 856-317-7272
Fight the power.
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Just a short comment. The only waya that these “robber barons” are going to be stopped are to take away their “candy store”. That woud mean eliminating the monoplies they have in local juristictions. The FCC and the local voters should have control over who, and how many, broadband ISP’s are allowed to operate in their areas, otherwise there will never be anything but this “Gestopo” approach to business.
Jeff
very interesting, but I don’t agree with you
Idetrorce
It would be nice to be able to turn cheek and get our government to spank the naughty companies, but then we wouldn’t be living in a free market economy. Its up to us as individual consumers to band together and launch our own complaints either in protest, boycott, or lawsuit.
A lawsuit is underway. The more negative press we can muster, the better our situation can be.
HELLO! We don’t HAVE a free market in the US!!!! That’s the whole problem!
Upon the change from Insight to Comcast, my problems began.
First, the service was much slower than InsightBB. The service
did get a little better. Then they switched me to “Smart Zone”
and ever since it has been worse, worser, and worst. Calls to
the Tech service dept were meaningless, They had no other compaints. Finallyh on or about Dec. 1, 2008, they did acknowledge
that they had several complaints on their service with “smart
zone” and they were working on it. Results should be back to
normal in a week or two. Back to normal is not good enough.
Why can’t Comcast give the customer what they pay for?
They always want to charge extra fees to get you to where
you were before they took over from INSIGHT. Are they not
owned by the same parent comany? I am a triple Play customer
as they like to say, TV is ok, cost is too high, Digital Voice, phone
service is ok, costs more than most, High speed internet is a
bilg joke. Thanks for listening. What can be done by all
this complaining?
I full heartedly agree that their costs are too high for the level of service provided. It seems advantageous when you first get a package deal, but when the initial time limited has expired, you are left paying monthly rates that are higher than median.
But never mind that. A bigger concern should be the data monitoring that they do. I have repeatedly been disconnected (for the lack of a better word regarding what they do to my connection) at specific times during the day if I am “streaming” data. The problem is, that frequently, that “stream” is me playing an online game: mainly Team Fortress 2. What happens is that I will be disconnected from Steam (required to play TF2 online). I wont be able to reconnect. I wont be able to surf/browse the web. I wont even be able to perform ping or trace route tests. My only recourse? Bounce (reset) my cable modem. Once I do that, I can resume using the Internet.
The will happen consecutively, day-after-day, if my gaming habits are about the same across each day. If not, if I don’t “stream” that much data, then I don’t have a disconnection problem.
In a word, Comcast: SUCKS. I have never been so aggravated by a service provider in all my life as an IT (Information Technology) professional. If it wasn’t for the fact that they offer the fastest residential service that I can currently get, I most definitely wouldn’t use them.
And don’t get me started on their lies about “HD (High Definition) channel programming”…
What you need to do is play their word game.Their word game is not to call the teakettle black