[IP] Re: Net Neutrality: A Radical Form of Non-Discrimination by Hal Singer vs Hal Singer

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

________________________________________
From: Randall Webmail [rvh40@insightbb.com]
Sent: Sunday, June 22, 2008 5:59 PM
To: David Farber
Cc: bob37-2@bobf.frankston.com
Subject: Re: [IP] Re:    Net Neutrality: A Radical Form of Non-Discrimination by Hal Singer vs Hal Singer

> From: Bob Frankston [bob37-2@bobf.frankston.com]
> Sent: Sunday, June 22, 2008 4:59 PM
> To: David Farber; 'ip'
> Subject: RE: [IP] Re:  Net Neutrality: A Radical Form of
> Non-Discrimination by Hal Singer vs Hal Singer
>
> One postscript -- I’m watching and HD show on Comcast at the
> moment and there are many dropouts. On some of my STBs I simply
> can't get the HD signal to work. I could, of course, call
> Comcast and maybe have them tweak something but...

Funny you should mention Comcast ...

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From: Someone@Comcast

Date: Sunday, May 25, 2008 12:54
Subject: Fukin' Comcast.

So, my internet connection is completely fukt.  I call
Comcast tech support.  I pretend to go through the motions of what they tell me to do, which if it would have had any effect, it has already been done.

They send a tech out.  He goes through the motions
again.  Finally, he declares that the modem is fukt, and I
will have to rent one of the spiffy new SurfBoard modems from them for $3.00 a month.  He sets an appointment for Wednesday to come do it.

So, I piggyback on my neighbor's unsecured wireless connection with the laptop and do some research.  Turns out that the symptoms describe the aftereffects of Comcast's throttling certain people who they think are using too much bandwidth, or they suspect are using it for illegal purposes.  Well, yes, I DID download about 12 hours of tv shows in the past week, but they were all public domain shows.

Fuck them, it's not illegal.

Now here's the cute part.  It turns out that when they
throttle your IP address, they lock it to your MAC so you can't get another one from the pool.  The trick is that they don't assign IP's based on the MAC of the modem itself, they assign it based on the next MAC in line, i.e., your router.  A few minutes enabling MAC cloning on the router/Vonage box and having it use the MAC of an old token ring card I have lying in the old equipment graveyard instead, and I'm back on at faster speeds than ever before.

Fuxk Comcast.



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