BitTorrent and Comcast?

[Bruce Dawson]

On Mon, 2004-09-27 at 16:32, Bill McGonigle wrote:
> On Sep 27, 2004, at 16:05, Bill Freeman wrote:
> 
> > What probably matters is whether their network monitoring people watch
> > for, notice, and object to, the kind of activity that BitTorrent
> > generates.
> 
> Right - good luck pinning them down on it too - they allegedly like to 
> change the rules to suit their needs while pointing the TOS as defense.
> 
> Remember, technically lots of things are 'servers' - FTP's data 
> connection, videoconferencing, ntp, heck, even TCP's 3-way handshake if 
> you want to push the definition.
> 
> I personally wouldn't classify BitTorrent in the category since it's 
> not "only" serving, but they might see it differently, especially if 
> you feed alot of traffic.  I've argued that BitTorrent should test 
> network connectivity to peers and prefer local peers and then Comcast 
> should _like_ BitTorrent because a majority of the traffic would not 
> transit their Internet ($$$) connection, but prefer other Comcast 
> peers.

Most ISP's are concerned with the amount of traffic from your home to
the head. If you are "providing a service", then you are probably in
violation of the TOS because the amount of traffic coming out of your
home would exceed the amount of traffic going in.

This is one of those gray areas where legal definition trumps technical
definition. Also, the TOS (and EULAs in general) are worded/designed to
protect the provider, *not* the consumer!

--Bruce
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