NewsAT&T Wireless Says it Will Ban P2P Users
Posted 08/03/08 at 12:58:50 AM by Paul Lilly
Shawn Fanning, the former Northeastern University student who created Napster and popularized peer-to-peer sharing, could never have imagined all the fuss the technology would create nearly a decade later. Comcast earlier this year drew ire over throttling Bittorrent traffic, and now AT&T is taking a hard lined stance against its wireless customers engaging in P2P activities.
FCC Republican Robert McDowell asked AT&T about its policy regarding P2P traffic over its wireless network, and in a letter, Robert Quinn, AT&T senior VP for regulatory affairs, said in no uncertain terms that its customers are strictly forbidden from usng P2P services.
"AT&T's terms of service for mobile wireless broadband customers prohibit all uses that may cause extreme network capacity issues, and explicitly identify P2P file sharing applications as such a use," Quinn wrote.
Unlike Comcast, who drew criticism both for throttling internet traffic and for initially denying it was doing so, Quinn also wrote in his letter that AT&T does not use network management tools to block the use of P2P applications, and that its customers are warned in writing that they could have their service terminated if caught violating the policy.
Do you agree with what AT&T is doing?
NewsFCC on Verge of Punishing Comcast for Filtering Internet Traffic 
Posted 07/28/08 at 07:53:47 PM by Pulkit Chandna
The Federal Communications Commission is now going to reign in on Comcast’s controversial practice of hampering peer-to-peer internet traffic. Out of the five FCC commissioners, three have voted, thus far, on whether Comcast is liable for punishment for filtering internet traffic. And all of them want the cable company to be punished, but the punitive order will officially be executed once the remaining members have voted – a mere formality. The FCC doesn’t intend to fine Comcast but merely wants it to abstain from internet traffic filtering altogether.
Comcast has been in the eye of the “network neutrality” storm since August, 2007, when TorrentFreak revealed that the leading cable company was filtering internet traffic. It is rumored that the company utilizes Sandvine hardware for warding off P2P traffic but Comcast has not even acknowledged that it indulges in such practices. Comcast is currently busy defending itself in a class-action suit which alleges that the company’s actual services betray its promises, for it restricts internet access despite promising unshackled service.
This being such a contentious issue, that has invited intense reactions from all corners, you all are expected to set the comments section afire.
NewsFCC to Spank Comcast Over P2P Blocking
Posted 07/11/08 at 08:15:32 AM by Chris Moody
It sounds like Comcast is about to get it’s hand slapped for blocking P2P file sharing on it’s network. That is good news, as it will send a message about screwing with folks internet access. The funny part is where the message is coming from.
The head of the Federal Communications Commission, Kevin Martin said he will recommend that the Comcast be punished for violating agency principles that guarantee customers open access to the Internet. "The commission has adopted a set of principles that protects consumers access to the Internet," Martin told The Associated Press. "We found that Comcast's actions in this instance violated our principles."
This is the same Kevin Martin that wants a free but filtered national broadband that we covered previously. Don’t mess with people’s file sharing, but it is a good idea to filter access to information. (we really want our pr0n). Ah, the duplicity of politicians, even appointed ones. It’s kind of like the obnoxious Uncle from when you were a kid. He’d point at your shoes so he could whack you upside the head while you were looking at your feet.
More on Martin's order for Comcast after the jump.
NewsThe Pirate Bay Wants to Encrypt the Internet
Posted 07/10/08 at 09:06:14 AM by Chris Moody
The folks behind the popular torrent site,The Pirate Bay have added another project to their list. They want to encrypt the Internet. Not just little pieces, but the whole thing. They have named it Transparent end-to-end encryption for the Internets, or IPETEE for short. The encryption would happen on the network level so most anything could be encrypted transmitted and decrypted, providing the systems have adopted the technology on both sides. It would be completely transparent to the user, unlike say IPSEC on IPv4. IPv6 may make this moot if its implementation is more polished (and we will have to leave IPv4 sometime)
Apparently the European Union’s move going to a DMCA like copyright enforcement effort is what spurred this interest from the Sweden based group.
I love anything that keeps our privacy, private. I do have to wonder if it’s going to really be practical or worth it to encrypt everything. It adds overhead to bandwidth, and increases loads on CPUs. Granted these are minimal, but on busy servers this will pile up and run up costs, which would impede adoption.
Of course it still has to be launched, and track records count. The Pirate Bay’s other unlaunched projects include: The Video Bay, music site PlayBle, and a new secure version of the P2P protocol. IPETEE is a much more ambitious and involved project than any of those. We will have to wait and see if there will be enough interest to get it going. In the mean time we can be entertained by their legal section.
What do you think of total encryption of all internet traffic? Is it worth it? Let us know in the comments section!
NewsP2P Traffic Exhausts Half of North American Bandwidth 
Posted 06/25/08 at 06:54:23 PM by Pulkit Chandna
A report by network equipment manufacturer Sandvine has once again saddled P2P traffic with the blame for hogging most of the precious North American bandwidth. The report pegs P2P traffic’s share of internet bandwidth at 44% - up 3% from the preceding year.
The scales are heavily lopsided as web traffic comes a distant second with 27.3% followed by streaming media with 14.8% of internet bandwidth.
VoIP is expected to grow steadily over the coming few years but it currently consumes the least internet bandwidth, a paltry .2%. Although there has been no consistency in reports detailing bandwidth usage, P2P traffic is logically most bandwidth-intensive.
FROM THE ARCHIVEColleges as Copyright Cops?
Posted 11/15/07 at 01:39:28 PM by Erin Simon
A new federal financial aid bill includes unprecedented copyright provisions calling on universities to curb students' filesharing.
NewsComcast Caught Filtering Bittorrent and Lying About It
Posted 10/21/07 at 01:20:11 PM by Erin Simon
After flatly denying throttling its subscribers' Bittorrent traffic, Comcast gets busted doing exactly that.
FROM THE ARCHIVEDaily News Brief: AMD Roadmaps Revealed!
Posted 10/11/07 at 07:00:38 PM by Paul "One4yu2c" Lilly
AMD releases launch dates and clockspeeds for Phenom, juror speaks out about the Jammie Thomas case, Koreans turning to internet for sex, and much more!
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