Targeted Tampering - Comcast's battle with BitTorrent

It's not news that some network providers aren't a huge fan of the continually growing BitTorrent phenomenon. They claim that it overburdens their network and unfairly utilizes resources by a few of the network consumers. I've heard many arguments against it, a few I even kind of agree with. Comcast has been among the loudest of those complaining, going so far to actually admit that they were limiting BitTorrent traffic during periods of excessive network utilization.

If these decisions were truly being made with the general userbase in mind, I could get behind them. Assuming there were a rational person or group making the decisions about what constituted excessive network utilization and when to shut torrents down, and which ones to target, I could see it being used for the greater good (greater good). Unfortunately, as is outlined over on torrentfreak, Comcast has been blocking torrents pretty much 24/7, and rather indiscriminately.

With this new data coming to light it's hard for me to imagine no actions being taken against Comcast, but then again, it's a frightening world we live in. The people in control know next to nothing about the actual technology or the issues surrounding it. They understand nothing but politics and dollar signs, and when it comes to that, big business is always at an advantage to Joe User. I suppose we can't exactly stop fighting the good fight, but it sure can be tiring to see the same patterns cropping up again and again.

All of that aside, it's worth noting that this has been going on. Go read the article. Get the tool, check your network, see if you're being blocked, too. If enough people actually care, maybe something can be done? I understand the pipes are theirs, but we're the ones that pay to use them, and there are plenty of valid reasons for Torrent downloads, so why stop us all? We don't stop all people from driving just because some of them might be doing so illegally. Is the Internet really a place where people aren't innocent until proven guilty?

#Colin