This is one heck of a accurate cartoon.

“A study conducted last year by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and independently verified by the Associated Press revealed that Comcast interferes with BitTorrent and Gnutella sessions by sending TCP “reset” packets to users. Despite the growing body of unambiguous evidence, Comcast still denies allegations that it specifically targets BitTorrent. Comcast vice president David Cohen told us that the company’s traffic control mechanisms conform to the FCC’s definition of “reasonable network management” practices (which are allowed by the FCC), but critics don’t agree that Comcast’s management is anything “reasonable.” The FCC today indicated that “reasonable” practices should be transparent.”"Numerous advocacy groups have filed FCC complaints over the issue, and they contend that Comcast’s behavior is a flagrant violation of the network neutrality principles outlined in the FCC’s Internet Policy Statement. A class-action lawsuit against Comcast over traffic blocking is also in the works. Aggravated consumers and digital rights activists aren’t the only ones calling foul. Comcast’s competitors, who have traditionally expressed criticism of network neutrality, have also called for an FCC investigation of Comcast’s BitTorrent blocking.” -Ars Technica

God I hope the FCC sticks it to them, although I doubt they will judging from personal experience..

-S

Steal This Film part II is now available for download.
“These are strange times indeed. While they continue to command so much attention in the mainstream media, the ‘battles’ between old and new modes of distribution, between the pirate and the institution of copyright, seem to many of us already lost and won. We know who the victors are. Why then say any more?” -Stealthisfilm.com

The movie is quite good, it features interviews with some of the people that are caught directly in the spotlight of the media sharing / copyright battle (Ex. Peter from The Pirate Bay & Erik from Mininova).  It’s definitely worth a watch, it even has a lovely little quote from the one and only Dan Glickman (Head of the MPAA) in which he states “We know we’ll never be able to stop piracy”.  Interesting……

-S

/me shoots in the face the moron that suggested moving ICANNs job to the U.N.

If you are tired of Sandvine screwing with your BitTorrent and a user of GNU/Linux, then this is for you. I will tell you how to take your bandwidth back.

If you are using a Red Hat Linux derivative, such as Fedora Core or CentOS, then you will want to edit /etc/sysconfig/iptables. First, make a backup of this file. Next, open this file in your favorite text editor. Replace the current contents with this, substituting 6883 with your BitTorrent port number:

*filter
:INPUT ACCEPT [0:0]
:FORWARD ACCEPT [0:0]
:OUTPUT ACCEPT [0:0]
-A INPUT -i lo -j ACCEPT
#Comcast BitTorrent seeding block workaround
-A INPUT -p tcp –dport 6883 –tcp-flags RST RST -j DROP
-A INPUT -m state –state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT
#BitTorrent
-A INPUT -m state –state NEW -m tcp -p tcp –dport 6883 -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -m state –state NEW -m udp -p udp –dport 6883 -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -j REJECT –reject-with icmp-host-prohibited
COMMIT

Reload your iptables firewall with service iptables restart. You should now see a great improvement in your seeding.

If you are using Ubuntu or another non-Red Hat Linux derivative, then place the following in a file and execute that file as root.

#!/bin/sh
#Replace 6883 with you BT port
BT_PORT=6883

#Flush the filters
iptables -F

#Apply new filters
iptables -A INPUT -i lo -j ACCEPT
#Comcast BitTorrent seeding block workaround
iptables -A INPUT -p tcp –dport $BT_PORT –tcp-flags RST RST -j DROP
iptables -A INPUT -m state –state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT
#BitTorrent
iptables -A INPUT -m state –state NEW -m tcp -p tcp –dport $BT_PORT -j ACCEPT
iptables -A INPUT -m state –state NEW -m udp -p udp –dport $BT_PORT -j ACCEPT
iptables -A INPUT -j REJECT –reject-with icmp-host-prohibited

Your firewall is now configured and you should have great upload speed now. You will have to run this script every boot, by the way. One easy way is to call the script at the end of /etc/rc.local.

Credit for this write up goes to Cat in the Red Hat

Well done sir

-Scott

Steve Ballmer please close your mouth, shut up, and go color or something… you look like a complete fool ranting and raving on stage about linux and windows.  “People who use Red Hat, at least with respect to our intellectual property, in a sense have an obligation to compensate us,” -Ballmer  Mr. Ballmer, I know you have a personal vendetta against RedHat due to the fact that they told you to go fly a kite when you offered to strike a “deal”.  However just because they aren’t going to play your little mind games doesn’t mean they have stolen anything or are infringing on any IP… in fact it makes them look even better and you look even worse.

I hope you have a coronary.

-S