Comcast blocks Tor

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this is both disappointing and unsurprising. i do wonder if thereā€™s a secret order from a fisa court stimulating this though.

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FWIW, Comcast denies it.

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The government doesnā€™t like Tor. Comcast blocks it in return forā€¦?

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I thought all the three-letter-agencies used Tor. I mean, not that I would know, but isnā€™t that the scuttlebutt? Woe be unto the field agent embedded in a work environment with Comcast as the ISP.

Furthermore, hereā€™s another denial from Comcast. I hate 'em as much as the next guy, but in my experience they donā€™t really bother you if you donā€™t bother them. (I say this as a guy who runs a web and SMTP server at home on my Comcast connection, use ssh and sometimes shove gigs through it daily, and used to run a Tor relay for a few months a year ago.)

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If Comcast does not monitor its usersā€™ browsing, then how does the copyright alert system work? Are they providing their customersā€™ browsing data to a third party?

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Well thatā€™s just metadata. They donā€™t actually watch the movie with you.

As for TOR, thereā€™s no way to distinguish one encrypted packet from another except by the metadata. So they probably have a list of TOR nodes, and notice whoā€™s talking to them. Also, if I recall, arenā€™t TOR packets routed through multiple nodes? That would be pretty easy to detect.

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And more of the same through Ars:

Comcast calls rumor that it disconnects Tor users ā€œwildly inaccurateā€

Ars is doing a little checking of its own, and is finding the story dubious so far. Iā€™d call this particular news item a bit of a crock.

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But I want them to. Iā€™m lonely and I made way too much popcorn. Also Iā€™m a bit cold. Can they snuggle right up next to me?

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Days like this, I am thankful that I no longer live in a city in which I am forced to deal with Comcast. They can go straight to hell.

I call BS. I run an exit node FFS, and I notified them Iā€™d be doing so. They reminded me of the ToS section regarding servers, thanked me for notice, and asked what email they could forward abuse complaints too.

If this were a new corp policy, they doubtless would have gotten hold of me by now.

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Well, the story is based on an interaction with a CSR. The CSR could just have been full of shit.

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But it scores so high on the truthiness index.

Honestly, even if it isnā€™t it true, I want Comcast to know exactly what it would feel like if it were true.

And as always, remember! It doesnā€™t count as a freedom of speech violation if a private entity does it! Itā€™s a pat little loophole that pretty much explains why the right wingers loooove business so much.

Well, at least one ā€“ the NRL ā€“ is credited for inventing it.

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True. Equally so could the ā€œcustomersā€ in the story have been. Itā€™s all pretty much hearsay so far.

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Iā€™ve seen some discussion on sites like /., and I think the hyperbole is high with this oneā€¦ Iā€™m thinking ā€œCSR makes a statement and it spirals viral to the land of BSā€ for the time being.

Remember, BB is a blog site, not a news site :slight_smile:

I initially believed the story - as others say, it has a high ā€˜truthinessā€™ level in re Comcast. But I dug into it a bit - I couldnā€™t find the reddit/r/darknetmarkets post which was alleged to be the source, only secondary reports. Ditto on reddit/r/tor, and other appropriate fora.

I have Comcast. Last night I fired up Tor, and did a bit of random websurfing - no sign of blockage.

Assuming the alleged call did happen, my suspicion is that the alleged ā€˜customer repā€™ may have been a fake engaged in a social engineering attack, since he seemed anxious to get the callee to 'fess up to which sites heā€™d been accessing with Tor. Perhaps a clueless LEO or PI.

The denials Iā€™ve seen from Comcast seem (for once) to be sincere.

Yeah, the ā€œquoteā€ from the CSR obviously isnā€™t; this could all be a stupid misunderstanding on one or more peopleā€™s parts, assuming the story is ā€œtrueā€ (in the sense of actually being based on real interactions between customer and CSR) and not just a random fabrication.

Exactly. I look at it this way: from what Iā€™ve been seeing (Iā€™m not American, so I have no direct experience), Comcast has done enough that can be substantiated enough to hoist them on their own petard that stories based on hearsay are really unnecessary.