Category: General

Comcast traffic blocking: even more apps, groupware clients affected

Paul

Last week, we reported on mounting evidence that Comcast is targeting and disrupting BitTorrent traffic on its network. Further digging by interested parties has turned up more indication that BitTorrent isn’t the only popular P2P protocol being tampered with by the United States’ largest ISP.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation noticed the same sort of packet forging that the AP did (and that Broadband Reports readers did some time ago), and continued its testing to see if other applications are affected. The answer is a disturbing “yes.” The results of additional testing done by the EFF indicate Comcast is sending forged reset packets with some Gnutella traffic. When the EFF ran a Gnutella node on a Comcast connection, the forged reset packets disrupted communication between the nodes.

What’s particularly insidious about Comcast’s packet forging is that it’s transparent to both its customers and those on the opposite ends of the connection. Applications such as BitTorrent and Gnutella retain some of their functionality, but they’ll also appear to malfunction for no apparent reason.

Even if you accept the argument that all P2P traffic is inherently evil, and that Comcast has the right to disrupt it in order to put a stop to copyright infringement, Comcast’s traffic-shaping efforts have apparently extended beyond the realm of P2P and into good old enterprise groupware. Kevin Kanarski, who works as a Lotus Notes messaging engineer, noticed some strange behavior with Lotus Notes when hooked up to a Comcast connection last month.

Sooner later someone is going to tell Comcast they cost some one there business and have to pay for it. I don’t expect this to keep up much longer

Keep Mail.app at a Glance With Mail.appetizer

Paul

Mac OS X Only: Freeware Mail.app add-on Mail.appetizer lets you read and delete email on the fly without having to open Mail’s main window every time a message arrives. What makes Mail.appetizer stand out from other notifiers is the customization—you tell it whether to show headers, icons, quoted reply text and determine its size. Mail.appetizer is freeware, available in a seemingly bug-free beta for OS X 10.4 Tiger and a stable version for 10.3 Panther. Thanks, dcharti!
Mail.appetizer [Bronson Beta]


This is Mac OS so I haven’t tried it.

eMachines announces new low-cost desktops for the holidays

Paul1 Reply

eMachines looks to be trying to make its already budget-priced desktops even more attractive to consumers this holiday season, with it today introducing a pair of models that it says strike just the right balance between performance and value. The most affordable of the pair is the company’s T3626 desktop (a slight variation on the T3616), which starts at just $350 after a $50 mail-in rebate. For that price you’ll get a 2.2GHz AMD Sempron 3800+ processor, along with NVIDIA GeForce 6100 graphics, 1GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive, and a DVD burner, among other standard specs. Taking things up a notch, the $435 (again, after a $50 rebate) T5234 model packs a AMD Athlon 64 X2 4000+ processor, along with slightly beefer NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE graphics, 1GB of RAM, a 320GB hard drive, and that same DVD burner. According to eMachines, both should be available at all the usual locations immediately.

This isn’t half bad for the holidays get a new system and at a pretty good speed and hard drive space!! I think I want one now!!

Alienware announces AlienExchange trade-in program

Paul

While they’re still far from eMachines-territory, those in the market for an Alienware system can now knock a few bucks off their desktop or laptop of choice — if they’re willing to fork over some of their old gear, that is. That can be done as part of the company’s just-launched AlienExchange program, which will let you trade in everything from cellphones and MP3 players to game consoles and digital cameras to computers and monitors in exchange for an AlienWare gift card or a plain old check. Those trading in their old Alienware system will also get an additional $200 on top of the regular trade-in value as a bonus. If that sounds like reason enough to clean out your closet, you can hit up the link below to get a quote on your gear, after which Alienware will send you a shipping label to send it all in.

I wonder if that includes laptops and Desktop machines?

MPAA hacker interview

Paul

Wired has an interview with Robert Anderson, a hacker-for-hire who went to work for the MPAA, illegally breaking into BitTorrent trackers and snooping on their email:


According to Anderson, the MPAA told him: “We would need somebody like you. We would give you a nice paying job, a house, a car, anything you needed…. if you save Hollywood for us you can become rich and powerful…”

But once Anderson turned over the data and cashed the MPAA’s check, he quickly realized that Garfield had no further use for him. “He lost interest in me,” he says. Anderson felt abandoned: During negotiations with Garfield, the hacker had become convinced he was starting a long-term, lucrative relationship with the motion picture industry. “He was stringing me along personally.”

Hollywood’s cold shoulder put Anderson’s allegiance back up for grabs, and about a year later he came clean with TorrentSpy’s Bunnell in an online chat. “‘I sold you out to the MPAA,'” Anderson says he told Bunnell. “I felt guilty (for) what happened and I kinda also thought at that point the MPAA wasn’t going to do anything.”

Link

I thought people would like to read the interview also!! Enjoy