How Comcast blocks your Internet traffic

Bless the Associated Press for unearthing, through careful and diligent investigation, Comcast's shameful, hidden Internet traffic-management scheme.

Comcast, the AP determined, actively manages data on its network by using software to essentially masquerade as its subscribers' machines. When non-Comcast Internet subscribers request files from your Comcast-connected machine -- as happens in peer-to-peer file-sharing applications -- Comcast's technology steps in and tells the non-Comcast subscriber you're not available... full article here: How Comcast blocks your Internet traffic - Machinist - Salon.com

So, you paid for your high-speed Internet access and you actually thought that that's what you're going to get? Think again...

Stories of covert, underhanded ISP Internet traffic tampering and throttling began surfacing mid-to-late last year. Big national ISPs first denied the allegations, long enough to come out with a "story" having the correct spin as to why it's important for them to "manage" their networks. And of course, by "manage", they meant cheat their customers out of bandwidth that they've rightly paid for.

In any case, this story has come a long way... and the government having found Comcast with its hand in the proverbial cookie jar, they threatened to introduce regulation into the ISP industry. This apparently was enough of a threat for Comcast to soil its underpants and relent under the political pressure and put a stop to its traffic shaping and interference practices. Here is how the story evolved over the past few months: