This document is an edited (purely for readability, I can ...

[Pages:4]This document is an edited (purely for readability, I can provide the original email upon request) version of an email conversation between Frank Eliason, Director of Digital Care for Comcast Email. It was a very enlightening conversation and he defiantly did clear some things up. If you want to contact me for any reason (if you see a misspelling or something that isn't worded right, please feel free to contact me @ nate.adams3[at]).

Nathan Adams: 1) "access any other person's computer or computer system, network, software, or data without his or her knowledge and consent; breach the security of another user or system; or attempt to circumvent the user authentication or security of any host, network, or account. This includes, but is not limited to, accessing data not intended for you, logging into or making use of a server or account you are not expressly authorized to access, or probing the security of other hosts, networks, or accounts without express permission to do so;"

- Does this also prevent a Comcast subscriber from testing a remote system that they have full permission to do so? For example, a dedicated server they are renting or a system that is in their house and on another ISP?

Frank Eliason:

As it states "Without his or her knowledge and Consent." No further comment necessary

Nathan Adams: 5) "use or run dedicated, stand-alone equipment or servers from the Premises that provide network content or any other services to anyone outside of your Premises local area network ("Premises LAN"), also commonly referred to as public services or servers. Examples of prohibited equipment and servers include, but are not limited to, e-mail, Web hosting, file sharing, and proxy services and servers;"

- This is probably the most controversial TOS/AUP point to date. My main concern with this one is not only that you allow people to use bittorrent which just sucks away pretty much all available bandwidth (as you have noticed which required you to put in sandvine), but yet if little Johnny wants to host a site about his dog, where the traffic would be minimal, you would throw the book at him. Even online gaming would use more bandwidth than little Johnny's site, but yet it seems like you would treat him like a common criminal. My question is if that TOS point is just in there to "cover your rear end" (so to speak) if a customer actually does do something stupid like use easy to guess passwords and gets his whole network compromised you can throw the book at him (or puts up illegal material), or if that TOS is a zero tolerance, no exceptions rules?

Also, another point that it brings up is a questionable 1st amendment violation. Would you (or have you) disconnect a customer who was hosting a site about his personal beliefs? For example, if a customer decided to put up a site about how much he disliked John McCain (I know it's a little late now, but lets put the time a couple of months ago) and posted perfectly reasonable factual information on why he dislikes McCain (like how

he thinks about this one law or something like that), would you disconnect this customer (assuming he got enough traffic for you to notice), even though technically he has right to express his views on certain candidates (I don't have specific court judgment, but I think we can both agree that we can believe in what we want)? And I could come up with other examples such as posting a site disagreeing with the bailout bill, but I think the first example is sufficient enough to clear up any misunderstandings. However, please do note that I am NOT trying to justify hosting servers on the Comcast network in order to get around that TOS point; free speech is a huge movement in the United States and anyone who infringes on it (including the government themselves) is usually frowned upon.

Frank Eliason:

-Server is not permitted with access through our system. If you are sharing not involving our system that is up to you. But if they can access the internet it would not be permitted. They would need to purchase service. This is not a 1st amendment item. If you want to host a server with access through our network you should consider a business connection.

Nathan Adams: According to RFC 1945 [1.2] (HTTP/1.0) a server is defined as: An application program that accepts connections in order to service requests by sending back responses. Relating that to bittorrent, a client also acts as a server in the sense that it waits for requests (connections) for parts of a file and sends back that part (response), loosely speaking of course. Does this mean that every person that uses bittorrent also has to sign up for a business package? Or is P2P protocols the exception to the rule? What about remote desktop applications like logmein, albeit even though you run a client, that client still has to wait for "connections" and send responses back to the person connected?

Frank Eliason:

Technically that is not a server but rather upload. I do not believe these uses would qualify, but if it was very high bandwidth usage it could be considered operating outside the normal use for a residential user.

Nathan Adams: 2) "restrict, inhibit, interfere with, or otherwise disrupt or cause a performance degradation, regardless of intent, purpose or knowledge, to the Service or any Comcast (or Comcast supplier) host, server, backbone network, node or service, or otherwise cause a performance degradation to any Comcast (or Comcast supplier) facilities used to deliver the Service;"

- Isn't this really just saying "if you use the service for more than web surfing, you are a bad person"? At least that's how it seems to be when it says: "cause a performance degradation", really isn't that doing anything outside of web surfing or checking email such as: downloading files, bittorrent (legally), online gaming, video/audio streaming (legally of course), remote desktop, offsite file backups, ect. All those I listed would cause "performance degradation", so would I be in violation of that TOS point?

Frank Eliason:

-No what [it] is saying is if you are creating a negative impact to other Customers, we have the right to restrict the usage. Most of what you mention would not degrade performance for others.

Nathan Adams: Isn't it true that, usually, everyone in the same neighborhood shares the same node, and if one person on that node starts to download a 4.7GB torrent (Linux DVD of course!) that everyone else on that node would be affected...albiet maybe not very much but some of the more hardcore tech people who always watch their ping time to google might be a little worried.

Frank Eliason:

They could be, but it is about overall usage at a given moment, that would not have impact.

Nathan Adams: If my neighbor just wants a copy of my vacation pictures off a file share, would I be required to have enough technical knowledge to block their wireless card from accessing the internet else I would be in violation of the TOS? Also, what about all the open wireless points, are those also in violation of the TOS (granted they may not even know how to enable WEP or WPA on their AP) since someone outside the premise can connect and use their service?

Frank Eliason:

You are responsible for all usage and activity that goes through your IP address. So if you opened it up and it caused your usage to exceed limitations or they did illegal activity it would be traceable back to you IP. I would not want to open up my access to have responsibility for them. I also would not want their usage to cause me to exceed limitations. How would you feel if they started to run a spam server all trackable back to you?

Nathan Adams: 4) "connect the Comcast Equipment to any computer outside of your Premises;"

- Does this mean that if my neighbor wants in on my network (maybe because I am streaming OTA TV over my network, and he wants to also watch it on his computer) that I would be in violation of this TOS point?

Frank Eliason:

If it is through the internet that would be a problem. If it was just within your network not involving our connection it would not.

Nathan Adams: Or is this so I can't run [insert Comcast supplied equipment here] over to my friends house and use it there?

Frank Eliason:

Correct . They would need to purchase their own service.

Nathan Adams: 6) "accessing and using the Service with anything other than a dynamic Internet Protocol

("IP") address that adheres to the dynamic host configuration protocol ("DHCP"). You may not configure the Service or any related equipment to access or use a static IP address or use any protocol other than DHCP unless you are subject to a Service plan that expressly permits you to do so."

- This is more for my own curiosity than anything else, but, am I actually able to access and use the service with any other protocol? I really doubt I could use IPX, and it doesn't seem like you offer IPv6 addresses yet, so could you clarify on what exactly that is referring too?

Frank Eliason:

This is going through other protocols to circumvent the assigned IP.

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