Comcast has acknowledged hiring people to fill seats before the start of a contentious federal hearing on how the company manages its broadband network, allowing its employees to take those seats when the filled-to-capacity hearing started…
Comcast said it hired people to hold seats only after an advocacy group called Free Press urged its backers to attend…
The practice of hiring people to fill seats in advance of public hearings isn’t unknown in Congress and other forums, but Comcast critics said this case was unique.
“First, Comcast was caught blocking the Internet. Now it has been caught blocking the public from the debate,” said Timothy Karr, director of an advocacy campaign…
“The only people cheering Comcast are those paid to do so.”
Congress could give lessons on sleaze to Comcast. Doesn’t make this incident any less obnoxious.
Get a rope.
For this egregious act alone they should have their licenses permanently revoked and their holdings broken up and sold to other companies.
And the proceeds from said sales to go to Public Television. Fuck ’em.
#2 – I’ll support your self-righteous street justice… Saddle up…
Ja mon, 1,2,3 got it right! the hackers will take care of these bozos. In the mean time im going to get Fiber and use IP-TV from TVshack mon.
It’s not unique in any way. As a matter of fact there is a bill floating around to stop the practice that has been used for years because lobbyists hire people to stand in line so they can get seats.
I am having some sort of disconnect from reality here…
I am on comcast and using p2p as I type this and all seems to be working fine…
Is there any independent verification of this blocking other than a few RMS inspired hate’o’blogs?
#6:
yes, it has been proven in (i believe) a double blind test from both the east and west coasts.
is cuntcast the most reviled company in america right now? i would be hard pressed to find another outfit that is so hated, and for good reason. it isnt just so called “naughty” p2p apps- they fucking block lotus notes and all kinds of other apps that have nothing to do with copyright violation.
i hope every senior manager at that company gets dick cancer.
@GregA
Live under a rock much? Google it.
#7,#8
Yeah, lots of allegations of it happening from RMS inspired hate’o’blogs but I am certainly not experiencing any blocking, and the RMS inspired hate’o’blogs don’t tell how to reproduce the problem.
So… I am in the curious situation of my own experience matching up more with Comcasts statements, which is that they don’t block, in contrast with the RMS inspired hate’o’blogs who have proven (to me at least) that they are wrong on this issue, not to mention they have been wrong about just about everything for the last two years or so.
And all I am offered for asking a question is insults… Will someone just tell me how to reproduce the problem? Because it does not affect me.
#9 – They aren’t “blocking” anything. They are throttling down the bandwidth.
#10,
No, and just to make the point, they are not throttling anything. Mine works fine, full speed.
Here is one article that articulates the problem I am having with this story…
http://tinyurl.com/yspzer
If arstechnica thinks the researchers is probably wrong about comcast blocking, then they are probably wrong.
Here is another article from pcmag, and there is obvious growing skepticism of the RMS inspired hate’o’blogs claims.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2269842,00.asp
So all the RMS fanboys are claiming this blocking is happening, but they are unable to articulate how (or even if) it is happening.
Then I throw in my own anecdotes… Working fine on my end…
Starting to look like an RMS inspired hate’o’blog conspiracy theory to me. Kinda sad it got to the point where the RMS inspired hate’o’blogs now have to claim bat shit crazy things like paid line sitters and what not…
[Please use TinyUrl.com for overly long URLs. – ed.]
What happened to all the fat ass comments?
Comcast seat warmers.
So what does Root Mean Square (RMS) have to do with anything? I always thought it was the over-stated power rating on audio gear.
Yeah, I know you meant Stallman. And I’m pissed about the deck stacking at the hearings more than torrent throttling in this instance anyway.
Some of RMS’s acolytes may be over the top, but that doesn’t mean Stallman’s wrong about the intentions of our corporate overlords. He’s not. Those guys would box up babies for blast furnace fuel if there was a nickel in it for them.
#14 – RMS – I think he means Remote Management Service.
ED,
I am sorry about the long links. On the other hand, I now have indisputable proof that RMS is personally behind this comcast effort. It is part of a coordinated EFF campaign to force federal net neutrality… Which would be bad for the internet…
http://tinyurl.com/2g9mqh
#13,
You should post the picture that boing boing posted of the actual comcast employees… It is much more damaging… Woah, cable installers are obviously strung out of pot… who would have thunk it?
Last year I could bittorent an average 300kbs per second, hard to get above 30kbs this year. I never know if its my comcast or some setting that has gotten fubar==but at the same time, if I go to a direct link, I can download at 500kbs without any impact on my bittorrent==so, yea, I think “something” is going on.
I think Comcast should monitor/shape/control their traffic–they should just be upfront about what they are doing.
This is why I waited, and went with Fiber.
15/15, with no throttle or hickups. Plus the dedicated line.
Competition in the arena seems to be working for me. Capitalism at its finest. Don’t like the service? Quit using it. Enough people do this, and maybe they realize there is an issue.
Or, just forget the logical decision, and just complain about it forever on the Internet, using your Comcast account.
#11 – I don’t have an issue either, but I don’t use torrents so I don’t really care a whole lot.
Personally, my issues with Comcast are based on my past experience with better, smaller, faster, less expensive ISPs that offer more services for less… but who I cannot use because Comcast bought everyone and leave me with no other options.
[Comment deleted – Violation of Posting Guidelines. – ed.]
So what will happen when we all cancel our Comcast accounts and go with another carrier? Thing is, everyone bitches about it, but how many have actually killed their connections with them and changed to another?
One here.
reader11722, your shameless shilling of your work of fiction is getting quite old after several years.
And it IS a fictional novel, masquerading as “hard-hitting journalism”. And it’s crap, to boot. Sorry, I just get sick of seeing you lie to sell it.
If Comcast is doing nothing wrong, then it shouldn’t worry about critics. So why the seat warmers????
I would love to get rid of Comcast. But what other broadband provider is there? DSL from AT&T? They are just as predatory if not worse, and we know they have NSA taps on their fiber.
The problem is then that capitalism has been removed from (and in fact never existed on) broadband connections. The Gov\’t needs to step in and allow other providers to use the wireline infrastructure like back in the good old days of dial-up when capitalism was still possible.
Why can’t cable providers just be honest and quit overselling their connections? The consumer is getting ripped off if they get a 6mbit connection but can’t use all the bandwidth associated with that connection.
Its deceptive advertising, and all cable providers do it.