After repeated denials, Comcast has finally acknowledged that they are indeed blocking or slowing certain Internet traffic. Mitch Bowling, a serior vice president with Comcast Online Services said “During periods of heavy peer-to-peer congestion, which can degrade the experience for all customers, we use several network management technologies that, when necessary, enable us to delay — not block — some peer-to-peer traffic. However, the peer-to-peer transaction will eventually be completed as requested,"
Tests by the Associated Press last week seem to confirm Mr. Bowling’s statement. In the AP’s testing BitTorrent file transfers were blocked by Comcast for up to 10 minutes. The Electronic Frontier Foundation confirmed the AP's findings with its own tests.
The most troubling part about the blockage was Comcast’s method. Comcast’s computers “masqueraded as those of its users to interrupt file-sharing connections” and “forged messages sent by Comcast's computers to shut down connections”
Other users have reported that emails with large attachments were being blocked by Comcast. Comcast has acknowledged that problem and blamed a software bug. That issue apparently has been fixed.
An Electronic Frontier Foundation employee said "These are the kinds of software bugs you get when you have ISPs messing around with hacking techniques to get some applications running on their networks and not others,"
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