18 ms·
Comcast injects JavaScript into webpages to show copyright notices to customers
- KhalilK 11y agoSame was done during the Tunisian revolution only to inject keyloggers.
- chippy 11y agoComcast was doing this, or a Tunisian ISP? Do you have a source for that?
- KhalilK 11y agoTunisian ISPs. HTTPS was the solution of course. http://www.businessinsider.com/tunisia-facebook-2011-1 http://www.businessinsider.com/tunisia-facebook-2011-1 http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/01/25/tunisia_facebook_password_slurping/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/01/25/tunisia_facebook_pas...
- userbinator 11y agoEmailing is not enough? I wonder who came up with this idea.
- duskwuff 11y agoNot when you may not have a correct email address for your customers. (Which is often, for an ISP.)
- Washuu 11y agoOh no. You get the browser notice, the email, the text message, and then finally two days later a phone call that will KEEP CALLING until you acknowledge it through a series of key pad press prompts. This happens at every 10% starting at 90%.
- fabulist 11y agoI'm glad they're responding to negative public opinion in the only honorable way, driving themselves out of business. It's so rare to see a corporation with values.
- MaulingMonkey 11y agoEmailing the ISP provided email that I never use is probably not enough.
- samdroid 11y agoThe `checkBrowser` function says it is from brainjar.com and used under their terms of service. On the brainjar.com terms of service, it seems to say the code is licensed under the GPLv2+. Doesn't this make the Comcast script now under the GPL - since GPL code can only be included in compatibly licensed products. Or is Comcast violating the GPL?
- pg_is_a_butt 11y agopretty sure it means you own comcast now. i would like to talk to you about canceling my service.
- btgeekboy 11y agoThe terms of service facing the public are not necessarily the terms which Comcast may have negotiated with the copyright holder.
- jakejake 11y agoThis is a crappy move on Comcast's part, but as far as GPL they most likely are not in violation. You can use GPL code in a commercial product as long as you are not distributing it. If they ever choose to sell or distribute their "content injection system" though, they would have to release it under the GPL or else negotiate another license from the copyright owner.
- wging 11y agoIsn't the whole point of this post that they are distributing it?
- Natsu 11y agoHow are they not distributing it if they send this JavaScript to each user notified? Of course it's JavaScript so maybe that counts as distributing the source...
- bitJericho 11y agoI think the FSF would consider this a distribution and require the backend to be released under the GPL. https://www.drupal.org/node/173294 https://www.drupal.org/node/173294 Er, actually it may be more complicated than that. You'll have to read the discussion.
- closetnerd 11y agoThis shouldn't be possible with https enabled website right? Or am I missing something?
- Washuu 11y agoWhile it does not do anything to HTTPS connections they still get routed through their proxy causing slow downs.
- function_seven 11y agoWhat assets does their proxy proxy on https connections?
- mikeryan 11y agoThey've done similar before https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5482178 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5482178 Back then it was to alert folks who were hitting bandwidth quotas and you could make the argument they were trying to help but this one, ugh.
- Cymen 11y agoIs there an example of this in action Jarred? I'm on a Comcast connection right now (DSL was too slow). Looks like it has been happening for a while -- from 2013: https://gist.github.com/ryankearney/4146814 https://gist.github.com/ryankearney/4146814 Blog post: http://blog.ryankearney.com/2013/01/comcast-caught-intercepting-and-altering-your-web-traffic/ http://blog.ryankearney.com/2013/01/comcast-caught-intercept... So also used when you near the monthly traffic cap (if your area has active caps).
- mavrc 11y agoCableOne does this for lots of different stuff. If you're over your bandwidth cap, if you haven't paid your bill yet... Come to think of it, we have had a rocky relationship, they and I.
- vlunkr 11y agoYes, I've seen CableOne banners get magically injected into web pages. Sometimes for things as trivial as advertisements.
- bencollier49 11y agoThey're adding advertisements to other people's IP?
- vlunkr 11y agoI wish I had evidence of this, but I swear I've seen it. I'm not on CableOne anymore or I'd try to find one
- api_or_ipa 11y agoHTTPS Everywhere can't happen too soon. This is abusive. Imagine if anyone else had access to pus you notifications by intercepting your communications. Imagine Uncle Sam interrupting your calls announcing you haven't submitted your tax returns yet. Because that's basically what's happening here.
- userbinator 11y agoHTTPS is good and all, but the real problem is ISPs which don't want to be nothing but a transport provider. Every IP packet I send into their network should end up at its destination, with best effort, completely unmodified, and vice-versa. That said, in my experience datacenter and enterprise ISPs tend to be far more "pure", so if you want a truly unmolested connection a possible solution could be to use a VPN to a server that terminates in one of those.
- Laforet 11y agoA lot of ISPs are anything but, including business or datacenter connections. I had to deal with one of them using transparent DNS proxies without disclosing the fact. Only found out when something broken on their end. The only way to have functional DNS is to tunnel it over another protocol because their equipment will intercept DNS queries to any server and reply with a bogus IP.
- paulojreis 11y ago> but the real problem is ISPs which don't want to be nothing but a transport provider. This is very, very true. Anyone who has worked at a telco should've heard the "we don't want to be a dumb pipe" argument. The thing is: they can't be more than that! I don't want their applications, they are not very good at doing applications. I don't want their content, they don't seem to get content production at all. Even their research, it has become less and less relevant. As a customer, I'd rather see all that money spent on efficient ways of transporting bytes, or even directly subsidizing the customer bill (so that they can support smaller ARPUs). But no; I have to pay extra to support the entertainment of their engineers, in order to get sub-optimal apps and content.
- austerity 11y agoI wonder what's in it for them? Sending an email should be enough to comply with DMCA. Are they paid by some copyright groups or just being a pushover?
- atmosx 11y agoThis more drastic. The email is tricky, you could have subscribed to their service using your 15-years old hotmail account that you never use anymore.
- userbinator 11y agoI was thinking the same thing - a nontrivial effort has clearly been spent on implementing this, and it certainly would not be well-received by most if not all of its customers.
- wmf 11y agoBeing sued by Hollywood for a billion dollars and passing those costs on to their customers wouldn't be well-received either.
- austerity 11y agoIs there a reason to believe such case would have a chance of succeeding? I thought DMCA clearly protects the ISP as long as they forward the complaints to the offending customer?
- hayksaakian 11y agoisn't comcast owned by NBC? that means they have a distinct corporate interest in protecting their IP (legitimate or not is another discussion).
- sdboyer 11y agoother way around - NBCU is owned by comcast.
- 11y ago
- mbesto 11y ago> Click the button below to confirm you received this Copyright Alert and to close it. > <button>Close this message</button> Ahhhh, enterprise IT and corporate counsel synergy at it's finest.
- reitoei 11y agoWhile a web developer locks him/herself in a dark room with a bottle of whiskey and a revolver.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- anon4 11y agoHm.. if I delete the element from the DOM without clicking the button (trivial if you use the inspector), does this imply I do not confirm that I've received the Copyright Alert? Edit: Also, I'm sure most people will just click the button without reading anything.
- knodi123 11y agoyou don't want to use the inspector- this popup probably hits you on every single page until you finally agree. Instead, use an adblocker to identify some unique element class, and it will be blocked every time.
- gruez 11y agoSerious question: what's wrong with this?
- wmf 11y agoThe root of this problem is that there is no "control channel" (or whatever you want to call it) from an ISP to its customers. Email doesn't work because ISPs don't always have the customer's address and email can get spam filtered. Paper mail is expensive and may not be read. Until someone defines and implements a protocol for this, ISPs are going to keep inventing weird kludges. I wonder if Hotspot 2.0 can be adapted for wired networks.
- x1798DE 11y agoAnd yet somehow you get your bill every month?
- zippergz 11y agoIt's probably stupid, but I'll admit I haven't looked at my cable bill for well over a year. I have paperless billing, it auto charges to my credit card, I see that the amount is the same every month, and that's it. If they include any messages with the bill, I never see them. If they sent me something via snail mail I'd probably read it, unless I mistakenly thought it was junk mail and threw it out without looking at it.
- jon-wood 11y agoThe junk mail thing is there own doing. I missed two months of letters from our ISP saying the bill hadn't been processed because I threw them out, assuming it was yet another letter trying to sell me the service I already have.
- simoncion 11y ago> The root of this problem is that there is no "control channel" (or whatever you want to call it) from an ISP to its customers. If it's not important enough to send a note via certified mail, then it's damn well not important enough to MITM my HTTP sessions.
- userbinator 11y agoEmail doesn't work because ISPs don't always have the customer's address What ISPs don't provide an email account (usually something like username@isp-domain) with their service? I thought that was the standard way to do things, and it's what mine does to send me alerts about service outages and maintenance windows.
- tzmudzin 11y ago... and now Comcast will sue for posting this very code to Github. I am sure it is copyrighted... And it does not matter that they pushed it down the throat of their paying customers... I am a big fan of rules & regulations, but in cases like these I'm afraid as a society we play stupid games (... and win stupid prizes...)
- guelo 11y agoYou don't have to use Comcast. I sacrificed Comcast's speed and went with a local, privacy conscious DSL provider and I couldn't be happier. I'm getting about 6mbps with dual bonded phone lines. It's kind of pricey at $80 but it's worth it knowing I'm dealing with an honest business. In most areas there are alternatives and DSL is available everywhere, it's worth it even if it's a lot slower for the peace of mind. As long as you don't trade in one evil giant corp for another like AT&T or Verizon.
- losingthefight 11y agoI don't think this is reflective of most consumers in the US. I have a family of four. I couldn't imagine the kids working on school work, watching Netflix, or gaming while I try to teach online all while on a WiFi router connected to DSL. While it may work for you, the fact of the matter is that it likely will not work for many, hence the reason Comcast can get away with this crap (well, that and the monopoly).
- iotku 11y agoIn a similar situation here, 4 adults in a household currently on DSL (Approx 10mbps down / 0.6mbps up, best available speeds on DSL here). Between two TVs using Netflix (usually no more than one at a time, but frequently) and me playing online games the connection becomes about useless. Ping times shoot up past 1000ms making online gaming impossible, downloads are obviously slow (and interfere with Netflix streaming), and there's frequent connection bugs (stalls for 2-5s seemingly randomly). Only other "Real" choice is Comcast, but I'm very reluctant due to their behavior and potential of implementing low caps. (Not currently in WA state) 4G isn't an option because data caps, sat (Which I used previously where I lived before) has extremely high latency and low caps (Obviously no multiplayer gaming there either), and of course nobody wants to deal with dialup in 2015.
- coldtea 11y ago>* I couldn't imagine the kids working on school work, watching Netflix, or gaming while I try to teach online all while on a WiFi router connected to DSL.* At 6mbps? Tons of consumers in the US get even less...
- thoughtexpt 11y agoFrom what domain does comcast.js originate? Does the injection still work if we block connections to the IP for that domain?
- jand 11y agoThe script is inlined, so blocking by origin seems not possible. You could write a greasemonkey script (is that still a thing?) or write an extension which removes the line _ComcastAlert.go(); from every visited page.
- ryan-c 11y agoI think you could also insert a script in the document head that adds an event listener for beforescriptexecute that checks for and cancels execution of the comcast script. A website could do this themselves even. Better yet, block the script if detected, then fire the acknowledgement.
- notahacker 11y agoIf script detected, serve not-strictly-accurate but damaging to Comcast warning about "insecure Comcast connection"...
- zackboe 11y agoCox Communications also injects js to display downtime messages and data usage alerts when nearing the upper limits of their now enforced data caps. Their response to a FCC complaint was essentially "it's convenient for our users"
- rtl49 11y agoWhat is there to say? This is an incredibly obnoxious theft of attention. Comcast has perfected the art of harassing its customers with unwelcome noise for what must be marginal profit. I know someone with a Comcast cable box whose channel menu forces the viewer to pass over a banner advertisement after every fourth channel. This combined with the horrible rubbery buttons on the remote means that to browse through twenty channel titles takes perhaps as many seconds. Add to this "actionable" banner advertisements displayed over the content and seemingly endless commercial "breaks" and I find it essentially unusable. On top of it all, I understand that people pay over a thousand dollars a year for this service. Comcast's flagrant disregard for customer satisfaction, or even their basic human dignity, is a striking testament to the failure of regulators to ensure adequate competition in this space.
- mcv 11y agoIf this is how Comcast treats its customers, I wonder why anyone would want to pay them to be their customer. Especially a thousand dollars a years. Is this because there's no real competition in the US?
- sleepychu 11y agoThat's my understanding. (No competition that does it any better.)
- misterbwong 11y agoIn many areas of the country, the cable companies basically have localized monopolies on high speed internet. They claim they have competition in DSL and satellite (!!!) but these technologies just can't compete on speed in this day and age, leaving cable as the only viable alternative. From what I gather, this is one of the reasons why Google started Google Fiber.
- throwaway7767 11y agoInteresting. Over here, providers are offering VDSL2, advertised as 100/100Mbit. Given my experience with DSL, that probably means about half that for the average user who is 2-3km from the DSLAM box. That's still pretty respectable. Is noone offering modern DSL in the US?
- poizan42 11y agoHow does this go along with ISPs being classified as common carriers? Are they actually allowed to modify the data they are carrying?
- wmt 11y agoAlways using VPN has really made using Internet a lot nicer place, I can use any Wifi without any fears, don't have to care about ISPs doing funny things with my traffic, and if I get country blocked content I can just quickly route my traffic to another exit node. Of course then the VPN provider is the single point of failure, but if it's trustworthy enough only folks with proper court orders should have access to my traffic. And it's an extra ten bucks per month or so.
- retube 11y agoAren't you then just effectively shifting your choice of trusted provider from ISP to VPN? Is it possible to run your own VPN on a VPS host, digitil ocean or linode or similar?
- userbinator 11y agoNot just VPN, but it really becomes whatever ISP the exit node of the VPN is connected to.
- scintill76 11y agoYeah, but at least there haven't been any (high-profile) abuses, yet. Meanwhile Verizon and now Comcast have been caught tampering with their customers' traffic, and those are probably just the well-publicized cases. Maybe I am just blissfully unaware of VPNs' shenanigans.
- djent 11y agoCox injects HTML into your HTTP connections. I've recieved popups on pages saying they've spotted traffic from a botnet server over my connection, and that my computer may be infected. I talked to Cox support and they view it as a feature.
- jakeogh 11y agoI saw that once, not sure how common it is because I surf without JS by default. http://www.cox.com/residential/support/internet/article.cox?articleId=a31ff300-bc03-11e2-caa8-000000000000 http://www.cox.com/residential/support/internet/article.cox?... Will happily cancel my service if it continues.
- wmt 11y agoAlways using VPN has really made using Internet a lot nicer place, I can use any Wifi without any fears, don't have to care about ISPs doing funny things with my traffic, and if I get country blocked content I can just quickly route my traffic from another exit node. Of course then the VPN provider is the single point of failure, but if it's trustworthy enough only folks with proper court orders should have access to my traffic. And it's an extra ten bucks per month or so.
- atthegate 11y agoI was hit with this a couple of months ago. A one-line Chrome extension handled it fairly well... > document.getElementById('comcast_content').remove();
- CaptSpify 11y agowell, that will only work until the rename the element.
- jand 11y agoThis will only remove the message, but will not prevent the other unwanted stuff: Calling back to Comcast with a seemingly personalized token (in SYS_URL). If i am not mistaken, they query every 5 sec (via checkBulletin()).
- scrollaway 11y agoHiding this is counterproductive; trivial as it may be, and this goes for everyone, please don't publish such an extension. People need to see this and get pissed off, complain to comcast, understand why https is needed.
- LoSboccacc 11y agoIt might remove the visual part of it but your cookies still gets sent all over the place.
- golemotron 11y agoI think this is actually illegal. If you own the copyright for your content and they inject into it, they are creating a derived work without your permission.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- motles 11y agodoesn't all music sampling rely on the fact that creating derived works without permission is completely legal?
- a_bonobo 11y agoTo use a sample you have to get a license from the original artist: >Today, most mainstream acts obtain prior authorization to use samples, a process known as "clearing" (gaining permission to use the sample and, usually, paying an up-front fee and/or a cut of the royalties to the original artist). Independent bands, lacking the funds and legal assistance to clear samples, are at a disadvantage - unless they seek the services of a professional sample replay company or producer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_issues_surrounding_music_sampling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_issues_surrounding_music...
- mcav 11y agoA sample could fall under fair use.
- laumars 11y agoIt doesn't. Sampling is technically illegal. However the bootleg market is often too small to go noticed and larger artists get authorisation before sampling (or at the very least - releasing). You do often see some artists turn a blind eye to sampling though. Particularly dance artists because many of them know their entire genre exists of the back of sampling. So it would be counterproductive / hypocritical for them to chase after royalties
- jsatk 11y agoShameful.
- supernintendo 11y agoOut of curiosity, I wanted to know what the maximum z-index is. The CSS 2.1 spec doesn't present this information, but it turns out to be 2147483647 (the maximum value for a 32-bit integer). Now what does that z-index say about the JavaScript developer who chose it? "Fuck it, 999999 is enough." Man, what a tool.
- rym_ 11y agoNot a JS developer at all, what does a zIndex of 99999 do?
- SquareWheel 11y agoThis is actually CSS, not JS. z-index sets the layer of an element, so a higher z-index means that content will appear above other content.
- mentando 11y agoWell it is a very high zIndex, which of would force the element in the plane 99999. What it says about the developer though, is that he didn't bother reading up on, what is the highest value, but just chose a rather high value of 99999.
- adrianN 11y agoClearly he wanted to future-proof his code. Maybe in a while he'll need to display an even more important message.
- DrJokepu 11y ago*signed 32-bit integer
- duderific 11y agoA one-second google search turned up this: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1118198/how-can-you-figure-out-the-highest-z-index-in-your-document http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1118198/how-can-you-figur... They should just use that to find the highest z-index, then add 1. Totally future proof.
- kensign 11y agosuch total shit
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- jupp0r 11y agoEven more reason to drive opportunistic encryption.
- Zekio 11y agowould the Https Everywhere plugin prevent this?
- viraptor 11y agoOnly on websites which actually have https version. Many do, but many don't. It's usually ~100% on websites I use daily and goes well below 50% when I try to google for anything uncommon.
- shade23 11y agoThey apparently started small, But this has been happening for more than a year now[1],[2]? I wonder if there have been any repercussions yet : [1]:http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/09/why-comcasts-javascript-ad-injections-threaten-security-net-neutrality/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/09/why-comcasts-java... [2]:http://gizmodo.com/comcast-is-injecting-ads-right-into-web-pages-at-its-pu-1632327503 http://gizmodo.com/comcast-is-injecting-ads-right-into-web-p...
- eli 11y agoMuch longer than that: http://blog.ryankearney.com/2013/01/comcast-caught-intercepting-and-altering-your-web-traffic/ http://blog.ryankearney.com/2013/01/comcast-caught-intercept...
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- jand 11y agoIt seems to me, as if they also do some magic to intercept requests to the currently visited page. They use a relative path url (SYS_URL) to poll for a state and to send the acknowledgement (functions checkBulletin() and sendAck()). From my understanding that would be a request to the current domain/visited page, right? So they just intercept their 'own' magic url, but it bothers me somehow. Can anybody confirm this? My uptime is far beyond reasonable.
- ryan-c 11y agoIt looks to me like that's what they're doing.
- anonymfus 11y agoHow it is not network neutrality violation?
- andyjohnson0 11y agoI don't live in the US, but what are the countermeasures for exploits like this? Is there a local proxy that can strip this and similar js out, and would it be simple enough for non-expert users to deploy?
- malka 11y agouse a VPN. even shady vpn operators are more trustworthy than comcast :/
- lrsh2 11y agoI wonder why none of these programmers who do such webpages not visit HN? Are they in a different planet :-(
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- noir_lord 11y agoFundamentally there are two types of programmers, those who are interested in programming in all it's forms and actively seek out communities with similar interests (you see this in framework communities and language communities particularly) and those who don't, the second set may be good programmers or not (I'd suspect having met some of them that the average second set programmer is not as capable as the first set but that's anecdotal). They also tend to be the ones who use whatever tool they are using for a long time and argue "good enough is good enough" as a justification for not learning new things. I know this is a horribly broad generalization but I have seen it repeat constantly over time, you also tend to find them working for large organisations or on legacy stuff that wasn't legacy when they wrote it. Again, horribly broad generalization and some enterprise programmers are amazing.
- lrsh2 11y agoI wonder in terms of ethics. Why don't they tell the bosses it is unethical? Like bankers software engineers need some ethics treatment. I look at you who add multiple trackers to websites.
- lrsh2 11y agoI wonder in terms of ethics. Why don't they tell the bosses it is unethical? Like bankers software engineers need some ethics treatment. I look at you who add multiple trackers to websites.
- k_vi 11y agoThis might not be relevant to the topic(I don't use Comcast), but Im curious how web elements are forced to be overlay consistently across all websites, doesn't the existing css properties on the page affect the behaviour of the injected scripts?
- Jimmed 11y agoIt's done via the 'z-index' CSS property [0]. Essentially, the higher the z-index, the higher the priority of the element; a higher z-index will appear in front of a lower z-index. [0]: https://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Web/CSS/z-index https://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Web/CSS/z-index
- mahouse 11y agoThe problem is not that Comcast does it, the problem is that the US government allows them to do it
- akerro 11y agoheadingtext2: '<strong>AN IMPORTANT MESSAGE FROM COMCAST</strong>' You can read it as: WE CAN DO EVERYTHING WITH YOUR NETWORK TRAFFIC AND WHAT CAN YOU DO ABOUT IT?
- yAnonymous 11y agoThey're causing damage to the sites where this is injected. Couldn't the owners sue them?
- hippo8 11y agoSorry for the silly question. Is it possible to have an internet without ISPs?
- tudborg 11y agoIs it possible to have internet without internet service providers? That would be technically impossible ;)
- privacy101 11y agoSome cities have created public-owned ISPs like Chattanooga's fiber network (community fiber[1]). You could also become your own ISP. [1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/07/hate-your-isp-maybe-you-need-community-fiber https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/07/hate-your-isp-maybe-yo...
- Jach 11y agoThe header and people's reactions makes it seem Comcast will just do this on a whim as if it's inspecting the page you visit and deciding on the page to display the warning or not. If you read the screenshot, it's just a notice that someone filed a complaint against your IP, and Comcast is alerting you via email, maybe phone, maybe even a letter, and now your web browser. One might argue whether it's better they redirect you to a Comcast Message Page on their own domain one time. One might argue that this is a "feature" on the level of Comcast DNS servers that "helpfully" forward your bad domains to a search engine instead of giving a proper server not found response. Don't want to receive these messages from Comcast? Don't seed your torrents.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- Sir_Cmpwn 11y agoYou're missing the point. Injecting scripts into HTML delivered through your ISP for any purpose is grossly abusive on the part of Comcast.
- virtuallynathan 11y agoThis is correct. It is only performed after you are sent emails, letters, phone calls, etc. We do the same for when you are about to exceed your 300GB of data. Most people don't give us a good email, don't login to check it, don't login to their comcast account, etc... This type of notification is to cover those people. We are working on better ways to do this, see: https://www.caida.org/workshops/aims/1503/slides/aims1503_bauer1.pdf https://www.caida.org/workshops/aims/1503/slides/aims1503_ba... This system is well documented: https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6108 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6108 I'll bring up the idea of an opt-out for users that DO check their mail, email, phone, comcast account, etc...
- gargravarr 11y agoIf there was ever a reason for HTTPS to be default on every site, this is it
- grantk 11y agoHere's My 2c, this code is shit.
- grantk 11y agoHere's my 2c, this code is shit.
- chrisan 11y agoAnyone know how to reproduce this? I'm on Comcast Xfinity and I can't find it on any HTTP page I visit.
- magoon 11y agoThis means Comcast is assembling the packets up to the application layer for deep inspection and injection, which slows down receipt of the packets because it must receive the full payload before processing, reassembling, and transmitting.
- virtuallynathan 11y agoNo need to speculate: https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6108 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6108
- chrisBob 11y agoIf I serve a page with a no-derivative license can I sue Comcast for the license violation? There must be a good way to legally stop this.
- mark-r 11y agoThere was a link posted here not long ago that pointed out the proliferation of arbitration clauses in contracts and customer agreements. No doubt your agreement with Comcast has such a clause.
- rubyfan 11y agoAnd then we all started using Tor.
- JustTim 11y agoComcast is on my list today for a different reason. We have Comcast Business Class service at one of our FL locations. Tuesday we could not access VNC nor our remote database services from that location. All port 80 traffic was fine. I had one of the staff call, wait on hold for an hours. Just as I suspected Comcast had implemented port blocking on a high priced business account. It took the guy a second to release it. It put our company down for two to three hours. Also the speed of Comcast service drops to 15-20% of advertised from 2:30 to 5 PM when kids arrive home from school. Once the contract is up we are moving the service to someone who understands "business class"
- JustSomeNobody 11y agoI sincerely hope you can _find_ someone else to do business with.
- unoti 11y agoAnd that is the root of the problem. Normally when a business has the kind of terrible customer service and can't-be-bothered attitude, I just take my business elsewhere. But in the last 15 years I've never had a real choice what to use for Internet service. A couple of places I've lived I've had one additional choice that was even worse. Lack of choice and diversity in Internet providers is the problem here. I'm not sure what the root of that problem is, but I suspect it's governmental corruption and lobbying to maintain status quo.
- a3n 11y agoThe root of the problem is the legal difference between POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service), which has been around a long time, and broadband, which came much later and had the POTS environment as an example of what to avoid (from the POV of Comcast and their ilk). The old dialup ISPs were allowed to resell internet service on the local provider's POTS lines. There was quite a lot of competition, and the service was generally excellent, even generally better than the carrier's. There is no requirement for broadband providers like Comcast to allow resellers. The barrier to entry for laying other broadband lines is huge; Google is one of the few who can do it. So unless there's a quantum leap in wireless to the curb, there will be no meaningful competition to amoral corporations like Comcast; we're stuck and it will continue to suck.
- chris-at 11y agoWouldn't Comcast be violating the copyright of every site it injects this code into?
- thejaredhooper 11y ago> {zIndex: 999999} Something so simple as this CSS property shows you the intent behind the code. They're basically saying "screw every bit of content on this page."
- feld 11y agoCharter injects into your browsing to force you to accept a Terms of Service update, even on a business connection. I got a packet dump of it happening. https://feld.me/pub/charter.pcapng https://feld.me/pub/charter.pcapng
- smizell 11y agoI had a situation with our local ISP where they injected some banner on each page to let users know they were close to going over their bandwidth usage when they got to like 90%. I reached out to them and said this was essentially a man in the middle attack and that I didn't want messages injected. A week later they messaged me to say it had been removed.
- RKearney 11y agoThey've been doing this for over 2 years See: https://gist.github.com/ryankearney/4146814 https://gist.github.com/ryankearney/4146814
- Cshelton 11y agoTimeWarner does this as well. I don't have proof, but when my roommate was torrenting stuff, no vpn, nothing, I had a notification like this pop up on a random web page. This kind of shit has got to stop.
- tnuc 11y agoTimewarner does it whenever I use their "free" wifi hotspots.
- scelerat 11y agoIsn't Comcast violating StackExchange's copyright here by modifying and redistributing their content without their permission?
- nicksuperb 11y agoI've been noticing an issue when getting bandwidth limit notifications. The same injection technique is also being used. When I attempted to filter out these messages, Comcast promptly reduced my internet speed to 1Mb. It took 3 calls over two days to realize that they were doing this as a reaction to my inability to receive the notices.
- shmerl 11y agoIt's time for sites to always use HTTPS.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- jtwebman 11y agoWhen all webpages start using https this is going away. They will not be able to inject anything.
- mikx007 11y agoI wouldn't be surprised if in a few years they started to inject ads.
- SanPilot 11y agoSurely this can't work on HTTPS secured sites, correct?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- payne92 11y agoWow. The Internet service providers complain about network neutrality, while they pull stunts like this.
- SarahofGaia 11y agoWhat is this A/B formatting? 20/5, 100/50, etc.