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Despite the dust storm of bad press and legal filings, cable giant Comcast continues to deceive customers, threaten employees and disrupt peer-to-peer traffic over their broadband network.

An investigation just released by Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) confirms earlier reports that the cable giant is secretly and selectively degrading various file sharing applications using “TCP reset packets.”

This is consistent with ongoing complaints from customers who state Comcast is blocking access to popular and legal video, photo and music sharing applications. The evidence is mounting.

The Case Against Comcast

In October, an Associated Press exposé found the company to be actively interfering with user access — calling the violation “the most drastic example yet of data discrimination.” This was later confirmed by the first extensive EFF report.

Earlier this month, members of the SavetheInternet.com Coalition took action and filed a petition with the Federal Communications Commission. The filing calls upon the agency to take urgent action to stop violations of consumers’ right to access the software and content of their choice.

In an accompanying complaint, Free Press and Public Knowledge asked the FCC to fine Comcast $195,000 for every affected subscriber. Comcast is the nation’s largest cable company and second-largest Internet service provider, with 12.9 million subscribers.

EFF’s second report, released on Wednesday, confirms that the company is indeed meddling with our ability to connect and share information with one another — a gross violation of both the letter and spirit of Net Neutrality.

Hacks, Threats and Lies

“Comcast is essentially deploying against their own customers techniques more typically used by malicious hackers,” write the EFF report’s authors. “This is doubtless how Comcast would characterize other parties that forged traffic to make it appear that it came from Comcast or its subscribers.”

Despite the evidence, Comcast executive vice president David Cohen told Ars Technica that Comcast does not block access to file sharing applications and that the company’s traffic control mechanisms are permissible because the FCC’s standards explicitly allow “reasonable network management” practices.

Comcast has relentlessly withheld information about its traffic management activities, going so far as to threaten to terminate employees who discussed the specifics of its P2P blocking with anyone outside of the company.

They then lie to their customers, delivering a service far inferior to the one they are billing them for.

Sound “reasonable”?

We Told You So

Comcast’s claims are a flimsy cover. Blatant and deceptive blocking is not “reasonable management.” It is the type of problem Net Neutrality advocates have warned would occur without proper protections.

Our message to both the FCC and Congress remains the same:

We told you this would happen. The network companies can’t be trusted to keep their hands off our broadband connections. Now do something about it.

Verizon has announced plans to open its wireless networks to other devices and applications by the end of 2008. Good news? It’s a step in the right direction, but consumers deserve much more.

Verizon customers will be able to use non-Verizon cell phones and applications like GPS, but what about the rest of us? And how much will Verizon charge for this privilege?

Can Verizon Be Trusted?

Sascha Meinrath of the New America Foundation calls it a “piece of PR masterwork”: “In essence, Verizon is adding a corporate tax that goes straight into their coffers for the so-called “privilege” to run the services and applications you want, on the devices you’ve already bought and paid for.”

Verizon has a history of breaking consumer trust. Two months ago, they were caught censoring NARAL’s text messages. There’s no reason to believe that consumers can take this proposal at face value – especially since Verizon only recently dropped their lawsuit against the FCC opposing the very open-device model they now champion.

Last summer, the FCC imposed open-access principles on the wireless spectrum up for auction, mandating that any company that acquires this spectrum support an open platform. Since Verizon is planning to bid on this space, known as C block, they have agreed to open access.

Clearly, natural market forces did not pry open a closed network, public pressure did. More than 250,000 Americans told the FCC to open the public airwaves to all devices and applications, so the FCC responded by mandating open access. Verizon’s announcement shows that sound public policies in combination with marketplace demands can lead to a more open system.

Industry-Wide Open Access

The FCC should take the next step and require all phone companies to open their networks.

We can’t trust phone companies to give consumers the freedom and flexibility that we deserve. Only industry-wide open platforms will give consumers true open access, as Public Knowledge points out: “If other carriers don’t follow the same model, then consumers will still find their phones tied to a specific technology or wireless company.”

The FCC should guarantee consumers the same rights on wireless networks that they now have on landlines.

USA Today joins the illustrious list of news organizations to be taken for a ride by Astroturf.

In an article earlier this week, the paper’s media beat reporter David Lieberman writes that the end of the Internet is nigh. It will start crashing down around us by the year 2010, he adds, citing a recent “study” by Nemertes Research.

The Not-So-Real Thing

The reason for our demise? We dastardly Net users have gone too far. According to Nemertes, we’re not just sending email and surfing Web sites but also downloading and uploading data rich files like video and music. Net Neutrality would further unleash this unruly mass upon the Internet grinding the network to a halt.

“The Web will start to seem pokey,” Lieberman writes, “as use of interactive and video-intensive services overwhelms local cable, phone and wireless Internet providers.”

Saving Us from Ourselves

The underlying message is this: By taking control of our own media, users are straining the Net to the limit. The only way to save the Internet from the coming “exaflood,” the report concludes, is to pay more federal money to the likes of AT&T and let them gut Net Neutrality protections so they can fix the problem.

The real problem here isn’t the looming demise of the Internet, but USA Today’s failure to question the motivations of its sources.

In their ceaseless efforts to become the gatekeepers to what we do online, the phone and cable companies funnel money to unscrupulous think tanks, which, in turn, churn out research, painting a picture of Internet Armageddon that can only be averted by giving the telcos exactly what they want: more money and control.

The Roots of Astroturf

In this case, Lieberman might have told readers that Nemertes is a research group funded by the Internet Innovation Alliance, an “Astrtoturf” group underwritten by AT&T.

“The IIA has been pushing the idea of a looming ‘exaflood’ for some time, with the primary goal being industry deregulation,” writes Karl at Broadband Reports. “The argument being that if these companies don’t get exactly what they want from lawmakers in Washington, the entire Internet collapses and we’re back to using soup cans and string.”

The USA Today story leaves readers with the impression that Nemertes reached its conclusion for the good of the public interest and not simply by following a script that was pre-ordained by the telcos.

Digging Beneath the Surface

Lieberman might also have cited the several other reports and studies that claim the opposite.

Analysts at the D.C.-based market research firm TeleGeography, call “foolhardy” the idea that an exaflood “is going to break something or kill something.” Video traffic and demand growth have been accounted for, he told CIO Insight, and “the network operators know how to scale.” TeleGeography research shows average global utilization of core Internet capacity in mid-2006 was only 34 percent, with peak utilization of 47 percent of available capacity.

Greg Collins, director of network and data center engineering for Earthlink Inc., added, “I don’t see anything specific in the way of capacity problems today, and my job is to manage capacity and growth in our network.”

Recent research notes that investment in backbone upgrades is exploding, with just about every network operator already working on upgrades or planning to do so in the next year or so.

Recent figures from Infonetics Research find that telecom global capital expenditure will exceed $220 billion in 2007. “Carriers are obviously not short of money, but rather than spend it on new infrastructure, many are looking at less capital-intensive strategies to reduce the strain, such as bandwidth shaping,” writes Dave Bailey of ITWeek. “This is carrier-speak for putting the brakes on your broadband connection, which is unlikely to go down well with most customers.”

Michael Masnik of Techdirt sums it up: “If there’s real demand for more capacity, there will be business models to support it, whether or not network neutrality is in place.”

Duped and Duplicitous

These types of studies often boil down to pure posturing and polemic against Net Neutrality, bought and paid for by AT&T. When researchers stumble across inconvenient points, such as the current boom in infrastructure investment, they dismiss them in favor of doomsday scenarios and call for an end to the one rule that allows online users to innovate without permission.

USA Today is not alone. Reporters and editors from the New York Times, Forbes and the Wall Street Journal to Xinhua have been snared in Astroturf , taking at face value data from coin-operated research groups without digging into their bank accounts to sniff out the payola.

Journalists should know better. These corporations claim that lawmakers should grant them control of Internet to safeguard the best interests of all Americans. But since when was AT&T elected to determine what is best for us?

A Comcast subscriber has filed a lawsuit against the nation’s largest ISP for blocking peer-to-peer file sharing programs such as BitTorrent. The lawsuit charges Comcast with unfair business practices and seeks class action status — which could mean compensation to California customers.

This complaint comes on the heels of a petition filed by SavetheInternet.com asking the Federal Communications Commission to stop Comcast from such actions because they violate Net Neutrality.

The San Francisco Bay Area subscriber, Jon Hart, charges that Comcast markets its high-speed service “based on claims of ‘lightning fast’ and ‘mind-blowing’ speeds [and promises] ‘unfettered access to all the internet has to offer.’ Nevertheless, [Comcast companies] intentionally and severely impede the use of certain internet applications by their customers…” Hart has built his case around deceptive practices by the cable giant.

Read the lawsuit against Comcast.

Harold Feld of the Media Access Project applauds the lawsuit, but says we need a broader solution: “While I’m glad there’s a Comcast subscriber willing to take this on, I don’t think consumer protection should have to depend on subscribers spending their time, effort, and money… At the very least, the FCC should make it clear that this is not appropriate.”

SavetheInternet.com partners Free Press and Public Knowledge have also asked the FCC to fine Comcast $195,000 for every affected subscriber to deter future violations.

Cable giant Comcast has become the poster child for Net Neutrality with blatant actions to block Internet traffic that make the case for user protections.

On Thursday, the SavetheInternet.com Coalition joined legal scholars to take this case to the Federal Communications Commission. We filed an official action urging the agency to stop the cable giant from meddling with your ability to connect and share information.

The company recently gave us a glimpse of a world without Net Neutrality.

In the “most drastic example yet of data discrimination,” the Associated Press exposed that Comcast was actively interfering with its users’ ability to access popular and legal video, photo and music sharing applications.

Despite mounting evidence that Comcast is crippling peer-to-peer communication, the company’s spokespeople have thumbed their noses at the public and the press — refusing to admit that the blocking of connections is underhanded or in any way threatens the free flow of information that’s become the hallmark of an open Internet.

The High Price of Violating a Neutral Net

Comcast’s defense is flimsy. The company’s blatant and deceptive blocking is exactly the type of problem Net Neutrality supporters warned would occur without proper open Internet protections. It’s now time for the FCC to do something about it.

In the complaint, Free Press and Public Knowledge are asking the FCC to fine Comcast $195,000 for every affected subscriber. Comcast is the nation’s largest cable company and second-largest Internet service provider, with 12.9 million subscribers. If the FCC honors the complaint, the size of the fine for violating Net Neutrality could be astronomical.

The action puts the FCC on notice. The agency has policies that partially defend against discrimination but these have yet to be tested against a real violation such as what Comcast is doing.

It’s About Video

The not-so-hidden secret behind all of this is video. Network owners are waging a quiet campaign to control how video gets distributed via the Web. In their view, the Internet should only be used for e-mail and surfing. Internet video should be distributed via ISPs. It’s a model that treats the Internet like cable TV — where companies like Comcast, AT&T and Verizon get to pick the channels you get to see.

The popular trend in video, however, is streaming in the opposite direction. More and more people are becoming their own creators and distributors of homespun video content. For proof that people like to watch videos created by others, go no further than YouTube, which boasts more than 100 million “views” each day.

YouTube is just the beginning of this revolution. It’s heart and soul, though, beats elsewhere — with the use of peer-to-peer applications. Peer-to-peer traffic is spreading via popular technologies like Bit Torrent and Gnutella, which allow users to upload and share videos, music and other rich media without a middleman. It’s follows a non-discriminatory Web model that encourages innovation without permission.

The phone and cable companies are desperate to shut this down. In the case of Comcast, they’re doing it by spying on traffic and stifling the free exchange of ideas that will continue to make the Internet so remarkable.

Comcast: A Problem Found

Phone and cable lobbyists have called Net Neutrality “a solution in search of a problem.” Well, here’s the problem. In the past three months, incidents of censorship and blocking by Verizon, AT&T and now Comcast have made headlines around the world. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

The Commission now faces a clear choice. It can either side with the interests of consumers and for an Internet unfettered by corporate gatekeepers, or it can let companies like Comcast, Verizon and AT&T erect “walled gardens” and destroy the most democratic communications tool in history.

You can help convince the agency to do the right thing.