Packet Forgery by ISPs: A Report on the Comcast Affair

Comcast is the second largest Internet Service Provider (ISP) in the United States. They run the cable TV and cable Internet networks in many parts of the United States, and many consumers know them as their duopoly or monopoly provider of residential broadband Internet access. Sometime around May 2007, Comcast installed new software or equipment on its networks that began selectively interfering with some of Comcast's customers' TCP/IP connections.1 The most widely discussed interference was with certain BitTorrent peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing communications, but other protocols have also been affected. This white paper is intended to set forth the current state of public knowledge about Comcast's interference activities.