<OT> How do ISPs work?

[Lonni J Friedman]

On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 6:13 AM, Tony Alfrey <tonyalfrey at earthlink.net> wrote:
> Not necessarily linux specific.  But I thought someone might know.
>
> Setup:  Using both SeaMonkey and Firefox on intel Mac.  Using Firefox on
> SuSE.  ISP from home is Comcast cable.
>
> Problem:  Recently, SeaMonkey has slowed to a crawl in accessing a first
> webpage after start-up (three minutes to render the first page). Successive
> pages render OK but not super fast.  Firefox has no such problem.
>  Unfortunately, only Firefox on the SuSE box so can't compare apples and
> oranges.  Now today, magically, the problem disappears.  And also, I cannot
> recall this problem from various free wireless hot spots.
>
> Why do I care?
> Because a guy on the SuSE list who uses SeaMonkey for his mail client, and
> Comcast as his smtp server, claims that Comcast has been "blocking" the use
> of SeaMonkey and telling everyone they should be using Outlook or Internet
> Exploder.  Also, one hears rumors that Comcast is somehow slowing access to
> bandwidth hogs, implying that they keep records of usage from particular IP
> addresses.
>
> Question:  Is this actually possible, i.e. that an ISP could give selective
> web access to a particular web browser?  Does a web browser somehow encode
> within its packets some identification?

Coming into this thread late, but yes, an ISP can do this and much
more.  Comcast has become notorious for interfering with their
customer's internet usage.  See the recent debates on network
neutrality.

A quick-n-easy way to determnine whether Comcast is fscking you over
is to install the User Agent Switcher, and make Seamonkey identify
itself as IE.  If the problem suddenly goes away, then Comcast is
screwing with you:
http://chrispederick.com/work/user-agent-switcher/

Filing a complaint with the FCC would be in order.



-- 
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L. Friedman netllama at gmail.com
LlamaLand https://netllama.linux-sxs.org