Interesting People mailing list archives
How not to do business: Why insult a smart Comcast customer?
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 03:55:36 -0500
Begin forwarded message: From: "David P. Reed" <dpreed () reed com> Date: February 25, 2009 9:53:39 PM EST To: dave () farber netCc: ip <ip () v2 listbox com>, "Livingood, Jason" <Jason_Livingood () cable comcast com >, John Levine <johnl () iecc com>, Dave Crocker <dhc2 () dcrocker net>
Subject: How not to do business: Why insult a smart Comcast customer?I have a simple question: why can't Comcast notify its subscribers when it chooses unilaterally to "block a port"? And if that customer is intelligent, why not let them choose whether to be treated like an idiot by default? Do you call all of your users "losers"?
And if it is "blocking the port" because of the fear that particular subscribers are *stupid*, why not express your attitude accurately in the notice as follows:
"we know you're an idiot, so to help you in our infinite wisdom, we are blocking your port. Self-proclaimed experts such as John Levine (who wrote the first "for Dummies" book, by the way) know that you are a stupid idiot. Other somewhat more expert people like Dave Crocker also think that *all* users are too stupid to know what they are doing, so they will also support our treating every customer as an idiot. And Comcast knows that you don't know what we know, so we will just damage your service and then let you hope that you can call our help desk and if you can get through, and talk to the idiots there, perhaps you can ask to reinstate the service you originally contracted for.
Sincerely, you silly infant, you "Dummie",Comcast, your paternalistic protector (of course we have other agendas, but we prefer to stand behind our claim that people are stupid)."
That would express the RUDE, INSULTING, AND DEMEAN ING attitudes I have read so far in this silly colloquy. The author of the original note is not an idiot, seems quite knowledgable to me, and I think might have a few technical things to teach to Brian Roberts, who, according to Wired, is trying to show Comcast's more sensible face to the world. I have met several times with Brian, by the way, and he is a lot smarter and perspicacious than the people on this discussion.
I know that Levine thinks he is the smartest person ever to talk to dummies, who apparently include everyone but himself. But why does Comcast want to continue to dig itself into this hole of insulting the intelligence of its customers? Give them some credit.
David Farber wrote:
Begin forwarded message: From: "Livingood, Jason" <Jason_Livingood () cable comcast com> Date: February 24, 2009 8:57:23 PM ESTTo: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>, ip <ip () v2 listbox com>, Paula Keezer <paula_ke () yahoo com>Subject: Re: [IP] Port 25 inbound blocking Hi Paula - See my replies inline below.Please reconsider the decision to block inbound port 25. I understandthe spam fighting efforts for outbound port 25. Creating alternate outbound paths for legitimate email users is fairly easy and does not stifle innovative uses of the web.Port 25 blocking, as was noted on IP last week, is increasingly being used by ISPs around the world to combat the problem of spam. Comcast does not currently block port 25 for all residential subscribers; this is done on acase-by-case basis, generally in response to abuse complaints, spamdetection, or other spam indicators. We have a special team in our Customer Security Assurance group that can help you understand if there is a port 25 block in place or not, and you can ask them to consider lifting that block.Their contact info is at http://security.comcast.net/get-help/contact-comcast-security.aspxHowever, blocking inbound port 25 is erroneous and will stifle innovation amongst legitimate users. As more computers infiltrate the home and servers (media, game and otherwise) become powerful facilities in the home, it will become natural for users to make use of email and other communications ports to contact their home servers.I'm not aware of any legitimate use of inbound port 25 other than forrunning an email server. (see additional note below) I do not believe thisin any way, shape, or form stifles innovation.An example of such a use is a personal use photo gallery system I haveon my media server. I have several ways to load photos into my gallery which I enjoy on my locally connected hi def televisions (noneed to plog up the net moving medium or low def pictures from flickeror other net based architectures, I have my own little personal cloud which is much faster thank you). Recently I have built an email server that just recieves mail from my cell phone. I send images through my cell phone ISP as mail attachements with a simple category message and my media server recieves the images and puts them into my gallery. This is for my personal use and I believe it to be quite legitimate.Sounds like you may have developed this software yourself, but I'm not sure. If that is *not* the case, I'm curious what software you used. Either way, perhaps you can use an alternative such as a POP client on the media server that checks a special mailbox for just such pictures on a periodic basis. You can of course copy the photos locally onto your media server, and youcould also leave a copy on the server as a backup in the network.Due to Comcast port blocking of inbound port 25, my little gallery project no longer works. Sadly, I believe I did some inovative work and am being stiffled by Comcast's inbound port 25 policy. As my server does not send mail at all, there is no way it can become a port 25 zombi for spammers.Never say never. ;-) You'd be quite surprised what is possible and I've had many folks even say they work in network security and so on, and there's no way the could have been infested with a bot, when it turns out that theywere just as vulnerable to these things (or nearly so) as most people.I have a legitimate use. I am a long time paying customer of the Comcast ISP but find that the ISP in Comcast is becoming more of a CPS (couch potatoe surfer).As I noted above, you may wish to contact our Customer Security Assurance team to request a removal of the block. But, in my personal opinion, that is a short-term tactic. In the long-term, since more and more ISPs areblocking port 25 across-the-board and since port 25 is subject to such massive abuse, you'd be smart to figure out an alternative method for getting your photos onto your media server.Along those lines, you may also want to participate in our user forums at http://forums.comcast.net (there is one entire forum on just email topics),and share ideas about how your app works and how to improve it, etc.Please reconsider your policy of blocking inbound port 25. This does not solve the spam problem (please continue to block outgoing port 25 as this does solve the spam problem) Forcing inovators such as my self to contract an outside email relay port hopping service is not a 'fair use' strategy and not a customer centric focus. Thank you for your time, Paula Keezer 149 Nw 75th St Seattle, WA, 98117Regards, Jason Jason Livingood National Engineering & Technical Operations Comcast Cable Communications ------------------------------------------- Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/ Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
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Current thread:
- How not to do business: Why insult a smart Comcast customer? David Farber (Feb 26)
- <Possible follow-ups>
- Re: How not to do business: Why insult a smart Comcast customer? David Farber (Feb 26)
- Re: How not to do business: Why insult a smart Comcast customer? David Farber (Feb 26)
- Re: How not to do business: Why insult a smart Comcast customer? David Farber (Feb 26)