Interesting People mailing list archives
Re: How not to do business: Why insult a smart Comcast customer?
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 08:50:06 -0500
Begin forwarded message: From: Randall Webmail <rvh40 () insightbb com> Date: February 26, 2009 5:11:23 AM EST To: dave () farber net Cc: dpreed () reed comSubject: Re: [IP] How not to do business: Why insult a smart Comcast customer?
Gee, who xxxx in YOUR Corn Flakes?Yes, Comcast's arbitrary port-blocking is inconvenient at best and not at all likely to stop 100% of UCE sent by botted computers belonging to Comcast customers. That much is Given, and exactly every clueful person on the planet is aware of that fact.
Have you ever been the Monkey With a Headset, answering calls from ISP customers?
I have, for two years.Around 10 - 15% of the calls are from customers who have RF on their lines and will require a personal visit from a Monkey With a Toolbelt. (If the caller is from Slidell, Louisiana, this increases to 70-80%).
Around 50% of the calls are from people like those who get the Blue Screen Of Death and call their ISP, because Microsoft will charge them cash money to tell them their 1990-vintage PS JR needs to be replaced.
A few percent are calling because they were promised speeds "Up to X megabits per second" and they're not getting more than 1/2 X when they test on the laptop, though they're getting 80% of X on the desktop and the laptop is wirelessly connecting to the neighbor's unsecured router.
A few percent are calling because they've been making millions of dollars selling widgets on ebay and a tornado took out the cable lines to their house so they're not able to make that money and they will be filing suit against their ISP Right Away unless the ISP gets somebody out there RIGHT NOW to replace those cable lines. (Those people NEVER have Commercial Accounts, for some reason. They think for fifty bucks a month they're gonna get an ISP that promises and delivers nine nines of reliability and three hour turnaround. I think for five bucks worth of PowerBall tickets I'm gonna get a hundred fifty million dollars, We each are equally likely to be disappointed.)
From: "David P. Reed" <dpreed () reed com> Date: February 25, 2009 9:53:39 PM EST To: dave () farber net Cc: 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 EST To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>, ip<ip () v2 listbox com>, PaulaKeezer <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 port25. Iunderstand the spam fighting efforts for outbound port 25.Creating alternateoutbound paths for legitimate email users is fairly easy anddoes notstifle innovative uses of the web.Port 25 blocking, as was noted on IP last week, isincreasinglybeing used by ISPs around the world to combat the problem of spam.Comcastdoes not currently block port 25 for all residential subscribers; thisisdone on a case-by-case basis, generally in response to abuse complaints, spam detection, or other spam indicators. We have a specialteam in ourCustomer Security Assurance group that can help you understand if thereis aport 25 block in place or not, and you can ask them to considerlifting thatblock. 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 legitimateusers. Asmore 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 othercommunications portsto contact their home servers.I'm not aware of any legitimate use of inbound port 25 otherthan forrunning an email server. (see additional notebelow) I do notbelieve this in any way, shape, or form stifles innovation.An example of such a use is a personal use photo gallerysystem Ihave on my media server. I have several ways to load photosinto mygallery which I enjoy on my locally connected hi deftelevisions (noneed to plog up the net moving medium or low def picturesfromflicker or other net based architectures, I have my own littlepersonal cloudwhich is much faster thank you). Recently I have builtan emailserver that just recieves mail from my cell phone. Isend imagesthrough my cell phone ISP as mail attachements with a simplecategory>> message and my media server recieves the images and puts them into mygallery. This is for my personal use and I believe itto be quitelegitimate.Sounds like you may have developed this software yourself, butI'mnot sure. If that is *not* the case, I'm curious what software youused.Either way, perhaps you can use an alternative such as a POP client on themediaserver that checks a special mailbox for just such pictures on aperiodicbasis. You can of course copy the photos locally onto your mediaserver,and you could 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 someinovative workand am being stiffled by Comcast's inbound port 25 policy. As my server does not send mail at all, there is no way itcan becomea port 25 zombi for spammers.Never say never. ;-) You'd be quite surprised whatis possible andI've had many folks even say they work in network security and soon, andthere's no way the could have been infested with a bot, when it turnsoutthat they were just as vulnerable to these things (or nearly so) as mostpeople.>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 CustomerSecurityAssurance team to request a removal of the block. But, in mypersonalopinion, that is a short-term tactic. In the long-term, since more andmore ISPsare blocking port 25 across-the-board and since port 25 is subjectto suchmassive abuse, you'd be smart to figure out an alternativemethod forgetting your photos onto your media server. Along those lines, you may also want to participate in ouruserforums at http://forums.comcast.net (there is one entire forum on justtopics), and share ideas about how your app works and how to improveit, etc.Please reconsider your policy of blocking inbound port 25.This doesnot solve the spam problem (please continue to block outgoingport 25as this does solve the spam problem) Forcing inovatorssuch as myself to contract an outside email relay port hopping serviceis 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------------------------------------------- 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)
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- 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)