WORTH READING RESEND Comcast web support only for IE users; ignores 20% of users using Firefox, other browsers

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "David P. Reed" <dpreed () reed com>
Date: November 19, 2008 9:25:03 AM EST
To: dave () farber net
Cc: ip <ip () v2 listbox com>, paul foldes <pfoldes () eidmgt com>
Subject: Re: [IP] Comcast web support only for IE users; ignores 20%  
of users using Firefox, other browsers

Paul -  You raise two issues at the same time.

1) Only supporting IE is absurd business practice.   On the *other*  
hand, the reason you might not want such a service is that the "quick  
fix" involves using IE's ability to install software on your computer  
that you  may not understand, and whose provenance is unknown.  Do you  
really want Comcast tinkering with your operating system?  Would  
tinkering via Firefox be an *improvement*?  Not for me. YMMV.

2) the issue of email address spoofing is complex.  I presume you  
would like to send mail that claims to be from eidmgt.com from your  
home system, but using smtp.comcast.com as your email agent.

Many ISPs, not just Comcast, have been held responsible for in some  
way validating that the source of a message is "who they claim to  
be".   This remains controversial, but has gained acceptance.   You  
could fight for the right to spoof Comcast and send mail from (for  
example) irs.gov or freedrugs.org, but I suspect you'd lose in  
court.   The government doesn't provide a "right to lie".

However, there are solutions.   One is the solution I use.   I pay  
dyndns.com for a service called mailhop outbound.  This has two  
advantages: 1) your mail can be encrypted (by TLS) as it passes  
through any ISP or WiFi hotspot to dyndns, and it is authenticated by  
dyndns to come from you.  2) dyndns takes responsibility for keeping  
the server up and running.

Another solution is to pay a hosting service to host your presence  
*out on the public Internet*.  This is important because your ISP  
(Comcast as an example) does NOT provide full Internet to its  
customers.  It asserts the right to block anything you do.   This is  
just a fact.   What most cable ISPs do is provide quite limited  
"access" service - which is not putting you on the public Internet.    
But fortunately you can "buy" a bypass solution that puts you on the  
public Internet.

A third solution is to use a "tunnel broker".  Unfortunately, this  
solution only works for IPv6 network stacks.   But you can be on the  
IPv6 network as a full participant today, just by signing up with  
Hurricane or Sixxs or another service.   All of your systems will be  
directly accessible as public Internet endpoints to anyone on IPv6.

I use all three solutions myself.   And I urge you to consider that  
for yourself.  Don't be "held hostage" by "access providers" who  
provide a subset of functions.

There are other solutions.   Use TOR, for example.


There are several solutions:

1)

David Farber wrote:
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: paul foldes <pfoldes () eidmgt com>
> Date: November 19, 2008 8:15:25 AM EST
> To: dave () farber net
> Subject: Comcast web support only for IE users; ignores 20% of users  
> using Firefox, other browsers
>
> Dave,
>
> for ip if you wish,
>
> Dont know if this appeared on IP yet, but this morning after  
> receiving a notice from Comcast that my ability to send email was  
> arbitrarily cut off under the presumption that i was sending spam,  
> which i wasnt - but apparently Comcast has not heard of email reply  
> address spoofing - they urged me to go to a link to get a 'fix'
>
> When I went to the link i got following notice:
>
> Comcast One Click Fix Library *We're sorry, Comcast One Click Fixes  
> are meant to run from Internet Explorer Only*
>
> Apparently Comcast is only interested in supporting IE users, and  
> doesnt  care about the 20% of the market that uses Firefox, and  
> other browsers.
> More documentation for Comcast's lack of concern for its customer's  
> needs.
>
> paul




-------------------------------------------
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