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 08:50:34 -0500
Begin forwarded message: From: "David P. Reed" <dpreed () reed com> Date: February 26, 2009 8:29:50 AM EST To: "Livingood, Jason" <Jason_Livingood () cable comcast com>Cc: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>, ip <ip () v2 listbox com>, John Levine <johnl () iecc com>, Dave Crocker <dhc2 () dcrocker net> Subject: Re: How not to do business: Why insult a smart Comcast customer?
Thanks for the reply.Arbitrary changes introduced obscurely, and defensiveness by spokesmen blaming users themselves or collectively for problems caused to them, is a way to lose credibility with customers. That's not "Comcast can't win". Comcast can win by doing business thoughtfully and openly. Why did it not think clearly about the customers impacted, rather than dismissing their concerns after the fact (and supporting a chorus of others like Levine and Crocker who have caught the bug of blaming and interfering users, rather than helping them solve their problems). Soon, like RIAA, you might start to sue users who want to use your products.
Let's assume that the customer actually uses port 25 inbound, and has experienced no problems, nor caused any problems. This means that the customer has actually invested in something that works for them, justifies what they paid.
Now, based on dubious arguments, Comcast breaks that already working application unilaterally, granted that notice is sent, but it is sent in a way that doesn't allow easy discovery of the effects (the customer may have installed a 3rd party application, and may not even know the meaning of prot 25 or may have forgotten - not true of this customer).
Then the company invokes vague notions of a "spam" issue that (in my personal opinion) has not been demonstrated - is there data that *inbound* port 25 use to customers is a major point where spam can be controlled?
Was more than trivial thought given to the impact of this change? What vice president of Comcast reviewed this decision and its implications for customers who *already had invested* their time and effort, and would now have to recover from Comcast's imposed service change?
Respect for customers when they build their applications and services around your services is a good way to do business.
- David Livingood, Jason wrote:
See my replies inline below. Regards JasonI have a simple question: why can't Comcast notify its subscribers whenit chooses unilaterally to "block a port"? And if that customer isintelligent, why not let them choose whether to be treated like an idiotby default? Do you call all of your users "losers"?I have to admit, I am at a loss here. I was not aware that I or anyone else in Comcast has called this customer either a loser or treated them as an idiot (and agree that would be no way to treat a customer or anyone else forthat matter). If anything, our efforts to stop abuse of port 25 are intended to protect our customers and other users on the Internet.That being said, I'm as open to feedback as the next guy, so if you feel a particular part of my email exchange could have been worded differently, I'mabsolutely 100% open to any guidance you wish to provide. As for notification, I believe that an email notification is sent toaffected customers currently. Perhaps this is a case of being criticized nomatter what you do though, as many other ISPs simply block port 25 bydefault (more all the time), whereas we only do it on a limited and targeted basis when we have some indication of actual spam or similar port 25 abuse.But perhaps more importantly in this specific case, it does not even appear there is a block on this customer's SMTP port, either currently or at any time in the past. (Note: I continue to work with the customer to help her troubleshoot why she cannot telnet in on port 25, and tomorrow plan to dig into how her home router's port pass-through function is configured. I amconcerned there may be an issue with how that home gateway device isconfigured, but that will simply take time to work through with her one onone.)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, weare 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 alsothink that *all* users are too stupid to know what they are doing, so they will also support our treating every customer as an idiot. AndComcast 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 andif 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 otheragendas, but we prefer to stand behind our claim that people are stupid)."That would express the RUDE, INSULTING, AND DEMEAN ING attitudes I haveread so far in this silly colloquy.With all due respect, I'm not sure I understand how you could take my communications with this customer and come to these conclusions. Ipositively fail to see how my comments could have been construed in such an insulting manner. And I sincerely hope that you understand that neither John Levine nor Dave Crocker are employees of Comcast -- their statements are completely their own. (That said, I actually think they're generally nice guys, and I like interacting with them and others like them at theIETF, MAAWG, and in other places.)The author of the original note is not an idiot, seems quite knowledgable to me,I quite agree with you!and I think might have afew 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 metseveral 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 doesComcast want to continue to dig itself into this hole of insulting theintelligence of its customers? Give them some credit.I do give them that credit, every day, and I work daily to improve our services for our customers. JasonDavid 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>, 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 understandPort 25 blocking, as was noted on IP last week, is increasingly beingthe spam fighting efforts for outbound port 25. Creating alternateoutbound paths for legitimate email users is fairly easy and does notstifle innovative uses of the web.usedby ISPs around the world to combat the problem of spam. Comcast does not currently block port 25 for all residential subscribers; this is doneon a case-by-case basis, generally in response to abuse complaints, spam detection, 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.aspxI'm not aware of any legitimate use of inbound port 25 other than forHowever, blocking inbound port 25is erroneous and will stifle innovation amongst legitimate users. Asmore computers infiltrate the home and servers (media, game and otherwise) become powerful facilities in the home, it will becomenatural for users to make use of email and other communications portsto contact their home servers.running an email server. (see additional note below) I do not believe this in any way, shape, or form stifles innovation.An example of such a use is a personal use photo gallery system I haveSounds like you may have developed this software yourself, but I'm noton my media server. I have several ways to load photos into mygallery which I enjoy on my locally connected hi def televisions (no need to plog up the net moving medium or low def pictures from flicker or other net based architectures, I have my own little personal cloudwhich is much faster thank you). Recently I have built an email server that just recieves mail from my cell phone. I send imagesthrough my cell phone ISP as mail attachements with a simple category message and my media server recieves the images and puts them into mygallery. This is for my personal use and I believe it to be quite legitimate.sure.If that is *not* the case, I'm curious what software you used. Eitherway, perhaps you can use an alternative such as a POP client on the media serverthat 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.Never say never. ;-) You'd be quite surprised what is possible and I'veDue to Comcast port blocking of inbound port 25, my little galleryproject no longer works. Sadly, I believe I did some inovative workand 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 becomea port 25 zombi for spammers.had many folks even say they work in network security and so on, and there'sno way the could have been infested with a bot, when it turns out thattheywere just as vulnerable to these things (or nearly so) as most people.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,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).thatis a short-term tactic. In the long-term, since more and more ISPs are blocking 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 forgetting your photos onto your media server.Along those lines, you may also want to participate in our user forums athttp://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 25as this does solve the spam problem) Forcing inovators such as myself to contract an outside email relay port hopping service is not a'fair use' strategy and not a customer centric focus.
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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)