Are Comcast's Alleged Anti-BitTorrent Tactics Illegal?

Comcast is reportedly fighting its customers' use of the downloading protocol BitTorrent -- which allows users to download and share huge files via peer-to-peer connections -- by sending fake "The End" signals to BitTorrent software. The controversial tactic, which China uses to enforce its censorious firewall, drew much attention in the internet's large downloading community in August, and now security researcher Christopher Soghoian suggests the tactic of sending false messages may run afoul of state laws.

[Comcast is] sending a reset (or RST) packet to the Comcast customer, pretending to be from the host at the end of the BitTorrent connection. This RST packet is the TCP equivalent of stating "I don't want to talk to you anymore, please terminate the connection". It is extremely important to note that when Comcast creates and sends this packet, they do not identify themselves as the the source of packet, but instead impersonate one of the parties involved in the BitTorrent connection. This is where things get rather shady.[...]

Many states make it illegal to impersonate others. New York, a state notorious for its aggressive pro-consumer office of the Attorney General, makes it a crime for someone to "[impersonate] another and [do] an act in such assumed character with intent to obtain a benefit or to injure or defraud another." (See: NY Sec. 190.25: Criminal impersonation in the second degree). I do not believe that it would be too difficult to prove that Comcast obtains a benefit by impersonating others to eliminate or reduce BitTorrent traffic. Less torrent data flowing over their network will lead to an overall reduction in their bandwidth bill, and thus a huge cost savings.[...]

Comcast is perfectly within its right to filter the Internet traffic that flows over its network. What it is not entitled to do, is to impersonate its customers and other users, in order to make that filtering happen. Dropping packets is perfectly OK, while falsifying sender information in packet headers is not.

Soghoian suggests that if some aspiring state Attorney General went after Comcast, the company would be in a bad way. I'm doubtful any AG would actually do so, but what would be more interesting is if there is some statute that allowed a user to act on their own behalf. But I'm not even lawyerly enough to figure out if such a law exists.

Still, this could make a very interesting small claims court case, perhaps simply on the grounds of breach of contract.

Is Comcast's BitTorrent filtering violating the law? Surveillance State by Christopher Soghoian

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