[PLUG] 15Mb Access

[Paul Heinlein]

On Thu, 1 Sep 2005, Brent Rieck wrote:

> Vincent Yau wrote:
>> With DSL/Cable modem, they usually don't like you running services 
>> like sshd, web site etc.. that would allow incoming traffic.
>
> It's been my experience that while it may be against the TOS they 
> don't actually do anything about it unless you become a "problem". 
> To be considered a "problem" seems to involve a blindfold and a dart 
> board. YMMV by whatever ISP your DSL is through however, a few of 
> them like to monetize any incoming bits.
>
> I've been running ssh for years and haven't been told to stop by Comcast.

The Comcast Acceptable Use Policy[1] is a bit vague. You're not 
supposed to

   run programs, equipment, or servers from the Premises that provide
   network content or any other services to anyone outside of your
   Premises LAN (Local Area Network), also commonly referred to as
   public services or servers. Examples of prohibited services and
   servers include, but are not limited to, e-mail, Web hosting, file
   sharing, and proxy services and servers;

Ordinarily, I'd assume that a "Premises LAN" consists of machines, but 
the prohibition is against offering services to "anyone" (a person!) 
outside the LAN. This leads me to conclude Comcast primary considers a 
LAN a group of customers, not a physical collection of machines.

Which further leads me to conclude (or, perhaps, rationalize) that the 
prohibition isn't so much against services per se, but against 
services offered to people outside the local customer group, that is, 
folks who aren't members of your household.

So running sshd to allow you (a paying customer) remote shell access 
to your machine is probably just fine, while offering your friends 
(not paying customers) the same service is inviting trouble.

I'm sure the Comcast folks explicitly mention e-mail, Web hosting, et 
al. because those services are often made available to folks in the 
non-paying-customer category.

-- 
Paul Heinlein <> heinlein at madboa.com <> www.madboa.com

[1] http://www.comcast.net/terms/use.jsp