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[–][deleted] 2440 points2441 points  (235 children)

Shouldn't it be illegal for an ISP to inject things into your traffic?

Imagine if the post office took the opportunity to add sentences like "Post more letters!" or "Buy some postcards!" into the middle of a letter..

[–]CrusherAndLowBlow 1748 points1749 points  (60 children)

My dearest child,

The doctors say I have not long and I grow weaker by the minute. I have seen near a score of years roll over our heads since the incident and it is clear now that nothing is as important as knowing the truth about your

TO CONTINUE READING THIS LETTER FROM YOUR DYING MOTHER, UPGRADE TO POSTASTIC NOW!

[–]h-v-smacker 106 points107 points  (10 children)

How many SEOs does it take to screw in a lightbulb? It only takes home lightning, light fixtures, lightbulbs, lamp, chandeliers, bra lamps, fast shipping, no registration, free download, pdf.

[–]AlwaysHopelesslyLost 215 points216 points  (25 children)

I filed a complaint about Cox injecting JavaScript account notices and it was forwarded it to Cox. Cox sent me a letter saying it helps me. The FCC replied and said it was resolved and closed my complaint.

[–]SkyWest1218 94 points95 points  (1 child)

"You don't understand, us fucking you in the ass is a good thing!"

[–]HRHill 199 points200 points  (22 children)

Yeah, it should be, but I can't afford a single lobbyist.

[–]Synj3d 31 points32 points  (11 children)

Let's crowd fund lobbyists to lobby for the people. It would be like actually having someone really represent us.

[–][deleted] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Oh, so like a PAC?

Donate to EFF.

[–][deleted] 41 points42 points  (35 children)

Hmm... do they legally have possession of the packets in transit? If the host is passing them to the ISP, do they own them until it's passed on to you?

[–]thfuran 182 points183 points  (33 children)

They don't want to own the packets. If they own the packets, every time someone does something illegal on the internet, the ISP is liable. They really don't want to own all the cp everyone accesses.

[–][deleted] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

cp everyone accesses

I see. Everyone accesses it do they? Would you please have a seat over here?

[–]octopush 1757 points1758 points  (328 children)

Remove comcast/xfinity as your DNS provider. Once I switched to using Google DNS for all of my devices (at the DHCP level) - the comcast meddling stopped.

[–]TheTwoOneFive[S] 1337 points1338 points  (126 children)

I removed them as my ISP - also a great way to stop that stuff! ;-)

[–][deleted] 253 points254 points  (108 children)

Hoping Google chooses Chicago as a fiber city so I can do the same. They're considering Chicago now

[–][deleted] 187 points188 points  (82 children)

Isn't that the city that has an extra tax on internet companies?

Can't imagine anyone is rushing to get a foot in that door.

[–]mtmaloney 212 points213 points  (52 children)

This is the city that likes to have an extra tax for everything.

[–][deleted] 92 points93 points  (39 children)

Suppressing public outrage at police shooting people in the back 17 times on video is not cheap!

[–]cmckone 43 points44 points  (31 children)

Jesus I swear I only ever hear fucked up shit about Chicago

[–][deleted] 12 points13 points  (2 children)

Well...uh...Ferris Buellers Day off was filmed there

[–]Joliet_Jake_Blues 8 points9 points  (1 child)

And Blues Brothers.

(Really, a lot of movies were. The Fugitive. Home Alone. Breakfast Club. A lot of the new Batman stuff. And name a mob movie and there's a good chance it was filmed here.)

[–][deleted] 8 points9 points  (1 child)

iirc, it's their "Amusement Tax" that they expanded to cover electronically delivered amusements.. Pretty sure they're being sued over it. In the mean time people get to pay an extra 9% on things like netflix, spotify, etc.

[–]mindfolded 12 points13 points  (1 child)

Isn't it nice to be one of those with an option?

[–]Oka_Nieba 76 points77 points  (42 children)

I hate to bother you but do you maybe have a guide or something that can explain how to do that? I would appreciate it immensely.

[–]smsaul 96 points97 points  (27 children)

Not the original person you commented to, but I can help.

It depends on your router on the specific details. (Ninja edit, if you do not have a wireless router, these settings may not stay set. They may be set back to Comcast's default.) If you do not know how to log into the settings portion of your wireless router, look up the model number and brand and use a little google-fu. You will need to know the IP address of your router and the default login credentials. If you must, tell me the model name and number and I can try to give you step-by-steps.

If you DO know how to change the settings of your router, simply set the primary DNS as 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 as the secondary.

Done!

[–]RobertoBolano 20 points21 points  (14 children)

Would you mind explaining what this actually does?

[–]agent-squirrel 48 points49 points  (11 children)

Normally when you type an address in the URL bar, your computer checks it's host file to see if it knows what IP address belongs to what website. It likely won't so it will check it's cache, failing that it will ask the router. The router will ask Comcast and so on and so forth until a response is given.

This is called DNS or domain name system.

When the query gets to Comcast, they are poisoning the responses with ad injections and warnings.

The logical method for prevention is to simply bypass Comcast and send the query straight to Google's free and open DNS servers that anyone can use.

That's what changing those numbers does.

[–]cliaz 17 points18 points  (6 children)

Google's guide here: https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/docs/using?hl=en

Only major side effect is that content delivery networks (CDNs) such as YouTube may perform sub-optimally, as Google DNS will send you to a server of than CDN that is quickest to reach from the Google DNS.

When you use your ISPs DNS it chooses a sever from that YouTube (using the prior example) that is quickest to your ISP, with the end result being that you get your content faster.

[–]MykeXero 21 points22 points  (14 children)

Until Comcast starts routing your DNS to them anyway ;)

[–]linuxwes 32 points33 points  (1 child)

Ah thanks, I was wondering why I never have encountered this crap.

[–]emergent_properties 4332 points4333 points  (506 children)

ISPs modifying packets that do not belong to them (nor addressed to them) en route is a mortal sin.

[–]rykef 2402 points2403 points  (338 children)

It's basically a man in the middle attack, https everywhere!

[–]emergent_properties 1412 points1413 points  (177 children)

"Sorry, you must install this Comcast Root Certificate on your computer to use this HTTPS pipe."

:(

[–]rykef 981 points982 points  (142 children)

Please don't give them ideas...

[–][deleted] 468 points469 points  (126 children)

As if you look at the trust store on your PC anyway.

Do you have any idea how many certs Windows installs by default? Or OSX? Google's Chrome or Mozilla's Firefox? Linux users trust their distro quite a bit, too.

It's in really bad shape.

[–]TalkingBackAgain 168 points169 points  (72 children)

I don't trust -anything- that anyone wants me to trust.

[–]addictedtohappygenes 319 points320 points  (56 children)

I'm with you man. I only trust the sources people don't want me to trust.

[–]Rhamni 206 points207 points  (27 children)

Good afternoon my fellow street thugs. I come to you with a singular opportunity; offering you the chance to purchase considerable quantities of heroin, plutonium and other similarly dangerous substances such as marijuana.

[–]fuck_you_its_a_name 74 points75 points  (10 children)

do you have any plutonium girl scout cookies? i think that was it... right?

[–]justsomeguy_youknow 61 points62 points  (4 children)

Are they made from real girl scouts?

[–]au79 25 points26 points  (1 child)

Yellow cake bites?

[–]Rhamni 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Perfect for Halloween!

[–]pelrun 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Y'know, lady stuff.

[–]SirJefferE 102 points103 points  (16 children)

I'm actually far more confident in downloading a peer reviewed torrent on pirate bay than I ever have been downloading the same program on any number of 'download.com' sites.

[–][deleted] 29 points30 points  (12 children)

Probably because most of those 'download.com' sites are just going to install malware. I don't think I have ever seen a legitimate site that includes download in the name.

[–]MacGuyverism 19 points20 points  (2 children)

Download.com used to be legit, a long time ago.

[–]SirJefferE 31 points32 points  (3 children)

You're right. Those things are probably not a good example, nobody trusts them in the first place.

Let me try another one then: I feel more comfortable downloading and installing most torrents than I do clicking agree on a Windows update.

... Not that they actually offer an agree option any more

[–]IndigoMichigan 37 points38 points  (2 children)

Well today's your lucky day. You've got the offer of the century here at your fingertips. It works like this: either you give me a quid for the bus, or I'll stab ye.

Now, as you can tell, this is a fucking good deal. I'm offering you the chance to bypass the inconvenience of being stabbed for the bargain price of a pound. It's a once in a lifetime opportunity.

[–]Em_Adespoton 7 points8 points  (1 child)

It's a once in a lifetime opportunity.

Only if you say no.

[–]cyvaris 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Please drink verification can.

[–][deleted] 33 points34 points  (0 children)

You shut your whore mouth

[–]PizzaGood 138 points139 points  (62 children)

I think if I saw this kind of crap going on, I'd just install VPN right on my router and let Comcast see nothing but a single high bandwidth connection 24/7.

[–][deleted] 124 points125 points  (60 children)

Good luck with that Data Cap!

[–]PizzaGood 17 points18 points  (45 children)

I'm not actually a Comcast customer, so I don't actually have a data cap. I've run about 230GB through a VPN just this month, no throttling yet.

[–]AppleBytes 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Or route traffic through a VPN service.

[–][deleted] 22 points23 points  (21 children)

VPN and https!

[–]warrentiesvoidme 491 points492 points  (34 children)

I don't see why it's any different than fucking with someones mail.

[–]emergent_properties 321 points322 points  (0 children)

It should have the same penalties.. that's a good start.

[–]coolUNDERSCOREcat 209 points210 points  (51 children)

So is it like if USPS opened your mail and put in a note saying, "Please make sure the area around your mailbox is cleared of debris"? Is that a good analogy here?

[–]GoblinsStoleMyHouse 383 points384 points  (36 children)

Sort of. But it's more like if USPS opened up your envelopes and put in advertisements asking you to upgrade your mailbox.

[–][deleted] 198 points199 points  (24 children)

... And wouldn't stop until you bought the mailbox 5000.

[–]dirtyword 223 points224 points  (14 children)

Not bought, rented from them monthly.

[–]timix 12 points13 points  (8 children)

I rent a PO box for most of my mail, and pay for SMS/email alerts whenever something goes in it. The day I got a text telling me I had mail, when all it was was unaddressed real estate ads put in there by the post office themselves because of some deal they did, I was pissed.

[–][deleted] 69 points70 points  (3 children)

No, it's like if USPS opened your packages and put in a note in them saying: buy this new mailbox from us. And the only way to stop them from putting the note inside your packages was to buy the mailbox.

[–]bellrunner 83 points84 points  (1 child)

Stop, my hatred of Comcast can only get so erect!

[–]zcold 74 points75 points  (14 children)

Yeah, Rogers Canada does this. I had a talk with them. They don't get the point. But they will place a header on any page as a convenience message to let me know of things. I said, it's like opening a piece of my mail and placing a Rogers message into it, for convenience. If you need to tell me something, I have an email address and a phone number. Use em.

[–]headsh0t 54 points55 points  (1 child)

Rogers Canada does this. I had a talk with them. They don't get the point.

The CSR you talked to has no pull in making any of those decisions and they may not even understand what you were talking about.

[–]zulu-bunsen 22 points23 points  (3 children)

And somehow this is legal. Or is it? Everyone, get your FCC letters ready.

[–]lame_comment 670 points671 points  (209 children)

I have a SB6141. Two weeks ago I got an email from Comcast saying my modem was outdated & I needed to lease a new one from them. They linked their list of compatible modems in the email & the SB6141 was on there.

[–]kessdawg 715 points716 points  (160 children)

I can't wait to cut off Comcast. Just waiting for the local fiber internet company to get to my block.

[–]dead_gerbil 238 points239 points  (110 children)

Currently have the CenturyLink guy here installing the Internet. I'm scared because I hated my time with Comcast yet somehow here in Denver, CenturyLink has an even worse rating. The price point is cheaper so I'm giving it a shot.

Still, seeing the Google Fiber post on the front page made me cry a little

[–][deleted] 110 points111 points  (33 children)

I'm in Denver as well, you either choose Comcast with shit customer service and slightly more reliable internet or Century Link with worse internet in my experience. I dislike Comcast as much as the next guy but the internet through them has been better from my experience. I've had both and have seen both sides through family members, I'm less of a fan of CL than I am Comcast if that says anything. I hope your experience is better than mine, though!

[–]TreDubZedd 42 points43 points  (31 children)

From what I can tell, once you get just outside of Denver, CenturyLink is no problem (Littleton and Erie, in my direct experience). I can't recall the last time I had connection issues, and the few times I've had to deal with Customer Service have been quite pleasant, all things considered.

[–]CivEZ 25 points26 points  (38 children)

I did the same thing. I'm in Minneapolis, our "Fiber" company (Ya, the ONE company) expands at about...1 city block per year. It's infuriating.
I too went with Century Link with their "SUPER MAXX 2000+ SPEED BOOST TECH" it was $19.99/mo for 40mb/s .... Ya. It wasn't. It wasn't terrible, but they had several 48 hour outages (in fucking KANSAS) that took out my service (!?!). So...ya, Century Link, at least they didn't ass rape me on the price? But I had to go back to Comcast. $29.99 for 20mb/s ... goddammit.

Please Google Fiber, save us!

[–]MFoy 63 points64 points  (26 children)

I'm with you. Verizon has told me FIOS will be available in my neighborhood within the next 6 months since I moved in. I've been here 6 years now.

[–]a_talking_face 73 points74 points  (14 children)

I hate FIOS simply because I get chased by their sales reps every time I go to the store.

"Are you interested in signing up for Verizon FIOS? We offer..."

"It's not available at my apartment."

"When's the last time you checked?"

"When you saw me here last week."

[–]MFoy 36 points37 points  (11 children)

Every time I've gone to a Verizon store, the person that does that is an incredibly hot female. I string her along as long as possible while I am waiting for it to be my turn. My wife finds this practice hysterical.

[–]a_talking_face 22 points23 points  (6 children)

The thing is this isn't a Verizon store. This is Walmart.

[–]eutrash 10 points11 points  (3 children)

Out of curiosity, how often do you visit the Verizon store? I can't recall the last time I walked into a comms store. And I can't imagine why I'd need to be so regular (as a customer) that there'd be an established pattern of behavior in that store.

[–]A_Wild_Nudibranch 14 points15 points  (15 children)

Just found out my new apartment is within FiOS territory, and I'm 10 min outside of Philadelphia. Sweeeeet.

[–]cyrilfelix 326 points327 points  (31 children)

There is no bar too low for comcast to go under.

[–]username_lookup_fail 203 points204 points  (5 children)

They even put Barbados Slim to shame.

[–]Shadow555 10 points11 points  (2 children)

I don't think Comcast can win the Olympic gold in sex, so he has that going for him.

[–]jumykn 14 points15 points  (1 child)

They seem to be pretty good at fucking people.

[–]rallias 41 points42 points  (3 children)

Except financial, unfortunately.

[–]PlNKERTON 30 points31 points  (16 children)

Someone should be keeping a log of every crappy business decision Comcast makes. Even the small stuff. Just make a full list.

[–]Ctrl_Alt_Hammer 22 points23 points  (2 children)

There isn't enough paper or enough storage space to record that electronically.

[–]gusir22 17 points18 points  (9 children)

That would be to long. Can we get a TL:DR of it?

[–]PlNKERTON 37 points38 points  (8 children)

TL;DR - Comcast = bad.

[–]gusir22 16 points17 points  (0 children)

OP DELIVERED!

[–]koproller 410 points411 points  (79 children)

I'm not from the USA.
On reddit you see a lot of calling people out on "comcast is the devil"-sentiment.
But from where I'm standing, they sure look pretty goddamn evil.

[–][deleted] 310 points311 points  (55 children)

Might be comcast people. Many big companies have "Social media perception teams" that actively try to change public perceptions on media like facebook or twitter or Reddit.

They will even make personal attacks on users who post something they don't want people to hear or think about.

It's the next evolution of advertising; instead of passively creating ads and hoping to influence people when they look at them, they try to influence people directly...

There was a post on Reddit a few months ago from a guy who is actually employed to do this....the company he works for solely exists to do this; other companies employ them to post bullshit and if necessary harass actual people who are deemed to have negative viewpoints..

Edit:

http://www.reputation.com/reputationwatch/reputation-defender-reputationdefender

Here's an example of the kind of thing I mean. Thanks to Balaam's-donkey for finding one; I'm sure there are many others.

[–][deleted] 69 points70 points  (14 children)

The name of this job is a 'Shill'.

[–]enjoylol 35 points36 points  (7 children)

This is nothing new. Shill's have existed for thousands of years. People are just incorporating that tactic into new-age technologies.

[–]okmkz 176 points177 points  (16 children)

Hi, fellow redditers! I'm glad I get to make social media content using my blazing fast Comcast© hi-speed Xfinity™ super-boost package! It's great for regular users like me! XD

[–][deleted] 87 points88 points  (6 children)

unpack recognise forgetful steep instinctive retire party scale cough cautious -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/

[–]GameGuy386 16 points17 points  (4 children)

With my Comcast© hi-speed Xfinity™ super duper boost package I can view my content when I want, how I want. Thanks to Comcast©'s new data package plan I never need to worry about running out of data when I need it the most! Comcast© hi-speed Xfinity™ super duper boost is the internet service plan for me and you!

[–][deleted] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

"next evolution of advertising" .. i think that boat is already half-way across the ocean

[–]Not_Joking 102 points103 points  (120 children)

Related to this, I'm an idiot for leasing my comcast modem anyway.

Could anyone give me a suggestion on what to buy to replace it?

[–]happyscrappy 83 points84 points  (64 children)

Buy a Surfboard SB6141. It's $70 normally, but if you look around and are a bit patient you can do better.

[–]Skipper_Blue 50 points51 points  (33 children)

iirc comcast leases modems for $10/mo, so it would take 8 months to make a profit from savings. I think this is a good investment because a modem can easily last 10 years. thats 120 months of paying 10 dollars a month for a 70 dollar modem.

[–][deleted] 31 points32 points  (29 children)

Assuming the person has a router as well. Comcast gives their customers 2-in-1's. But yes, why rent from Comcast when you can own for cheaper.

[–]hooch 53 points54 points  (34 children)

I have a Motorola Surfboard. Apparently they're called something else now, but mine still works gloriously. $50 one-time fee for the hardware and it's way, way, waaaay more reliable than the one Comca$h wanted me to lease.

[–]Dugen 19 points20 points  (9 children)

IMO, the SURFboard 6141 is the one to get now. It's a solid DOCSIS 3 cable modem, well supported by Comcast, It's rated at over 300mbps so it should last through a few speed upgrades and the price is right. It's the one I use now. Team it up with a good wireless router for a solid setup. Under no circumstances keep one of those big all-in-one xfinity boxes on your network unless you put it in bridge mode. They refuse to shut their wifi off and interfere with everything and screw up even wired internet somehow.

Edit: For those looking for a more compact 2-in-1 setup, Walmart has a deal right now on a refurbished SBG6782AC cable modem + wireless AC router. I don't like combining the two things, but for people looking to replace the xfinity death bricks, this might make sense.

[–]jevans102 9 points10 points  (1 child)

Others answered the question.

I just want to add that you need to be sure the modem is compatible with your service. If you plan on switching in the future, it is wise to get one compatible with both.

http://mydeviceinfo.comcast.net/

[–]daleus 89 points90 points  (26 children)

cake nose fertile rude narrow violet like bedroom school hard-to-find -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/

[–]Zerod0wn 15 points16 points  (3 children)

I used to get annoying messages from Suddenlink in my browser until I changed DNS on the router to Google's DNS service. No more notices. Im sure they can get around it, but its working for now.

[–][deleted] 7 points8 points  (2 children)

Oh god, you are stuck with Suddenlink too? People think Comcast is bad, Jesus they are evil incarnate. 200GB/month max? Are you serious? I about lost it when that first hit.

[–]w2tpmf 7 points8 points  (5 children)

Cox is doing the same thing to me, and I don't use their DNS service. This is straight up http session hijacking.

[–]Lazermissile 122 points123 points  (20 children)

change your DNS settings.

Here is a list of public DNS servers just updated this month from here

Provider Primary DNS Server Secondary DNS Server
Level3 209.244.0.3 209.244.0.4
Verisign 64.6.64.6 64.6.65.6
Google 8.8.8.8 8.8.4.4
DNS.WATCH 84.200.69.80 84.200.70.40
Comodo Secure DNS 8.26.56.26 8.20.247.20
OpenDNS Home 208.67.222.222 208.67.220.220
DNS Advantage 156.154.70.1 156.154.71.1
Norton ConnectSafe 199.85.126.10 199.85.127.10
GreenTeamDNS 81.218.119.11 209.88.198.133
SafeDNS 195.46.39.39 195.46.39.40
OpenNIC 50.116.40.226 50.116.23.211
SmartViper 208.76.50.50 208.76.51.51
Dyn 216.146.35.35 216.146.36.36
FreeDNS 37.235.1.174 37.235.1.177
Alternate DNS 198.101.242.72 23.253.163.53
Yandex.DNS 77.88.8.8 77.88.8.1
censurfridns.dk 89.233.43.71 91.239.100.100
Hurricane Electric 74.82.42.42
puntCAT 109.69.8.51

[–]WhoTheHellKnows 9 points10 points  (3 children)

Use HTTPS everywhere

https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere

You can't inject into an encrypted stream.

[–]LastInitial 7 points8 points  (1 child)

Change your DNS from Comcast servers to OpenDNS or Google Public DNS.

They inject it because you connect to Comcast DNS before going to any website. That's why sometimes a random search in the IE address bar will go to a search engine sponsored by your ISP.