Report: Comcast helped figure out what was wrong with Pirate Bay (Update: Global Crossing blamed)

Comcast, dismayed at being blamed for Pirate Bay's downtime, apparently helped fix it. Torrentfreak reports:

Initially The Pirate Bay team suspected that Comcast might be filtering PMTU responses, but Comcast looked into this and ruled it out. ... Comcast reached out to Serious Tubes Networks, who deliver transit to The Pirate Bay, and they were able to correct the issue. "Comcast emailed our NOC about their users complaining about not reaching The Pirate Bay. We resolved the issue and TPB can now be reached from Comcast," the CEO of Serious Tubes Networks told TorrentFreak.

Companies that sell blanks and hoses have always known their customers are pirates. But this hose also happens to be the majority stakeholder in NBC. Update: Serious Tubes says that Comcast "did not help us fix Pirate Bay" and that the problem was caused by Global Crossing, another big telco.

Comcast did not help us fix The Pirate Bay. The problem was GBLX using reverse path filtering. We shut down one of our transits because it was flapping. The result was that all outgoing traffic to GBLX got filtered even though the packets took the same path as before. The Pirate Bay is using different paths for incoming and outgoing traffic to avoid beeing traced. We don't even know where their servers are. We resolved the issue by activating our other transit again.

• [Anonymous]

  Heh. “DMCA and copyright claims will be ignored”

  Nice server package.

• [SamSam]

  It works again!

• [ColHapablap]

  How I wish we could get the phone number for the people at Comcast who know what “PMTU” and “NOC” mean, instead of the dummies who have you restart your modem half a dozen times before deploying a technician next week.

  • [dculberson]

    Those people have better things to do than, and make too much money to, answer the phones all day. (Would you really want to pay $75k/year for phone support people? Most customers really *do* just need to restart their modems!)

  • [Marktech]

    How I wish we could get the phone number for the people at Comcast who know what “PMTU” and “NOC” mean, instead of the dummies who have you restart your modem half a dozen times before deploying a technician next week.

    Obligatory…

    • [Anonymous]

      Shiboleet is a pretty nerdy pun. I’m into it.

• [Anonymous]

  The telecoms obviously know that their customers are Pirates but that isn’t even the issue. Because torrents can be used for legal activity it would be pre-judgemental for Comcast to cut off access to the service. The telecom companies are not lawyers, nor are they law enforcement officials. It is up to those two groups to respond when people break the law, it is not Comcast’s job to cut off a service or a web site because it can be used for illegal activity, even if most of the activity is illegal.

  P.S. @ColHapablap – almost all tech support is like that unless you go with a very small provider. They hire the same people telemarketers do and their only job is to run down a checklist that they’re provided with before sending a tech out. It’s a McJob, it’s not the tech support person’s fault. If they had any tech knowledge they could get a better job.

• [GreenJello]

  Anybody go to the “Serious Tubes” website? I’ve seen mom and pop stores selling used video games with more professional websites. The fact that anybody would pay these guys to do anything is very strange to me. OTOH, the idea that Serious Tubes may, just may, be a front organization for somebody else, somebody who needed to quickly create a scape goat, somebody big and powerful, it not inconceivable.

  OTOH, if it was some large evil company with a bad habit of messing up the internet to promote their own business, you’d think they could fake a better website/ISP than this, even in a few hours. Then again, maybe not.

  • [Ralph Giles]

    ITYM, “I’m not in their target demographic.” I found their website semiotics hilarious.

• [creesto]

  So does this mean the MPAA and/or RIAA will be issuing Comcast subpoenas for facilitating piracy?

• [Cocomaan]

  Very interesting turn of events.

• [Anonymous]

  From their website:

  “Comcast did not help us fix The Pirate Bay. The problem was GBLX using reverse path filtering. We shut down one of our transits because it was flapping. The result was that all outgoing traffic to GBLX got filtered even though the packets took the same path as before. The Pirate Bay is using different paths for incoming and outgoing traffic to avoid beeing traced. We don’t even know where their servers are. We resolved the issue by activating our other transit again.”

• [Tim Pozar]

  Man… I have been bitten a bunch of times by GBLX’s RPF. This is not an NN issue. Just a policy thang that GBLX has.

• [Anonymous]

  for the record, comcast is dragging their feet on instituting many anti-neutrality, anti-piracy, pro-drm and similar anti-consumer pressures. They still wont roll out ipv6!