Comcast/Xfinity and VPN
I am about to move into a new home and use Comcast xfinity service for my isp. I dont like comcast but its the only choice. My question is, has anyone gotten a letter to cease and desist downloading copyright material from comcast or been warned of violating terms of service because of VPN usage?
Comments
Don't know about the copyright material thing. If they catch you they will probably, soon, judging from the Trump administration through the new FCC chairman (who is pro business/ISP and actually anti-consumer) and the six-strikes thing no longer being used and the fact that rights groups like the MPAA and RIAA are now demanding of the FCC that ISP's be responsible to monitor for such and terminate accounts if caught and assist in prosecution...... anyway you do the math there.
If you must get Comcast, get a business class account and not a regular residential account. No data caps, and they do not monitor for data usage on business class. No, you do not have to actually be a business, and if they ask (unlikely) just tell them you are an independent contractor (for something internet related) and work from home. I've heard of them asking people if their home is in an area zoned for business, but that's not a standard thing or policy of comcast for business class and it does not happen very often. If you encounter one of these salesman that asks about zoning, the person is being an ass hole but stay calm and explain that you are an independent contractor (for something internet related) and work at home (so your home area may not be zoned for business). You will need to execute a two year contract though for a business class account, its no big deal though and you can live with it. One of the plus sides of the business class account is a lot more responsive service, have technical people who know what they are talking about, and they talk to you like you are human instead of the cattle call they have for the residential class where the people are reading from a script like "Joe" who just came over from accounting and does not know one end of a cable modem from another and just about has a heart attack if something is not covered by the script. Another plus of the business class account is the tier plan you buy you actually get the bandwidth instead of, and people don't know this, having to share the bandwidth of the plan with others during highly active periods and business class gets first priority for that bandwidth sharing and its pulled from residential customers. Plus, on a business class account they do not care what you do as long as they do not get any complaints of abuse and they do not monitor anything other than the standard technical parameters.
PIA has failed for me twice since I subscribed to it. Once in March and once today.
I dropped my previous VPN (BTGuard) because they failed me.
I think it's time for me to drop PIA. I used to be able to use VPN Check along with PIA, but with their new IP changes, I now can't.
Sad.
A moderate degree of anonymity, enough to keep ISPs from giving the user trouble at least, can be achieved with seedboxes such as Bitport,[26] put.io,[27] or Seedr,[28] which download the torrent files first to the companies' servers, followed by a direct download to the user.[29][30] Torrents can be downloaded with a high degree of anonymity by using services such as i2p. Tor does not provide anonymity on BitTorrent,[31] and its use is also discouraged (by blocking this type of connections) for performance reasons.[32] Unlike Tor, i2p is designed to work with BitTorrent[33] However, with i2p, torrents can only be downloaded from within the i2p network. This can be useful for users trying to avoid copyright complaints from their ISPs, maintaining privacy, or avoiding censorship.
ref: Wikipedia
Thanks for the clarification.
But I agree with pyro12, you have a leak somewhere and it needs to be plugged.
With VPN on, go to DNSLeakTest and run the Torrent Leak Test to see if your Torrent is detecting The test file will download in your torrent (but no file is downloaded) and see if your ISP Public IP Address is visible. It is found under Trackers in the Torrent.
I have passed IPv6 Leak Test.
I have passed DNSLeak Test.
I suspect what happened was that PIA was knocked off somehow, and it did not cut my connection off. I used to use VPN Check as a back-up, but when I run VPN Check now it gives me my Comcast associated internal IP address and NOT the ip address assigned by PIA. So I can't use VPN Check anymore.
I dunno what to do next.
I run the test and passed.
Adding it to my arsenal.
Here is one more link for IPV6 verification, in case you did not see it.
https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/forum/discussion/23924/easy-quick-dns-and-ipv6-leak-testing-via-command-prompt-line-method-no-browser-or-website-needed#latest
OP, consider using the SOCKS5 proxy (included with your subscription) with your torrent client. It will remain active even if your VPN is turned off. Also, make sure to "disable features that leak identifying information" if you use uTorrent.
Go to this Xfinity Comcast Gateway > Login link.
http://10.0.0.1/
PIA is working if your Home Network personal info, like Wi-Fi Configuration SSID and Connected Devices Host Name are not displayed.
More details about link may be found here
https://www.xfinity.com/support/articles/wireless-gateway-enable-disable-bridge-mode
Toggle Bridge Mode On/Off
Using a device connected to your Wireless Gateway home network, open a web browser and go to the Admin Tool at
http://10.0.0.1/