Yep. The DOCSIS standards used in the US give you a little less than 40 Mbps downstream per physical 6 MHz channel. Higher-end DOCSIS 3 modems can bond up to eight channels together.

IIRC, your speed is artificially limited by the modem, which is configured remotely by your ISP over SNMP. People used to hack their cable modems to remove the bandwidth limits, but the cable companies started cracking down on them.

... but their Xfinity Wifi Hotspot program, if implemented correctly, shouldn't cause customers any real harm.

What I believe happens is that your modem gets virtualized into two modems/routers. Cable Internet is already based on shared broadcast signals, so in terms of bandwidth it should be identical to adding a second, mostly inactive cable modem somewhere in your neighborhood. Since the 2nd modem is virtualized, it should not affect your transfer rates or bandwidth quotas.

This second modem is connected to a second, virtual router, with its own SSID. Unless there's a vulnerability in the router (which is possible), users of the Xfinity Wifi Hotspot should not be able to access your network, use your IP address, etc.

Available bandwidth could conceivably be reduced, due to more packets in the air, but WiFi is already unregulated and subject to additional interference. Increased load on the modem/router could theoretically reduce your bandwidth as well, although probably not by any noticeable amount.

The best claim is based on increased electricity usage. However, the additional energy needed is probably negligible. Here is a link to a blog post about the increased electricity costs, where they conclude it's about $8 per year in the mid-Atlantic area -- if it's being used. Comcast could give everyone a $1/mo credit for enabling the Xfinity WiFi Hotspot, completely eliminating the issue.

http://games.slashdot.org/comm...

It looks like they are trying to hide behind their EULA, which says that "Use of the Software as a driver for a component that is not a Genuine FTDI Component MAY IRRETRIEVABLY DAMAGE THAT COMPONENT." But there are reports that this new driver is being delivered via Windows Update, which presumably doesn't show you this EULA.

Microsoft would be wise to pull this update.

I believe there's some evidence that Comcast intercepts DNS traffic for non-Comcast IPs and redirects it to Comcast's DNS servers.

Also, I doubt it matters whether you use their DNS servers or not--they can inject traffic into any TCP stream.

... is to avoid your ISP from injecting their own ads into web pages, like Comcast does. I would not be surprised if some ISPs tried to block VPN access just so they can mess with your traffic.

127.0.53.53 will be returned when a collision is detected. AFAICT this means when you query DNS for a non-existant 2nd level domain in one of the new TLDs.

Daikatana

Tips received from private companies or individuals are not subject to the same constitutional limits on evidence, provided they are not being paid by law enforcement. This is why CrimeStoppers exists.

Microsoft has something called PhotoDNA which scours Bing, Outlook, etc. for child porn. I believe they also make it available to other companies. In fact, given the difficulty of getting images to train on, I wouldn't be surprised if Google was using Microsoft's PhotoDNA technology.

The FTC seems like they have the right tools to tackle net neutrality, whereas it's not clear that the FCC does. For example, they could declare that ISPs letting certain peering links saturate to unreasonable levels without disclosure is an unfair and deceptive trade practice. If a customer purchases Internet access, they expect equal access to all of the Internet. They could also declare that cable franchise monopolies interfering with competing video services (like Netflix) is an anti-trust violation.

The problem is that the FCC has limited regulatory power unless it reclassifies Internet access as a telecommunications service, which is considered the "nuclear option." Prior attempts to enforce neutrality have been thrown out by the courts. At this point, to do anything meaningful they'd probably have to involve Congress... And I bet you can figure out how likely that is.

... except Amazon is based in Seattle. While his location wasn't disclosed, I would bet it's in the Seattle area. Hopefully this case will shut down some of the non-compete clauses used in Washington State...

For a while they had their XScale line of ARM processors and SoCs. I think one of the dumber moves they've made was to sell that line of business off to Marvell in 2006 and go "all-in" on x86 before they were ready.

It doesn't really matter where you are; there is no real competition in the US broadband market. Sure, DSL exists, but old copper lines can't handle nearly the bandwidth that coax can. I live only a few blocks away from the CO, but due to the age of the wires, I could barely get 1.5 mbps.