[ NNSquad ] Re: Comcast using Sandvine to Interfere with P2P

["David P. Reed" <dpreed@reed.com>]

The use of TCP RST packets to kill undesirable traffic is actually very 
efficient compared to per-flow measurement and prioritization, because 
it can be done with very little work on the part of the filtering 
software.  I'd suggest reading the following article about the "Great 
Firewall of China" for an understanding of why this technique is so 
low-cost, since the same approach is used by that system.  Essentially, 
it avoids the need for memory and computation at the detection point, 
which prioritization would require.  Thus Sandvine or whomever provides 
the system can provide it at "wirespeed" with very little hardware.

http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rnc1/*ignoring*.pdf

Of course, I'm not making a moral judgement.   Per-flow prioritization 
might indeed be more "equitable" according to those who think that  
bittorrent users are "abusive" according to some "moral" judgement 
according to their religious beliefs.  But if you want an efficient and 
nearly costless way to muck with end-user traffic, you can't beat the 
RST technique.