[SpamCop-List] Re: Comcast considers "clever" anti-spam idea

[Rolf]

Mike Easter wrote:

> For some reason, I'm having a hard time imagining these wonderful
> 'configurable' server/router traits of a 'simple' dumb cable modem.  Why
> don't you think that would be hard or impossible to do?

I was just guessing something. I have obviously no experience with cable 
modems as I started with ADSL as soon as it was available and reports 
from other people with cable telling me that their download rate drops 
dramatically at around 5pm when all the people get home to chat, mail 
and browse makes me believe that was a good decision.

> I admit that the only 'messing around' I've done with the docs for a
> cable modem are the ones I found I think at Motorola's site for my
> previous modem and my current one;  but it didn't sound too very
> configurable.

Not sure if you can configure the user side of a cable modem in the same 
way than the network side. My little wireless gateway with DSL port has 
however some configuration lists to block ports in IP specific ways. 
It's not as powerful as iptables or those and I doubt the device would 
be happy with a long list of rules, but it could be done.

> OTOH;  it isn't hard at all to influence what IP [or how many] a cable
> modem gets.  Maybe they are planning on handling this issue with some
> kind of block of IPs that function differently for the 'bad' modems.

Another interesting option. Our ADSL providers seem mostly to assign 
fixed IP addresses, but cable apparantly uses dynamic here too.

Rolf Kalbermatter