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157 Comments
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+117Years ago when Xbox was only a week old at the most, Comcast came out to install cable in my house. The technician and I played Halo and NFL Fever for a good 3 hours, he even stayed long enough to have pizza with myself and friends. Best install day ever . . .
- pinesol101, on 10/12/2007, -4/+67Comcast Customer Service is the worse.
Remember that time when a comcast employee went to a customers house and called Customer Service because he needed help and was waiting for over an hour for a responce so the employee eventually fell asleep on the Sofa? - MAVIC, on 10/12/2007, -2/+49SC has background knowledge that I don't have a gaming PC. I do have several "PC" machines here, two run Windows. They run very specific tasks, are locked down fairly well, have no outside access, were recently tested, one was reformatted... but all that aside, the time from when I got the new IP until I got the email from Comcast, none of my PCs were connected to my network so they were physically incapable of blasting out emails from the IP Comcast locked down on.
When I started trying to debug the problem with the first time I turned on a Windows machine to test. My wireless network certainly isn't open :)
Also, installing the anti-virus software was only one step. The second was a link which explained nothing to me other than I needed to use IE. When I tried it on a PC, it was an ActiveX control for one of their one-click utilities. All this does is reconfigure Outlook (or OE) to use a different SMTP port.
Comcast admitted the problem with spam occurred with the IP before I received it.
I hope that clears things up. I wrote that to vent my frustrations, not so much as a detailed explanation that could be gone over with a fine tooth comb.
(doh! first post to digg and I replied to the wrong one :( - aristotle0dude, on 10/12/2007, -6/+35Name one virus out in the wild. Stop spreading FUD.
Popularity do not cause bugs/flaws to appear. If the OS is secure to begin with, no amount of users poking it will change that situation.
Exploits for discovered holes can increase but not flaws. - galupo, on 10/12/2007, -4/+29Comcast blows
- NICU, on 10/12/2007, -5/+26I worked for an ISP tracking spammers, and 90% of the time it is a person with viruses on their computer. Another 9% is someone with an open 802.11 network and their neighbor is 'borrowing' their internet access and the friendly neighbor has viruses on their PC which are trying to send thousands of e-mails per day. And the last 1% is someone running a business out of their house using residential service instead of business class and that person was sending over 1000 emails per day - which was the trigger for spam (home users don't send that much e-mail).
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+22Comcast killed TechTV, correct?
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -5/+25I'd be interested in seeing a Mac virus! Please provide links since you are so very well informed.
And how is Windows equally or more secure that Mac OS? Man all these lies I've been told all these years! - jcaino, on 10/12/2007, -0/+16comcast loves blocking IP addresses
i work for a webhosting company - often, if a user has mail forwarded to their comcast address and receives a high amount of mail (ie: online forms, orders, etc) comcast is quick to block the server's IP.
and they are a pain in the ass to deal with when it comes to removing blocks. - krawkula, on 10/12/2007, -2/+18Sir, please read the forum posts more accurately. He does have a pc but gave an excuse as to why it wouldnt have caused the problem.
"Edit: Also, I can prove it wasn't my PCs because: I was gone for several days after the power went out. I did plugin my modem..." - ironrex, on 10/12/2007, -2/+18I hate Comcast more than any other company, by far. They have the worst customer service on the planet, everyone who works there seems to be a complete idiot. They are so high on monopolistic power that they really don't care if they screw over a few hundred people a month or so.
I was once charged $63 for one month of renting a cable modem, and $21 for another third of a month of renting a cable modem. The charge should be $3. After talking the people on the phone about this, who said it was "Strange" and that I'd have to go to an office in person, I finally had to take the time out of my day to go stand in line at the comcast office, and determine how the hell this company was going to explain this. Finally I get through the meatshield of a "customer service representative" and talk to a manager. She determines that when the sales representative was keying in my bill, she typed 11 instead of 1, or something like that. She offered to credit it back to me of course. Asked if I had not noticed this myself, and paid it, would they ever have noticed it for me and paid me back - She admitted that NO, they definitely would not have.
Right now I have a HD-DVR which I had to wait for two weeks to get, and It's been recording programs without me even telling it to. Calling the customer service line led to the conclusion that the box I was given and activated has the same codes on it as someone else's box, so we're both recording whatever he happens to like (There's a lot of jerry springer...). So they say I have to bring that one back and get a new one, which they don't have right now, because they're constantly out of them.
The way I got this one in the first place was because the one nice lady there said she'd hold one for me after I was told on the phone they had some, raced down there using my lunch hour early to do so, and they had none when I arrived saying "The call center people don't really know what we have, and we don't have any right now".
Now I'm looking at another bill I just got that looks fraudulent, so I'm looking forward to having to waste another lunch hour to go down there and figure out what comcast is doing wrong THIS time.
I hate comcast with every fiber of my being, but if I want cable tv and internet where I live, I have no choice! And you can be damn sure they know it. - spiritamx79, on 10/12/2007, -3/+17care to back it up with some proof?
im not saying OS X is perfect, but if you compare it to windows, well, i really dont care about marketshare. there were lots of virii for mac (OS 7-8 even 9 days)
but when you have an OS that needs a root password for installing stuff, its not like they can be installed without the user knowing it. besides, isnt that a prerequisite of a virus? to be installed without the end user aware of the problem until its too late?
and all the 'proof of concept' virii are jokes. they still require the sender of the virus to have a user account on the client computer to install it. not much of a virus if you ask me.
you'd think there would be lots of virus writers out there trying to bust up OS X just for that reason, to show everyone it can be done. but so far... nothing. - AndrewJC, on 10/12/2007, -6/+20Speaking of uninformed comments... You do realize that Macs are Unix-based, right? While it is POSSIBLE to hack a unix box, it's not very easy to do with something as simple and unattended as a virus or worm.
There just isn't a very high likelihood that many viruses will come out for Mac OS. Period, end of story. This has nothing to do with how popular the system is. Windows has so many viruses because it's simply easier to write viruses for windows. - webdevil, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15Maybe it was the same guy I had for tech support a week ago. I'm also running a Mac and told him this multiple times. He still told me to go to "start" -> "run" and type in ipconfig
- Petronski, on 10/12/2007, -4/+16***Thats an uninformed statement. Its simply stupid.
You could prove that claim by providing evidence of an OSX virus in the wild. - MistressRoninS, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11The Comcast guy was clearly reading a script and poorly trained on how to deviate from it. He should be reprimanded and trained on the way to properly assist a customer when he obviously cannot provide service himself. This is one of many bad situations with Comcast support that continue to flourish.
I think he did the right thing by writing to complain about it. If more people took the time to address authorities at the company about their poor service, MAYBE this would be taken care of.
There is no excuse for a company providing internet service to be incapable of allowing support for Mac users as well as Pc. If they cannot provide appropriate service for Mac users, they should stipulate that in their service contracts so that Mac users are informed and can make a decision to benefit their use of a better service other than Comcast.
Good luck to him. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13Huh?
"I haven't had trouble with my Comcast service, once installed. Comcast administrative and support services do indeed suck. "
First you state that you haven't had trouble with your service?
Then you say that the support sucks?
If you haven't had any trouble, then why would you ever call support. - omniomi, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12Comcast is absolutely clueless when it comes to Mac's and MAC OS X... Constantly Comcast refers customers to apple technical support when the issue is with their servers and setting simply because they do not want to use their KBase and locate the information to assist THEIR customers.
Comcast needs to stop advertising that they provide Mac support if they are going to continue to treat their Mac OS X customers in this fashion. - pixelguru, on 10/12/2007, -6/+15Oppressed? Hardly! We just don't appreciate being unnecessarily drug down to the security nightmare of the average PC. We also don't appreciate techs who just assume you're running windows, and blabber uninformed (and possibly destructive) drivel instead of transfering you to someone knowledgeable.
- bitgeist, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9There are cases where Macs have been turned into spam zombies. Search google for sendeb.pl. It is not a virus in the sense that it spreads automatically, but this code does run on OSX.
Here is a typical example of a hacked OSX machine sending spam:
http://rixstep.com/1/20051004,00.shtml - dr-steve, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9The quick and dirty way to get a new IP address, no waiting:
Comcast bases its IP assignments on the MAC address of the device plugged in to the modem. New MAC address, recycle the modem, get a new IP address.
The expensive solution: buy a new router. (Or use a buy-return at your computer store; I view this as unethical, though).
The less expensive solution: Most modern routers have IP spoofiing. Find a NIC you aren't using, grab its MAC address, and hand-enter it into your router. The router will use that (new) MAC address; cycle the router and modem, you'll have a new IP addr.
Good luck,
Steve - kakwakas, on 10/12/2007, -3/+11@MaxPayne
Free HBO from Comcast is easy. All you have to do is open up your cable box outside and take off the filter with the white sticker on it...
Not that I condone that sort of thing or suggest that everyone do it. - thespiff, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8And on that note, regardless of whether his PC was the source of any problem, he probably could have just humored the first tech support idiot, installed McAfee on the PC, and then told the guy to remove the block on his e-mail.
Hell, he probably could have just lied and said that he just installed anti-virus when really he hadn't. The tech guy doesn't know. If you know what you want, just tell tech support what they want to hear and they'll usually give you what you want. - LiquidPenguin, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10@ironrex
I don't hate Comcast quite like you do, but it's pretty damn close.
I had originally signed up with @Home which was sold(?) to Comcast, then to AT&T, then back to Comcast. Everytime I was forced into Comcast's service, it was always a painful ordeal. I've written about their crappy service often here on Digg, so here's a new story.
Because of the Christmas holiday cluster ***** and a triple birthday that same month, I was tapped out for December and ran up a $1800 credit bill. So I delayed paying some bills for that month, including Comcast. On a side note, Comcast decided to screw me when I moved, forced me to pay on Dec. 1st for Nov. and Dec. 26th for Dec.! So yeah, their bill was going to be delayed until Jan.
When I decided to pay the bill in Jan. I wanted to pay the full amount of $123.74 for both the months of Dec and Jan. So I called their automated phone line and procedeed through the process. This is the same process I've done for years. After I completed the transaction, the automated voice told me that I only paid half or $61.87 and that I still owed $61.87. Went I went back through, it wanted to charge me $123.74. ***** that, I called a human being and explained what happened and that I wanted to pay a TOTAL of $123.74. She charged me $123.74 + $61.87 for a TOTAL of $185.61. After catching the mistake, I had her back out the $123.74 and charge me the correct amount.
According to my online statement, $185.61 has been charged and still pending(?!) and I see no price adjustment.
When I called back and asked where the hell my price adjustment is, they tell me I have to FAX the bill to them before they'll refund me the amount. WTF? Don't they have the ***** records on file? Yes, they apparently do, but they want to do a, "verification," that something is wrong.
@HOME ***** rocked. AT&T was OK, albeit stingy with their U/D speeds. The new Comcast sucks so much Donkey ass, their faces are covered in *****. I can't wait until FIOS moves in. - RedDogPaPi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8@pixelguru
Well why don't you just tell them upfront that you have the almighty Mac? Instead of going through the motions each time. I think the snotty Mac people like it...
CSR: okay sir, goto->Start then ->Run
Cust: (in condescending voice) Uhg, I have a Mac. :tsk: :tsk:
Just as bad as the people who will call and say "I'm a Network Engineer" but don't know how to check their IP address. - dr-steve, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Oops, meant MAC addr spoofing in para 4...
-s - dickybrown, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8Probably not the right forum for this but since people are complaining about Comcast.....does anyone else hate the advertising bar Comcast put on the bottom of the guide?
I've called to complain a few times - they don't care.
I'd love to drop their service, but there just aren't any real alternatives - Tourney3p0, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6The writer seems to be trying to suggest that Macs cannot be used to send spam.
I won't say that it was common, but at my old PC repair job we had to clean up a couple of compromised OS X machines. I don't recall any of them ever being used to spam, but one of them was being used as a German warez server.
It's probably reasonable to assume a lot of people here have worked tech support at some point. The guy in the article is the worst kind of call. The entire article is about how there are no viruses for a Mac, with extra time being wasted showing the tech support guy a link to Sophos. What the hell does it matter? Is the tech support guy going to say, "Oh, okay.. I didn't know there were no viruses. I'll go ahead and take care of this right now."? No. He's going to say, "Yeah, but our multi-million dollar software still says your IP address was spamming." And it's not like it's very difficult to detect excess port 25 traffic.
Anyone ever get any calls like this? "I'm not going to check my DNS settings. It worked yesterday, so it must be something on your end. I refuse to even attempt to help you out on this, even though it will be beneficial to both of us to just take the 10 seconds to check." - 42PhoeniX, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8 Comcast isn't very Mac friendly as the "installer" software puts IE on your Mac and it's PowerPC only.
- Nougat, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Most "viruses" are actually worms, requiring some action be taken by the unsuspecting victim in order to work. They are not self-replicating in and of themselves; the end user action is the lynchpin.
Last time I checked, Mac users and Windows users are all human beings, susceptible to social engineering. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I agree with NICU, I use to work for Time Warner Cable (my division later became Comcast for about 1 month before I left) and processed abuse complaints. Most of what we saw was related to spam proxy issues where customers computers are used as a mail relay for spammers. We were much more thorough in investigating (in fact we ran classes for Comcast on a national level as they are WAY behind the game) and had a much better response time and were much more accurate in identifying the issue and helping customers resolve it then Comcast was.
- 16x9, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5> dickybrown wrote: "I'd love to drop their service, but there just aren't any real alternatives."
I'm in the same boat. In my area, when Comcast bought out (or took over) AT&T's cable broadband service, they really improved things. But it's been a bumpy ride down a steep hill ever since.
I've had intermittent up-channel issues for nearly two years now and trying to get Comcast to repair this ongoing and very frustrating situation with my connection has been an exercise in frustration.
I get promises of call-backs and help from several Comcast supervisors but then never hear from them again. And the Comcast reps aren't "authorized" to put me in tough with then even though I already have their names. Arrrrgggghhhh!
The problem? About every five or ten minutes, I suddenly start getting much greater than 50% packet loss on anything I send out. This usually lasts about 30 seconds or more. Down-channel seems fine, however. This problem screws up everything of course but as you might imagine, it makes playing online games damned near impossible. During certain parts of the day the problem gets so bad that it is pretty much constant and sometimes lasts for hours. Trying to access the net using Comcast during those times is worse than using 300 baud dial-up (and no, that's not an exaggeration). - dr-steve, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I think he's saying that people who spend either more (Mac) or less (Linux) money are more saavy. Go figure.
- scottc, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I don't know about sending mail from a Comcast account, but I do know that you should not rely on them for receiving mail. They run their own private blacklist which is apparently based on faulty software, judging by the numerous complaints we receive from web hosting clients. Our clients expect us to solve the problem, but when the server is secure and the domain and IP are clear on all major blacklists there is nothing we can do to help. Comcast won't even provide documentation to verify their claim that the client was spamming.
- deadbaby, on 10/12/2007, -10/+15I don't get it. He says:
"Unable to send email, I reread the email and tried step #2. When I did that, it said I needed IE. I tried it on my PC and it was clear it needed IE & Windows. "
So he has a PC as well? He's saying he can't install the AV software because he has a Mac but he clearly states he also has a PC. Isn't it kind of obvious that he could install the AV software on the PC? I deal with this type of stuff at work all the time and I have to say 99.9% of the time these spam reports are correct. It turns out to be an open wireless network, virus, or simply a legit spammer abusing the system. - Lax32, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Comcast customer service is the worst.
Earlier this year I was off at school and my sister couldnt load certain sites on her computer. She called up comcast. First it started out simple... he gets her to try to ping the websites.... then it moves onto him telling her that she needs 35 dollar spyware removing software... an hour and a half later he tells her to reformat her harddrive and reinstall windows. No joke.
I tell her not to do anything, come to my house. 5 minutes later I leave with a diagnosis of "your firewall blocked those sites". - fuzzynyanko, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5"Just as bad as the people who will call and say "I'm a Network Engineer" but don't know how to check their IP address."
Oh man. That reminds me of one time when I first got a cable router (also around the time when they just started to get popular as well). I was trying to host a game but couldn't. So, I tried a chatroom asking "er, any way to host a game" etc etc. What I got what "WHAT YOU HAVE IS PAT, NOT NAT" lecture for a long time. I was patient because I wanted to host a game and etc. He sounded all high and mighty when I was trying to get a simple "yes" or "no". I simply said something like "Look, I don't care about how it works. Can I or can't I host the game" and he got all mad. "I GET PAID $30 AN HOUR YOU IDIOT. I'M CERTIFIED! YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT!" I gave up on him, found a room with a few kids, and one dude was like "Oh, see if you have DMZ on your router." Got my answer. - webdevil, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Drop Cable........bittorrent
- colifis, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5If ISPs like Comcast can so effectively shut down emailers by monitoring their email output and subsequently blocking IP address, wouldn't the number of infected trojan PCs used for spamming soon dwindle? Or are there so many infected machines out there, that there is no way to keep up?
- Phantom784, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Not the worst experience, but still a pain. Comcast bought out our Adelphia service a few months, and when they were switching the internet service over, they screwed up and it thought all the transfered cutomers were new customers. Therefore, every webpage was caught and brought you to a site where you had to download this windows-only program to activate your account. Turns out, this program requires your Comcast bililng number, which, being an Adelphia customer, I didn't have. They eventually fixed it, but it took about all day.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -5/+9"It appeared my new IP had been used by a spammer and my old IP had gone to a new home. One forum poster stated he did not think Comcast could block ports based on user, just IP. So if I released my external IP I should be fine. In the middle of file transfers I didn't want to restart my router, nor did I want to shut off the rest of my internet access for a half hour+."
So, he had a simple fix, but didn't want to do it because (from the way that I took the statement), he didn't want to lose his illegal files that he was downloading. Not to mention, 30 minutes is nothing. Hell, he could have just taken a nap, gone outside, or sat his fat ass on a couch for 30 minutes.
I think this guy is pointing the finger in the wrong direction. Why blame Comcast? They were just trying to keep their systems secure, safe, and spam-free. Instead, blame the ass-hat who actually was the spammer. Was the guys network open? I wouldn't be surprised if your little neighbor in room 203 was choking off your internet and decided to put your bandwidth to the test.
I will agree, the man you talked to over LiveChat was a bit of a moron, but he does just work for a computer tech line. You read off a script... no knowledge required! - nlinux, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Now, I have to laugh at someone who is crazy enough to post this and obviously not technical enough to know that his computer was probably open to the whole world to use for sending email and he didn't even know it. If comcast locked him out for spam it just means that SMTP was wide open on his machine and that a spammer's relay bot found the open port and immediately flooded the world with spam from his unknowingly open server. I would not be surprised if his IP was not also blacklisted by Spamhaus or others after this occurence. Lesson learned....just because it's a mac doesn't mean you don't need to firewall those ports and for sure don't allow relaying!
- ciaziraphale, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Comcast acts like a monopoly with poor service and a bad attitude. I've had problems with them whether I've used Windows machines or Macs. Finally, after raising their prices for no good reason for the 3rd time in a row and tired of putting up with their lousy service, I just canceled my account and went to DSL. We'll see how that goes.
- bevans, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I completely agree. Even if the server isn't spamming, but a lot of email gets sent from that server to comcast (like in virtual host environments) they block the server. Then it is a pain in the ass to get the server removed.
And don't get me started on godaddy's BOGUS HELO server blocking *****. - Nougat, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5You're right about it being purely economic - most users are going to be on Windows, so that's where they're going to put the most effort into support. You lost me with the "Windows users will call support, Mac and Linux users are more savvy" crap. Linux users, maybe, as there's a certain technical knowledge barrier to entry into using Linux. Mac - the only barrier is economic; Macs cost more than Windows machines. You saying people who spend more money on their computers are more knowledgeable about them?
- goat2, on 10/12/2007, -5/+9http://www.sophos.com/pressoffice/news/articles/2006/02/macosxleap.html
- LiquidPenguin, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6They wouldn't even have to provide support for Macs if Comcast would get their ***** together between server and modem. I have a Windows to non-Windows ratio of 1 to 3 in my house. As long as they get the signal to my modem, then everything is works beautifully. When they updated my modem and bricked it, they tried to blame it on a variety of things _other_ than their damn modem. Then the stupid technician wants to get his fingers on my PC to, "ensure everything works." I told him to ***** off and do his job. As soon as he swapped the modem out, I was online again.
- victordavion, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7It's already been confirmed that the spamming came from a PC using that IP address before he ever received it in his home. IP cycling gets a lot of innocents in trouble, because when the IP cycles the company doesn't care enough to notice and reset any kind of settings they have on that particular IP. Stop insulting the victim here. He's a victim, get over it, and corporations are always wrong. Customers come first, get a clue.
- 200iso, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I used to do comcast tech support for about 2 years, about 2 years ago.
The Mac OS isn't really supported. In order to do my job properly the only troubleshooting I was required to do (after determining that the modem connection was working) was check for a valid IP on the mac, and power cycle the machine. If that did not resolve the issue then I was allowed (and encouraged) to transfer to Apple tech support. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Yes, because all downloads are inherently illegal. *rollseyes*
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