Comcast throws down gauntlet to residential accounts

[Martin Fick]

--- On Mon, 8/10/09, Martin Fick <mogulguy at yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- On Mon, 8/10/09, Scott Bennett <bennett at cs.niu.edu> wrote:
> 
> >    Next, the conversation took a turn
> > I was told that having *any* ports "open facing the
> > Internet" was a violation of Comcast's Acceptable Use
> > Policy (AUP) for residential accounts.  
> 
> Seems like another good argument in favor of 
> implementing a mechanism for relays to work behind 
> firewalls, you would not need to have any open ports.

> ... so let's not complain about the price of gas 
> here. ;)  (unless it is to  propose ways to make 
> tor use less gas...)

Which give me another idea.  What if directory servers 
were used to publish a "secret port knocking handshake"
for relays?  This would allow relays to go unnoticed on
port scans.  Obviously this would not be a technique to
hide tor relays, but only to hide open ports from ISPs.
As long as they do not specifically target tor relay 
operators, this might be effective?

-Martin