Comcast Censors The Internet

From ML-Implode

Since August 5th, we have been receiving sporadic reports from COMCAST broadband customers (and only COMCAST) customers that they cannot resolve ML-Implode.com, Implode-Explode.com, or any other IEHI sites or those hosted on our servers (such as www.restreportmatters.com).  This means they will get an error message in their browsers and cannot see anything on the sites at all (in fact, they cannot even look up the site’s underlying IP numerical address without taking more computer-geeky measures than most people are knowledgeable of).

Initially we assumed this was a transient error and just played the waiting game, as these sort of things usually work themselves out in the internet world. However, after a few days, it was still “radio silence” for COMCAST customers who also happened to be our readers. Complaints continued to pour into our inbox. We began advising people to now actually call COMCAST and complain, since perhaps the ISP was not aware of the situation.

Fantastically, in response, COMCAST technical support staff is actually telling people that the problem is with them(the customers)!

This is despite the fact that if the same people use workarounds — different DNS servers and/or software like OpenDNS –they can access ML-Implode and our other sites just fine. So the problem is provably with COMCAST’s centrally-managed DNS list.

It’s worth noting that COMCAST has over 20% of the internet service provider market share in the US, so one in five people in the US are being blocked from ML-Implode & friends!

Now that many of its own customers have made COMCAST aware of this, and a week has passed, we are forced to consider that “foul play” may be involved.

Many readers will recall that back in June, Wells Fargo, in an unprovoked action, closed the bank account of ML-Implode and, outrageously, all other accounts associated with ML founder Aaron Krowne (including another corp with a separate TaxID, and a nonprofit 501(c)3 — clear tortious interference… if any attorneys out there would like to take this on as a pro bono case…)

Wells Fargo went ahead with this action (a mere one day after Krowne learned it was looming) despite being made aware that there was no justification (i.e. problem with the account(s)). In other words, the decision had apparently been made from the top, and the “account review” letters sent out to ML-Implode were just a smokescreen/fraud.

We wrote about that publicly, which even provoked a canned response from a Wells Fargo PR lackey.

So now we have to wonder: did Wells Fargo pull strings with COMCAST to “punish” ML-Implode by blacking us out to the major US broadband provider? Or — even more disturbing — are Wells and COMCAST both mere instruments of a concerted action being directed from even higher levels — i.e. a harassment and subversion campaign by the government itself (and/or the masters of the all-powerful “banking cabal” — who make the US federal government jump when they say “jump”)?

Since COMCAST is by far the largest ISP, if “someone” wanted to send a signal to our plucky truth-to-power-speaking site by making it “disappear” as viewed from a single internet service provider, COMCAST would be the one to pick to send the clearest message — horse-head-like.

Of prime relevance, such web site/domain name “blackout-like” actions have been one of the government’s single-minded, demented obsessions very recently, as they have pursued a virtual rapid-fire series of legislative attempts to gain the ability to “turn off” internet domain names (and thus the web sites hosted on them) with as little checks on such a power as possible. Usually “copyright piracy” is the bogeyman providing the justification. First there wasCOICA, which died in the Senate, then SOPA and PIPA, which yielded to public and some industry outcry; and then the ACTA trade agreement (more or less bypasses the whole “Congressional” hassle) which was actually signed (but not yet ratified) in late 2011 and encompasses many of the same censorship risks as SOPA and PIPA.

But even more disconcerting to students of history and those who take close not on how tyranny expands its tentacles is that governments will often seek to pass such laws merely to provide a cover of legality for what they are already doing.

One has to wonder.