Is this ISP problem because of GSA SER ?
Recently I have been running GSA SER on my home network without any proxies or anything, I have just been posting to verified lists of mine.
obviously I was pretty sure this was because of GSA SER, but I wanted to be sure. So I actually told the guy what they might be seeing might be from software I'm using, and he was like "no no I don't think what were seeing is from that". He said something along the lines of "it appears one of your computers has some kind of virus or malware on it and it's going out and attacking firewalls". I was thinking lol ok. So he said to run full scans on all the PCs and I should be good.
A couple weeks go by and all is good, then I get another call again today saying the same stuff. That there is some virus on one of the PCs and that I should run scans on all our PCs. I'm not even sure what kind of bandwidth I have been using from GSA, have not been keeping track. But none of the guys have even commented on my bandwidth usage, so I'm guessing that is not an issue.
Anyways I would like to avoid any ISP problems so how should I best solve this? Should I just get a VPS setup, or could I use a VPN for now? Like in the past I tested the free ProXPN service and it actually seemed to work pretty good but a bit slow. Would something like that keep Comcast from contacting us anymore ?
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Well would be interesting to know why they think it's a virus though. All that this software does is searching + posting according to your settings.
Sorry I can't really help but yes, maybe proxies is the best option for you. A VPS might help as well but might be more expensive. No VPN, thats usually not that suitable.
Just because you use proxies doesn't mean they can't measure the bandwidth you use with your account. You use proxies to avoid complaints against the IP that Comcast assigned you. That is what you are protecting against - complaints against you.
It sounds like they are concerned about the deviation in bandwidth usage. It sounds like you had a light usage pattern, and then suddenly with SER it spiked. They thought somebody tapped in to your line, more than likely.
I ran SER at home for 8 months only turning it off to reboot and clear cache every so often. So my usage was consistent 24/7 and I never heard a peep. They really don't care about you running software nonstop, so don't get paranoid and think you are doing anything wrong.
The great thing about Comcast (just an fyi) is that their business class is $100 and you can run 5 SER's on there - and you will never hear from them again. I was tempted with that offer many times, but I was tying up my pc, so I went to vps's. I also heard that they are going to jump from 100Mbps to 1 Gbps. So things are going to get a lot more powerful on their end.
The same problem I had and have: my ISP blocked my internet immediately after I run SER (without proxies) the first time and said I have very dangerous malware named "regbot".
They let me to completely reinstall my PC.
But only bandwich was interesting for them.
Now they cannot claim anymore I have malware and because of this they simply reduce my bandwich (50 Mbps flat rate) nearly to zero!
I just got word from somebody I trust that Comcast has recently instituted a bandwidth constraint on residential accounts as of this past month. I heard it was 300 GB/mth, and they will shut you down, throttle you back, etc.
It never used to be like that ever. I would do some research on the internet about this. You may need to move to a VPS.
Normal usage for SER - when you are really running - goes into TB (terrabytes) per month, so I don't see you as having many options in your situation. Other than looking into Comcast commercial grade. At which point a VPS will likely be cheaper.