shivan.org

shivan.org

Bruce Locke  //  Network Analyst who plays around with many things open source when he is not feeding his MMORPG addiction.

Dec 31 2008 / 8:20pm

Viacom Fails At The Internet

As part of Viacom and Time Warner Cable's current spat over licensing fees Viacom has resorted to putting a pop-up message on it's websites targeted towards Time Warner customers.

Unfortunately they somehow include the college network that I help run as if we were Time Warner residential customers. The IP allocation is under our name, the DNS reverse resolves for IP addresses contain our name, we have our own ASN with redundant BGP paths over fiber. And yet because we use Time Warner's Commercial division as an upstream we are somehow on a list of netblocks that are Time Warner residential customers. This is retarded. I can't see any possible reason for us to be on that list other than Viacom is blindly looking up BGP paths and punishing anyone whose path travels through Time Warner.

I spammed a few email addresses on Viacom's side to ask them to remove us in case they decide to escalate this little spat and outright block TWC customers from viewing videos on their website. But considering any useful contacts are usually hidden at such companies I doubt I'll ever get a response.

In the meanwhile I'm glad most of our students are not here as these message would create a lot of confusion.

Filed under // General

2 comments

Dec 31, 2008
Friendly Hint said...
Check the investor relations page on their website. They usually have a real number for their contact at headquarters, as I believe (but am far from sure) is mandated by federal law. When it goes through and you get the person, say that you think you were connected to the wrong extension and ask to be connected to the receptionist. Then ask to be connected to the marketing department, or IT department or whatever department you'd like. Be really nice to the receptionist and secretaries and you usually can get through to someone with half a brain (or more, if you're lucky).
Jan 01, 2009
Bruce said...
Hmm I hadn't thought of that, thanks for the suggestion.

Thankfully Viacom and Time Warner settled so thats that.

Leave a comment...