Re: [bitcoin-dev] AT&T has effectively banned Bitcoin nodes by closing port 8333 via a hidden firewall in the cable box

[Milly Bitcoin <milly@bitcoins.info>]

> I have been struggling to get port 8333 open all year,
>
> After hours of phone calls and messaging AT&T finally told me the truth
> of what was going on,

I went through this Comcast involving another port.  When they blocked 
the port I asked them the reason (I referenced their privacy policy that 
they are supposed to disclose my account info to me).  they told me it 
didn't matter what their privacy policy said, they weren't going to tell 
me.  I then showed up in federal court and testified as to what they 
were doing.  It was a class action lawsuit against them for people who 
tried to get refunds over bandwidth throttling and I was one of members 
of the class.

In any event the solution for me was to get a business account rather 
than a residential account.  You get a gateway that you can configure 
yourself and you can turn off the firewall.  As far as I can tell no 
ports are blocked like residential accounts.  The cost was an extra 
$10/month (unless you get other options like fixed IP and/or increased 
bandwidth).  maybe you can get the data from bitnodes.io to see if any 
ISP is blocking nodes.  Maybe stats could be posted based on ISP.  I 
have been running a node through that account for awhile now 
https://getaddr.bitnodes.io/nodes/70.90.2.18-8333/

Russ