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BitTorrent Plugin Detects ISPs Raping Your Torrents
gizmodo.com — Azureus actually operates a legit video delivery business using torrent, so they've been among the most vocal opponents to ISPs throttling torrents. To help build their case and create a detailed log of every ISP that scrambles torrents, along with their particular poison —short-circuiting uploads or general bandwidth caps, for instance—they've rele
stejules- 1355 diggs
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- louiebaur, on 03/27/2008, -1/+70Cool, there's a plug-in to let you know if they're hosing you. Now how to make them stop...
Personally I think what the ISP's are doing is borderline illegal. I'm paying for a service, particularly an allotment of bandwidth and they are basically taking it away from me during certain tasks. Could that not be construed as fraud?- BoneheadFarker, on 03/27/2008, -2/+47Not when they include the line "Service subject to change without notice" on your service agreement.
- gm33, on 03/27/2008, -3/+11Why is he being buried? It's the sad truth that that line is the excuse they hide behind for any and all service changes and modifications, good or bad.
- ohgr, on 03/27/2008, -0/+15Sometimes the truth hurts people. I don't think Bonehead is advocating what ISPs are doing. He's just stating what the legalities are. Read the fine print. They can pretty much do what they want to us, as long as we continue to pay. Aren't Lawyers awesome!
- hierophantus, on 03/27/2008, -1/+4Yep. Once again, it's the lawyers' fault. The ISPs were all like, "Pray, good counsel, how might we draft this service agreement so as to best serve our customers, giving them every possible benefit of the bargain?" Then the lawyers were all like, "Fie on that, knave! You must use our secret evil concoctions of finely printed language to confuse and exploit your fool customers! We, as your lawyers, demand it!" And the ISPs were all like, "Whatever you say! Don't hurt me! I'll learn to live with the guilt." And the lawyers were all like, "Ah-ha-hahhah-ha-haaa!" and disappeared in a cloud of sulphur.
- MWeather, on 03/27/2008, -0/+3That's more likely a scenario than you think. If you bring anything to the legal department to write up, they insist on putting in every loophole imaginable. It's their job to look out for the company.
- funtastico, on 03/27/2008, -1/+1Hierophantus' comment is the funniest of all comments i've read all week. LOL. Man keep that up and i'll be searching digg just for your comments if i need a good laugh. You should write comics and send them to the local newspaper. they'll get printed in the editorial after a related article.
- hierophantus, on 03/27/2008, -0/+3funtastico: I can't tell if you're being serious or sarcastic. Either way, I like it.
MWeather: There is some of that, but the lawyer is the company's agent. If the company doesn't want it in the contract, it doesn't go in. Much of lawyers' reputation for complicating transactions is deserved, even if some of it arises from misunderstanding of how the law works in practice. But people much too easily forget that anything lawyers do they do on someone's behalf, because that person wants it done. That's really the only point I was making. - MWeather, on 03/28/2008, -0/+1That's basically what I said. It's their job to look out for the company. The company is free to not take their advice, but most of it is the legal department's idea.
- hierophantus, on 03/27/2008, -1/+4Yep. Once again, it's the lawyers' fault. The ISPs were all like, "Pray, good counsel, how might we draft this service agreement so as to best serve our customers, giving them every possible benefit of the bargain?" Then the lawyers were all like, "Fie on that, knave! You must use our secret evil concoctions of finely printed language to confuse and exploit your fool customers! We, as your lawyers, demand it!" And the ISPs were all like, "Whatever you say! Don't hurt me! I'll learn to live with the guilt." And the lawyers were all like, "Ah-ha-hahhah-ha-haaa!" and disappeared in a cloud of sulphur.
- nxtwrld, on 03/27/2008, -0/+12i have discovered this behavior with UPC ISP, my downloads usually goes around 30k/s, but when I open the browser going to dslreports.com (which apparently test and review ISPs connection) my speed jumps to 300k/s. I guess that's "Fair Usage Policy" - FUP YOU, customer! :-(
- mookieXL, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1UPC is the worst ISP in the universe. They block everything that's not HTTP or some of other UPC-approved protocol. Hamachi, P2P, Skype, ICQ file transfers, everything.
- Kral, on 03/27/2008, -0/+6The government should restrict them from hacking on your traffic; we need net neutrality legislation. An ISP's job is to transport packets and it's none of their business what those packets contain.
- johnmearns, on 03/27/2008, -2/+0This isn't about your ISP trying to gouge google for some extra money or cut off your access to vonage so you have to buy their service, this is about an ISP keeping its costs in check. A small percentage of users use most of the bandwidth. I think there should be room in the market for an ISP that offers cheap rates to light users and has to throttle the heavy users some and there can be another ISP that charges more for the heavier users. If you expect dedicated bandwidth for the amount you pay for home broadband service you're just being unrealistic. Call up some ISPs and ask for pricing on services that have SLAs (service level agreements). You'll be able to get guaranteed non-throttled bandwidth but you'll pay more for it because its expensive to provide.
There is no free lunch and adding government to the mix isn't going to make it better. The big telecom companies have a ton of money and influence over legislation and no matter how much you hope and dream no law is going to come along thats going to force them to give you the bandwidth wet dream that they aren't even capable of providing. Best wishes and the financial reality an ISP face are different things.
- johnmearns, on 03/27/2008, -2/+0This isn't about your ISP trying to gouge google for some extra money or cut off your access to vonage so you have to buy their service, this is about an ISP keeping its costs in check. A small percentage of users use most of the bandwidth. I think there should be room in the market for an ISP that offers cheap rates to light users and has to throttle the heavy users some and there can be another ISP that charges more for the heavier users. If you expect dedicated bandwidth for the amount you pay for home broadband service you're just being unrealistic. Call up some ISPs and ask for pricing on services that have SLAs (service level agreements). You'll be able to get guaranteed non-throttled bandwidth but you'll pay more for it because its expensive to provide.
- johnmearns, on 03/27/2008, -1/+0Read your terms of service before you start getting puffy about whats "borderline illegal." You are not being offered guaranteed bandwidth for your home broadband service but a best effort attempt at speeds that may peak at XX rate. If your isp doesn't come near that rate often enough to please you its time to find a new one.
- BoneheadFarker, on 03/27/2008, -2/+47Not when they include the line "Service subject to change without notice" on your service agreement.
- jflowers45, on 03/27/2008, -0/+5I'm quite interested to see how the whole ISPs vs BitTorrent plays out as it will set some interesting precedents.
- chris9902, on 03/27/2008, -4/+20On the Azuresus wiki it says "limits bandwidth for accounts with a high traffic volume" and has BT UK down as no. That's *****. I've had my service cut twice in the last year and last month my profile was reset "by mistake" at the exchange server leaving me with 2 weeks of dial up.
That's not Bittorrent related they just don't like that fact I use lots of bandwidth. Despite the fact I have the top plan and my bandwidth is advertised as "unlimited". ***** BT ***** me off.- BarriedaleNick, on 03/27/2008, -2/+3BT are just ***** - I doubt very much you are being throttled by them
- flashmat, on 03/27/2008, -0/+2BT = ***** AND they throttle on http traffic.
Being the quintessential geek, I'm always on the PC till silly o'clock, and get to watch my torrent speeds jump from 30KB/s to over 300KB/s at midnight. My ssh tunnelled remote desktop sessions always seem to pick up a bit outside the evening rush (6) hour(s) as well.
Once my contract is up I'm back to Be
- flashmat, on 03/27/2008, -0/+2BT = ***** AND they throttle on http traffic.
- borez, on 03/27/2008, -2/+5Do yourself a favour mate, switch to: https://www.bethere.co.uk/
24mb line, free router and no throttling wot-so-ever. Best move I ever made.- maninalift, on 03/27/2008, -1/+224mb line? yeah right! if you happen to live in your local telephone exchange and bethere has no other customers in the area.
- borez, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1I get 18 meg ( but that's coz I'm on BePro and so have opted for the faster upload in favour of download, ) live a mile from the exchange and I'm in the Middle of London mate.
- erkayae, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1They also expect you to return the router when you're done with them or pay a fee of £100 to keep it.
- maninalift, on 03/27/2008, -1/+224mb line? yeah right! if you happen to live in your local telephone exchange and bethere has no other customers in the area.
- netdroid9, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1Unsurprising, I'm fairly certain they pay for bandwidth by the gig. Unlimited plans exist because people never use heaps all the time, and when people do use lots regularly they do whatever they can to make them stop. I was always under the impression Australia had very few unlimited plans because we're thousands of kilometers away from everywhere else and bandwidth's expensive due to cable costs and the usual gouging.
- syinner, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1Had the same problem with Plus.Net, moved to be unlimited https://www.bethere.co.uk/ and never looked back!
- borez, on 03/27/2008, -1/+3I agree as I've said above. Tell you what though, all that Virgin Internet ***** about them being the fastest in the UK really ***** me off.
1. They're not, they're 4meg slower then B and..
2. My time with Virgin was the worst provider experience I've ever had. It would get to around 6pm and the thing would just grind to a halt till around 10pm, this wasn't just throttling, it was literally ***** choking.
- borez, on 03/27/2008, -1/+3I agree as I've said above. Tell you what though, all that Virgin Internet ***** about them being the fastest in the UK really ***** me off.
- UnWeave, on 03/27/2008, -0/+2Um, no. BT Broadband UK is down as yes. Mustve been changed in between your posting and my reading...
- lukeev, on 03/27/2008, -0/+3Sounds like similar issues I've had Tiscali. They are subtle bastards.
- Kurlumbenus, on 03/27/2008, -2/+1Obviously limey tea-drinkers don't deserve the internets.
- borez, on 03/27/2008, -0/+3limey tea-drinkers invented the internets mate:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee- Kurlumbenus, on 03/27/2008, -1/+1The web isn't the internet, you ignorant goit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_Advanced_Rese ...
- Kurlumbenus, on 03/27/2008, -1/+1The web isn't the internet, you ignorant goit.
- borez, on 03/27/2008, -0/+3limey tea-drinkers invented the internets mate:
- MWeather, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1If they sold you an unlimited connection, then sue. I have a feeling you didn't read your contract, though.
- BarriedaleNick, on 03/27/2008, -2/+3BT are just ***** - I doubt very much you are being throttled by them
- mlerner, on 03/27/2008, -5/+4dugg for the title.
- borez, on 03/27/2008, -13/+10Could do with a Mac version.
- netdroid9, on 03/27/2008, -6/+14Because, y'know, Java is the least cross-platform language ever invented...
- borez, on 03/27/2008, -0/+17From the Azureus site mate: "Right now the plug-in only works on PCs, not Macs, but we are actively working on future versions."
- groverblue, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1So, is it dropping down to the driver/interface level?
- peteophile44, on 03/27/2008, -3/+2pwned
- borez, on 03/27/2008, -0/+17From the Azureus site mate: "Right now the plug-in only works on PCs, not Macs, but we are actively working on future versions."
- reclusivemonkey, on 03/27/2008, -4/+1http://azureus.sourceforge.net/howto_osx.php
- Ouze, on 03/27/2008, -7/+1Transmission is better on OSX, anyway, plugin or not.
- borez, on 03/27/2008, -0/+2Just checked it out, and have to agree... Yes, it's totally miles ahead of Azureus in every way
/sarc - iamthewurst, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1I just switched to Mac from windows around Christmas. I loaded transmission and haven't look back. It's clean and tight! No bloat.
- borez, on 03/27/2008, -0/+2Just checked it out, and have to agree... Yes, it's totally miles ahead of Azureus in every way
- netdroid9, on 03/27/2008, -6/+14Because, y'know, Java is the least cross-platform language ever invented...
- plizard, on 03/27/2008, -3/+68too bad there isn't a utorrent version
- Silverjam, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1Isn't it just done through the encryption option in utorrent?
- plizard, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1i'm pretty sure but you can never be too safe, i suppose
- MWeather, on 03/27/2008, -2/+3Just write your own. uTorrent is open s.. Wait, nevermind.
- Silverjam, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1Isn't it just done through the encryption option in utorrent?
- dcmcderm, on 03/27/2008, -4/+1Here in Calgary, AB we get 60 GB/month total traffic (up + down) no questions asked - after reading all the misery people go through with ISP throttling I'm nervous that my ISP will catch on...so far so good though. I tried this software and it didn't detect anything on a couple of slow-ish torrents I had going, just needed more seeders I guess. The thing that sucks for me now is that every time I can't get around 180 KB/s I panic and assume I'm getting throttled.
- kittnerrules, on 03/27/2008, -4/+8Just on the front page with ~2500 diggs, we don't need another one. Buried.
- deviouskoopa, on 03/27/2008, -0/+5http://www.azureuswiki.com/index.php/Bad_ISPs#Unit ...
BellSouth doesn't seem so bad. Why is it on the list, can someone clarify that for me?- lobofanina, on 03/27/2008, -0/+2Qwest doesn't screw you over either, that list is inaccurate.
- awesty, on 03/27/2008, -4/+7This is a dupe:
http://digg.com/software/Help_Azureus_to_Fight_Bit ...- kittnerrules, on 03/27/2008, -4/+1THANK you. Needed to be said.
- bobbknight, on 03/27/2008, -2/+1Who's Adelphia?
- AngryAngryBrian, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1Adelphia was a company created by John Rigas it was the fifth largest telecom company in the US. It went bankrupt after the Rigas got arrested for fudging numbers. Because of this scandal the center of the Adelphia empire (a small town in Rural PA) called Coudersport, PA has suffered near extinction with nearly the entire populous formerly employed by Adelphia. The remainder of the assets no gathered by the bankruptcy have gathered into a new Company called ZitoMedia which at current date services a few counties surrounding the now dying town of Coudersport.
tl;dr: They where once big, internal corruption, Bankruptcy, Founders Jailed.- groverblue, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1He stole millions from the company. IIRC, the owners built a huge house and other *****.
- AngryAngryBrian, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1Adelphia was a company created by John Rigas it was the fifth largest telecom company in the US. It went bankrupt after the Rigas got arrested for fudging numbers. Because of this scandal the center of the Adelphia empire (a small town in Rural PA) called Coudersport, PA has suffered near extinction with nearly the entire populous formerly employed by Adelphia. The remainder of the assets no gathered by the bankruptcy have gathered into a new Company called ZitoMedia which at current date services a few counties surrounding the now dying town of Coudersport.
- lenninct, on 03/27/2008, -0/+4Go bellsouth and to think i wanted to switch to comcast, yup not a single shade of green for my fast access dsl...
- incentives, on 03/27/2008, -1/+1All hail torrents!!
- marklittle, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1# http://www.vuze.com/content/FeaturedContent.html
# http://www.wortharchiving.com (Free Legal Downloads)
# http://f.scarywater.net/ (small)
# http://torrent.ibiblio.org/ (torrent front-end to selected ibiblio.org archive files) *RSS
# http://www.peerit.com/ (Legal, content costs money)
from: http://www.azureuswiki.com/index.php/Legal_torrent ... - Strunt, on 03/27/2008, -10/+2Buried for moronic geeks thinking that having your torrents throttled is synonymous with being raped. ***** yank tools.
- Vlatro, on 03/27/2008, -0/+3Raped = Unwillingly *****. Don't take it literally, it's an expression. A satirical analogy.
If you want a more literal explanation of the term, consider this: Pay $50 a month for 10Mbps access and get 512Kbps. Now consider that there is no free market alternative in your area, one ISP owns all the lines and has a complete monopoly. Your alternative consists of inadequate and overpriced service that you may be contractually bound to, or strapping 1972 style binary punch-cards to the feet or carrier pigeons. Yes, you ass would hurt from a ***** like that, as you sit lob-sided on a wallet that has no cash left in it to cushion your chair.
- Vlatro, on 03/27/2008, -0/+3Raped = Unwillingly *****. Don't take it literally, it's an expression. A satirical analogy.
- Vlatro, on 03/27/2008, -1/+12For those using Cable services that offer digital phone service (Time Warner etc.) Find out what ports are used for voice communication and setup a second client on those, using ONLY decentralized Tracker torrents. They don't monitor those as part of the bandwidth scaling procedure, they are exempt. With some smaller Cable ISPs, there is a much higher bandwidth cap on those as well (You pay for 2-4Mbps internet but the digital phone over the same line uses 6-10Mbps). If you're discovered, expect to void your contract and service to be discontinued, and even then you may have to continue paying the bill :( So don't do it if you just started a new 2 year contract. Exact instructions vary from one ISP to another, but check forums and you'll find the ports to use, and possibly a hacked firmware update for your modem. This is not the same thing as "uncapping" the connection, but is often referred to as such incorrectly and will be treated the same way by your ISP. Follow instructions carefully, read them twice before starting. If you're thinking about switching ISPs and have no contract, it may be worth a try.
Option 2: Call their tech support and have them send someone out for a service call because of a slow connection. Have a cold 6-pack waiting them. The techs at an ISP could give a damn how much bandwidth you use and they may be inclined (or persuaded) to bump up you cap. They all do it for their own service. My 6Mbps connection is now at a steady 20Mbps thanks to a tech guy from my ISP working some magic on his end, and all it took was the VPN password to my movie directory which he dutifully adds to as he downloads new stuff. They aren't the enemy. The enemy are the suits who make draconian policies on bandwidth, most of who have neither the time, inclination, or technical knowledge to monitor what's actually going on. The tech support guys are one of us, and we look out for our own.- Arlum, on 03/27/2008, -0/+0This comment made me tear up a little. We're all in this together!
- oshu, on 03/27/2008, -0/+2"Find out what ports are used for voice communication and setup a second client on those, using ONLY decentralized Tracker torrents. They don't monitor those as part of the bandwidth scaling procedure, they are exempt."
I hate to break it to you, but that is nonsense. TCP/IP doesn't work that way. VOIP doesn't work that way either. I see this all over the way, and it is just silly. A TCP/IP connect is a socket made up of source:port/destination:port and to think that your ISP would be fooled by torrent traffic from random host because it happens to be using a certain port is nutty. If you were only exchanging torrent traffic with their VOIP servers, you might be getting away with something, but obviously they aren't running BT.
Also, if you really think they are going to cancel you and make you pay out your contract for choosing to use one port over another, you are wrong. They might cancel you for using to much bandwidth, but the idea of "hiding" torrent traffic on VOIP ports is a myth.
- ThirdPrize, on 03/27/2008, -0/+2How about a TorrentIn' Bit Plug for Raping your ISPs?
- AdrewMc3, on 03/27/2008, -3/+2This just happened to me, I lost my Internet because I was downloading and uploading torrent, got it back and stopped using torrent (moving soon so I can live with it for now). I find it horrible that I can't use the Internet how I want, we pay for bandwidth, not to have you watching our back, what if I wanted to share my music, step up my own server for personal reason, I just can't because you decided that the Internet was only for e-mail and webpages, your scum.
- johnmearns, on 03/27/2008, -0/+0You pay for some bandwidth but not dedicated bandwidth. You can pay for that sort of bandwidth if you like but the cost is closer to what your ISP pays than the cost of sharing that bandwidth with other customers. When you get home broadband you're essentially agreeing to share a chunk of bandwith with several other people to offset the cost of that bandwidth. You won't all be using it at once and to capacity so you get it cheaper than it costs from a tier 1 ISP. The ISP you're buying from takes a little cut for themselves for bringing the service to your house and brokering the sharing arrangement. If you're hogging more resources and depriving the others of their cut, it seems fair that the ISP should ask you to find service elsewhere that can provide you with a constant use type level or service or restrict your usage. Similarly they might not want to deal with the hassles that come with your web server being rooted when you don't update whatever applications you have running on it.
I wish bandwidth were free and we could all have as much as we want. That isn't the reality of the situation though. If you want to use your pipe to capacity 100% of the time you're going to pay more than the average home broadband customer.
- johnmearns, on 03/27/2008, -0/+0You pay for some bandwidth but not dedicated bandwidth. You can pay for that sort of bandwidth if you like but the cost is closer to what your ISP pays than the cost of sharing that bandwidth with other customers. When you get home broadband you're essentially agreeing to share a chunk of bandwith with several other people to offset the cost of that bandwidth. You won't all be using it at once and to capacity so you get it cheaper than it costs from a tier 1 ISP. The ISP you're buying from takes a little cut for themselves for bringing the service to your house and brokering the sharing arrangement. If you're hogging more resources and depriving the others of their cut, it seems fair that the ISP should ask you to find service elsewhere that can provide you with a constant use type level or service or restrict your usage. Similarly they might not want to deal with the hassles that come with your web server being rooted when you don't update whatever applications you have running on it.
- johnmearns, on 03/27/2008, -0/+0I'd say its time to call the ISP and complain if you're being throttled in a way you feel is unfair. If they don't listen take your business and the business of everyone else that relies on your computer related advice to a competitor
- pyrates, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1Yay telus isn't even on that list for Canada.
- cyantist, on 03/28/2008, -0/+0Telus is already slow, so throttling is pointless...
- hotbeefman, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1"Strike me down and two will rise up in my place. You can't stop the social." ~ Internet
- antdude, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1"They've already got a wiki going of the worst torrent ISPs, with Cablevision, RCN and Adelphia pulling the same tactics as Comcast."
Um, Adelphia is dead. - raaaaaa, on 03/28/2008, -0/+1cablevision here in Jersey takes it one step further, they clock down your bandwith from 6MBS to 2MBS if they catch you running bitorrent..
there excuse is you are not aloud to run a server on there network
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