What is Digg?107 Comments
- Corvillus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+86I doubt they'll be differentiating at all between legal and illegal BitTorrent content. It all takes a lot of upstream bandwidth anyway. (It actually allows people to use the connection they paid for, and with the overselling ISPs often do, we can't have that now can we?) It's easier on their end just to cripple the protocol as a whole rather than bother being selective (and this is exactly what some ISPs do).
- aarona, on 10/12/2007, -0/+81Good mainstream example: World of Warcraft patches are distributed, officially, via BitTorrent. My ISP throttles BT - my college, before I graduated, started cutting off BT altogether. Despite multiple complaints to both entities, the response has generally been "piss off." Thank god we have alternative choices for high speed internet in my area.
Oh, that's right. We don't. - sophiaperennis, on 10/12/2007, -1/+78I was wondering how they are going to differentiate between, what they would consider 'illegal Bit-Torrent', and Bit-Torrent traffic from 'Legal' companies that use Bit-Torrent to distribute their movies / TV-series / music downloads?
- TheBowerbird, on 10/12/2007, -2/+51What kind of a geek makes a product to thwart geekdom? : ( I say down with these companies of turncoats.
- merreborn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+44The same ones that make DRM.
- Serinox, on 10/12/2007, -3/+37word of this must never reach my isp....
- merreborn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+29The issue isn't servers, it's bandwidth.
- chess007, on 10/12/2007, -0/+28"In the end, BitTorrent is no different from any other protocol that has allowed people to download files over the web. Some will try to take advantage of it and grab more bandwidth than their fair share."
Wait...if i'm paying for a certain upload speed & download speed, why shouldn't I be able to use it?? "Fair share" is whatever the maximum bandwidth your connection allows. - gmillerd, on 10/12/2007, -1/+28just because some ***** can sniff hard crunchy encrypted compressed packets with a probe, doesnt mean someone is going to install, license and support it. seems like a investment lure to me.
- trebor, on 10/12/2007, -0/+25they don't want the tubes getting clogged.
- maninblac1, on 10/12/2007, -1/+26Well, here's is the greatest issue, the RC4 encryption is designed to completely mask the packet's contents, naturally if it can be encrypted it must be decrypted. But there are privacy concerns about inspecting encrypted traffic, not necessarily the simply privacy issues but the very complex ones. Like does someone (an ISP) have the right to decrypt and inspect anything that i send through the internet, doesn't that undermine the principles of security on the internet, if they can do it to RC4, why not SSL or SSH?
Secondly, encrypted torrent traffic looks like VPN traffic since it is generally based on the same encryption. If you throttle traffic based on algorithem, you're also simulataneously throttling VPN traffic which is important to many corporate environments who allow their workers to access network resources at home or on the road.
This will probably die in to a black hole of nothingness, or generate a big legal fuss. - themastersb, on 10/12/2007, -2/+25They give you a set bandwith. You should be able to use it how you please.
- waynechng, on 10/12/2007, -1/+22@qwertydvorak and handcannon
By your argument, if you buy a car and pay for registration and license, you shouldn't be able to drive it 24 hours a day if you want because that would be "abusing" the system and getting something for free.
You guys are pinheads who don't understand the point being made. - dagamer34, on 10/12/2007, -0/+20Wait, how can they tell that packets are BT packets if they are encrypted? Wouldn't that require a bunch of packet analysis and slow down your connection eventually anyway?
The funny thing is how they advertise needing hardware to do this kind of thing. Easiest way to see if someone is torrenting is to check and see if they actually USE their upload at all. Of course, ISP's can't *legally* do that, because what court is ever going to uphold an arrest for using resources you paid for?! :P - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+16They can't decrypt RC4 torrent traffic without the shared secret of the torrent file. They don't know which torrent file you are using, so all they see is patterns of encrypted traffic that look kind of like filesharing. Their new deep packet inspection probably just slows things down if there are over 5 connections of encrypted traffic, something along the lines of "it might be torrentz!".
- Saintlink, on 10/12/2007, -0/+15I see this ending in caps at the end of the day regarding how much total bandwidth we have. This Bit Torrent thing is only short-term arms race, but in the end they'll just place more limits as to what you can do with your account.
- insomniac8400, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16- qwertydvorak
What are you talking about? Health insurance provders doesn't advertise unlimited services for 40 dollars a month, if they did you can be sure they would get taken to court in a second for trying to limit your usage of your unlimited healthcare as long as your paying the fee. Insurance companies have lots of terms and give you your usage agreements up front. You know your deductibles, copays, etc. Broadband companies also give you your terms upfront, they say you have unlimited use. But for some reason we haven't seen the class action lawsuit against ISPs over their clearly incorrect advertising and descriptions when buying their service.
- Handcannons
It's not something for nothing, people pay for their unlimited connections. - xinul, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15he is a sell out and is dead to us. I honestly dont think he believes that but is only saying that to preserve his commercial interest.
- Handcannons, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13They won't lose customers in many if not most areas because there aren't any choices for broadband. I have the choice of cable with 1 ISP or satelite which hardly counts as broadband.
- Vision77, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13Could this be bad news for all encrypted traffic? Who is to say this company along with ISP's will limit this to just bittorrent traffic? I'm pretty sure homeland security will interested in this for other purposes. This could be bad news for us who value any sort of privacy while being online.
- godsfilth, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12dont they have to crack the encryption somehow to know its BT and therefore break the DMCA to do that?
- starmanjones, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13i think that you'll find most ISP's are not concerned about the type of traffic they are concerned about the bandwidth.
there is also an issue that ISPs are having a tough time dealing with and that is the legal standing of a common carrier. RIAA routinely threatens network admins with legal action. i used to get email informing me that someone on a specific IP downloaded such and such. they demanded that i go to that users computer and delete the files and send them proof that i had done so... or they would sue me. but doing that would entail going to a users house- getting on their computer and deleting files. the police don't have those privileges. i finally made an auto reply that said ***** off. i didn't pay any attention after that. but if i had done that... or started controlling what users had access to we could not call ourselves a common carrier- and we legally would become some form of publisher and therefore responsible for what users did.
its a catch 22. seems like its loosening in favor ISPs not loosing common carrier status for some more control over users. i don't think the laws have changed just the enforcement. - xxNIRVANAxx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11and not a moment too soon, because I'm ditching Rogers Ultra-Crap to 3Web gold DSL :P Cheaper and faster, and they don't throttle or give a damn what your downloading :D
- rworne, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11Answer: they won't.
I have a well-liked, consumer friendly ISP I heard about on /.
I got a call one day from their abuse department. First they wanted to know if I had any wireless routers that were not secured (answer: no) and if I was aware of any applications that would be responsible for the large daily downloads that are showing up on their traffic report for my account.
They knew damn well it was Bittorrent or some other P2P app and I told them to stop beating around the bush and said I knew what the "problem" was. They didn't tell me to stop, but to cool it down with the downloads since my bandwidth usage was so high. I agreed, since I rather like our arrangement with the company and didn't want to piss them off either.
The point is they can identify BT users not only by the packets. If a user is downloading more than the average traffic per week/month for an average user, bingo! We have someone running P2P.
Oh, and how much was our average daily usage at the time? 6-7 GB (yes, gigabytes, including all the DSL overhead) per day on average based on the number of frames we were using. The wife is a Japanese expat and was getting all her Japanese TV via BT using the internet as a giant TiVo. - QuimZ, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10NOBODY WILL EVER CEASE THE SHARING OF FILES BETWEEN 2 COMPUTERS..
The ISP's, the RIAA, MPAA, anyone concerned really; You have probably come to this realization by now, but here's a reminder, You will never stop P2P traffic or piracy. You find a way to block BT traffic, and encrypted BT traffic, we will make a way around it. Do the Internet service providers think the alternatives we come up with for file sharing, won't eat bandwidth? Keep wasting your customer-gouged money on trying to limit what a person can do with their bandwidth, it will never work! - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+13***** all this. I pirate, and I will continue to pirate. Go to hell. I pay for my line through my isp, and I will use it as I see fit.
This will fail because it is an invasion of privacy. Or, bush and the republicans (and even democrats) will support our privacy going to ***** hell. *sigh* - NightRush, on 10/12/2007, -7/+16Insted of wasting money on that kinda crap, why not upgrade the servers so it isnt a big deal?
- Narayan, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10I don't understand why they put so much money towards stopping the flow of BT traffic. The users will always find another way to get what they want. Is it really worth it to the ISPs to shell out that sort of cash just to stop BT traffic just so the users can find another way around their blockade?
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9I supposedly get 100 GB/month but what is the point if they cripple all the protocols so you can't use what you bought? I called up my provider (Shaw) to complain when I noticed this, and they denied it. Of course we all know they have been doing this due to several press releases from their deep packet inspection provider and the fact that you can just check "require RC4 encryption" in Azureus and all is well again.
If they couldn't provide what they sold me, they shouldn't have sold it. They are lying skinflints, but there is only one other alternative here and they are worse. I'll just keep switching protocols as required. Bram Cohen can bite me. His idea that ISPs will cache torrent traffic isn't going to fly. All the ISPs are greedy scum bags that would sell their own grandmothers to save a GB. - xinul, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9I think it is more about stifling the masses. Anytime something like bt becomes so popular that the cute little intern at your office knows about it they want to put the breaks on. Those of us on the cutting edge will always have other ways but those others not so involved will be out of the loop and that's what they want.
- fatalfury, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Shouldn't this fall under net neutrality? ISPs do not have the right to decide what internet traffic you can or cannot get.
- ayeroxor, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10hardcannons, you ignorant bitch: Every person or company on the internet pays for their connection/bandwidth. There is NO SUCH THING as bandwidth without paying for it. When will you and your "tubes" senator get this through your heads?
- rworne, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10 themastersb:
I can. They just don't expect me to hammer the full rate 24/7. They said the average "heavy user" uses about 3.5GB/day as an average rate. I agreed with them that 7GB/day was excessive (even I was shocked) and if I kept the traffic below 4GB/day they'd leave me be.
So some quick work in Azureus and putting limits on the wife's download speeds and she's capped at about 3GB/day. - Qoogirl, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Handcannons is right. ISPs control entire city neighborhoods with absolutely no competition. If they start blocking out BT because of bandwidth concerns, what else comes next? If they're going to charge us an arm and a leg, maybe they should start updating. I want Japan's Yahoo! Hikari Fiber :( :( :(
- webcrumb, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8WTF? Bandwidth does exist. Look up the water analogy.
Someone has to put the cables in. Someone has to pay for the switches. Someone has to pay for the servers. Someone has to pay for the power. This is what costs.
The more data being transferred the more expensive hardware is needed, the more processing must be done, the more power is consumed.
I suppose food should be free because sunlight costs nothing? - jejones, on 10/12/2007, -3/+11That just means that the next stage will be steganography for BitTorrent packets.
- jasvanth, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9this is stupid. if isp are trying to keep their perfomance in check by crippling bit torrent, whats the use, they will lose coustomers anyways. i might be wrong but there was mention of bandwidth. if your are offering unlimited bandwidth you cant say we will restrict you in certain areas. most providers just set limits anyways
- chmod, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6What would they do instead?
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7I wonder how many customers will stop subscribing to high speed if the ISP's keep limiting what users can do. Like the article said, "don't bite the hand that feeds you."
- DarknessGP, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I find it odd about my situation. My ISP is a local one of which I am personally friends with the family that runs it. They don't do any blocking/shaping of any kind. You pay XX dollars for XX bandwidth to use anyway you please. The problem I have is that the company that my local ISP buys their connection from blocks BT packets, and there is nothing my local ISP can do to get them to change it. So I love the encryption, as it actually means I can do what I want with the bandwidth I pay for.
- dankosaur, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Also, CDP isn't a solution for piracy... The link say that only torrents with legally licensed content will be cached.
- NoOneButMe, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Although, server-side caching isnt exactly a new idea - let alone a revolutionary one. Besides, good luck convincing ISP's to add more storage for cache, when they're already cutting down on Usenet due to piracy, and its cost.
The hardware described here's probably cheaper and easier to implement then the cache protocol for bittorrent is. - realyst, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6That Pirate Bay darknet is starting to sound real handy.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6They have no clue what the packets actually hold... Breaking the encryption is illegal thanks to our much loved DMCA (haha). This isn't actually a new concept, isps have been using traffic shaping to block bittorrent traffic for a while. Basically any connection that branches like bittorrent does must be p2p, and your isp doesn't like p2p because it costs them money.
Fortunately for us when they start blocking selected traffic they lose common carrier status. This means that the ISP is now responsible (in part) for all illegal things that you do with your connection. - samdu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Here's an idea... if the ISPs don't want people using as much bandwidth as possible, THEY SHOULD STOP SELLING THEIR SERVICE AS "Unlimited." If I pay for the bandwidth, I should GET the bandwidth.
- Lambretta, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5OK, this ***** me.
I pay for xGB of data per month - why should my ISP give a toss what data it is (besides the concern they may have about the legitimacy of the files).
I don't understand why this statistic of how much internet traffic is BT is always raised. If BT wasn't being used the highest proportion may turn out to be just normal old traffic created by people viewing web pages.
This is crap, ISP's are effectively saying - yeah, thanks for your $$ here is 40GB a month you can down load but, oh, we don't want you to really use it all. - Halodude1489, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5"WTF? Bandwidth does exist. Look up the water analogy.
Someone has to put the cables in. Someone has to pay for the switches. Someone has to pay for the servers. Someone has to pay for the power. This is what costs.
The more data being transferred the more expensive hardware is needed, the more processing must be done, the more power is consumed.
I suppose food should be free because sunlight costs nothing"
And I guess that 50$ a month I pay for crap 8mbs is totaly free? I might use about 20gigs a month if theirs enough stuff to download but I usually use 12gb a month and that costs what? 8$? Woah now im totaly ruining their profit's!.... Seriously isp's need to upgrade and get used to it. - Ratteler, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4This is why we need true net nutrality laws.
I'm stuck with my ISP by geography. That means NO COMPETITION!
The only reason I bother with broadband is for bittorrent.
If my ISP tries this *****, I'll dump their ass and just use my cell phone Broadband. If I'm not getting what I want anyway, at least I can NOT GET IT anywhere I choose. - Feyr, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5i work for an ISP. and we don't have a usenet server at all anymore.
why? it wasn't being used, and the damn thing cost 800$/month in bandwidth to run (full feed, and im pretty sure that was getting throttled because the link wasn't fast enough).
that was about 4 years ago - chmod, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5You do know what steganography is right? You would be increasing the size of downloads to the point where bit torrent would be completely pointless. Besides, steganography is not perfect. If they are willing to implement a system to break encrypted packets (mind you I have no idea what type of encryption bit torrent uses) they will probably just implement a form of steganalysis.
-
Show 51 - 100 of 107 discussions
Browsing Digg on your phone just got easier with our enhancements to the 
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is