BitTorrent Police are out in force

Red Alert

From Slashdot:

slashdot.org wrote:

"An open-source bittorrent client, Deluge, now provides an internal, anonymizing browser to protect its users from overzealous ISPs. The client runs on Windows, Linux and OS X. From the site: "Everyone knows that it is common practice for ISPs to do their best to either block or throttle bittorrent users. We believe that this is wrong and unethical, as there are many legal uses for bittorrent. If an ISP is throttling or blocking bittorrent traffic, you can pretty much bet that they're tracking which users visit bittorrent-related sites so that they can better block or throttle those users." Their forum has more info"

http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/07/12/23/1439218.shtml


It seems some ISP's are checking web traffic to see who's a likely bittorrenter - I guess this means also that alternate ports, tunnelling etc. are less effective. Are the Irish ISP's up to this I wonder?

watty

Some don't care what you do, just throttle if you use more than cap.
Others do throttle torrents specifically
A few block nearly everything except email & browsing!

Cabaal

The fact that ISP's are watching for bittorent traffic and managing their network accordingly is nothing new,

godskitchen

Let be honest here, they are not doing it for fear of being taken to court by the movie/music business, they are doing it so the network is not brought to its knees by people downloading/uploading episodes of Heroes.................

I did use torrents and know how useful they can be, but most ISP's just cant cope with what torrents ask them to do. If they dont want you to use torrents they should say when you sign up. Simple as.

watty

It's always a good idea to read the fine print on the Cap and the Fair Use Policy. At the end of the day I think a rolling Cap is fairer than a Fair Use Policy that does not spell out the limits.

I agree an ISP should make it totally clear what they are selling you. Unfortunately there is very poor consumer protection and little regulation, so sometimes the "better" companies are under pressure from the "less honest"/"less transparent" ones.

Saruman

To be honest.. while i do download torrents myself... It does kill broadband. Even if you are using it to download legitimate free software, you still have multiple connections open... where as if you were downloading via http or ftp then you would usually only have one, maybe a few with a download manager.

I was out in a hotel last month and the internet was at a crawl. There were 3 torrent users on the system so we picked the one who was using the most bandwidth and banned his mac address. Internet was back to normal with this 1 guy off the system, even the other two torrent users did not kill it as much as him.... the point is, he could have been downloading something perfectly legal but he was fecking up the broadband for about 50 other guests.

Cabaal

Saruman wrote: »

To be honest.. while i do download torrents myself... It does kill broadband. Even if you are using it to download legitimate free software, you still have multiple connections open... where as if you were downloading via http or ftp then you would usually only have one, maybe a few with a download manager.

This is only because upload and download is not being set correctly within the bit torrent client, once you limit upload/download in accordance with the max up/down the line can handle then you can continue to browse, chat, webcam hell even game on the same line that somebody is using bittorrent on.

Sadly most people don't do this correctly and as you mention in relation to a hotel the feck over the network for everyone else

Wcool

If I read this correctly, Deluge provides more or less a service that browses for you (proxy).

If that is the case: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Even if Deluge claims they are trustworthy, there is no garantee, thus this is no real anonimity.

admol

Personally i'd advise anyone using torrents to use Peer Guardian2. While it won't stop your ISP from knowing your downloading it will stop a whole host of people out to get yout IP address.

http://phoenixlabs.org/pg2/

Cabaal

admol wrote: »

Personally i'd advise anyone using torrents to use Peer Guardian2. While it won't stop your ISP from knowing your downloading it will stop a whole host of people out to get yout IP address.

http://phoenixlabs.org/pg2/

Which of course is only something people fear when they download copyright material,

Red Alert

It's not illegal to keep your IP a secret or want to.

Capt'n Midnight

Red Alert wrote: »

It's not illegal to keep your IP a secret or want to.

:rolleyes:
The ISP's are legally obliged to keep your IP for three years.

ChRoMe

Has any person been taken the full way through the courts for downloading torrents in Ireland?

Even if someone did come knocking on your door there are several factors that would make it extremely difficult for it to be proven without a doubt that you were the person downloading the content.

I know a few cases in the states were thrown out because the accused simply stated that they had a unsecured wireless network.