4 ms·

And encryption so your ISP doesn't get to see it is torrent traffic.

TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
I could be wrong but I don’t think encryption helps in the case of BitTorrent? Encrypted or not, BitTorrent traffic still looks like BitTorrent traffic. The BitTorrent protocol has a peculiar connection pattern.
- TheDong 8y ago
  Please explain how its traffic pattern looks different than, say, an xbox360 game where one console hosts and the other consoles connect. Or from a webrtc video call / ring [0] call. Or a person downloading a few files from 10 to 20 different websites. I don't see how my computer connecting to 10 ips is characteristic of bit-torrent and not of performing encrypted communication of another type with said ips. [0]: https://ring.cx/ https://ring.cx/
  - TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
    I believe I may have mentioned I could be wrong. I'm not expert, but I can imagine how it might be possible to determine BitTorrent traffic from Xbox 360, voice call, or simultaneous downloads from 20 different websites, using flow analysis and some other data points, to a fairly high degree of certainty, in some cases. In support of my amateur assessment I present the following Wikipedia entry on the subject: "Some ISPs are now using more sophisticated measures (e.g. pattern/timing analysis or categorizing ports based on side-channel data) to detect BitTorrent traffic. This means that even encrypted BitTorrent traffic can be throttled. However, with ISPs that continue to use simpler, less costly methods to identify and throttle BitTorrent, the current solution remains effective.[citation needed] Analysis of the BitTorrent protocol encryption (a.k.a. MSE) has shown that statistical measurements of packet sizes and packet directions of the first 100 packets in a TCP session can be used to identify the obfuscated protocol with over 96% accuracy.[22] The Sandvine application uses a different approach to disrupt BitTorrent traffic ..." I guess like everything, it's an arms race; and a sufficiently determined network monitor probably has the average BitTorrent user blocked. Might not be worth the effort though. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent_protocol_encryption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent_protocol_encryption
  - gruez 8y ago
    >Please explain how its traffic pattern looks different than, say, an xbox360 game where one console hosts and the other consoles connect. because you're maybe connecting to 100 players max, with relatively low bandwidth use >Or from a webrtc video call / ring [0] call. again, relatively low bandwidth >Or a person downloading a few files from 10 to 20 different websites. those websites run on port 80 or 443 whereas torrents use random ports > 1024, so that's a dead giveaway there. plus most people (even powerusers) don't have 10 to 20 parallel downloads from multiple sites. even if it's really someone downloading from 10 to 20, that probably puts them in the 99.99 percentile of bandwidth use, and they probably should be throttled anyways.
    - TropicalAudio 8y ago
      >if it's really someone downloading from 10 to 20, that probably puts them in the 99.99 percentile of bandwidth use, and they probably should be throttled anyways. That's a really strange sentiment to me. I'm paying for 100mb/s, not for "100 mb/s, in certain specific circumstances over specific protocols". Ones and zeros, the rest of it is _my_ concern, not my ISP's.
      - chipotle_coyote 8y ago
        Actually, what you're paying for is probably "bursts up to 100 mb/s" rather than "sustained traffic of 100 mb/s," whether or not it's marketed that way. ISPs commonly "oversubscribe" trunk lines dramatically. Back when I did trunk management at a big ISP in the dark ages of the internet (the late '90s), we oversubscribed at about a 5:1 ratio: basically, we sold 5 times as much bandwidth as the trunk actually had. As long as there was free bandwidth available you could get your full amount, but the amount you were guaranteed was one-fifth of that. Of course, those were business lines and all those numbers were actually in the fine print of the contract. As far as I've been able to determine, if your residential ISP is only oversubscribing at a 10:1 ratio, you're pretty lucky (I've seen some reports from industry consulting firms that suggest 50:1 is more common), and the chances are they're not guaranteeing a minimum speed they can be held to.
        8y ago
  - rakoo 8y ago
    The handshake for establishing a bittorrent connection with a peer literally starts with the string "Bittorrent protocol". I don't think it's that hard for ISPs to detect that. Bittorrent encryption prevents that but it's not used everywhere.

I could be wrong but I don’t think encryption helps in the case of BitTorrent? Encrypted or not, BitTorrent traffic still looks like BitTorrent traffic. The BitTorrent protocol has a peculiar connection pattern.

TheDong 8y ago
Please explain how its traffic pattern looks different than, say, an xbox360 game where one console hosts and the other consoles connect. Or from a webrtc video call / ring [0] call. Or a person downloading a few files from 10 to 20 different websites. I don't see how my computer connecting to 10 ips is characteristic of bit-torrent and not of performing encrypted communication of another type with said ips. [0]: https://ring.cx/ https://ring.cx/
- TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
  I believe I may have mentioned I could be wrong. I'm not expert, but I can imagine how it might be possible to determine BitTorrent traffic from Xbox 360, voice call, or simultaneous downloads from 20 different websites, using flow analysis and some other data points, to a fairly high degree of certainty, in some cases. In support of my amateur assessment I present the following Wikipedia entry on the subject: "Some ISPs are now using more sophisticated measures (e.g. pattern/timing analysis or categorizing ports based on side-channel data) to detect BitTorrent traffic. This means that even encrypted BitTorrent traffic can be throttled. However, with ISPs that continue to use simpler, less costly methods to identify and throttle BitTorrent, the current solution remains effective.[citation needed] Analysis of the BitTorrent protocol encryption (a.k.a. MSE) has shown that statistical measurements of packet sizes and packet directions of the first 100 packets in a TCP session can be used to identify the obfuscated protocol with over 96% accuracy.[22] The Sandvine application uses a different approach to disrupt BitTorrent traffic ..." I guess like everything, it's an arms race; and a sufficiently determined network monitor probably has the average BitTorrent user blocked. Might not be worth the effort though. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent_protocol_encryption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent_protocol_encryption
- gruez 8y ago
  >Please explain how its traffic pattern looks different than, say, an xbox360 game where one console hosts and the other consoles connect. because you're maybe connecting to 100 players max, with relatively low bandwidth use >Or from a webrtc video call / ring [0] call. again, relatively low bandwidth >Or a person downloading a few files from 10 to 20 different websites. those websites run on port 80 or 443 whereas torrents use random ports > 1024, so that's a dead giveaway there. plus most people (even powerusers) don't have 10 to 20 parallel downloads from multiple sites. even if it's really someone downloading from 10 to 20, that probably puts them in the 99.99 percentile of bandwidth use, and they probably should be throttled anyways.
  - TropicalAudio 8y ago
    >if it's really someone downloading from 10 to 20, that probably puts them in the 99.99 percentile of bandwidth use, and they probably should be throttled anyways. That's a really strange sentiment to me. I'm paying for 100mb/s, not for "100 mb/s, in certain specific circumstances over specific protocols". Ones and zeros, the rest of it is _my_ concern, not my ISP's.
    - chipotle_coyote 8y ago
      Actually, what you're paying for is probably "bursts up to 100 mb/s" rather than "sustained traffic of 100 mb/s," whether or not it's marketed that way. ISPs commonly "oversubscribe" trunk lines dramatically. Back when I did trunk management at a big ISP in the dark ages of the internet (the late '90s), we oversubscribed at about a 5:1 ratio: basically, we sold 5 times as much bandwidth as the trunk actually had. As long as there was free bandwidth available you could get your full amount, but the amount you were guaranteed was one-fifth of that. Of course, those were business lines and all those numbers were actually in the fine print of the contract. As far as I've been able to determine, if your residential ISP is only oversubscribing at a 10:1 ratio, you're pretty lucky (I've seen some reports from industry consulting firms that suggest 50:1 is more common), and the chances are they're not guaranteeing a minimum speed they can be held to.
      - 8y ago
- rakoo 8y ago
  The handshake for establishing a bittorrent connection with a peer literally starts with the string "Bittorrent protocol". I don't think it's that hard for ISPs to detect that. Bittorrent encryption prevents that but it's not used everywhere.