BitTorrent Encryption Confuses the BPI, ISPs and Journalists Who Don’t Research
Written by Ernesto on November 09, 2007A recently published article by The Register claims that an increase in encrypted BitTorrent traffic is due to the fact that people want to hide or scramble the files they are sharing. Apparently some tech journalists, and in particular the anti-piracy organizations, have no clue what BitTorrent encryption actually does.
Encrypted BitTorrent traffic now accounts for 40% of all BitTorrent traffic in the UK according to the article. The Register claims that filesharers use encryption to scramble their data so they can protect themselves from being caught, and the comments from a music industry representative make it seem like people can indeed hide what they are sharing. Unfortunately, none of it is true
This is what Matt Phillips, of the record industry trade association the British Phonographic Institute told the Register: “Our internet investigations team, internet service providers and the police are well aware of encryption technology: it’s been around for a long time and is commonplace in other areas of internet crime. It should come as no surprise that if people think they can hide illegal activity they will attempt to.”
So if it’s not hiding anything, why do people use BitTorrent encryption then?
I’ll try to explain it once more to the BPI, IFPI and RIAA and some tech journalists, just so they don’t embarrass themselves again in the future. BitTorrent encryption has nothing to do with hiding the data you’re sharing, it only hides the fact that you’re using BitTorrent to do so.
Encryption was designed to prevent ISPs from throttling BitTorrent traffic, which they started doing approximately 2 years ago. ISPs use so called traffic shaping devices to identify and slow down BitTorrent traffic because it takes up a lot of bandwidth (read: costs a lot of money). BitTorrent encryption, which is now supported by all the popular BitTorrent clients, hides the protocol header. As a result, these devices can’t detect that someone is using BitTorrent and you can download at full speed.
So, encryption does not hide the actual data people are sharing, everyone can still connect to a BitTorrent swarm, record your IP-address, and send you an infringement notice.
Now back to the claim that 40% of the BitTorrent traffic is encrypted in the UK. My first question would be, how do they know that it’s BitTorrent traffic if it’s encrypted? Apart from that I think 40% is a little too high, unless the ISP that reported the data is throttling BitTorrent traffic of course. We’ve been tracking the number of people who actually use encryption and it is currently slightly below 10%. It could be of course that these people are responsible for 40% of the traffic, but I seriously doubt that.
Bottom line is, anti-piracy organizations should take some time to read up on what filesharing actually is before they are going to accuse people of something, but I guess that’s wishful thinking.
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Seeing as privacy appears to be a major concern as of late - Would it not be in the interests for someone to design some sort of protocol ie a new version of Bittorrent which doesn’t expose your IP or anything about yourself?
You can’t expect them to have any knowledge of the technology of sharing, especially when they think it’s so evil.
OMGZ, TEH PIRATEZ R COMIN 2 TAK MAH DOLLARZ, LETZ MAK UOP FAK STATZ, YO
balls in a hat
Irony is that people reading this probably already have a fairly good idea about how bittorrent and encryption works….it’s the rest of the population that doesn’t
In case you didn’t know, if BT traffic is encrypted or not, it’s so easy to spot on a network. BT traffic has a very predictable connection flow even if its encrypted. Go head do some testing of your own, youll find out it’s so easy to spot.
Bottom line is, anti-piracy organizations talk crap and have little-to-no effect on file sharing
my isp is know blocking/throttling encrypted torrents as well… so, we better come up with new ways to bypass it. :(
[quote comment="207198"]Seeing as privacy appears to be a major concern as of late - Would it not be in the interests for someone to design some sort of protocol ie a new version of Bittorrent which doesn’t expose your IP or anything about yourself?[/quote]
The idea is ridiculous. All Internet Protocols rely on a sender and recipient of the data. It is the fundamental basis behind all Internet Communications. It is simply impossible to not have an IP address associated with your communications. That is why there is big buisness in VPN/SSH Tunnels, Proxies, etc. which allow you to mask your IP address as someone elses.
The MPAA and the like may be sharks and bastards, but they are right about one thing - it is very difficult to be truly anonymous online.
The internet was not made for anonymity, which is why there is demand for networks like Tor which don’t function like the internet. Friend to Friend, not Peer to Peer is the only way so far to stay anonymous.
Anti-p2p and other organizations are idiots. They try to talk smart and use scare tactics to win, but they know they never will. ;)
Impossible to some, a reality to others, completely anonymous bittorent (among other services) has been around for quite some time now: http://www.i2p.net/
And yeah, it doesn’t use IP addresses at all. Even in it’s current ongoing development stage there is no way in hell those incompetent anti-filesharing organizations are going to keep track of that.
Or… you could stop wasting your money and get a decent provider instead. :P
[quote comment="207238"]my isp is know blocking/throttling encrypted torrents as well… so, we better come up with new ways to bypass it. :([/quote]
Or… you could stop wasting your money and get a decent provider instead.
(sorry about the double post, I screwed up quoting the first time)
#12/13: Not everyone has that option, particularly in rural areas.
I think that the 10% that encrypt could easily make up 20-30% of the traffic…people who know how and why to encrypt tend to be people who use BT a lot…40 still seems high though
[quote comment="207211"]In case you didn’t know, if BT traffic is encrypted or not, it’s so easy to spot on a network. BT traffic has a very predictable connection flow even if its encrypted. Go head do some testing of your own, youll find out it’s so easy to spot.[/quote]
i am big on network patterns
tell me how you differentiate encrypted bittorrent from Skype traffic?
40% of all torrent traffic being encrypted may be slightly more reasonable if the unencrypted traffic is in fact throttled by the ISPs and the encrypted is not.
They should visit this site to get some info about torrent, ’cause they know shit and keep making fake statements.
Talk about embarrassing yourself!
Encryption was NOT designed to avoid ISP throttling. It was around long before torrents and designed, well, to encrypt traffic of any kind not just torrents.
Encryption does NOT “hide” the protocol header, it encrypts all your traffic.
Hardly surprising this FUD comes from the United Kingdom. In the UK, they can put you into jail if you don’t give them your passwords and encryption keys as soon as the police requests them. If you actually CANNOT hand them out because they are destroyed or you never had them in the first place, bad luck for you. It is quite obvious that Big Brother wants to outlaw encryption for the common people. Fellow citizens don’t have secrets, right?
[quote comment="207199"]You can’t expect them to have any knowledge of the technology of sharing, especially when they think it’s so evil.
OMGZ, TEH PIRATEZ R COMIN 2 TAK MAH DOLLARZ, LETZ MAK UOP FAK STATZ, YO[/quote]
Best comment ever.
[quote comment="207273"]And yeah, it doesn’t use IP addresses at all.[/quote]Ofcourse it does. But it routes the data through a chain of proxies to hide the source ip.
Don’t try to be smart when you don’t know the fundamental facts of the net.
>>1 and >>8
Something like this is not impossible. It’s just a matter of practicality.
It is currently technically possible by using TOR, although we have all seen that it isn’t very practical.
A TOR-like network dedicated to Bittorrent traffic only with tit-for-tat mutual proxying would be interesting to try. My ‘back of envelope’ calculations say it would work at the cost of approximately half of the bandwidth both incoming and outgoing for each peer… which wouldn’t be too bad at all.
There’s also freenet, which is pretty anonymous, but not very scalable.
With internet connections getting faster and faster, we get closer and closer to an anonymous yet practical solution.
[quote comment="207414"]Talk about embarrassing yourself!
Encryption was NOT designed to avoid ISP throttling. It was around long before torrents and designed, well, to encrypt traffic of any kind not just torrents.
Encryption does NOT “hide” the protocol header, it encrypts all your traffic.[/quote]
The obvious is lost on you. Encryption in this context refers to the encryption extension of the bittorrent protocol. Here’s the infos, http://www.azureuswiki.com/index.php/Message_Stream_Encryption
And, btw, it does hide the bittorrent protocol headers. Those are the headers being referred to, not tcp/ip protocol headers, which encryption in the application-layer never hides anyway, eg https.
dsazl. ; ‘;lxc] gm;’
xg ]’pxfg]zn k;l]z”O
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