Encrypting BitTorrent to take out traffic shapers
Written by Ernesto on February 05, 2006Over the past months more BitTorrent users noticed that their ISP is killing all BitTorrent traffic . ISP’s like Rogers are using bit-shaping applications to throttle the traffic that is generated by BitTorrent.
But, at the same time two of the most popular BitTorrent clients are working together to implement header and message stream encryption in order to take out these traffic shapers.
Currently both Azureus and uTorrent included this new form of encryption (specs) in their latest Beta’s. The fact that these two clients are actively working together to implement this new feature is promising and will make this form of encryption the new standard since the users of these two clients cover the majority of all BitTorrent users.
There are two “encryption modes” available.
The 2 different payload encryption methods plaintext transmission and RC4 provide a different degree of protocol obfuscation, security and speed. Where the plaintext mode only provides basic anti-shaping obscurity, no security and low CPU usage the RC4 encryption obfuscates the entire stream and not only the header and adds some cryptographic security at the price of spent CPU cycles.
The question now is.. Does it work? and how effective is it? If it works it will definitely offer a great solution to all BitTorrent users who suffer from traffic shaping ISP’s.
Bram Cohen, the creator of the BitTorrent protocol reacted quite negatively on these new developments. He questions the need for encryption since only a few ISP’s are actively shaping traffic. Among other things he also fears incompatibility between clients and increased cpu usage. Although these arguments can be countered quite easily, developers should keep them in mind.
But the fact is, if this new encryption method is launched successfully it will be a huge step forward for the BitTorrent community.
Previously: Speed up your torrents II
Next: Opera integrates BitTorrent in their Browser
162 Responses (Add yours or TrackBack)
Pages: « 1 2 [3] 4 5 6 7 » Show All
Im one of users affected by the bandwith shaping[cogeco canada]… for 2 weeks I had no transfer going ( upload mostly ), yesterday I installed Utorrent beta, enabled Encryption and boooooom everything is back to Normal….
so yes it works great, Im so happy.
thank you to whoever made this solution, it works great :D
oh ya it s great i do have limitation in fact from my isp in romania it s probably the best ideea to get rid of junks traffic .i want torrents i want fast..i can download only with a 7 kB/s speed ..i hate this …long live the torrents
i hate those isp shit…i want some speed …we do not pay for limitation…we pay for speed…..can someone help me…??? i do not know how to get rid of their shit …i have scanned the ports ..i have done..many things…what can i do for some speed?? …i use u torrent probably the best torrent client if you had any idea i might use
HEELP
I dunno where you people live that this shaping is taking place, I have yet to hear anything about it in the lower, southern part of the country, namely Verizon country. But to emphasize what was already stated, I pay for my damn bandwidth, I plan on using it. I don’t pay $50/month or so just to read my damn e-mail. If they want to limit the bandwidth they better price it accordingly (á la AOL dialup, etc. pricing by hours). This is just BS… I already try and use the latest version of all my software, so as long as the BT clients are a week ahead of the game I’ll keep downloading the updates.
I really doubt that they could ever just cut off high port traffic altogether, that’s just silly.
There’s always another way.
My ISP is fine with the use of bittorrent. I’ve been using it for 3+ years and i get speeds of 250kbps.
For those on Rogers, what good is this going to do you? You’ll still be held to your bandwidth cap.
Do the smart thing, get out of your contract. Rogers already broke their end of it when they introduced this packet shaping and download cap bull****.
Get Sypmatico, MNSi or Execulink.
I haven’t yet seen this Encryption in action but have read and researched enough to know it works and why wouldn’t it?
Now, slightly off topic, but I gotta say this,
I think the biggest threat to the torrent community today is the MPAA, I don’t get movies because, lets face it, the one I’ve seen are shit quality, the RIAA is full of shit. The MPAA is actively closing down communitys, not chasing individuals, this is about the only way to kill off the bittorent community and I wouldn’t be surprised if they managed to take out all the big name sites (TS, TPB, MN etc etc).
This said, the one place untouchable is the untalked about IRC (I dare to speak about it openly, everyone else keeps tight-lipped on this matter). The IRC network is so huge there is no chance in hell that anyone would ever take it down. Sure, you could hit a few servers, few hundred maybe, but the sad fact for the law (the great fact for us) is that more would rise to take their place.
Anyone who opposes the piracy community is not insane, just niave, and more so if that actualy think Piracy will ever be stopped. Traffacing can be stopped, smuggling can be stopped, the act of piracy cannot.
Enough people still buy DVD’s, games and music, why do they bitch. The way I work is this, download it, listen to it, like it [buy] it, else, delete it. They’re not losing money then. This said, if I couldn’t download the music I wouldn’t even been listening to it at all, I wouldn’t go out and buy a CD in the chance that I may hate every sound that comes from it. The same goes with games and demos.
The bittorrent world doesn’t just give us Piracy, it gives us community and a lot of great legitimet, legal software, music and films. I Bittorrent is lost, it will be a sad day for communications as a whole.
UK isps are now starting to throttle bt traffic during peak hours - still alowwing it but capping it to about 30% of the potential and the definition of peak hours is 1800-0000 weekdays and 0900 to 0000 weekends. This seems a middle ground at the moment, but rest assured i will be encrypting all my traffic to get around it because if i pay for a 2 meg connection i dam sure want one.
http://www.sandvine.com/solutions/p2p_policy_mngmt.asp
http://www.sandvine.com/solutions/snapshot_p2p.asp
Traffic shaping is useless- solutions like sandvine allow on-net traffic without limiting traffic.. but only offnet request for seeding is actually denied or limited on protocol request.. thus leechin is fine, and anyone that shares offnet will be limited. Bandwidth monitering and magnagement is needed if the US wants a more stable broadband system.. its already infant compared to countries abroad..
The thing is, as I see it, that throttling bandwith won’t actually help. I live in the UK, and to my knowledge, there are only two ISPs that offer unlimited broadband - AOL and Telewest. As noone will use AOL for BT uses, Telewest’s biggest selling point is that their service is unlimited and (for me at least) unthrottled. If all the other ISPs start throttling, one will come along and say ‘hey, we dont do that’ and will generate a ton of extra business because of it. So I doubt many ISPs will start simply because of the number of customers it will put off.
Dont know if Rogers uses the same port, but when Cogeco started showing signs of throttling, I read somewhere that port 1720(VoIP)was not affected and it seems to be working, so far.
Re: “sustainability or scalability of traffic patterns”
and
“The problem is that they have X bandwith, and sell X*(Bigger Than One), so you only get full speed if lots of people are using little bandwith”
Hello. Do you think we should have hospital beds and doctors available to treat every person should they fall ill at the same time? Obviously you have never thought about how a viable business operates.
Do you think your current standard of living (I imagine it is up there given that everyone here fusses over bittorrent) should be available to every person on the planet. Grow up. Your standard of living is only possible because it is not shared by everyone.
There is availability of large bandwdith to power users precisely because of the large number of mom and pop users who pay the same price but use essentially nothing. When done properly, the ISPs collect money from both and are happy to do so.
I own a small ISP and want to know from you file swappers why you think you have the right to use so much bandwidth. you are paying for access not a certain amount of bandwidth. If I want a t1 line I have to pay something like 600 a month for guaranteed 1.5 meg. you all think your crummy $40 per month buys you all the bandwidth you can hog? Sorry it don’t work that way. Buy a corvette and put the hammer down and see how long before the cops confiscate it from you. If you drive it normally and then go out on the back roads a have a little time with the hammer down well so what. Big pipe broadband works the same. Use it normal and no problem. Let 50 people log on to your hard drive and suck 3 to 5 megs for hours or days and I will shut you down right now cause you are costing me money. Sorry but you just don’t have any right to pay me $40 a month and use $400 worth of bandwidth. What the f-k would you do? Sure you would just let everyone have a bandwidth free for all and put you outa biz? ya right. Bandwidth cost money. No freekin way around it. Out of $40 I charge I make $4 per customer after all expense. Figure it out fools. ISP’s will get better and better at throttling your bandwidth. enjoy your little party while you can your days are numbered. I just watch my incoming and outgoing bandwidth. It both spikes up and down. I pay no attention to incoming. I watch the outgoing like a hawk. I see it spike up and stay there for 5 minutes I login and trace the IP to find out who it is. Then I sit back and watch it for maybe 20 to 30 minutes. It if keeps up I block that IP both incoming and outgoing for the next 24 hrs. I have a strict no servers policy. Run a server and start hogging bandwidth and you are offline for the next 24 hrs no exceptions period.
Bram Cohen is now irrelevant - he is nothing more than a copyright cartel stooge. If his client had a tenth of the usage of BitComet or Azureus he’d be celebrating.
To Mr. ISP BOB
MAn your such a d$#m crybaby…”Lowballers” like you are a freakin’ cancer…Just increase capacity and stop crying about it…I’m in restaurants and when it gets crowded for an extended period, WE MAKE MORE CAPACITY…thus we get more people in the seats…Revenue goes up…I tell you what, if you cut me off I’d tell you to take a long walk off a short plank buddy…My 40 bones can be spent somewhere else…
Hey Bob.No 1 cares what u run honey
Poor poor Bob,
You are in the wrong place if you want people to feel sorry for you. Maybe you should go work for M$ with you insightful market plan of punishing your customers ;-)
To ISP_BOB,
Yes, I’m also a major network admin, but we have VERY differing views on “bandwidth” usage. You say that a T1 costs you $ 600.00 per month - I agree, that for some “unknown” reason ( probally corporate greed ) leasing bandwidth is ridicously priced - I lease a 10 meg connection from the state for $ 36,000 per year !!!! But to say that $ 40.00 per month only buys someone “access” to your network and not the full bandwidth - come on, your fooling yourself. If your bandwidth is that strapped, you’d better get more customers and more T1’s or a T3. Even if your a small ISP charging $ 40.00 per person, you only need to get about 15 people signed-up to make that payment !!!! That ain’t a lot. And remember, not all of those 15 people will be using the full bandwidth at any one time !!!! So who cares if someone bursts the bandwidth for a couple of hours; as long as you have enough BW for the other customers traffic and no-ones complaining; that’s really all that matters isn’t it ??? If you keep shutting people off for 24 hours, what makes you think you’ll even have an ISP for long ???? I’d be REALLY PISSED if I was paying $ 40.00 per month, throttled down to nothing, and shut off completely for 24 hours !!! If you really want to do something, at least TELL these people when they sign-up that they’re guaranteed a certain BW limit and if they exceed it, only then will they be throttled-back to the set maxium. I’d have to say I agree fully with Message #71 from DINOBOT. I’m also glad to FINALLY see someone using Diffie-Hellman ( PGP ) keys to encrypt bittorrent !!!! It’s about time !!!! Keep those nosy record exec’s and movie companies from suing 12 year olds - those bastards !!! Hack the Planet !!!
I can definatly confirm it works. I’m on Shaw Cable and they cap my torrent traffic. I just downloaded the new version of Azureus tonight and enabled the encryption options and it has completely fixed my problem. I’m back to being able to seed torrents at the full upload rate of my cable modem.
6 references to this post
Pages: « 1 2 [3] 4 5 6 7 » Show All
Add your response