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
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All you ISP nazis complain about people using 2 megs of bandwidth for several hours and say that it is abuse of the networks bandwidth, REALIZE THIS! You advertise 8 or 12 meg/sec download speeds, so thats what your should deliver. If you don’t want people using more than 512kbps, then sell them FU$%ING 512kbps. It is false advertising plain and simple. What else can I possibly download other than torrents that would ever make use of 8 meg down? EXACTLY, STFU!
Mr ISP
If your going to offer service @x MBPS than be prepared to deliver it 24/7
You were quick to advertise this speed,quicker to cash the check I send you for this stated speed,Now you are crying because youve actually been forced to deliver the product as advertised?
Mr Isp this is called BUSINESS and its in the dictionary.
If you find you cant deliver as promised services because I actually use them as advertised then why dont you advertise your self at less bandwidth instead of ripping me off?
When your customer base reaches the limits of your advertised bandwidth and you cant deliver you add new T1 lines….this is called corporate growth.
Mr Isp quit whinning over having to deliver….continue to play games and the smart consumers will answer in the best possible fashion and just mark “Cancel” on the bill.
I have a question to anyone that would like to answer it.
I read above that someone had been receiving letters from their cable company about their bandwidth usage. I have been using bit torrent for many years now and have never had a complaint from my ISP. In late January, a letter was sent to our old house that we have been trying to sell, saying something to the affect of knowing that “we” had been downloading illegal content and that they would like us to stop. I did not receive this letter, because my dad was the one who picked it up and did not show it to me. He’s rather ignorant regarding all of this stuff, so he probably crapped his pants. Still, I’m pretty sure it was a complaint regarding the bandwidth usage because I bought a 500 gig HD and I used it to its full abilities.
My question is: After 4-5 years of using torrents and receiving no complaints from my ISP, was the letter probably due to the large amount of stuff I acquired due to my 500 gig HD? I hardly ever acquire large amounts of stuff in such a short span of time and I’d like to be able to download here and there without fear of being “clipped” for the act of downloading with BT.
I am not being throttled in any way by my ISP, but after receiving a letter, I am now paranoid to download anything.
I guess I’m looking for some reassurance from people that know more about this stuff than I do.
Thanks to anyone who can help me out.
[quote comment="558"]I don’t understand why you guys are ignoring one of Brams principal objections - namely that it won’t work, as ISPs will still be able to packet shape traffic with more advanced shaping rules, and if one day it gets to the point where they can’t do that they’ll just enforce draconian rules on EVERYBODY. You guys are the few who are ruining it for the many, please stop![/quote]
Stuff like this is why I’ll be switching to a new ISP.
Sympatico now uses whitelist-based throttling and whenever someone else in the house is using BitTorrent, Subversion, DCC file send, and anything encrypted that doesn’t seem to be HTTPS will time out.
Yay for bellsouth! My ISP has a clean record so far.
So ESA is spying on people now?
“Dear Rogers Cable Communications Inc.:
The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) is a trade association that represents the intellectual property interests of numerous companies that publish interactive games for video game consoles, personal computers, handheld devices and the Internet in the United States of America, in Canada, and in other countries (collectively referred to as ESA members). ESA is authorized to act on behalf of ESA members whose copyright and other intellectual property rights it believes to be infringed as described herein.
ESA is providing this letter of notification to make Rogers Cable Communications Inc. aware of material on its network or system that infringes the exclusive copyright rights of and is unlawful towards one or more ESA members.
ESA members are entitled to the full protection of Canadian intellectual property laws, including the Copyright Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. C-42, as amended, in such entertainment software products.
Based on the information at its disposal on 18 Apr 2008 03:50:38 GMT, ESA has a good faith belief that ******** infringes the rights of one or more ESA members by offering for sale or download unauthorized copies of game products protected by copyright, or offering for sale or download material that is the subject of infringing activities. The copyrighted works that have been infringed include but are not limited to:
Title: Assassin’s Creed
Infringement Source: BitTorrent
Infringement Timestamp: 18 Apr 2008 03:50:38 GMT
Infringement Last Documented: 18 Apr 2008 03:50:38 GMT
Infringer Username:
Infringing Filename: ***********
Infringing Filesize: 6899044196
Infringer IP Address: **********
Infringer DNS Name: **********
Infringing URL: http://218.145.160.136:8080/announce“
We run a network with shared internet access, and apparently do house such a ‘power-user’ who saturates the internet line 24/7 to the point where any realtime traffic for anyone else is pointless. They use BitTorrent, of course.
So, I have to shape them completely. I’d love to just shape their BitTorrent so that they can still use Skype, HTTP and everything as they wish, but since BitTorrent attempts to snake its way around the shaping, there is no other way than to shape the entire port on the switch down to a limit where I feel everyone else will be fine even if that bandwidth is used 24/7.
The point is really that sometimes such restrictions are in place for a reason. At the end of the day you shouldn’t use a service for something that causes problems for others.
HI, thanks for the topic.
I guess this is quit an old one for a lot people but as you might not now, in France a new law is making P2P Encryption popping in first page news.
The governement will force the ISPs to monitor P2P trafic an report it. After 2 mail telling you that you are Uploading illegal material, they will cut your Internet connection for a period of 3 months to a full year !!!
So, my question is simple, is this encryption protocol efficient enough in the ISPs are looking for this kind of trafis ?
If not, is there anoter and (or) better way to encrypt your P2P trafic?
Thx again and pardon my English… I’m French :p
fuck you ISP_Bob
Might I point out that in this arms race, the firewall/packet shaper is in a perfect position to be “man in the middle” and as such will be able to intercept any encryption key and use it to look into any encrypted content. Its only a matter of time.
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