How To Encrypt BitTorrent Traffic
Written by Ernesto on April 16, 2006More and more ISP’s are limiting and throttling BitTorrent traffic on their networks. By throttling BitTorrent traffic the speed of BitTorrent downloads decrease, and high speed downloads are out of the question.
The list of ISP’s that limit BitTorrent traffic, or plan to do so is growing every day, and according to the BBC, the ‘bandwidth war’ has begun.
Are you not sure if your traffic is being throttled Check the list of bad ISP’s.
But there is a solution. Encrypting your torrents will prevent throttling ISP’s from shaping your traffic. I will explain how to enable encryption in Azureus, uTorrent, and Bitcomet, the three most popular torrent clients.
What does encryption Do?
The RC4 encryption obfuscates not only the header but the entire stream. This means that it’s very hard for your ISP to detect that the traffic you are generating comes from BitTorrent.
Note that RC4 uses more CPU time than the plain encryption or no encryption. It is however harder to identify for traffic shaping devices
How can I do this?
This is different for all clients; check the setting for your favorite client below.
1. Go to: Tools > Options > Connection > Transport Encryption
2. Check the ‘require encrypted transport’ box.
3. Choose RC4 in the ‘minimum encryption’ dropdown box
note that RC4 uses more CPU time than the plain encryption or no encryption. It is however harder to identify for traffic shaping devices
4. You can choose to tick the ‘Allow non-encrypted outgoing connections if encrypted connection attempt fails’ box. This will ensure compatibility with clients that are not using encryption. However, it makes it easier for your ISP to detect BitTorrent traffic. I recommend that you try to tick this box first. If you are still not getting proper speeds untick it
5. Tick the ‘Allow non-encrypted incoming connections’ box
That’s it, your BitTorrent traffic is encrypted now.
1. Go to: Options > Preferences > Advanced > Connection
2. Go to: ‘Protocol encryption’ You can choose between ‘auto detect’ and ‘always’. Auto detect will give you more connections but offers less protection against traffic shapers.
I would recommend to try auto detect first, if that doesn’t increase your speeds you need to switch to always
That’s it, your BitTorrent traffic is encrypted now.
uTorrent
1. Go to: Options > Preferences > BitTorrent
2. Go to ‘Protocol encryption’, you can choose between ‘enabled’ and ‘forced’. ‘Enabled’ will give you more connections but offers less protection against traffic shapers.
I would recommend to try ‘enabled’ first, if that doesn’t increase your speeds you need to swich to ‘forced’.
3. Ticking ‘Allow legacy incoming connections’ allows non ecrypted clients to connect to you. This improves compatibility between clients but makes you more vulnerable to traffic shapers.
I would recommend to tick this box, but if that doesn’t increase your speeds, untick it!
That’s it, your BitTorrent traffic is encrypted now.
Good luck and happy torrenting
Previously: Filesharing Around The Globe
Next: George Bush vs. The RIAA?
286 Responses (Add yours)
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Fibertel doesn’t limits anything… i’m using torrents without any limits. I know many ADSL ISPs in Argentina are blocking P2Ps
I’m using ClearWire internet, and so far, i haven’t noticed any change yet … but hopefully i get download everything fast with bittorrent
im in australia and here isp’s hav download limits.i tried this encryption method but still thy r adding to my total traffic . is thr a way to avoid thr traffic measuring tools?
I put mine on forced and it seems to have worked… i am on a crappy 256k connection… but my downloads went from 1kbit to 20+kbits
The ppl just keep asking the same F**king questions over and over again.
These 150Kb/s and 100Kb/s speeds that you guys get, i take does not count for users in South Africa, cause ffs Telkom is f**ked up, almost as bad as Microsoft.
Wow! This encryption thing was awesome. Not only did it improve my safety but my D/L speed increased from 40 kB/s to 110 kB/s using utorrent set to forced without the legacy box checked. Thank you bunches!!
I have a 256k connection from clearwire in denmark. I’ve recently switched to azureus from bitcomet. Well i followed this guide and after that i noticed no change in my dl speed. it’s still around 10-13 kb/s… i’m on port 55555 btw…any tips on how to improve it or is this just how it goes with a 256k connection..?
have utorrent, tried the encrypt method, didn’t work, guess my ISP is yet another step ahead of me. grrrrr!!! lol, any other suggestions.
If TISCALI is your current ISP and you are experiencing some of the problems listed above, read on. Having read the above, and experimenting with suggested variations, I now have my full BT speeds back again using the following: uTorrent client with outgoing protocol encryption set to FORCED, together with the “allow incoming legacy connections” box left UNCHECKED. Although I’m now over the moon, what I would like to know is: could there be any problems with me using port 80 as opposed to the higher 50xxx port numbers? Many thanks.
I use BT Broadband (British Telecom, not Bit Torrent, although that would be the ULTIMATE ISP…) in the UK. I have just changed from BitLord (no encryption) to BitComet. Speed has gone from 40kbs to 107kbs and still rising.
Heres some random musings;
Any business that sells you a product with the caveat that you can’t actually use is needs a good kick in the happy place.
My definition of ‘fair use’ is: ‘as much as I f*&^ing can
Imagine a bus company that sells season tickets, but if you make more than 2 journeys a day, the bus won’t go more than 10mph. Or a bus company which owns 1 bus but sells 20,000 season tickets and guarantees all of their customers a seat (of course the fair use policy limits you to 2 journeys a week, standing room only).
I did the configuration for my Bitcomet,but it seems to be the same , no improvement at all…sign…
Rogers = Throttled\Shaping (a big mess)
Bell= New Policy, To monitor for\and report any illegal activities on their networks etc and report them to the proper authorities..
[quote comment="2232"]pipex have started throttling downloads[/quote]
hello all. pipex user here…Thank you…it did help a bit but not much. I am using Azureus
good luck to evry1
[quote comment="7388"][quote comment="2232"]pipex have started throttling downloads[/quote]
hello all. pipex user here…Thank you…it did help a bit but not much. I am using Azureus
good luck to evry1[/quote]
……………………..
Hell again
I want to add that it works fine with me now…thank you again..and sorry for my previous comment.
Guys also try port fowarding with transport encryption.
Good info here:
h**p://www.azureuswiki.com/index.php/Bad_ISPs
h**p://www.azureuswiki.com/index.php/Avoid_traffic_shaping
Ma®k
Add Wide Open West to your ISP’s that detect P2P programs:(
they are located in Denver Co..
I get this damn hmtl message saying I got kazaa or winmx installed..when i have neither:)
what about bittornado?? does that have encryption?
i live in canada toronto ontario and i am getting throtoled from rogers so i swiched to inter.net. very god provider does not block torrents.
hope i could help
Just (update)-FYI for µTorrent 1.6 Stable look in Options > Preferences > BitTorrent to find ‘Protocol encryption’
Hi. I´m from Argentina. i did everything explained here, encode, port change, etc, …nothing works. Anyway I wonder how can the ISP throttle when you encode the torrent protocol, how do they identify it? is it that they can decode it too? they put so much effort on this throttle thing that this makes them suck so bad.
thanks.
If a rich company full of rich people think they can treat us people any way they want to, by sucking us in by their MILLIONS upon MILLIONS of dollars spent on advertising and CLOGGING our air waves and annoying us to buy there product and then they don’t allow us to do what they say then time to bring a fight just like independance day.
Just like Pantera says “ITS TIME TO RISE!!!! RISE!!! RISE!!!!”
False Advertising by rich fat cats will not be tolerated by the public who far out number the rich.
Awesome, I had a problem with Azurues, it works fine and faster now :)
Does anyone know if using the lazy bitfield option (azureus, transfer option) additionally helps, hurts, or has no overall effect with encrypting traffic?
[quote comment="10664"]Does anyone know if using the lazy bitfield option (azureus, transfer option) additionally helps, hurts, or has no overall effect with encrypting traffic?[/quote]
Some ISP’s check when your download is complete (when you seed), and terminate the connection. If you turn this option on your ISP wont notice that you’re seeding.
only use it if you need to!!!
Check the “prevents seeding” column inthis list
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