The code the article refers to is SeedFucker, which is intended to poison BitTorrent swarms with fake peers. For years, these type of ‘exploits’ have been mainly used to to promote malware and other dubious torrents by making it look like there are thousands of people sharing the torrents in question.

This code can insert thousands of random IP-addresses into a swarm which is great for spammers, but useless for people who want to hide their own IP-address. No matter how this code is rewritten, one’s actual IP-address will always be reported to the tracker.

In theory, SeedFucker could cause problems for the anti-piracy outfits that track BitTorrent downloads because they would run into many fake peers. However, most reputable tracking companies confirm whether the material in question is actually being shared from a particular IP-address.

“It might seem to some that this is a major change, but in reality it’s nothing new, nothing that isn’t already done by some trackers themselves,” an experienced BitTorrent developer told TorrentFreak when commenting on the code, adding, “It doesn’t substantively change anything, and will not change things in the conceivable future.”

Indeed, all trackers based on the Opentracker software already insert fake peers, a setup that stems from the times when anti-piracy tracking outfits didn’t confirm that actual transfers were going on. With these fake peers, BitTorrent users would have plausible deniability if they were taken to court.

Aside from the fact that it’s utterly useless in terms on anonymity, the SeedFucker exploit will not work at all on most major BitTorrent trackers as they don’t honor the “ip=” parameter used in the code. If anything, the use of this code will trick BitTorrent users into believing that files are more popular than they are in reality, which can only lead to problems and a lot of frustration.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Here’s one of Bennett’s conclusions taken from the article: “It’s acceptable for Comcast, as a matter of reasonable network management, to employ TCP Resets to prevent BitTorrent doing harm to the web browsing, standard file downloading, and VoIP sessions that are the typical behavior of the Comcast customer.”

This is of course a non-argument. The fundamental problem is that Internet providers offered flat-rate all-you-can-eat broadband access without considering that some users would actually use the offered product at full capacity. The providers’ tradition of selling a product at a ten-fold, known as overbooking, is starting to cause them trouble now companies, artists and their consumers start to utilize the benefits BitTorrent offers. But, is that the consumers’ fault?

Comcast, and other ISPs advertise with certain upload and download rates, conforming to simple DOCSIS capacity numbers. However, they miscalculated and found that there is more to the Internet than browsing, gopher, and email. Heavy-users broke their excel return-on-investment predictions and marketing campaign promises. Their flat-rate offers simply became too popular for the capacity that was bought and installed.

Maybe Comcast should start 2-new services “newb Internet”, designed only for emails, and “regular Internet” aimed at every single other person in the world who used the net for more than sending a text-only emails. That should make things more transparent.

Now they are whining and manipulating heavy users to undo the flat-rate contracts, instead of investing in more Internet gateway capacity, 10Gbps interconnect ports, and peering agreements. BitTorrent users do not slow down the Internet experience of others. They simply use the capacity they bought and show that the network capacity planning department screwed up.

There is one quote from the Register article that I agree with though: “Everyone who’s argued with religious fanatics has seen them dig in their heels and flail when confronted with challenges to their belief systems.” But the ISPs are the fanatics here, not the EFF who stands up for network neutrality.

Why?

I see a parallel with the entertainment industry here, clinging to business models that are outdated. Comcast should move on and invest in the future instead of throttling and interfering with the traffic their customers paid for. BitTorrent is here to stay, the files and the number of heavy users will only grow. Don’t fight your customers, think ahead and adapt!

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.