Video: How People Are Tracked Using BitTorrent
Written by enigmax on January 14, 2008Being tracked by anti-piracy organizations and receiving infringement notices on file-sharing networks is becoming more common. A security project manager has just released a short video showing how it’s done.
A common question from BitTorrent users is how anti-p2p outfits trace and trace file-sharers in order to send infringement notices. We’ve reported on one technique in the past and now, thanks to Dan Morrill, a Security Project Manager with VMC Consulting in Redmond Washington, we have a short video illustrating another basic technique which is easy to understand.
Dan’s example involves him downloading a large file with the popular Azureus client, while giving a commentary on the various types of information offered by the client, a brief overview of how BitTorrent works, how it’s possible to be tracked and how the gathered information could be processed. He also touches on anonymity and the use of blocklists.
A popular piece of IP blocking software is Peerguardian, which can be downloaded at Phoenix Labs, with the blocklists available from Bluetack. Users seeking anonymity can achieve this by using a free proxy server but in reality, most don’t offer performance anywhere near good enough for BitTorrent. VPN services such as VPNTunnel aren’t free but they’re reliable and generally protect users from the techniques shown in the video.
Just one criticism; Dan states towards the end of the video that if you don’t use blocklists you are almost guaranteed to be ‘nabbed’. The majority of people don’t use blocklists and the majority of those are not getting ‘nabbed’.
Indeed, most of the cases we hear of from the United States are people who don’t use BitTorrent at all. On the other hand, blocklists mostly offer pseudo-security, since there’s no guarantee that you are not tracked while using them.
Previously: TorrentFreak Interviews a Lawyer Defending 500 File-Sharers
Next: MediaDefender Hacker Speaks Out
93 Responses
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[quote comment="263313"]I dont think companies and anti-p2p can use information that you gather from the logger.
I mean if they can track me down because of this method than who is to say that i can’t do the same to them.
if i charged for downloading the file because my ip is registered there than anti-p2p companies are doing it ilegal as well.[/quote]
not true. anti-P2P companies get the owners consent to download said material. one only infringes copyright when they neither own nor have proper consent to acquire said product(IIRC :-) )
[quote comment="263352"]@24, yep, they are breaking the law too, but some companies use clients that don’t download or upload any real data. This is one of the least informative videos I have ever seen, throwing in a bunch of computer vocab to act smart lol.[/quote]
ah i didn’t think of the fact that if they’re downloading, they’re also seeding which in turn means they’re distributing copyrighted material
[quote comment="263480"]peerguardian ?
l can see the peers
country,ip,%,upspeed/downspeed lalalalalala in youtorrent. so it isnt guarding peers in the swarm is it.
why it has to show this feature is crazy ! why can’t they hide or scramble that shit !
hell l can even go to http://webtools.live2support.com/misc_locate_ip_address.php
Location of User Country, State & City by IP address
and find what city those guys in the swarm are in.
l used my ip to see if it could find me and it can’t find my town/city.
maybe because l always used pg ? maybe not ? l dunno !
there are or must be soon ultra secret sites on the net that bin files,iso etc are dumped, where none of us know where yet.maybe oneday l will start a site like this .but maybe you might never find it ever ![/quote]
your website link is B.S i went to:
http://whatismyip.com
found my IP and entered it and it said i lived in ohio. now i don’t fucking live in ohio. but maybe it tracks where the company that gives you your IP is located?
[quote comment="263239"]what about TOR?[/quote]
a lot of people block bittorrent traffic over tor. I don’t think anyone likes people that BT over tor.
[quote comment="263459"]
Here we go again, with the blind leading the blind. Or more accurately, the clueless and misinformed.[/quote]
Well let’s see. I’ve been running a private site for 3 years, and torrenting for a hell of a lot longer. I happen to know a lot of people who’ve been torrenting for years, and none of them seriously believe PG has any real value.
If calling us clueless is the best you can do, come back when you’re ready for an adult discussion.
[quote comment="263459"]“Blocklists do not offer protection”
Bullshit. They offer quite wide-ranging protection from known bad apples.[/quote]
Oh, that would be the wide ranging protection of blocking an entire /16 or /24 range because of a single IP then?
Anyone blocking that amount of IPs would stand a good chance of hitting something.
Perhaps if Bush invades another 10 countries, he can find Bin Laden the PG way.
[quote comment="263459"]They could, but they generally DON’T.
Why? Because they already have a target rich environment where the majority do not use IP blocking. Why jump through extra hoops when they already have more fish in the barrel than they can shoot?[/quote]
Did you even read the leaked emails?
The one where they are discussing buying blocks in south america perhaps? It’s not like they’re on a tight budget or anything.
[quote comment="263459"]“All blocklists do is block legitimate IPs from joining swarms.”
LMAO! How legitimate can they be if they’re on a blocklist? 99.9999% of the time, there is a very good reason why a certain IP has been added to the blocklist.[/quote]
Because an IP has been added to a blocklist that is known for its over-paranoid nature, it must be a bad IP?
I personally have had seedboxes added because they happened to be in an IP range owned by, gasp, a colo provider. Friends have had their IPs blocked. One guy I know who runs a colo had his entire range blocked. He’s a sysop of a well known major site, and he provides hosting to other torrent sites. Every one of them is on the blocked because blocklist authors love to do block entire ranges.
Getting yourself removed from the list is a lot harder than getting yourself on it. If you’re lucky, it might happen within 3-4 months.
You should also check your 99.9999% figure. Blocklists are well known for taking out all neighbouring IPs.
In the cases where they block entire /16 or /24 ranges, their hit rate is one in 256 or one in 65536. That’s either 0.0015% or 0.4% hit rate. In other words, 99.6% - 99.9985% of IPs blocked for no good reason at all.
Unlike your figure that’s grabbed out of thin air, this one actually has some basis in mathematics.
[quote comment="263459"]And finally, any thinking person would have to ponder just who would benefit the most by7 posting on forums about how blocklists don’t work, blocklists are useless, blocklists won’t protect you, etc.
Hmm, who could these naysayers be? Why are they so-o-o intent on dissuading people from using PG and blocklists? Perhaps, just perhaps, these asshats have the best interests of a certain industry on their agenda rather than the best interests of filesharers.[/quote]
Oooh, more insults. What a great way to make a point.
I don’t personally give 2 hoots if you run PG or any other blocklist. I am not trying to force you to stop using it, nor am I resorting to insults to spread a message.
Fact is, you and others like you would have us all believe we are screwed without PG. In all the years that I have not been running PG, you know how many C+D letters I have received? Zero. I have on the other hand seen plenty of complaints from PG users that they received letters.
If you can spare a couple of minutes in your hectic schedule of being professionally angry, perhaps you can figure out how blocklists work. They rely on people finding out what IPs are being used by various monitoring companies. I wonder how they find that out? It couldn’t possibly be a case of waiting for someone to be caught could it?
If you want to use PG, go ahead. Just stop the BS about it providing protection, or how we’ll all be sued if we don’t use it. Pulling figures out of your ass and calling people asshats will not win any kind of debate.
P.S. I’ve never worked for any media industry or any of the tracking companies. Who do you work for? Are you linked to PG in any way, do you perhaps supply fictional bad IPs to add to their lists? You’ve got way more anger than a regular fanboi.
Any peer blocking program like PG2 for macs? thx.
btw n0ice reply @ system, lol. That was one of the biggest fanboi beatdowns i have seen in a long time, really made my day.
Anywho…
0MGZ JooZ H4XXX0RzZZ wrokinngz 4 teh c0rpr4tions!!
lol…
So instead of fighting amongst everyone for stupid crap. Why dont you smart heads instead of arguing back at people that are trying to help and provide information, give us tips and tricks to stay protected. The ones that sound like angry fanbois are the ones arguing back. So you say PG is useless? … ok so what do you do to stay protected and not get caught. Nothing? well then maybe you are a Corporate ASSHAT. Make your point by providing better help not contradicting the people who actually try and provide the correct info.
this video sucks, guy sounds like a pillow biter.
,.msb cx ;l. j .z . z. zjh;e
Will something like ANts help if enough people use it?
Likewise is TOR any good? I rmemeber reading recently that the exit nodes were a problem or something like that.
http://antsp2p.sourceforge.net/
that guy spoke like there was someone next to him sleeping…
so my new private site will require my own designed client that uses a id and your ip is only seen via admins and not normal users as htey dont get a client that can see it. You could turn on firewall i suppose and see it but hey do that and we ban yah unless you prove it was a problem.
as to seeing what others share all you’ll see is there user name ( a nickname unles syour right ass stupid and use a real name )
you can also move to canada where it looks like legality comes our way for a couple a bucks tapped onto net accounts
SAY NO TO WATERMARKING HOWEVER ITS DRM
SAY NO TO WATERMARKING HOWEVER ITS DRM
SAY NO TO WATERMARKING HOWEVER ITS DRM
also you could make it so any use of said screen shot key results in a virus being losed on said noobs computer that looks for all images and
deletes them
hehe dont worry the real pirates are 7 years ahead a these people and prolly arent even using bittorrent.
well… that was interesting.
Not using a blocklist is like screwing a hooker without a condom. I would rather take my chances with a condom than without.
PG2 ROCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Says who?
What evidence is there to support such a claim?
Unless those products have had their names hijacked recently by a far more intelligent crew, then they still consist of a bunch of know-nothing-idiots making guesses as to which netblocks to ban, based solely on such idiotic crap as whether the name of a website hosted there sounds “suspicious”.
I don’t know how many levels that is retarded on, but it’s a fkn lot.
The last time I bothered to look at it, there was a netblock banned because it hosted the website for the Nevada Gaming Commission.
You could take the next 5 years off work and you still wouldn’t be able to come up with a scenario where that provides you any useful service AT ALL, so why would you assume it is useful for avoiding anti-piracy efforts?
Never has the concept of a placebo been so hard to grasp apparently.
I’ve been filesharing since 1999 without problems. I’ve been using a defragmenter since about 2000. Clearly this is solution, and with just as much supporting evidence as any of these filters and far less ignorant BS claims to boot.
Would you care to explain that moronic formula Sinista ?
Everyone here who doesn’t use Head and Shoulders and doesn’t have dandruff is a corporate arsehat.
Yeah ?
And how’d you feel about using a condom a bunch of kids constructed based on guesswork, a complete lack of knowledge of what they were trying to prevent and completely absent of any quality control methods ?
anyone with some technical savvy would know this already..
talk is cheap ..
actions speak louder then words.
So we should be all caught by now then ?
but we ain’t
would’nt they have to find out what we we are d/l ?
meaning they would have to capture packets ?
I was arrested in UK last year, for all british, BE CAREFULL!
Arrest Motive: Sell piracy DVD
=*((((((((((((((((((((
[quote comment="264355"]so my new private site will require my own designed client that uses a id and your ip is only seen via admins and not normal users as htey dont get a client that can see it. You could turn on firewall i suppose and see it but hey do that and we ban yah unless you prove it was a problem.
[/quote]
Awesome. Let me know when the IPv4/TCP stack starts to accept your IDz yo!
Thank god this is illegal in the EU.
According to EG its illegal for any company to put you in a database without your approval
[quote]Thank god this is illegal in the EU.
According to EG its illegal for any company to put you in a database without your approval[/quote]
they do it anyway.
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