More and more over the last year, we have witnessed anti-piracy lobby groups targeting ISPs to force them to either hand over the details of users they allege breach their copyrights, or, more clumsily, pressure them to block access to entire sites. The most famous recent case concerned The Pirate Bay, which was blocked by ISPs in Italy at the behest of the IFPI, who were then forced by a court to unblock the site again.

Now it’s the turn of one of Romania’s largest ISPs, UPC Romania, which is blocking its customers from accessing one of Romania’s most popular trackers, Torrentbits.ro. UPC has around 1 million customers, and according to reports received by TorrentFreak, these customers no longer have access to the BitTorrent tracker, receiving a message in their browser which is usually reserved for sites that simply don’t exist.

Those accessing the site via a proxy or from another ISP receive this message:

Founded in 2006, Torrentbits.ro quickly became one of Romania’s most popular sites but in May 2007 it became the subject of a police raid, resulting in the arrest of the admins. They were later released.

TorrentFreak’s requests for UPC to comment on the site block have so far gone unanswered.

Thanks to Voor

Post from: TorrentFreak

torrentlog.com - Full movie downloads (dvdrips and divx)

Major Romanian ISP Blocks BitTorrent Site torrent downloads.

Comcast was ordered to stop slowing down BitTorrent users before the end of the year. In addition, the company has to disclose all “network managing” practices.

The FCC’s final decision came exactly a year after we first reported on the issue. Initially, Comcast flatout denied that they were slowing down BitTorrent users, but after AP confirmed our reports, mainstream media picked it up and the FCC got involved. FCC argues that Comcast’s actions are unfair because they specifically target BitTorrent, not any other protocols.

Good news right? So BitTorrent users will soon be able to download at blazing speeds again? Well, not really. A neutral net wont stop ISPs from slowing down their customers. Now they simply have to slow down everyone - and that’s exactly what their plan is. Comcast already said that they will move on, and throttle bandwidth hogs at peak times when needed. On top of that, they are enforcing a monthly bandwidth limit, not hesitating to disconnect people who use more than they should.

Comcast is taking these measures under the “reasonable network management” flag. However, what is reasonable now (if it is), might not be one or two years from now. The problem is that the ISPs are the ones who decide what the limits should be, meaning they can pretty much do whatever they want.

Several ISPs have already started to experiment with new tools to prevent customers from using too much bandwidth. Comcast will slow down all heavy bandwidth users, and Time Warner Cable is testing metered plans, where users will pay for the bandwidth they transfer. Worrying developments, to say the least.

Some might not see a problem with metered plans. We pay for water and gasoline in pretty much the same way. This is indeed true, but there’s also a danger in metering the Internet. It will restrict innovation (heavy bandwidth apps), and the use of high bandwidth video streaming may become something for the elite.

One thing is clear, BitTorrent users will be the main targets of these new “business models”. It was therefore surprising to see comments from Eric Klinker, Chief Technology Officer of BitTorrent, on these initiatives. “I think what Comcast and Time Warner Cable are doing is a great first step,” Klinker told Cnet. “It gets ISPs out of the business of deciding which applications are important and which aren’t. But there are enhancements to the peer-to-peer protocol, in particular, that can make it easier on all ISPs.”

Net neutrality is not the Holy Grail though - a neutral net is useless if it’s slower than a biased one. Klinker agreed on this, and told us that he doesn’t think that these new business models, or network management practices, are a good long term strategy. “This is a step in the right direction because ISPs are indeed making their networks more “neutral” without new legislation requiring them to do so,” he told TorrentFreak. “But make no mistake, bandwidth caps and metered plans are bad for the Internet and could stunt the adoption and growth of all broadband services.”

Network expert Robb Topolski, who was the first to document Comcast’s unfair network management practices, thinks that ISPs might experiment with new network management tools, but that these wont stick. When we asked him whether he thinks the FCC ruling will lead to more bandwidth caps and metered plans, he said: “If it does, then something has gone wrong with competition. Customers clearly don’t want metered plans and bandwidth caps. There might be some ISPs that experiment with these, but I don’t see it happening.”

Let’s hope Robb is right. Of course, we applaud the FCC ruling, but we have a strange feeling that ISPs will continue to fight their customers for a while. They should, of course, move on and invest in the future. BitTorrent is here to stay, files will get larger, and more bandwidth intensive services will surface, really.

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

Comcast vs. BitTorrent, What’s Next?

torrentlog.com - Full movie downloads (dvdrips and divx)

Comcast vs. BitTorrent, What’s Next? torrent downloads.

Ohio University (OU) and 7 other universities decided that blocking the many legitimate uses for P2P is not the best idea. Instead they have decided to go the high-tech route instead. They went for the method touted by the music industry, and paraded by the RIAA around Capitol Hill in 2004. A ‘fingerprint’ recognition service called ‘Copysense‘.

Copysense works by listening in on ALL network traffic, and looking for data patterns that match signatures, or ‘fingerprints’ loaded on it. If it detects data packets matching one of its signatures, it terminates the connection by sending forged RST packets to both sides of the connection (Comcast anyone?).

Piracy detection services like Copysense are not cheap. Ohio University paid around $60,000 in 2007 for the system, and an additional $15,500 a year for updates and support. For this, they got a network monitoring box, and some questionable results that prompt more questions than answers, but we will discuss these another time.

There are more issues though, a system working in promiscuous mode is also a big security risk. Passwords, and user names, if transmitted unencrypted, are observable, as is any other traffic sent in the clear. When J. Brice Bible, the CIO at Ohio University, took up his post, it was in the wake of data security breaches. Now he has paid tens of thousands of dollars for a box that can potentially cause a similar breach. Of course, potentially any network client can do this, but only on their local network, not the entire university network.

Ohio University seems to be happy with the entertainment industry’s favorite anti-piracy system. Of course, the less skeptical amongst us would think that outgoing head of the WIPO being an alumni is pure coincidence, as is the CEO of Fox News. People with a strong pro-copyright agenda having contact with an early adopter of a technology pushed heavily by the MPAA and RIAA, is something that rose some eyebrows at the TorrentFreak office though.

Regardless, Ohio University claims the program has been a success. Speaking in the student newspaper, Bible said, “It works very well for today, (but) I don’t know if it will work well tomorrow or the next day or the year after. I want to hear from students … I think students should be engaged in this discussion—and faculty, too.”

If you’re a student at Ohio University, or one of the other universities that use Copysense, why not let him know, and get involved.

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

Tackling College Piracy: MPAA and RIAA’s Favorite

torrentlog.com - Full movie downloads (dvdrips and divx)

Tackling College Piracy: MPAA and RIAA’s Favorite torrent downloads.

The subject of universities and (illicit) filesharing has been slowly gaining prominence over the past year, and more now than ever, with the passage of the College Opportunity and Affordability Act of 2008. We have taken a look into the different ways universities around the US are dealing with the subject. In part one, Missouri University of Science and Technology and their P2P quiz.

Initially a mining school, the university, known until the start of the year as University of Missouri–Rolla, is not exactly the largest around. Even though the university has just over 6,000 students, they have not been ignored in the scattergun campaign that is Internet-copyright-enforcement by organizations such as the RIAA.

In a recent press release, however, the university claims to have reduced its influx of notices, and credits it to a new system. This groundbreaking system is a multiple choice test, that students have to get completely correct each time, before being allowed access to filesharing applications. Once the test is ‘aced’ the student is granted 6 hours of p2p access. In a month, a student can use no more than 8 six-hour periods (48 hours total) a month.

In theory, this could work, but as more things move to a p2p based distribution model, having the ability to access things only on a timed basis is somewhat shortsighted. The content industries are pushing for this kind of restriction, and might see this as a promising development, but have been quiet on Missouri S&T’s program.

Also, the restriction on what can be seen as ‘mainstream p2p’ could lead to an increase in p2p that is harder to monitor and notice, as students will most likely encrypt their traffic or attempt to access content in ways not restricted. Sites that host files like rapidshare wouldn’t be affected by the time restrictions, and internal dc++ hubs, to share what is transferred in during the 6-hour windows would spring up.

It is also unclear which protocols are counted as p2p for these purposes. Newsgroups, as well as showing a resurgence in popularity for file sharing, are also a valuable tool for information exchange in general (and one sometimes embraced by major content producers. Michael Straczynski has been posting posts regularly to rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated, and Terry Pratchett is a regular on alt.fan.pratchett). However, it’s one potential way to prevent WoW addiction in students.

Requests to the university’s system security analyst, Karl Lutzen, were not answered at the time of publication.

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

Tackling College Piracy: The P2P Quiz

torrentlog.com - Full movie downloads (dvdrips and divx)

Tackling College Piracy: The P2P Quiz torrent downloads.

It’s been about a year since we first broke the story about Comcast and their torrent-throttling practices. Today, they were ordered (doc|pdf) to cease their practices by the end of the year, and disclose their practices by the end of August. Many expect Comcast to appeal, but others feel that Comcast has no grounds for it.

Regardless, Comcast is not the only ISP that is throttling. As was revealed in the stats from Project Glasnost, Cox is also throttling heavily. So, while some are popping the champagne corks over this victory, others are still working hard to keep our ISP’s honest, and ensure that their customers are getting what they paid for.

The latest of these, is a project called Switzerland by the EFF. Still in very early alpha, it’s an attempt to not just detect sandvineing by an ISP, but other forms of throttling as well. Unlike Glasnost, which uses a central server and known torrent streams to detect activities from the ISP interfering, this will use a more decentralised method, where peers running Switzerland swap information about the packets they send to other Switzerland users, in encrypted data packets sent via a central server. In effect, it’s a checksum of torrent activity sent via a 3rd party. As Peter Eckersley, staff technologist for the EFF, and developer of Switzerland puts it “Alice and Bob are exchanging packets, they connect to a neutral server (Switzerland) to arbitrate between their different views of the packets”.

When asked why the EFF started this project, and why they believe a neutral network is important, he told TorrentFreak: “There were several reasons why we started the Test Your ISP project, and designed and built Switzerland. One reason was pragmatic: we were trying to run systematic tests of the interference that Comcast was deploying against P2P networks, and we decided that the only sensible way to do that was to build an automated sensor network. So we set about doing that.”

“The bigger picture, of course, is that without transparency the Internet won’t remain the amazing open and innovative thing that it has been,” Eckersley says. “And EFF’s mission is to make sure that the Internet stays open and innovative. We need to shine lights into the dark corners of the network, and make sure that ISPs aren’t setting themselves up in some control room and saying “protocol A okay, but protocol B doesn’t fit with our business plans, so let’s give it second-class treatment or stop it from working entirely.”

Some might worry that the client might open up people to being monitored by anti-p2p companies or other undesirables, using the system as another method of verification, but there is really no way around it. The simplest method to avoid that is, in Peters words, “avoid exchanging copyrighted files between Switzerland clients. The copyright risks are probably lower if you run your own Switzerland server, but it’s still going to keep logs.”

The question of what the FCC will do about these other ISPs and their traffic management is one to ponder. Our inquiries on this matter have been acknowledged, but not replied to at the time of publication.

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

EFF Tool Hunts BitTorrent Throttling ISPs

torrentlog.com - Full movie downloads (dvdrips and divx)

EFF Tool Hunts BitTorrent Throttling ISPs torrent downloads.

August last year we reported - based on findings from network expert Robb Topolski - that Comcast actively disconnected BitTorrent users. Comcast initially denied our allegations, even though we had proof to back up these claims, and they continued to do so for months. Now, a year later, there is no doubt that Comcast offered a degraded service to BitTorrent users, and they now face a nationwide class action lawsuit (doc).

“Comcast surreptitiously installed receiver packets to keep people from using file-sharing programs when it promised it wouldn’t,” Alyson Foster, an associate at the law firm Gilbert Randolph alleges. “Of course the competition is fierce in telecommunications, but they were trying to get an unfair leg up.”

Robb Topolski, who is now the plaintiff in the nationwide class action lawsuit against Comcast, told TorrentFreak at the time: “We have had two Comcast techs confirm Sandvine in use, but neither confirmed or denied its connection with the RST interference. For me, seeding is possible. I can reach my upload speed limit, but there sure is a lot of interference. Since your article came out, I too have received many reports of seeding being impossible. I’m not sure if it’s regional, or what!”

These reports however, were soon picked up by the mainstream press, and eventually led to an investigation by the FCC. Two weeks ago, the FCC announced that it will order Comcast to stop interfering with BitTorrent traffic. FCC chairman said that Comcast slows down BitTorrent users independent of the amount of traffic they use, and that the company failed to communicate their network management practices to their consumers.

It is now up to the federal court to decide if Comcast’s BitTorrent users deserve to be compensated, and whether the company need to stop their misleading advertisements. Foster said the amount of the damages has yet to be estimated, but the alleged damages are expected to exceed $5 million.

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

BitTorrent Users Seek Compensation from Comcast

torrentlog.com - Full movie downloads (dvdrips and divx)

BitTorrent Users Seek Compensation from Comcast torrent downloads.

The pirates will be touring in an old bus they bought and prepared for their trip road trip through Europe. After several days of preparation in Stockholm, the bus stops tonight, July 10th, in Malmö, where the Pirate Bay and the Bureau of Piracy have declared “mixtape amnesty”.

They invite everyone who’s ever stared at the torrent clients’ speed graph, cursed Kazaa, carried a hard drive to a friend or made a copy of their mother’s cookie recipe to join them, as long as you bring drinks, your mixtapes and at least two peers.

The bus will then move on this Friday and reach its second stop, Berlin, the next day. After Berlin, the Pirate Bay and the Bureau of Piracy will set course to their final destination, Bolzano, where they will be participating in the Manifesta7 art event.

Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde will also be on the bus, and he told TorrentFreak: “We have a schedule somewhat already set. We’d love for people to hang out with us at the stops - and we would love for them to come and party with us. The bus looks great and we’re soon on our way.”

“It kinda shows that we’re more than just a site, that we’re an idea, and that we’re art in ourselves. As I’ve said many times before, we see The Pirate Bay as some sort of ongoing art project/performance,” Sunde added.

So, feel free to join the party if you live close to one of the stops. For more info about the trip to Manifesta7, and for some video material of the bus, check out the the project page at the Bureau of Piracy website.

Blog Source

torrentlog.com - Full movie downloads (dvdrips and divx)

The Pirate Bay Starts its Summer Tour 2008 torrent downloads.

Almost a year ago we first reported that Comcast was actively disconnecting BitTorrent seeds. Now, after numerous debates and false promises from Comcast, the FCC has ruled that Comcast’s BitTorrent interference is unacceptable, and orders the company to stop doing so.

Kevin Martin, FCC chairman told AP that Comcast’s BitTorrent throttling is “arbitrary”, and that the company had violated the principles of the Federal Communications Commission. Martin said that Comcast slows down BitTorrent users independent of the amount of traffic they use, and that the company failed to communicate their network management practices to their consumers.

Indeed, a recent study by the Max Planck Institute showed that the company had misinformed the FCC and their users. Comcast has always argued that BitTorrent upstream traffic was only blocked during periods of heavy network traffic, this turns out to be a lie, as the study showed that they blocked BitTorrent upstream traffic 24/7.

The FCC has announced that it will take appropriate action against Comcast, and the ISP will be ordered to stop interfering with BitTorrent traffic. Comcast has said before that it will invest in its network capacity and stop slowing down the traffic of their users, but these were all false promises.

It is to be expected that - if the pipes are really congested - Comcast and other ISPs will have to step away from the all-you-can-eat plans they have been offering for years, now that people are actually using bandwidth they signed up for.

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

Comcast Ordered to Stop BitTorrent Traffic Interference

torrentlog.com - Full movie downloads (dvdrips and divx)

Comcast Ordered to Stop BitTorrent Traffic Interference torrent downloads.

One of the new weapons in this conflict, is called ‘Deep Packet Inspection‘ (DPI). An innocuous sounding name for a technology that basically means ‘Internet monitoring’. Deep packet inspection is a technology that some companies are salivating over, including advertisers and entertainment lobby groups like the MPAA. With it, their dreams can come true, some of them anyway.

There are various uses for deep packet inspection, such as its use by intelligence agencies (It’s a wiretap for the Internet) to intercept email and other web traffic, like in Sweden. However, there are two more sinister usages being rolled out that are not so good for the everyday Internet user.

With the ability to see the contents of data packets, it’s no surprise that it’s a prime candidate for traffic shaping and throttling. With ISP’s increasingly overselling their capacity, they are starting to spend money not on infrastructure, but on DPI equipment, to throttle BitTorrent traffic for example. Until recently, the processing power required to inspect data packets has made this prohibitive, as it required massive computers, and significantly slowed down network traffic. Now, though, companies like Procera Networks are selling systems capable of DPI on 40Gbps of traffic, per system. Think Sandvine, without the telltale RST packets.

The MPAA loves the idea of DPI as well. It, like other groups, figure, that if people can see the contents of packets, that it can tell if those packets contain copyrighted data. Of course, they’re oblivious to the idea that their material can be used in a non-infringing way, and staunchly against fair use (and don’t forget, Fair Use Day is only a week or two away). If this becomes a popular view, though, we may see multi-part rar files in torrents growing in popularity again.

The other, arguably more sinister usage of DPI, is the growing interest by advertising companies to use deep packet inspection to observe what Internet users are doing. Watching your browsing activity, you can gain all kinds of insights into the user behind the keyboard. Similar to spyware, but on your line not your system, it’s not a good thing, and impossible to remove. Worse, it may be able to tell who is behind the keyboard at the time, by identifying trends in connection behavior. In the case of a p2p lawsuit, these DPI-based advertising companies may end up being called to testify who their systems believe to be behind the keyboard at the time of the allegations.

With British Telecom in the UK having experimented with DPI based advertising – without telling the subscribers about it – and with Charter in the US looking into trialling it (or as has just been announced - discouraged from it) it is a pressing concern. Fortunately, some people are not exhibiting the apathy mentioned above, and are doing something about it. Alex Hanff (you might remember his tangle with the MPAA) has been studiously working against the likes of Phorm, and indeed, we linked to his dissertation on it last time. He is holding a protest outside British Telecom’s AGM next month, to protest this rape of user’s privacy for commercial gain.

While the protest might be mainly against advertising based systems, it’s a worry for all net users, and needs to be dealt with by something other than apathy. At least one torrent site admin has told me he will be there and I may be there, but the more that attend, the better. So, users of the world, it’s time to start acting for what you believe in, and stop just moaning about it.

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

Deep Packet Inspection and Your Privacy Online

torrentlog.com - Full movie downloads (dvdrips and divx)

Deep Packet Inspection and Your Privacy Online torrent downloads.

When you’re as large as Comcast, you can’t please all of the people, all of the time. Although it has done so in other ways too, Comcast managed to annoy a large portion of its customer base with its throttling activities, not to mention its misleading statements and ’smokescreen’ attitude when it was discovered to be squirming away from the truth. Maybe it’s this that motivated a group of individuals to make the next move?

This morning many people will be celebrating as reports circulate that in the last few hours Comcast has been the subject of a hacking which defaced its homepage (mirror here).

The hackers appear to have changed the Comcast DNS records which were pointing at a non-Comcast address. Although back to normal now, for a while the records displayed this data:

Administrative Contact:
Domain Registrations, Comcast kryogenicsdefiant@gmail.com
Defiant still raping 2k8 ebk
69 dick tard lane
dildo room
PHILADELPHIA, PA 19103
US
4206661870 fax: 6664200187

Technical Contact:
Comcast Corporation kryogenicsdefiant@gmail.com
1500 Market Street
Philadelphia, PA 19102
US
215-320-8774 fax: 215-564-0132

Record expires on 24-Sep-2008.
Record created on 25-Sep-1997.
Database last updated on 28-May-2008 23:48:08 EDT.

Domain servers in listed order:

NS21.WORLDNIC.COM 205.178.190.11
NS22.WORLDNIC.COM 205.178.144.11

There are reports that concerned users telephoning to inform Comcast were summarily disconnected, with a level of panic centered round the security of the Comcast email system. Others claim they were treated politely and told to use a temporary site in the meantime, located at http://beta.comcast.net/a/

More on this story as we get it.

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

Comcast Hacked in BitTorrent Throttling Packback?

torrentlog.com - Full movie downloads (dvdrips and divx)

Comcast Hacked in BitTorrent Throttling Packback? torrent downloads.

In their recently launched video download store Bell offers movies to own for $4.99, and rentals for $1.99.

At the same time however, customers of BitTorrent’s video store - a direct competitor to Bell’s store - and BitTorrent users in general see their traffic being throttled. Why? Bell says there is not enough bandwidth available.

The claim that there is not enough bandwidth to go round is suspicious to say the least, and Bell’s response to this data crisis is even more puzzling. Instead of investing money in their network capacity, they simply slow down the connections of their subscribers while ignoring the source of the problem.

To top it off, Bell decided to launch a competing video download service. So while they throttle customers using the efficient BitTorrent protocol because they supposedly generate too much traffic, Bell launches a bandwidth-hogging download store of their own. Not only does this seem unfair to their own customers, it also negatively affects other video services that base their business model on BitTorrent.

The throttling efforts by Bell and other ISPs actually hurt companies such as BitTorrent Inc and Vuze. These companies both offer products that depend on BitTorrent and they become pretty much worthless when BitTorrent traffic is throttled.

Since Bell now has its own video store, the ISP is actively degrading the service their BitTorrent based competitors offer. That is, Bell users will probably not choose a video download service based on BitTorrent because they can get only a few kilobits per second when the network is “busy”.

Instead of investing in more Internet gateway capacity and peering agreements, Bell instead chooses to launch a video store. Perhaps it’s time for Bell and other ISPs to think ahead - BitTorrent is not going away and there will only be more ‘bandwidth hogging’ services in the future.

Or maybe this just an anti-competitive move by Bell?

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

Bell Opens Video Download Store, but Continues to Throttle BitTorrent

torrentlog.com - Full movie downloads (dvdrips and divx)

Bell Opens Video Download Store, but Continues to Throttle BitTorrent torrent downloads.

BitTorrent throttling is not a new phenomenon, but it is getting more attention lately, because the number of people who use BitTorrent keeps growing. Up until today however, there has been no reliable data that revealed the scope of it.

Last week we reported on a new and reliable tool that tests whether or not your BitTorrent traffic is being limited. The tool is developed by the Max Planck Institute, wo have released new data today. The findings reveal that the BitTorrent connections of half of Comcast and Cox’s customers are being cut. In addition, the data shows that these practices take place 24/7, disproving Comcast’s earlier statement to the FCC

“Comcast’s network management practices (1) only affect the protocols that have a demonstrated history of generating excessive burdens on the network; (2) only manage those protocols during periods of heavy network traffic,” Comcast wrote in a filing to the FCC last February.

This is far from the truth. As can be seen for the graph below, there is little difference in the percentage of blocked customers over the day. Furthermore, the data shows that there is also no difference between weekends and weekdays. BitTorrent is simply blocked all day long, no matter how busy their network is.

The Max Planck Institute tested the connections of 788 Comcast customers, 494 (62%) experienced a slowdown of BitTorrent traffic. Comcast is not alone though, well over 50% of the Cox subscribers that participated in the study were also throttled. The good news is, other ISPs don’t seem to restrict BitTorrent traffic on a wide scale.

Ben Scott, policy director of Free Press, said in a response: “Consumers have no reason left to trust their cable company. This independent study confirms that Comcast is still blocking its customers from using popular applications — despite the FCC’s investigation and widespread public outrage. And worse, the harmful practice appears to be spreading through the marketplace.”

After being pressured by the press and thousands of upset customers, Comcast has announced that it will stop targeting BitTorrent transfers, (somewhere in the future) and promised to invest in its network capacity. For the time being the company will continue to throttle BitTorrent users.

We have asked the FCC for a response, but they had not yet responded at time of going to press

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

Comcast Lied to FCC, Blocks BitTorrent Traffic 24/7

torrentlog.com - Full movie downloads (dvdrips and divx)

Comcast Lied to FCC, Blocks BitTorrent Traffic 24/7 torrent downloads.

The new tool developed by the “max planck institute for software systems” can be used without having to run your BitTorrent client, and compares BitTorrent traffic to regular traffic. On top of that, it will give you more information than the Azureus plugin does.

“The goal of our Glasnost project is to make access networks, such as residential cable, DSL, and cellular broadband networks, more transparent to their customers,” the Glasnost team writes. We couldn’t agree more of course, as we have said many times before.

The way it works is pretty straightforward. The Java applet developed by the Glasnost project uploads and downloads data via BitTorrent for a few seconds, and compares that to your regular download speed. It detects if your ISP is limiting all BitTorrent traffic, or just traffic on well known BitTorrent ports. All in all this tool should be able to tell you whether your ISP is messing with BitTorrent traffic or not.

Please keep in mind that the degree of traffic shaping varies a lot between different ISPs. Some ISPs only limit BitTorrent traffic during certain times of the day or do not throttle until the customer has exceeded a certain data threshold, others only slow down traffic in specific regions. More advanced tools have to be developed to detect these methods.

Thus far, over 5,300 users have performed the test, and the preliminary results show that at least 10 ISPs in the United States are slowing down BitTorrent. We asked the researcher for some more details (names) but we haven’t heard back from them. However, on their website, they promise to provide more detailed results later, once the code is peer-reviewed.

We encourage you to do the test, if the test results show that your ISP is limiting BitTorrent traffic, please let us know. We will add a lits of offenders at the bottom of this article.

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

Test: Does Your ISP Slow Down BitTorrent Traffic?

torrentlog.com - Full movie downloads (dvdrips and divx)

Test: Does Your ISP Slow Down BitTorrent Traffic? torrent downloads.

ISPs have been throttling BitTorrent traffic for quite a while, but only since the Comcast debacle has this been picked up by mainstream media.

A few months ago Azureus petitioned the FCC, which led to a FCC hearing in February. One of the complaints from the commission was that there is little data available on the scope of BitTorrent throttling, a gap Azureus now tries to fill by collecting data on the prevalence of TCP-resets among ISPs worldwide.

Last month Azureus published a plugin through which users can help distinguishing the good from the bad ISPs, and today we have a preview of some early findings. A massive 1,000,000 hours of data from over 8000 users has been collected over the past few weeks. The preliminary results again confirm that Comcast continues to use TCP-resets to manage BitTorrent traffic on their network, but they are not alone.

The rest of the Vuze/Azureus report (pdf) includes the median reset rates for hundreds of other ISPs

TCP resets seem to be more common for American ISPs, and Comcast leads the bunch. The Azureus team has sent a letter to Cablevision, Cogeco, BellSouth and AOL, where they request that the companies are open about their BitTorrent throttling practices. Thus far, the ISPs have not responded to the letters.

At the bottom of the list we see the good ISPs, mostly from Europe. There are other ways to throttle BitTorrent traffic, besides using TCP-resets, a list of ISPs who are known to limit BitTorrent traffic is available on the Azureus Wiki.

It has to be noted that the data gathering techniques Vuze uses are far from optimal. The plugin detects all TCP resets on a connection and doesn’t make a distinction between BitTorrent and other traffic, and there is no control group.

The Azureus/Vuze team will continue to collect data, and stated:

“We believe that there is sufficient data to suggest that network management practices that ‘throttle’ Internet traffic are widespread. At a minimum, more investigation is required to determine whether these resets are happening in the ordinary course of business or whether they represent the kind of throttling practices which target specific applications and/or protocols, harming the consumer experience and stifling innovation.”

The preliminary results presented here do indeed indicate that Comcast is not the only ISP that uses TCP resets to slow down BitTorrent traffic. People are encouraged to continue using the plugin so more robust data can be presented in the near future.

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

BitTorrent Throttling ISPs Exposed by Azureus

torrentlog.com - Full movie downloads (dvdrips and divx)

BitTorrent Throttling ISPs Exposed by Azureus torrent downloads.

Net neutrality really is the hot topic at the moment. Ignited by the Comcast fiasco, the concept of net neutrality has certainly been brought into the mainstream. Most ISPs are never quite forthcoming about their throttling, capping and otherwise interfering behavior, but that crowd certainly doesn’t include the CEO of Virgin Media, the UK’s second largest ISP.

In an interview with the Royal Television Society’s Television magazine, far from covering up their intentions, Virgin Media’s new incoming CEO Neil Berkett - who joined the Virgin Media Board just a few days ago - has launched an attack on the ideas and principles behind net neutrality.

“This net neutrality thing is a load of bollocks,” he said, adding that Virgin is already in the process of doing deals to speed up the traffic of certain media providers.

With around 3.5 million customers in the UK, and already traffic shaping due to lack of capacity, it’s a sobering thought that at the behest of “content providers” with deep pockets, Virgin is prepared to speed up their traffic, which would presumably have a negative impact on those at the bottom of the ISP’s priority list, namely bandwidth hungry file-sharers.

Berkett then turned on the BBC and their iPlayer service, telling them - and other public broadcasters like them - that if they don’t pay a premium to gain faster access to Virgin Media’s customers, their service would be put into “bus lanes”.

It just shows that some ISPs are happy to throttle just about anyone in the name of profit, it’s just that most aren’t as open about it as Mr Berkett.

via DigitalSpy

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

Virgin Media CEO Says Net Neutrality is “A Load of Bollocks”

torrentlog.com - Full movie downloads (dvdrips and divx)

Virgin Media CEO Says Net Neutrality is “A Load of Bollocks” torrent downloads.

Rogers‘ new pricing scheme (see image below) gets rid of the all-you-can-eat plans most ISPs offer, and charges customers for every additional gigabyte once they have reached their monthly quota. For example, customers with an “extreme plus” plan pay $99.95 a month for the first 95GB, and $1.25 for every additional gigabyte they consume.

Here’s what Rogers wrote in a letter to their customers: “With households doing more online every day - from downloading music and streaming videos to joining online communities - it’s important to have an Internet provider that evolves to meet your online needs. At Rogers, we remain committed to always providing you with the best Internet experience possible.”

Don’t get me wrong, a contentious pricing scheme makes sense. The more people consume, the more they pay, fair enough. What bothers most Rogers users is that, even with this new pricing scheme, their BitTorrent traffic is still being throttled.

Rogers was one of the early adopters of BitTorrent traffic shaping. The first reports date back to 2005, and last year Rogers even decided to block all encrypted traffic, just to make sure that BitTorrent protocol encryption didn’t work.

Nevertheless, Rogers plays nice to its customers, and says it is “committed to providing the best Internet experience as possible”, but how can this be true if their customers can hardly use BitTorrent?

In the letter they sent to their customers they mention that, with a monthly bandwidth limit of 95GB, users can download a whopping 24,320 songs a month. However, if Rogers continues to throttle BitTorrent traffic, it can take up to 67.6 months before their customers actually reach their quota.

In a response to the new pricing scheme, a Rogers subscriber told TorrentFreak: “Pretty funny actually, as with the throttling they are doing, I could downgrade my service considerably.”

Not to worry though, there are several tip and tricks to get around the traffic shaping devices rogers uses. For some, BitTorrent encryption is sufficient to circumvent Rogers’ throttling, others need to adjust a few extra settings to enjoy their torrents in full-speed.

Happy torrenting…

Rogers’ new pricing scheme

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

Rogers Continues to Throttle BitTorrent Traffic, Despite Contentious Pricing Scheme

torrentlog.com - Full movie downloads (dvdrips and divx)

Rogers Continues to Throttle BitTorrent Traffic, Despite Contentious Pricing Scheme torrent downloads.