[FlamingCobra]

I would like some anecdotal... stories.

I have been told they track you for BitTorrent now. Is that true?

[Polpolion]

I'm no NCSU alum but I doubt most of the question you're going to ask are NCSU only. In fact 100% of the questions you've asked are apply to most universities.

They don't track BitTorrent as much as torrent and P2P technology in general. You're not going to get around them by using Flush instead of BitTorrent or Magnet links instead of proper torrents. It's not that big of a deal, though, since using torrents for tasks of questionable legitimacy is a bad idea in the first place. Also note that they probably don't pay much attention to the actual content of what you're doing. Eg, at the University of Michigan using MekTek's MTX software to download the free and perfectly legal release of MW4:Mercs will trigger an automated email response from the university ISP, the content of which boils down to "PROTIP: P2P could be piracy, watch what you're doing". NCSU's finer policies are likely to be different, however. You should be able to look them up on the university's website.

[Klaustrophobia]

by "they" i assume you mean the university tech police.  i don't know about specifically tracking torrents or piracy or whatever themselves, but i wouldn't be surprised at all if they keep a general eye on net traffic and flag students who are using a **** ton of it.  and copyright holding companies are all over university networks to catch people.  i got pegged twice, but only one was legit.  the first time was one of those general letters to the university from the company saying "ip blah was detected sharing blah, we're being nice and progressive and not going to sue if you stop it for us" and then you get an email from the university telling you to explain yourself or your internet will be shut off.  first time was just a warning not to do it again, i said something like it was an accident, i didn't mean to have that file set to share and yada yada.  the second time i got pegged it was COMPLETE bull**** and one of the copyright lawyers on a fishing trip.  they said i downloaded a harry potter book with a filesize of something like 10 kb.  i hadn't downloaded anything, much less what was probably a virus with "harry potter" in the filename.  for that response i told the uni that they should pass on a "**** you, try that again and WE will sue" to the person who sent the letter.

in general, not a good idea to torrent from a university account.

[TwentyPercentCooler]

It's not just universities, either. Most ISPs will watch for P2P traffic and send you a nice letter saying "Cut it out or we'll throttle your downstream/cut off your service/empty threats blah blah blah." I say empty threats because I've never heard of them actually doing anything; the letter is just a scare tactic.

Most people I know that are really hardcore into file-sharing and live on campus head to coffee shops or do wardriving. It's easy enough to find unsecured wifi connections that taking the risk of torrenting on a school connection isn't worth it.

edit: spelling

[Polpolion]

It's not just universities, either. Most ISPs will watch for P2P traffic and send you a nice letter saying "Cut it out or we'll throttle your downstream/cut off your service/empty threats blah blah blah." I say empty threats because I've never heard of them actually doing anything; the letter is just a scare tactic.

Most people I know that are really hardcore into file-sharing and live on campus head to coffee shops or do wardriving. It's easy enough to find unsecured wifi connections that taking the risk of torrenting on a school connection isn't worth it.

edit: spelling

AFAIK it's not usually the ISPs that actively do this. The ISPs are urged by third parties (eg MPAA, RIAA) to shut someone down when the third party notes a particular IP TX/RXing some piece of copyrighted media. So unless it's a regional ISP thing where a letter is automatically generated ISPs don't really care what you do. Or they already have throttled particular connections or something. I could be wrong on this, so take it with a grain of salt. My household has never gotten a letter referencing any torrenting I've done, and I don't typically torrent something unless it's legal. Universities are all probably more keen on this because they've got such a high concentration of people that are likely to be doing it.

[jr2]

1) Use forced outgoing protocol encryption, do NOT allow legacy connections (uTorrent allows this, check to be sure your client does and configure appropriately)

2) Use a different port number than the standard BitTorrent ports (6881-6999, so, just set it to a random number (there is a button in uTorrent to set a random port, and actually, an option to set it random on each start)

3) Use PeerGuardian to block IPs based on community updated blacklists, and get the Anti-P2P / Spyware / bad trackers / yada yada, basically, just get all the lists of bad stuff you don't want connecting to your computer (not talking about government, university, and microsoft lists, IMHO those are retarded)

4) Use a VPN, something like HotSpot Shield if it will work for you.  Keep in mind that PeerGuardian may block some of the IPs used by the VPN.



Anyone have anything to add to the list / or discuss / disagree with what I already put down?

[Polpolion]

5) don't torrent

[TwentyPercentCooler]

5) don't torrent

There are legitmate uses for torrenting. I almost always download files from torrents, if possible, as opposed to irritating sites like Filefront.

It's not just universities, either. Most ISPs will watch for P2P traffic and send you a nice letter saying "Cut it out or we'll throttle your downstream/cut off your service/empty threats blah blah blah." I say empty threats because I've never heard of them actually doing anything; the letter is just a scare tactic.

Most people I know that are really hardcore into file-sharing and live on campus head to coffee shops or do wardriving. It's easy enough to find unsecured wifi connections that taking the risk of torrenting on a school connection isn't worth it.

edit: spelling

AFAIK it's not usually the ISPs that actively do this. The ISPs are urged by third parties (eg MPAA, RIAA) to shut someone down when the third party notes a particular IP TX/RXing some piece of copyrighted media. So unless it's a regional ISP thing where a letter is automatically generated ISPs don't really care what you do. Or they already have throttled particular connections or something. I could be wrong on this, so take it with a grain of salt. My household has never gotten a letter referencing any torrenting I've done, and I don't typically torrent something unless it's legal. Universities are all probably more keen on this because they've got such a high concentration of people that are likely to be doing it.

Time Warner's ISP sends out form letters, or at least they used to. And yeah, it's because of pressure from the MPAA/RIAA, but just because those entities exert pressure doesn't mean the ISP has to yield to it. I have Comcast now, and not only has it been a damn good ISP, but they're increasingly been telling copyright holders to piss off and stop whining. In fact, they pretty recently refused a bunch of subpoenas because they were sick and tired of the overzealous lawsuits. Good on them.

http://torrentfreak.com/comcast-protests-shake-down-of-alleged-bittorrent-pirates-120612/

Edit: I should note that it's only just recently that Comcast changed their stance, and probably only because it costs them money to dig through records, but it's something. I believe Verizon is also starting to lean the same way.

[BloodEagle]

5) don't torrent

IIRC, certain MMORPGs make use of such data transfer methods, though I don't know how ISPs view or react to this practice.

[TwentyPercentCooler]

5) don't torrent

IIRC, certain MMORPGs make use of such data transfer methods, though I don't know how ISPs view or react to this practice.

As far as I know, they don't have a way to look at the contents of the torrents being downloaded, or they just don't bother. Most likely the latter. Having people sitting around monitoring that is a waste of money.

And yeah, back when I played World of Warcraft, so very long ago (thank the stars), the actual patcher itself could utilize P2P protocols; although, it was almost always less hassle to just find an actual torrent of the patch instead of screwing with Blizzard's downloader.

Games that I have that aren't run through Steam, I patch by downloading the patches as a torrent. I download free music from Bandcamp using torrents. If I want to share a video with just a few friends, it's easier to make a torrent and link it to them than it is to mess around uploading it on YouTube. Not to mention that in my experience, about 99% of the time, it's just faster.

[jr2]

Basically, torrenting is awesome, problem is, a lot of files are illegally uploaded using torrents... So?

A lot of files are illegally uploaded to FTP & HTTP file servers as well.  I guess then we shouldn't download files, at all?  lol

What's happening is that, whereas, with a file server, the MPAA / RIAA can go after the owner of the server, and tell them to get rid of the file or they will sue, and they can plainly see that the offending file is there (if it's not password protected and therefore encrypted, and if the name says exactly what the file is, anyways).

With torrents, the "server" is the users themselves.  So, a lot of ISPs sometimes throttle torrent traffic to discourage it (your downloads are slow when there are 20,000 people with the file (seeders) and 4,000 people downloading the file (leechers), and you can't upload your own torrents when you create them) -- also, the MPAA / RIAA, well, I think they are a bit trigger happy (oh, well, what the heck, just send everyone a letter, we know they're all guilty!)  AND I like to torrent files that I already legitimately own (e.g., an album already converted to high-quality .ogg or .mp3, when I own the album, instead of spending 40 mins and doing it myself, I'll download it in 5), which, to the MPAA/RIAA, would constitute proof of my 'guilt'.

As well, you can find things lost to time there sometimes (where are you going to find a replacement for your DOS 6.22 & Windows 3.11 disks when one of the floppies goes bad?) also you can find modified / more convenient versions of tools you already own & use (e.g., Office 2003 Lite, ~70MB IIRC, and fully functional, Micro / Mini Windows XP, Micro XP will run on an old P133 with like 32 MB RAM if you had to do it).

[FlamingCobra]

I think it is just that the "idea" of torrents evokes images of piracy, which makes torrenting an easy target.

[Polpolion]

That not as much as the fact that it's pretty much the most common and easiest to catch forms of piracy. Legitimate uses for it don't change that, and no half decent pirate would be using torrents to get their merchandise regularly, which doesn't change anything either.

[TwentyPercentCooler]

That not as much as the fact that it's pretty much the most common and easiest to catch forms of piracy. Legitimate uses for it don't change that, and no half decent pirate would be using torrents to get their merchandise regularly, which doesn't change anything either.

I'd like to note that it's only generally been the easiest form of piracy to stop because the ISPs had no spine and were handing over records anytime the MPAA/RIAA asked.

After the court decisions that an IP and a person cannot legally be tied together, the ISPs have been getting a little less cooperative.

[Polpolion]

Well ultimately it's up the individual to decide whether or not to torrent, I guess. Honestly if you're questioning the legitimacy of an acquisition I can't understand why on earth you would torrent something when there are plenty of other much more secure methods of data transfer, but whatever.