AfterDawn: Tech news

BitTorrent developers working on encryption to defeat ISP interference

Written by Rich Fiscus @ 18 Feb 2008 11:58 User comments (11)

BitTorrent developers working on encryption to defeat ISP interference It was only a matter of time before the BitTorrent community decided to take on the "network management" practices of ISPs like Comcast. According to TorrentFreak that's exactly what a small group of developers is doing.
They're working to implement what's being termed as Peer List Obfuscation, referring to its goal of hiding the list of peers returned by a torrent Tracker when queried by a client. This list is apparently used by Comcast's Sandvine network management system to locate BitTorrent traffic in order to falsify reset packets, telling a client uploading a particular file that the computer on the end closed the connection. In reality the message comes from Comcast, and is reportedly used to shut down any file being uploaded using BitTorrent without a corresponding download.



Ironically, if this project is a success it will mean not only that ISP's like Comcast won't be able to shut down most BitTorrent traffic, but also that they'll end up with even more traffic due to the overhead from encryption.

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11 user comments

119.2.2008 00:02

ROFL. Owned?

219.2.2008 00:09
tripplite
Inactive

mwahhhhhhhhhhhha

another victory is at hand!!!!!!!

319.2.2008 00:21

That is sweet, I hope they figure it out soon so we can slap them in the face. Take that ISP bastards!!

419.2.2008 01:39

And the chess match continues.

Underground Programmers: It's my will against yours and you will lose!

ISPs: ruh roh raggy!

519.2.2008 08:32

Quote:
But also that they'll end up with even more traffic due to the overhead from encryption.
lol... serves them right. We pay for the bandwidth, they have no right to tell us what to do with it.

619.2.2008 09:48
drach
Inactive

will this hurt media sentry's efforts too?

719.2.2008 11:22
nobrainer
Inactive

Originally posted by drach:
will this hurt media sentry's efforts too?
not really as they join the peer list and obtain IP's from there but they are developing p2p clients which will include IP anomalising technology, which with the encryption will make it impossible to trace anybody.
This message has been edited since its posting. Latest edit was made on 19 Feb 2008 @ 11:24

819.2.2008 12:08

This sounds like a really really good idea! I think if you pay for a internet connection, Sometimes upwards of 60+ bucks you should be able to use that connection for whatever you want rather it's surfing the net or stealing the latest Mp3! Thats just my 2 cents.

919.2.2008 17:02

Haha I had a feeling this was gonna happen, big props to all the devs working on this project. BTW comcast you just got pawnd!

1019.2.2008 22:24

Originally posted by elroy2055:
This sounds like a really really good idea! I think if you pay for a internet connection, Sometimes upwards of 60+ bucks you should be able to use that connection for whatever you want rather it's surfing the net or stealing the latest Mp3! Thats just my 2 cents.
I agree wtf are paying for if we can't download what we want and if you are not burning multiple copies whats the hurt any way.

There are saying you can't even make backups of what you own.

119.4.2008 17:30

Apluades this well done work. This has been a long time comming. I will be waiting for this software and i would be the first one to download the software. Keep up the good work.

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