AfterDawn: News

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.

Written by: Rich Fiscus @ 18 Feb 2008 23:58

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• 11 comments

• dude845

  ROFL. Owned?

  19.2.2008 00:02 #1

• tripplite

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

  19.2.2008 00:09 #2

• xugiua

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

  19.2.2008 00:21 #3

• Blackjax

  And the chess match continues.
  
  Underground Programmers: It's my will against yours and you will lose!
  
  ISPs: ruh roh raggy!

  19.2.2008 01:39 #4

• canuckerz

  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.

  19.2.2008 08:32 #5

• drach

  will this hurt media sentry's efforts too?

  19.2.2008 09:48 #6

• nobrainer

  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.
  

  The BPI Are: SONY, UNIVERSAL, WARNER GROUP, EMI.
  
  The RIAA Soundexchange Are: SONY, UNIVERSAL, WARNER GROUP, EMI.
  
  The IFPI Are: The same anti consumer lot as listed above!
  
  The MPAA Are: SONY, UNIVERSAL, WARNER GROUP, DISNEY, PARAMOUNT, FOX.
  
  How do you stop anti consumer = its easy purchase only second hand media and avoid their propertarian hobbled by DRM hardware! http://www.boycott-riaa.com/

  19.2.2008 11:22 #7

• 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.

  19.2.2008 12:08 #8

• burnin1

  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!

  19.2.2008 17:02 #9

• wolf123

  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.

  19.2.2008 22:24 #10

• borhan9

  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.

  9.4.2008 17:30 #11