Google tells you if your ISP is interfering with BitTorrent

Google tells you if your ISP is interfering with BitTorrent
If you suspect your ISP is throttling BitTorrent traffic and don't want to wait for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) to prove it Google wants to help. Their new network measuerment platform, M-Lab, was launched yesterday along with three tools built on it. Glasnost, a tool for determing whether your ISP is manipulating BitTorrent traffic, is one of them.

Before you rush off to try it out you should be aware their servers are getting a lot of traffic right now and you may have to wait a long time to get through. No doubt this will change as the newness wears off and the publicity dies down somewhat.



If you just want to find out the results of other users' tests you can skp straight to the Glasnost results page which gives you a picture of results broken down by geographic area and time. It can't tell you what ISPs are found to be manipulating BitTorrent traffic though. You'll need to run the test for yourself to find out if yours does.

Obviously we know that there are several ISPs who have either been caught or admitted to interfering with various types of internet traffic. It's likely there is more going on than anyone has discovered yet.

You may have more luck running the other tests. Both are fairly dependent on using servers located as geographically close to you, so unless you happen to be in the San Francisco Bay area you'll want to use the server list to find something closer.

One is called Network Diagnostic Test (NDT), which is basically a thorough and fairly sophisticated speed test. The last test is Network Path and Application Diagnosis (NPAD). It tests for common "last mile" internet connection problems.

Last mile refers to the portion of your internet connection which leads directly to your residence. It's the portion between your provider's equipment and yours.

Although you're more likely to get these last two tests to load, you may still find there's a long wait. Fortunately both include queues so you can get "in line" for the test and simply wait until your turn comes.


Written by: Rich Fiscus @ 29 Jan 2009 12:09
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  • 7 comments
  • hikaricor

    Good luck trying it out today.

    This has already hit many news sites as well as digg.
    Only a matter of time before the servers are slashdotted as well.

    29.1.2009 15:03 #1

  • vyze

    They shouldn't of made the same mistakes as Microsoft did and web host Windows 7 beta. They should of used bit torrent to do network load balancing! sheesh! :-D

    (and yes, I'm kidding)

    29.1.2009 17:08 #2

  • tripplite

    lol vyze air high five......


    wow this sounds pretty ungoogle, after all that deliberate filtering they were kinda getting on my nerve.....my thumbs up google...nothing surprisingly new though, kinda like that reinventing the wheel thing, works though, i'll be sure to try it :D

    29.1.2009 19:07 #3

  • Morreale

    Well according to my results, my ISP (Cogeco) throttles my uploading but not my downloading...

    Should I care about this? What do I do now?

    29.1.2009 22:47 #4

  • rvinkebob

    Originally posted by Morreale: Well according to my results, my ISP (Cogeco) throttles my uploading but not my downloading...

    Should I care about this? What do I do now?
    Lol, you should be full of joy... JK :P

    29.1.2009 23:31 #5

  • vyze

    Originally posted by Morreale: Well according to my results, my ISP (Cogeco) throttles my uploading but not my downloading...

    Should I care about this? What do I do now?
    If they are throttling your uploading (sharing the files, which is the illegal part) then if you are to get mad at them they might try to shut you down.

    do they throttle FTP and/or HTTP and/or BT ?
    you could try and have someone download from you on those various protocols and their corresponding ports.
    Another thing to try is Skype. It's P2P.
    I usually use Skype for transferring files across the network as it seems to go A LOT faster then SMB! I haven't tried AFP, though.

    30.1.2009 00:44 #6

  • Javan39

    I have tried to use this everyday since this was posted and always get the message that server is busy. I want to try it and see if my ISP is doing anything. I doubt it I always have good speeds and never have problems but just wanted to try it out.

    3.2.2009 10:53 #7

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