Bittorrent legit downloads will they be effected?

WatchTower · 23 May 2009 at 19:16

I hear a lot of ISPs are clamping down on file sharing software. Will this effect legit usage such as large updates for games? I'm using the 16mb unlimited broadband with Sky.

tolien · 23 May 2009 at 19:22

If they shape traffic identified as torrents, it'll affect all traffic. They're not able to see what it is you're transferring.

Deleted member 77746 · 23 May 2009 at 19:23

WatchTower said:
I here a lot of ISPs are clamping down on file sharing software. Will this effect legit usage such as large updates and for games? I'm using the 16mb unlimited broadband with Sky.

It's more than likely all traffic but as far as I am aware sky don't traffic shape.

EDIT: beat by 1 second, how unlucky! lol

Rroff · 23 May 2009 at 19:40

Yeah unfortunatly (or fortunatly depending how you look at it) the system doesn't distinguish between legit and non-legit torrents, I'm completely unable to update some games, stream from certain (legal) music sharing systems, etc. during peak times because they use P2P type transfer and my ISP caps to 2.8KB/s (I kid you not) for P2P during peak times.

Deleted member 77746 · 23 May 2009 at 19:44

Rroff said:
Yeah unfortunatly (or fortunatly depending how you look at it) the system doesn't distinguish between legit and non-legit torrents, I'm completely unable to update some games, stream from certain (legal) music sharing systems, etc. during peak times because they use P2P type transfer and my ISP caps to 2.8KB/s (I kid you not) for P2P during peak times.

Any ISP that did this I would tell them to get stuffed. The power IT systems have now they should be able to distinguish between legit and non legit traffic.

Daegan · 23 May 2009 at 20:02

optitech-uk said:
Any ISP that did this I would tell them to get stuffed. The power IT systems have now they should be able to distinguish between legit and non legit traffic.

Sniffing and analysing every packet would be insanely demanding, and pretty pointless anyway considering how easy it is to encrypt traffic. So no, they shouldn't.

tolien · 23 May 2009 at 20:49

optitech-uk said:
Any ISP that did this I would tell them to get stuffed. The power IT systems have now they should be able to distinguish between legit and non legit traffic.

Not without costing an arm and a leg - do you even know how much ISP-grade kit to do the limited packet inspection that exists now costs?

WatchTower · 23 May 2009 at 21:16

That's a shame because some f2p mmorpgs can be over a couple of gigabytes.

Deleted member 77746 · 23 May 2009 at 21:20

tolien said:
Not without costing an arm and a leg - do you even know how much ISP-grade kit to do the limited packet inspection that exists now costs?

Costs shouldn't be a problem, suprised the music industry / movie industry isn't paying to help the costs if thats the case.

The case study about music / movie / game piracy is they are loosing billions. If the ISPs were helped with the cost of kit then the illigal file sharers can be put to justice.

Or they just reduce prices of movies/games/music.

tolien · 23 May 2009 at 21:31

optitech-uk said:
The case study about music / movie / game piracy is they are loosing billions. If the ISPs were helped with the cost of kit then the illigal file sharers can be put to justice.

Er, riiight...

mattyg · 23 May 2009 at 21:50

Will they not just change from Torrents to something else

Or will everyone just go to newsgroups

Rroff · 23 May 2009 at 22:07

Unfortunatly they have the lowest latency of any ISP that I've been able to test in this area - by quite a margin and we do a lot of gaming here.

Personally I think ISPs should be just a conduit - they shouldn't be trying to distinguish what sort of traffic is running over their systems illegal or otherwise.

Theguy · 23 May 2009 at 22:18

Rroff said:
Unfortunatly they have the lowest latency of any ISP that I've been able to test in this area - by quite a margin and we do a lot of gaming here.

Personally I think ISPs should be just a conduit - they shouldn't be trying to distinguish what sort of traffic is running over their systems illegal or otherwise.

I guess the issue for ISPs though is that P2P creates a lot of traffic (therefore cost) - somehow i doubt that they care if the traffic is legal or illegal..

Paul11 · 23 May 2009 at 22:19

Rroff said:
Personally I think ISPs should be just a conduit - they shouldn't be trying to distinguish what sort of traffic is running over their systems illegal or otherwise.

i completely agree... i buy internet connetion and dont think my provider should be even looking at what i choose to do with it.

Deleted member 77746 · 23 May 2009 at 22:24

Paul11 said:
i completely agree... i buy internet connetion and dont think my provider should be even looking at what i choose to do with it.

But they should if it's illigal downloads your using your connection for..... It's crime, stealing e.t.c.

Theguy · 23 May 2009 at 22:38

optitech-uk said:
But they should if it's illigal downloads your using your connection for..... It's crime, stealing e.t.c.

why though? they aren't the police...

MumboJumbo · 23 May 2009 at 22:51

who knows whats monitoring you to be honest. Goverment agencys could be doing anything. Not like anyone can really stop them. Obviously they proably dont care about you though so your fine anyway. But well if you were butying nukes on ebay... thats another matter...

JimAroo · 24 May 2009 at 02:38

ISP's should just do their jobs, provide people with internet. The only time they should take action against a user if is they have a reason to. Such as, a letter from an anti-file sharing company.

No matter how much ISP's throttle or choke ports it's going to make a difference. People will continue to use the internet as they like and no-one is going to stop them. The only thing that throttling / choking does is irritate people.

Phemo · 24 May 2009 at 09:54

optitech-uk said:
But they should if it's illigal downloads your using your connection for..... It's crime, stealing e.t.c.

It's copyright infringement, not stealing. There is a difference. Sure, it's illegal either way but I keep seeing people referring to it as stealing and it's an incorrect statement.

It's not the ISP's job to spy on their customers to see whether they're up to no good or not. Even if ISPs did get the kit in to do deep packet inspection it still wouldn't do anything for encryption so it's pointless.

growse · 24 May 2009 at 10:50

ISPs don't monitor your traffic to see if your money-laundering, or most other illegal activities you can do on the internet. Why is sharing of copyrighted files a special case?