need software to shut a pc down remotely or prevent torrents running on a certain IP

joeconway

joeconway

joeconway

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i know this seems a bit harsh to do, however it is not as a prank.


basically my brother refuses to stop torrenting stuff even though it makes the net for the rest of the family run like a 56k, despite having an 8Mbit connection. More to the point, even though we recently got a letter that we are breaking fair use policy by downloading on average 56Gb per month and that they will terminate our contract unless we stop!

ive tried asking him to stop, ive tried uninstalling utorrent but i actually cant think of any other way to prevent him from torrenting other than using a tool to shut his pc down remotely every time he has torrents running; with the hope that eventually he'll give up.

ive tried some beforehand but they all refuse to work saying i dont have the priviledges.

any ideas?
 
If you have control of the router, switch off UPNP and then kill all the torrent port redirection rules to his machine.

Make sure you change the admin password on the router so the little sod can't get back in and change things again.

Lots of other things you can do if you have control of the router and its a decent model.

Used to have a housemate like this but I ended up just formatting his hard disk after a few 'house meetings' led to no change in behaviour. Needless to say he moved out soon after.
 
sidethink said:
the little sod.
Click to expand...


well put.


thanks, ill give that a try. I've got the orange livebox so its hardly fantastic...will have a look anyway.



i know its mean but 58.6Gb in a month thats ridiculous!
 
sidethink said:
If you have control of the router, switch off UPNP and then kill all the torrent port redirection rules to his machine.

Make sure you change the admin password on the router so the little sod can't get back in and change things again.

Lots of other things you can do if you have control of the router and its a decent model.

Used to have a housemate like this but I ended up just formatting his hard disk after a few 'house meetings' led to no change in behaviour. Needless to say he moved out soon after.
Click to expand...

I might have to do the same. The bill in our student home is in my name, and I bet the idiot who's going to come back in September will still refuse/lie about his torrent habits. Being that it's in my name I don't want e.g a black mark against it just incase I'm refused an ISP account in the future or something (<-might just be overly paranoid but have no idea whether this can be done or not...).
 
joeconway said:
i dont have the priviledges.
Click to expand...

you need to be an administrator of his machine iirc.

On his machine, right click My Computer, select Manage, then expand Local Users, and create a user account that mimics the one you use on your machine (same username/password). Then add that user to the Administrators group.

If it's XP Pro you can test this works by doing \\machine_name\c$ from your machine, where machine_name is the name of his box.

This should give you the necessary privilages to remotely shutdown/restart his PC.

Failing that, if he uses a wired connection, take a pair of scissors to the cable. If it's wireless, change the WEP/WPA password every day until he gets the hint.

As for his torrents, he might be saturating the upload bandwidth, which is what hammers your overall connection. Try limiting his upload and download bandwidth (upload i normally set to around 10kbps on my 35kbps line). I had the same problem with a housemate of mine, and limiting his upload sorted the issue straight away.
 
Last edited:
as said by lokkers


limit his upload, that will speed up your net connection again.

Have you thought about doing something malicious to his machine, by that i mean, format c:

I know its harsh, but you could just say he must have got a virus from his torrenting activities.

Or better still if your getting these issues raised from your isp just get your parents to remove his pc for a week or so.

Worked with me when i was a kid. if i had done something i wasnt supposed to, or didnt do my chores pc was taken away for a suitable period of time and then given back at the end.


56gb is a lot of data and im sure it isnt free-ware and such lol.
 
ultimately, if he can't behave himself then withhold his access to the shared resource - perhaps force him to put in his own broadband if he really wants to abuse it.

I've never set eyes on a Livebox but a quick Google tells me you can disable uPnP and control port settings on the rudimentary firewall.

Just the UPNP change alone will nuke his ability to torrent (unless he is very very smart). Of course the same applies to anyone else relying on upnp to open ports for them - all the port settings will have to be done manually.

Try and login to the router and turn this off for a bit - see how that affects things.
 
Firstly, is he bigger then you? I am assuming no... Best lessons are learnt by force! Just punch him in the kidneys, should teach him a lesson...

When my sister is download to much stuff all I do is ...

I am not sure all routers can do it, but tried blocking all outbound ports except say port 80 and say a few others? Also you could shutdown the port that he is on. OR use QoS to prioritise all other traffic. OR use static routes to send his traffic to a null interface or something. But I think the kidney thing works best.
 
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