Data Transfers over the Network

[Kmax82]

I just got approached by one of the IT guys where I work, and he claims that my Mac and one of the other guy's Macs at the office are sending a lot of data over the network. He said I sent around 10 GB over the network over the last 10 days, and the other guy sent around 14 GB.

Is there anything that autoruns that would cause this? Or is there a way to track the data usage over my Airport?

I'm just curious now, because I do web development, but don't send massive amounts of data over the connection usually just 30k files, and some images, etc...

Thanks!

BTW, before anyone asks.. no I don't use illegal software. Everything I have on my machine has been purchased legitimately.

 

[aphex]

10GB over 10 days upload is HUGE. I can't imagine anything other than a file server that would send that much data (I don't even think torrenting would upload that much, 1GB/day is huge)

Check the sharing tab in System Preferences, do you have anything enabled?

Also, does IT keep logs? If they do, try and find out what IP's the data is being sent to.

 

[aphex]

Also, install iStat Menus - http://www.islayer.com/apps/istatmenus/ and turn on the network view, it will put an Upload/Download widget in your menubar and you can watch to see how much your system is uploading

EDIT: I was wrong, it actually does keep a running tally, just click the menubar icon and the total is shown next to the current speed in parenthesis.

 

[Kmax82]

Great.. thanks.

Looks as if Sharing was enabled, so I turned that off, since I don't actually use it. I'll give iStat a try. I also have LittleSnitch from a previous bundle purchase and it didn't look like anything outside of the ordinary was going out. Hmm.. weird.

 

[magnux]

Do you have any Usenet or Torrent clients installed? Many will resume their download (or upload) functions when a network connection has been re-established.

10GB over 10 days upload is HUGE. I can't imagine anything other than a file server that would send that much data (I don't even think torrenting would upload that much, 1GB/day is huge)

FYI, I do well over 1GB a day (usually, between 10-20GB per day) easily. Between Usenet downloads and torrent seeding, there's no question. Everyday I'm downloading recently aired episodes of TV shows, etc.

 

[VinylxScratches]

If he's torrenting and using usenet at his job I'm sure he'd be fired 😛.

 

[magnux]

Originally posted by: VinylxScratches
If he's torrenting and using usenet at his job I'm sure he'd be fired 😛.

I'm assuming he brings his Mac(book?) into his office and uses it there, and if so, he may have Usenet and/or torrent applications which he uses at home -- that resume their transfers when he connects to the work network.

If he's using SSL for this transfers, like most do, then his IT department would just see a massive amount of (encrypted) data being transferred.

Just speculating..

FYI, not everything on Usenet or BitTorrent is pirated material..

 

[TheStu]

Originally posted by: magnux

Originally posted by: VinylxScratches
If he's torrenting and using usenet at his job I'm sure he'd be fired 😛.

I'm assuming he brings his Mac(book?) into his office and uses it there, and if so, he may have Usenet and/or torrent applications which he uses at home -- that resume their transfers when he connects to the work network.

If he's using SSL for this transfers, like most do, then his IT department would just see a massive amount of (encrypted) data being transferred.

Just speculating..

"FYI, not everything on Usenet or BitTorrent is pirated material.. "

But, is all pirated material on usenet and bittorrent?

 

[Kmax82]

No.. I don't use Bittorrent or Usenet on this machine. They wouldn't fire me, if it was legit.. but they would definitely tell me to stop.

I think I found the culprit though. It was a combination of Sharing being turned on, which I find odd that that would cause that much traffic to go over the network.. Maybe somebody else in the office is trying to steal my files.. 😀 and Backblaze, online backup service. My dumb IT guy got defensive when I told him that I have an offsite backup through Backblaze. "Well you need to turn that off." blah, blah blah.. not sure why, since they're paying for a 10mb Professional Unlimited Plan. Oh well, guess I have to take the chance of losing data.

 

[silverpig]

Originally posted by: Kmax82
No.. I don't use Bittorrent or Usenet on this machine. They wouldn't fire me, if it was legit.. but they would definitely tell me to stop.

I think I found the culprit though. It was a combination of Sharing being turned on, which I find odd that that would cause that much traffic to go over the network.. Maybe somebody else in the office is trying to steal my files.. 😀 and Backblaze, online backup service. My dumb IT guy got defensive when I told him that I have an offsite backup through Backblaze. "Well you need to turn that off." blah, blah blah.. not sure why, since they're paying for a 10mb Professional Unlimited Plan. Oh well, guess I have to take the chance of losing data.

I was about to say that it sounded like a time machine backup or something.

 

[aphex]

Originally posted by: magnux
Do you have any Usenet or Torrent clients installed? Many will resume their download (or upload) functions when a network connection has been re-established.

10GB over 10 days upload is HUGE. I can't imagine anything other than a file server that would send that much data (I don't even think torrenting would upload that much, 1GB/day is huge)

FYI, I do well over 1GB a day (usually, between 10-20GB per day) easily. Between Usenet downloads and torrent seeding, there's no question. Everyday I'm downloading recently aired episodes of TV shows, etc.

Upload, not download.

 

[Kmax82]

Yea.. we were getting ready for a live stream webcast, and I was encoding tons of video, and that was getting backed up to Backblaze, and transferred across the network to our media encoding machine.. haha. I don't really see the big deal, but I can understand them wanting to keep track of their bandwidth.