What can ISPs monitor as far as downloading goes?

[NickOlsen8390]

Using torrent traffic as a example, I can spot that shit a mile away with or without encryption, Just by looking at the shear number connections to places all around the world.
And if your tunneling, I can throttle it. Encrypt it all you want, I can bring it to a 200b/s crawl.
Speaking of this.
We have a policy on our hotspot network that says no p2p usage. I see it all the time, and as long as they aren't pulling every bit of bandwidth the AP has I don't have a problem with it. The other day I had a person doing just that, I gave him a call, asked him to please stop using P2P software, as it violates the user agreement. He responded with "Make me". One click, he gets disconnected off our network, I responded with "Ok, Done". He demanded a refund or he was going to call the cops, I said please do, I love cops.

 

[NickOlsen8390]

Except that only works if it's unencrypted or your inspection tool does a MITM attack.

Those programs not only look at the packets themselves but they look at traffic patterns too. Encrypted or not, You can spot things like voip easily.

 

[Nothinman]

Those programs not only look at the packets themselves but they look at traffic patterns too. Encrypted or not, You can spot things like voip easily.

I know you can look at traffic patterns too, but you won't be able to see the content. So while you may know that I'm running a torrent or VOIP client you won't know if it's copyrighted material or be able to record the conversation.

 

[her209]

Using torrent traffic as a example, I can spot that shit a mile away with or without encryption, Just by looking at the shear number connections to places all around the world.
And if your tunneling, I can throttle it. Encrypt it all you want, I can bring it to a 200b/s crawl.
Speaking of this.
We have a policy on our hotspot network that says no p2p usage. I see it all the time, and as long as they aren't pulling every bit of bandwidth the AP has I don't have a problem with it. The other day I had a person doing just that, I gave him a call, asked him to please stop using P2P software, as it violates the user agreement. He responded with "Make me". One click, he gets disconnected off our network, I responded with "Ok, Done". He demanded a refund or he was going to call the cops, I said please do, I love cops.

An ISP can't do that though.

 

[NickOlsen8390]

Yes, lets go there.
This also means that a ISP can't layer7 viruses or anything else to protect its network, and the customers behind it, because you know, all traffic must be treated equal. Doesn't mean they don't do it.
Wait, I think that means they can't block inbound service ports either, Run that open relay spam server, we don't care.


And if that was in reference to the throttling, If someone is using to much bandwidth, then yes, we can throttle it. TOS say you can't cause extra latency or degrade the service of other customers.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

Haha. My university has fines for downloading copyrighted material, assuming they catch you doing it. I've heard that they don't actively look for people doing anything. At most, they just check people at random times. I've also heard they only do something when they've received a complaint from someone like the RIAA/MPAA.

Either way, no one really knows for sure how the school goes about checking that stuff, if they do. They do say to not use P2P for illegal purposes, but Rapidshare and such don't really fall under that category.

Yeah, if you d/l it they fine you. If you photocopy it from their library then its ok.

 

[Red Squirrel]

An ISP can't do that though.

They could, but they'd probably lose lot of customers over it.

 

[her209]

And if that was in reference to the throttling, If someone is using to much bandwidth, then yes, we can throttle it. TOS say you can't cause extra latency or degrade the service of other customers.

Comcast got "smacked down" by the FCC for throttling BitTorrent traffic, even during times of non-congestion. So no, they can't do that.

 

[spidey07]

Comcast got "smacked down" by the FCC for throttling BitTorrent traffic, even during times of non-congestion. So no, they can't do that.

Absolutely you can throttle traffic with reasonable network management. The only reason comcast got the smack down is because it targeted a specific protocol. Hence, why their traffic management system will still throttle abusers, it just doesn't care what the application is.

 

[seepy83]

This has gotten a little off topic from the original post, but I'm curious...
I've never read the terms of my contract/agreement for internet service at home, but If I'm paying $xx.xx per month for a 10Mbps connection (or 5, or 20, or whatever it may be), then how exactly am I abusing anything by using that connection? The ISP has already throttled me down to that speed (compared to whatever "upgrades" I can do by paying more each month)...what gives them the right throttle me more because I'm using the bandwidth that I have paid for?

 

[spidey07]

This has gotten a little off topic from the original post, but I'm curious...
I've never read the terms of my contract/agreement for internet service at home, but If I'm paying $xx.xx per month for a 10Mbps connection (or 5, or 20, or whatever it may be), then how exactly am I abusing anything by using that connection? The ISP has already throttled me down to that speed (compared to whatever "upgrades" I can do by paying more each month)...what gives them the right throttle me more because I'm using the bandwidth that I have paid for?

Because you did not purchase nor are you paying for that much bandwidth. You paid for a burstable up-to 10 Mbs service with restrictions on acceptable use.

If you wanted a service that guarantees you that much bandwidth, without restrictions you'd be looking at 1000s of dollars a month.

 

[her209]

Absolutely you can throttle traffic with reasonable network management. The only reason comcast got the smack down is because it targeted a specific protocol. Hence, why their traffic management system will still throttle abusers, it just doesn't care what the application is.

Comcast switched to re-prioritizing traffic and the user will only see a "slowdown" when the network is congested. What Comcast was doing previously was throttling (BT) traffic regardless of whether there was congestion or not.

 

[NickOlsen8390]

Because you did not purchase nor are you paying for that much bandwidth. You paid for a burstable up-to 10 Mbs service with restrictions on acceptable use.

If you wanted a service that guarantees you that much bandwidth, without restrictions you'd be looking at 1000s of dollars a month.

Yep, This is called dedicated bandwidth. On our network we don't really care how much you use per month, but how much at any given time. If your pulling 10Mb/s all day long 24/7 then thats 10Mb/s that is all yours and no one else's (Dedicated, if you would). When we have someone using that much bandwidth we give them a call, tell them to turn it down a bit, or they can upgrade to something dedicated, where they get more bandwidth, better gear, better support, ect.... But it all comes at a higher price.

Example, My cable line is 64.99 a month for 15Mb/s down and 2Mb/s up. A friend of mine just got a quote from Cogent for 100Mb/s delivered on fiber. It came to about 1,000$ a month.
It would take about 7 of my cable connections to equal that, or about 480 dollars a month. And Cogent is known to be cheap. This shows you the price difference between res/biz internet, and enterprise connections.

 

[NickOlsen8390]

Comcast switched to re-prioritizing traffic and the user will only see a "slowdown" when the network is congested. What Comcast was doing previously was throttling (BT) traffic regardless of whether there was congestion or not.

To quote myself from above, Its only done when the customer is causing congestion.
"as long as they aren't pulling every bit of bandwidth the AP has I don't have a problem with it."
And also to be clear, I wouldn't have killed his connection if he would have been nice about it. Telling me to piss off basically doesn't fly around here. So technically, His account was terminated for the way he treated me. Not because he was using bit-torrent.

 

[seepy83]

I'm very well aware of the costs of dedicated business connections. At work, I sign-off on 2 bills every month that are close to $2000 each for 5 Mbps AT&T Opt-E-MAN service for 2 locations.

At the end of the day, I guess that I just have a problem with the way the ISPs market their services for residential customers. I can't remember the last time that I used p2p or bittorrent (it must be at least 4 years ago), so it isn't like I have run into any problems with my ISP because of this. But don't advertise that you are providing me speeds "up to 20 Mbps" if I'm really only going to average out to 2 or 3 Mbps.

 

[lord_emperor]

I'm very well aware of the costs of dedicated business connections. At work, I sign-off on 2 bills every month that are close to $2000 each for 5 Mbps AT&T Opt-E-MAN service for 2 locations.

At the end of the day, I guess that I just have a problem with the way the ISPs market their services for residential customers. I can't remember the last time that I used p2p or bittorrent (it must be at least 4 years ago), so it isn't like I have run into any problems with my ISP because of this. But don't advertise that you are providing me speeds "up to 20 Mbps" if I'm really only going to average out to 2 or 3 Mbps.

Your connection is quite capable of 20 Mbps and you'll probably get reasonably close downloading from a reliable source like Microsoft.

The issue happens when you have a few hundred users sharing a 40 Mbps downstream. 90% of them probably just check their e-mail when they get home from work and their traffic is negligible. Another 9% probably watch a few YouTube videos, but as long as they don't all buffer the videos simultaneously they still get mostly the advertised speed.

Then you have the guy who's queued up 20 5GB DVD rips and gone to bed, eating up 5 Mbps download constantly. Just 8 of him and the whole neighborhood is saturated.

Much as I love the idea of dedicated residential bandwidth just ballparking things with my current ISP they could only deliver ~0.13 Mbps per subscriber. I'd rather my 15 Mbps and chance of congestion.

Hopefully technology makes dedicated lines cost feasible in the near future.

 

[spidey07]

Hopefully technology makes dedicated lines cost feasible in the near future.

Not really going to happen. The costs of the optics and routing power do indeed come down, but bandwidth usage more than doubles every two years so any cost savings is eaten up by more usage.

But if you notice over time residential connections have gotten very fast with the prices staying pretty much the same - under 100 bucks. Which is a super deal really.

 

[Ayah]

Three words. Deep packet inspection. Legal or not, it's out there.