Avoiding ul/dl ratio monitors

[Malicious Intent]

I found this over at P2P Forums. I dare say that some people will not be happy with this being posted. I can't be bothered to defend myself, but I will remind those annoyed that relatively few people will read this in the bigger scheme of things.

I'd be preaching to the choir if I told anyone here to use this for privacy - not to leach.

A lot of trackers out there are trying to invade our privacy. They are attempting to record how much we have downloaded. If you want to stop them from doing this, and download without reducing your ratio, follow the directions below.

How it works:
You connect to the tracker as normal to start with, giving access to the list of seeds and peers.
You then disconnect from the tracker, so the tracker owner can no longer monitor you.
You share the file with the group of peers gained from the tracker.
You still need to share to download, as the bittorrent protocol deals with leachers at a local level, it isn't dealt with by the tracker.

Setting up:

BitComet:

-> Start your download. Wait for the green arrow.
-> Right-click the torrent, and select Properties...
-> Place the cursor after the full-stop (".") before the .net, .com, .org, etc.
-> Click OK, and watch as you download without reducing your ratio.
BitComet guide with pictures (http://www.p2pforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=11517&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0)

Azureus
-> Start your download. Wait for a green health dot.
-> Right click the torrent
-> "Tracker" -> "Edit tracker URL(s)"
-> Right click on the annouce address
-> Place the cursor after the full-stop (".") before the .net, .com, .org, etc.
-> Save
-> The health will turn blue, you are now downloading/uploading without the tracker owner's knowledge.

N.B. The torrents will remain in your profile for almost an hour. Your download and upload amounts will not change during this time. This is exactly what happens when your computer crashes (you get "ghost torrents"). If you want to seed to improve your ratio, or if you want an updated list of peers, stop the torrent, correct the Announce URL, and start the torrent again.

For further reading:
http://www.p2pforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=11517&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

[Stownplayer]

That is awesome! Testing this as i type. This will help me get releases without stressing over ratio. Although i ALWAYS upload what i download, i just don't upload very fast and it takes me a while. Thanks for the tip.

[shawners]

This is the most stupid thing I ever saw someone post. A ratio is there for the community to help make sure you give as much as you get. If you cant give back, then what the hell is filesharing about? File leeching should be left on grokster, kazaa, and any gnutella network.

[Lehk]

it's not an invasion of privacy, without the tracker knowing how much and what parts you have you will be less useful to the torrent and the torrent will be less effective in delivering data to you

[Mels_Smileys45]

BT just got even worse. Thanks MI, every little bit helps in taking down this dagnasty evil network.

[shawners]

Why not turn Peerguardian on to block the tracker Ip address while we are at it.

[Krell]

I dare say that some people will not be happy with this being posted. I can't be bothered to defend myself, but I will remind those annoyed that relatively few people will read this in the bigger scheme of things.

I'd be preaching to the choir if I told anyone here to use this for privacy - not to leach.

VALID DISCLAMER - dont shoot the messenger


This is the most stupid thing I ever saw someone post. A ratio is there for the community to help make sure you give as much as you get. If you cant give back, then what the hell is filesharing about? File leeching should be left on grokster, kazaa, and any gnutella network.

VALID ARGUMENT - we dont need any more candy-assed file leechers, if you are compelled to do this, please understand my desire for you to be F*** in the ass with a wooden stick



.

[policy_editor]

my cable company doesnt bother me but if your worried about it doesnt bitcomet azueras have proxy settings

[Krell]

Where are you going to find a proxy that has the kinds speed you want for P2P? AND that you can trust? And even then, your ISP will sell you out, cant trust them either



.

[shawners]

BT just got even worse. Thanks MI, every little bit helps in taking down this dagnasty evil network.

Did snarf-it make you feel this way? Maybe torrentbytes.net would work better. Maxing out my connection and having some movie within 3 hours is worth the two days to seed the file to the rest of the users. A evil network? File sharing in BT is just like any other network, others will obtain it and it will flood to the next network. Most if not all files came from Newsgroups, and have quite a few users who have 2mb upload line that are permitted to upload nothing older then 4 days, and scene releases only.

[Stownplayer]

I believe the privacy concerns are valid also. Elite torrents keeps a record of every torrent you ever downloaded and your ip address. Why? If they ever get taken down then that would be proof that you downloaded. So i will still seed but i will use the method above to keep them from knowing what i download.

[SanDiegoKid]

Some trackers have longed banned those clients for this very reason.

[cpugeniusmv]

Some trackers have longed banned those clients for this very reason.
I've never encountered a tracker that had banned Azureus.

It doesn't matter anyway. It would be just as effective to block the tracker in a peerguardian-type program--any torrent client could do it.

(Note: I haven't tried this, nor do I intend to. I could be wrong. It wouldn't be the first time.)

[Malicious Intent]

As predicted by some when I posted this, the BitTorrent warez scene is now on its knees.

Now I'm back to finish the job.

This one isn't quite as good at privacy. The old method (which i dont believe works anymore? it at least doesnt for azureus) would mean that you could download without the overlords watching over your shoulder to make sure you are a good boy.

This one means that you can't hide your downloads, only disguise them amoungst a bunch of fake downloads.

It probably does work on Oink, they are just trying to scare you. In saying that, don't blame me if you get banned. As long as everything does as it says it should in the guide, I dont really know how they can tell.

Just be sensible and dont set your ratio to 99999999999999:1

Here it is:

http://xyflar.blogspot.com/

[shawners]

You will defenitly get banned. It will be logged. So if you do it, dont ask for an invite. I can honestly say that they are banning clients that arent compliant or outdated or can no longer be fixed.. as well as http analizer method will get you banned.

[cjules13]

There's a simple way to find people who are doing this, and it will result in a perma-ban from any private tracker if you attempt it. Yeah, you might be able to get away with a couple, but I wouldn't risk it at the few private trackers that I am lucky to be a member of...

[crestfallen]

The ratio hack is junk, not to mention old news.

BT wasn't meant to be used as a pseudo-P2P technology. It was created as an alternate distribution method to reduce server strain.

[Malicious Intent]

I dont believe you would be caught - at least not yet.

I wouldn't sign up for a site which watches what I download without any sort of protection, so i'm doing it.

If you dont mind being treated like a child and fed leech scare tactics to be kept in line, then perhaps it isn't worth it to risk it.

I guess that is what is good about this one, leachers wont use it!

[cjules13]

I dont believe you would be caught - at least not yet.

I wouldn't sign up for a site which watches what I download without any sort of protection, so doing it.

If you dont mind being treated like a child and fed leech scare tactics to be kept in line, then perhaps it isn't worth it to risk it.

I guess that is what is good about this one, leachers wont use it!


Couldn't a mod or bot be seeding the file, and checking how many peers are in the swarm, and then compare that against the tracker data and see how many peers are supposed to be in the swarm? The difference are those that are cheating, and their IPs could be banned.

[shawners]

First off, if your worried about a mod or a group of BT lords looking at you. DONT. 33-50 thousand users, i doubt they will ever snoop or have anything other then a log of how much gigs you uploaded or downloaded. You can cancel your account if anyone is this worried. I be more worried about torrentspy and piratebay since they get DMCA letters and RIAA letters asking for them to take it off or warning users to not upload pre-release cd's. ALl your doing is stealing from others and turning yourself into a leecher. All these p2p apps have been designed for us in mind. If you register to a close group, you already made a password and given your email addy out. Kazaa use to have the ability to get your share stars up so you can download without being in queue this long, then they put the ability to disable the share folder. WInmx had tons of leechers, so they invented a way to kick and ban Ips from accessing their queue list and downloading.. DC++ have it where you be listed in how much gigs you have to offer to be a member of some groups.. this was a measure to ensure a sharing community.. IRC made bots to only serve CHannel OPS and VOICE people rather then the newly joined person. Closed groups are to protect yourself from the outside of RIAA and leechers. If you join a site, follow the rules. These people work hard so you can have a 100 seeders and download the file within minutes rather then hours. BECAUSE of the idiot cheaters out there. Your fav bt client got banned, or you may get banned or hurt the site because you refuse to give. Elite torrents did a bad thing posted Star Wars III on their home page which got it shut down. LOki was open site and had servers in Dallas as well as other US cities.. STupid.. These servers that are operating are in Sweden and are closed for most part til the users drop down to where they can open it up for short period. Why would i chance a OINK membership, there is over 22000 torrents and 89000 seeders, and 5000 leechers. Can you even name 22000 albums and have the ability to choose flac or 320cbr.. They have reaggae, hip-hop, trance, indie selection that is massive. Wide range of genre's... My ratio is only 1.631 with having uploaded 146 gigs and downloading 89 gigs. Pisexy is well over 239 gigs uploaded, and 242 gigs downloaded.. Torrentbytes was a rough 137 gigs downloaded and my ratio didnt really stay above .80.. I do alot of Dvd-r off of usenet now.. But what i get, i upload it to oink, pisexy. They are all helpful and generous, they take the time to winrar the movie, include nfo, sfv file and to seed it til 3-5 leechers. I have given out 4-5 invites that are now banned for low ratio. One day, hopefully soon.. all the sites be closed off and it be invites every now and again.

[Stownplayer]

I've had four invites banned at oink too! Talk about a slap in my face. From today on, i won't give another invite unless they can give screeshots of their name on a profile sheet at another big torrent site with a good ratio.

[Malicious Intent]

I have no idea how it can be stopped cjules.

They cant do the counting thing as you connect to the tracker. Unless the tracker times how long you have been on and if the upload is realistic.

TBH, I thought that counting the upload was done centrally and live.

The fact the clients report how much they have uploaded in batches changes everything.

This is also why I don't believe you can be caught. This code is made locally and routinely by all clients. It is therefore impossible for sites to know if it is made by someone trying to beat the system or if it is a genuine status report.

One says 0.5GB
Next says 0.75GB
Third say 1GB

Which one is fake?

That is the joke about Oinks claim they will catch you. Mind you, they have demonstrated many times they have no qualms about fear mongering and propaganda, so I dont expect less.

The only thing I can really see is that the sites stop using that data to know how much people are uploading. Even then, they can't catch people trying to cheat as the same information will be routinely reported to the tracker by geniune clients.

It will take some major rewriting by the looks of it.

But since I didn't understand it before, I have no idea if I understand it now. We need an expert!

[crestfallen]

AFAIK, clients to not report upload data in chunks.

The clients are trusted to report everything faithfully? Why? Because all that matters is that other peers know who to connect to. If you are more likely to share a piece, peers are more likely to share their piece with you. Other things like bandwidth factor into this as well, but I think you get my gist.

Now, as with any good distribution model, the pirates will attempt to exploit it. Release groups just care about being the first one on the scene and that the file is well distributed. How do both groups get what they want? By enforcing a minimum ratio. People get access to the latest scene releases, the files are distributed quickly, and because of the fear of having a bad ratio, are extremely well-seeded.

Now. Using the ratio hack, you might be less susceptible to banning if you only bulk upload a small amount of data, say 200mb every now and then. It looks mighty suspicious if you DL a torrent, don't download anything, but somehow upload 5 or 10 GB in an instant. There can be scripts written that will search for things like this.

A better way to hack a ratio is to adjust the UL multiplier in your client and recompile it. Since clients report UL data at small intervals, using a multiplier will just increase these a little bit each time. Over the life of the torrent it adds up and is much less detectable. Still, you can be caught.

The BT warez scene (for all intents and purposes) is quick, clever, and adaptable. Just like copy protections keep getting circumvented, so do the hack attempts at trackers, etc.

[shawners]

Obviously if you dont want to be logged for security reasons: downloading and uploading.. . .Then why do you want the high upload ratio.. worried FBI gets in and sees you upload 2 terabytes.. and downloaded only 10 gigs would put you behind bars.