Comments on: GUIDE: Using Linux to Beat Comcast’s BitTorrent Throttling

By: Dan

Dan — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 05:38:16 +0000

Like so many people, I’m using Win XP SP3. I’d like to be able to do as you describe via bit torrent using Linux. Is there a more step by step approach to doing what you describe? I’ve had a bit of experience using Linux. Thank You

By: Hunted Charlie

Hunted Charlie — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 16:00:00 +0000

A lot of this is totally incorrect.

For one thing this won’t really beat Sandvine (the P2P throttling system Comcast uses) until everybody does this. All this workaround does is drop the RST packets on the port BitTorrent is running on. The theory is that if you ignore the RST packets the connection won’t be reset and you can keep seeding. Problem is Sandvine sends RST packets to both people. You won’t reset the connection but they will. It only works if both ends of the connection have applied the fix. It’s great if people try doing this but it seems doubtful that it will improve speeds much.

Oh and also what makes you think Mac OS X/Windows can’t do this? I don’t appreciate the wild Linux fanboyism. Mac users can use the same fix with the pre-installed ipfw (the BSD/Mac equivalent to iptables) a tutorial can be found at http://wakarimasu.googlepages.com/macosx. For Windows users it is more difficult and involves installing software–WIPFW (the Windows ipfw). A tutorial can be found at http://wakarimasu.googlepages.com/windows.

Anyway it’s rather unlikely to help as I said earlier. There’s no chance of a community effort large enough to make the RST block useful. Comcast has said it will stop protocol-based throttling fairly soon if one didn’t trust them or didn’t want to wait I’d suggest changing ISPs or waiting for the BitTorrent protocol extension that willl make Sandvine useless (see http://bittorrent.org/beps/bep_0008.html).

By: DrewWilson

DrewWilson — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 16:00:00 +0000

With all due respect I think Jared talking about Linux in one news article is not classified as ‘wild Linux Fanboyism’ in my books. Besides there is no harm in saying that it works on Linux as far as I know. In the mean time the links are appreciated. Jared correctly notes that Linux users have controls over their OS that simply aren’t offered on Apple and Windows (being open source alone makes this a correct statement)

Besides isn’t protocol-based filtering based on header packet information? If so most p2p encryption i.e. eMule protocol obfuscation has already worked around this (and has implemented KAD encryption as well on top of it) A study showed that eMule was difficult to impossible to detect on a network when it’s content is encrypted (I wrote about that some time ago no less)

By: Ben Jones

Ben Jones — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 16:00:00 +0000

Yes Drew the problem is as Charlie stated the article says ‘to beat sandvine do this’ when it does nothing of the sort. Also sandvine as it’s the focus of the article doesn’t work by headers so PE is worthless against it.

Also being open Source means relying on trust often the trust of no-one as everyone is trusting someone else to do something. This was elegantly displayed a month or two back with an open source firefox plugin which had a trojan. mozilla were distributing it and everyone assumed someone else had checked it. The trojan was there for MONTHS before someone actually checked it. The web of trust requires there to be someone to trust and someone to take responsibility both of which open source is generally lacking in. That’s why it’s adoption is still so low.

By: DrewWilson

DrewWilson — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 16:00:00 +0000

Open source also brings in a level of trust. This was also clearly demonstrated in the eMule community with leecher/fake mods. All the mods are suppose to be open source but typically when someone creates a mod that damages the network they usually make it closed source because they have something to hide.

Plus do you really find Windows more trustworthy because it’s closed source – particularly with the rise of trusted computing?

I respectfully disagree that something being open source means relying on trust because closed source is basically the same thing (I argue that something closed source means relying on trust much more than something that is open sourced because it’s more difficult to verify and check)

By: dertyz

dertyz — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 16:00:00 +0000

First of all this isn’t a discussion about Open Source…and that’s a gigantic red herring here I’m going to ignore.

Next modern Linux distros are far FAR safer than windows with regards to virus and malware infection so safety is also a red herring.

Lastly I want everyone who has read ANYWHERE that using Linux or Mac IP Tables to drop the forged packets with with the rst flag set won’t help solve your peering problems to IGNORE what all the negative nellies are telling you!!

I was a windows user on Comcast’s network and until yesterday my seeding capacity was ZERO…period…no seeding unless it was during the initial download. Yesterday I installed Ubuntu dropped those bad bad rst packets with the proper command and VOILA! I was seeding like crazy. So if you wanna stick it to Comcast and everyone else using Sandvine – SWITCH TO LINUX OR MAC AND USE YOUR IP TABLES TO DROP THE FORGED RST PACKETS!!!

It will fix your problem because now EVERYONE ELSE IS DROPPING THEIR PACKETS TOO!! So the packets get dropped from both sides and no rst is performed. JUST DO IT!! You’ll be glad you did.

I’ll be happy to send you screen shots of two machines side by side one on windows and one on Linux…with the windows machine seeding to no one and the linux machine seeding like crazy. Just provide an e-mail addy and I’ll zap it off.

Better yet I’ll put up a video on YouTube for the world to see and update this later. It really works! BELIEVE IT!