Beginning Tuesday computers at the University of North Carolina that access the Internet in residence halls will automatically be scanned for file-sharing programs.
The Network Access Control service will scan for file sharing programs such as BitTorrent and LimeWire. If the service detects a file-sharing program, a pop-up message will notify him of the dangers of illegal sharing and ways to securely use the program.
Rogers, one of Canada’s largest Internet providers, has upset many customers with a recent change in their network management systems. Since mid-September both up and downstream BitTorrent traffic has been severely degraded in certain areas, which goes against the company’s network management policy. In addition, the new throttling technology has also slowed down non-P2P traffic in many cases.
In Canada, all large ISPs have admitted to slowing down BitTorrent traffic. Net Neutrality is far away in Canada, but at least the Internet providers are forced by the Canadian Radio, Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to be open about it, and that includes Rogers.
Rogers Communications claims it has to throttle P2P users to prevent their network from becoming “the world’s buffet,” as they like to call it. Not only does this affect their network, their bandwidth bills have also increased due to the growing popularity of BitTorrent and other filesharing networks.
In its network management policy Rogers details how it actively slows down consumer traffic. The company claims to target only downstream P2P traffic although we’ll later show that this is incorrect. For Hi Speed Internet customers, “the maximum upload speed for P2P file sharing traffic is 80 kbps at all times” but “there are no limits on download speed for any application or protocol,” the ISP writes.
This is just the theory though. In practice many Rogers customers have reported something entirely different. Although connection and speed issues often happen with various ISPs, an avalanche of complaints from Rogers’ customers over the past two months indicated that something had gone seriously wrong.
Starting at the end of September 2010, Rogers customers began noticing severe throttling of downstream P2P and non-P2P traffic. It was clear that something had changed, but none of the customers were made aware of these changes, and neither were many of the support employees.
The effects are nontheless severe and widespread, and at the DSLreports forums several threads were started by dissatisfied customers (1, 2, 3, 4, 5). It is reported that download speeds for both P2P and regular traffic has dropped, and some customers have issues while browsing the web, gaming and streaming content from Netflix and other services.
“Many of Rogers’ Canadian customers have reported substantial degradations in downstream speeds; whereas before September they were downloading at several Mb/s they are now reduced to a few hundred KB/s or less,” Christopher Parsons, PhD Candidate at the University of Victoria and lead researcher for Deep Packet Inspection Canada told us.
“I’ve contacted various colleagues around Canada and they have provided confirmation of what is being written by Rogers customers in the DSLreports forums.” Parsons wrote an elaborate blog post on the issue, which seems to show that the problems trace back to the new network management system implemented by Rogers.
Today, almost three months later, the issues don’t seem to be fully resolved yet, as more complaints keep trickling in every day. Dozens of customers state in blog and forum posts that they’ve complained to Rogers bitterly, and some have even switched to another ISP as a result of the issues.
At Rogers, things are awkwardly silent while all this is unfolding. Thus far, the only public response from Rogers comes from a forum post by Keith McArthur, their senior director of social media and digital communications.
“As some of you are aware, Rogers recently made some upgrades to our network management systems that had the unintended effect of impacting non-p2p file sharing traffic under a specific combination of conditions,” McArthur writes.
“Our network engineering team is working on the best way to address this issue as quickly as possible. However, I’m not able to provide any updates at this time about when this will be fixed. Our network management policy remains unchanged. We are working hard to ensure that there are no gaps between our policy and the technology that enables that policy.”
This response dates back to the end of October, but even today many customers are still reporting that their download speeds are severely degraded. One may even conclude that the new system is meant to slow down downstream traffic as well, contrary to what’s stated in the Network Management policy.
This does indeed seem to be the case.
Rogers’ social media director kept his public appearance limited to one post, and eventually also stopped responding to individual customers who asked for help. In a response, a Rogers customer contacted the CRTC instead, and the result is interesting to say the least.
Initially Rogers’ legal counsel Ken Thompson tried to cover up the issue, by stating that they never received a single complaint about the issue, but he did confirm to the CRTC that downstream traffic is now also being throttled. So, aside from the collateral damage the new network management system caused, Rogers has secretly started to throttle P2P download traffic.
Not a big deal according to Rogers’ lawyer, a simple change in the policy will quickly resolve the issue.
“We have determined our best response to this situation will be to update our ITMP disclosure on our website to reflect this new information. We are in the process of making those changes to our website and will provide you with the modified ITMP [traffic management policy] disclosure as soon as it has received approval by Rogers’ management,” he wrote to the CRTC.
So there we have it, instead of honestly answering customers who’ve complained about being throttled for months, Rogers simply changes their policy.
Thus far no changes have been made, but this will probably happen in the coming days or weeks. Rogers customers who want to enjoy P2P at full speeds have no other option than to switch to a new ISP or sign up with a VPN service.
A new Internet traffic trends report released by the Canadian broadband management company Sandvine reveals that global P2P traffic is expanding, with BitTorrent as the key player. In North America, more than half of all upstream traffic (53.3%) on an average day can be attributed to P2P. The report further signals some really interesting regional differences in P2P use, such as the dominance of Ares in Latin America.
Sandvine, the company that’s best known for manufacturing the hardware that slowed down BitTorrent users on Comcast, has released their latest Internet traffic report. The company has looked into the traffic consumption of Internet users all around the world, and in this article we’re going to highlight some of the emerging trends in the P2P landscape.
The overall conclusion we draw from the data is that BitTorrent, and P2P traffic in general, is still dominant in all geographical regions. In North America, Latin America and Asia-Pacific, P2P traffic is responsible for the vast majority of all upstream traffic. The percentage of downstream traffic is significantly lower, thanks to the streaming video sites that have gained popularity in the last years.
Despite the global nature of P2P there are some striking differences in the preferred applications and protocols that are used. We’ll discuss the various trends and statistics below, starting with North America.
BitTorrent remains the most used file-sharing protocol in North America, and the total amount of P2P traffic is still very significant. Sandvine’s research reveals that on an average day, 53.3% of all upstream traffic can be attributed to P2P applications. P2P is less dominant on the downstream side. It is currently at 13.2%, following real time entertainment (45.7%) and web browsing (24.3%).
The bandwidth usage patterns during peak hours are slightly different, but still a massive 34.31% of all upstream traffic can be attributed to BitTorrent at these times. The BitTorrent percentage of downstream traffic lies at 8.39% during the busiest time of the day.
What’s further noteworthy is that the Gnutella protocol (used by Limewire, Frostwire etc.) is still fairly large in North America. It currently lies at 11.18% of upstream traffic and 2.12% of downstream traffic during peak hours. In most other parts of the world Gnutella has vanished completely.
The normalized aggregate of all traffic (up/down) during peak hours puts P2P traffic at 19.2% during the first months of 2010. Interestingly, this is up from 15.1% in 2009, which shows that P2P traffic is growing strongly, not only in absolute numbers but also as a share of total Internet traffic in North America.
Overall, it can be concluded that P2P traffic is still on the rise in North America, with BitTorrent being the dominant protocol.
In common with North America, BitTorrent also remains the most used file-sharing protocol in Europe. The report doesn’t give any exact stats, but roughly 40% of all upstream traffic and 10% of all downstream traffic can be attributed to P2P applications on an average day.
Bandwidth usage patterns during peak hours show that of 29.97% of the upstream traffic can be attributed to BitTorrent during these times, versus 8.29% of downstream traffic. PPLive, the popular peer-to-peer streaming video network, also has a significant share with 11.76% of all upstream traffic and 4.41% of downstream traffic during peak hours.
Strangely enough, Sandvine categorizes PPLive as real-time entertainment rather than P2P file-sharing.
In Europe, the normalized aggregate of all traffic (up/down) during peak hours puts P2P traffic at 11.0% during the first months of 2010. This is down from 22% in 2009, which indicates that P2P has lost half its share of the total Internet traffic there.
The relative downward trend of P2P traffic during peak hours does not have to mean that the absolute traffic has gone down as well. What is clear, however, is that relative to other traffic sources P2P has decreased in Europe, while it has increased in all other regions.
Latin America is the only region where BitTorrent is not the preferred protocol to share files. Even though BitTorrent has a pretty decent market share there also, Ares is the most used file-sharing protocol. Overall, P2P traffic is huge in Latin America.
On an average day, 73.3% of all upstream traffic can be attributed to P2P applications. P2P is less dominant on the downstream side. It is currently at 23.1%, following real time entertainment (35.2%) and web browsing (28.3%).
The bandwidth usage patterns during peak hours of the day show that 11.91% of all upstream traffic can be attributed to BitTorrent at these times. This is dwarfed by the 54.74% Ares is credited for. The BitTorrent percentage of downstream traffic lies at 6.80% during the busiest time of the day, compared to 12.98% for Ares.
What is further noteworthy is that eDonkey is still fairly large in Latin America. It currently lies at 6.29% of upstream traffic and 1.82% of downstream traffic during peak hours. In most other parts of the world eDonkey has vanished completely.
The normalized aggregate of all traffic (up/down) at peak hours puts P2P traffic at 36.7% during the first months of 2010. Interestingly, this is up from 31.9% in 2009, which shows that P2P traffic is growing strongly, not only in absolute numbers but also as a share of total Internet traffic in Latin America.
We can conclude without a doubt that Latin America is the winner when it comes to the share P2P has of overall Internet traffic.
BitTorrent is the most used file-sharing protocol in Asia-Pacific, where P2P has a traditionally high market share. The report doesn’t give any exact stats for this region, but roughly 60% of all upstream traffic and 25% of all downstream traffic on an average day can be attributed to P2P applications.
The bandwidth usage patterns during the peak hours show that 37.63% of the upstream traffic can be attributed to BitTorrent, versus 16.91% of downstream traffic.
PPLive and PPStream, two popular peer-to-peer streaming video networks, also have significant shares with 18.83% and 11.06% of all upstream traffic respectively, and 7.90% and 7.14% of downstream traffic during peak hours.
In Asia-Pacific, the normalized aggregate of all traffic (up/down) puts P2P traffic during peak hours at 25.7% in the first months of 2010. This is up from 8.4% in 2009, which indicates that P2P is still increasing its share of total Internet traffic there.
As can be seen from the table below, at the busiest time of the day BitTorrent has the largest market share of Internet traffic in Asia-Pacific compared the other regions.
| Region | Downstream during (local) Peak Hours | Upstream during Peak Hours |
|---|---|---|
| Data: Sandvine | ||
| USA | 8.39% | 34.31% |
| Europe | 8.29% | 29.97% |
| Latin America | 6.80% | 11.91% |
| Pacific Asia | 16.91% | 37.63% |
In conclusion, we can say that Sandvine reveals some intriguing statistics, with the overall conclusion that BitTorrent and P2P in general are still going strong. Although there are regional differences, BitTorrent is responsible for a significant share of total Internet traffic in all regions. That said, we have to keep in mind that Sandvine might benefit from overestimating the percentage of P2P traffic because they sell the traffic shaping applications.
For most people BitTorrent is nothing more than a great protocol that assists in transferring large data files from A to B. However, there is a subset of BitTorrent users that has a hard time controlling their download habits, and consequently they disrupt the networks at thousands of ISPs, offices and schools. Luckily, the IT multinational HP has developed a vaccine to treat these poor people.
Vaccines are hot. Traditionally they were a biological preparation to prevent people from getting a disease, such as the vaccinations children get for polio, mumps and measles. In the last few years, however, new types of vaccines have popped up that aim to treat addictions such as smoking and cocaine.
In the true sense of the word the latter examples are not really vaccines, but the term is probably used for branding purposes. This trend has now been ported to the digital world by Hewlett-Packard (HP).
Where vaccines used to be limited to treating biological threats, HP has recently trademarked the term ‘digital vaccine’ for a wide range of treatments that prevent digital diseases – and addictions. The company has introduced a wide range of vaccines that can be injected into their TippingPoint product. These help network administrators to fight network ‘infections’.
HP’s vaccines protect networks against outside attacks, vulnerabilities and zero-day threats. But that’s only the beginning. At a press event in Barcelona earlier this week the company introduced another type of digital vaccine, one that deals with heavy BitTorrent users.
Named the Application Digital Vaccine (AppDV), the new ‘vaccine’ can be injected directly into the TippingPoint system. With only one treatment the network is protected against users who have a habit of downloading via BitTorrent and those who engage in various other unwelcome behaviors.
“AppDV filters can allow IT managers to completely block top social networking, IM, P2P, Webmail, streaming audio/video, online gaming, and tunneling applications. Or, if needed, managers call [sic] allow access to recreation apps like Facebook or MySpace, while simultaneously denying user access to embedded chat and email functions within those applications,” gloats HP about their latest piece of tech.
AppDV has already proven to be very effective at the University of Leeds in the UK where it nearly killed all BitTorrent traffic. According to Dave Neild, head of network development at the university, the ‘vaccine’ reduced the network load significantly and completely eliminated the cease and desist letters from copyright holders they used to receive regularly.
At this stage it is unknown whether users of the network continue feeding their addiction in other places, but the University of Leeds is reportedly clean now.
The only downside to the setup is that many people who use BitTorrent for their day job, or to update to the latest version of Starcraft 2, are unable to do so thanks to the vaccine. Luckily HP’s technology allows network administrators to make individual exceptions for those who show responsible downloading habits. Under strict supervision, some people are allowed to use a few bytes a day.
All in all the system is a great tool to keep networks clean and healthy according to HP. Net Neutrality issues aside, we assume that many ISPs would agree and would love to stick a needle in their network to keep BitTorrent addiction from spreading even further.
To be continued…