
BitTorrent Still Dominates Internet’s Upstream Traffic - jeo1234
https://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-still-dominates-internets-upstream-traffic-151208/
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dorfsmay
The comparison is confusing... "Netflix", "Google Cloud", "HTTP", "SSL =
OTHER". Aren't Netflix and Google cloud using http and https?

Also, no mention of video chat. I believe google hangout, zoom.us, appear.in
etc... work in peer to peer fashion when conferencing one on one, which is
probably more difficult to measure, but I'm sure are significant contributor
towards upstream usage.

This is really important because the upstream bandwidth offered by ISPs right
now is ridiculous, and if the perception is that only "pirate" using
BitTorrent use upstream, it's not going to get better any time soon.

~~~
Xylakant
> This is really important because the upstream bandwidth offered by ISPs
> right now is ridiculous

I see it as an indication that the current internet infrastructure is geared
towards delivering content from a centralized instance rather than peer-to-
peer services such as video chat, content sharing, streaming etc. Many
consumer ISPs explicitly forbid serving content. It's a pity since some
applications would benefit from symmetric lines. However, if everybody would
be running their own home server we'd require a level of competence that's
just not there in the general population - and probably never will since not
everybody can be an IT expert. (just like I tend to rely on medical
professionals if I need to).

In that respect, I find the notion of "X dominates the upstream" when X is one
of the few applications where people currently use upstream on a constant
basis pretty useless and unsurprising.

~~~
icebraining
_However, if everybody would be running their own home server we 'd require a
level of competence that's just not there in the general population_

No, we'd just have to redesign the server software to stop assuming the
operator has a high level of competence - just like Bittorrent servers already
don't, in fact.

~~~
Xylakant
The competence is required to maintain the basic OS. Computers are highly
complicated things. I'd bet that sufficient machines get attacked via BT
clients. I'm skeptical we'll get to the point where any appliance that is at
least moderately complicated will reach the state where it won't have the
occasional security issue to which the user must respond. We might get to a
point where that's getting better, but I'm afraid we're still far far far out.

~~~
sandworm101
Attacks via bittorent clients, legitimate clients from legitimate sources, are
extremely rare. Torrent clients only perform a handful of tasks, a very
limited profile for threats.

Oldschool P2p (ie Kazza and bearshare-style sharing schemes) are a different
story, although even they are rarely attacked successfully.

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sandworm101
How was this measured? From my perspective, from knowing and chatting with
semi-professional sharers daily, most bitorrrent traffic is encrypted. Torrent
clients can all encrypt and are generally set to use only encrypted
connections. And serious sharers have switched to VPNs en mass. So how was all
this bittorrent traffic identified?

Fyi, there are some tricks for overcoming bittorent encryption. I've used them
to identify what was is shared across private networks (schools) but the
techniques involve some trickery that is probably illegal on the public
internet.

~~~
nitrogen
My guess: metadata. Any outgoing packets to IPs that don't reverse resolve to
a non-ISP with high source and destination ports could be BT. Add a flow-based
heuristic and measure packet entropy and maybe you can be quite accurate.

~~~
exelius
That's basically how you do it. Torrent packets have a certain "signature"
(you can usually even determine the client from this, even if all traffic is
encrypted). That, and torrent traffic is pretty leaky... even if _you_ are
encrypting, not all of your peers are.

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larrik
"While BitTorrent has many legitimate uses most data is transferred by pirated
files." \- is this just an assumption, or is there actual data to back this
up? Seems like it may not be the easiest thing to track (especially with a lot
of people trying to claim all torrent traffic as piracy).

~~~
Thaxll
Let's face it, 99% of torrent is copyrighted material. It's no secret.

~~~
jhasse
Is World of Warcraft still using Bittorrent?

~~~
ultramancool
Not sure if Blizzard still does, but even Windows 10 does peer to peer
updating now.

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hackuser
How is Netflix second in upstream traffic, at 6.78%? What are users sending to
Netflix besides an occasional request for more data and maybe some telemetry?

~~~
jhasse
I guess it's not only counting users but also Netflix' servers sending their
streams to users all around the world.

~~~
josu
Then, shouldn't the up and down stream be symmetric?

~~~
jhasse
Maybe not if North Americans are uploading more then downloading ;)

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riskable
I'm skeptical of these figures. Nearly all BitTorrent traffic is encrypted and
is indistinguishable from HTTPS/SSL traffic. How do they know that a host
sending encrypted traffic to a handful of other hosts is BitTorrent traffic?
It could be any number of things.

~~~
ultramancool
> I'm skeptical of these figures. Nearly all BitTorrent traffic is encrypted
> and is indistinguishable from HTTPS/SSL traffic.

Since when? While most Bittorrent traffic uses encryption, but that encryption
is not SSL, it does not use standard HTTP or HTTPS ports, in fact it often
uses uTP which is not even TCP but UDP based. No bittorrent client I'm aware
of makes any attempt to masquerade as HTTPS traffic. Some VPNs do, but that's
about it. Bittorrent traffic using these protocols is trivially detectable and
measurable, you just can't see inside of the connections (ie: know what
content is being uploaded or downloaded) without doing an MITM, as they use a
simple key exchange to prevent passive snooping, but you can see plenty of
metadata, ports, protocol handshakes, etc to identify the protocol as a
bittorrent protocol.

~~~
rakoo
> While most Bittorrent traffic uses encryption

Just to be clear: there is an extension to make bittorrent use "encryption"
([http://wiki.vuze.com/w/Message_Stream_Encryption](http://wiki.vuze.com/w/Message_Stream_Encryption)),
but while it does use crypto primitives its design make it closer to an
"obfuscation" scheme than a real "encryption" scheme.

In the words of the author himself ([https://torrentfreak.com/interview-with-
bram-cohen-the-inven...](https://torrentfreak.com/interview-with-bram-cohen-
the-inventor-of-bittorrent/)):

> The so-called ‘encryption’ of BitTorrent traffic isn’t really encryption,
> it’s obfuscation. It provides no anonymity whatsoever, and only temporarily
> evades traffic shaping.

