WireShark: How To Investigate BitTorrent Behavior on a Network

June 19, 2013 by Yonah · Comments
Filed under: Announcements & Events, File-Sharing Programs, Networks & Services

Spying on BitTorrent users is an activity probably all filesharing aficionados are aware of since it’s one of the industry’s mains weapons against illegal downloading. However, today we’re going to address the idea of individual spying – that is, to put it in softer words, someone on your own network taking a peek at your activities online. Along with that, we introduce you to Wireshark – a free, open-source packet analyzer, a tool utilised in network troubleshooting, analysis, software and communications protocol development, and education.

What’s WireShark’s relevance to BitTorrent? Well, anyone who invests some time in learning this tool’s basics and who has access to a network can monitor what all the network’s users are doing in the digital realm. Fortunately or not, it might take some patience to get a grip on how the communication between torrent clients and the digital landscape works.

The video below is meant to shows us how one can use Wireshark to understand Bittorrent activity :

From Wireshark:

Wireshark is a network protocol analyzer, and is the standard in many industries. It is the continuation of a project that started in 1998. Hundreds of developers around the world have contributed to it, and it is still under active development. Read or write many different capture file formats: tcpdump (libpcap), Catapult DCT2000, Cisco Secure IDS iplog, Microsoft Network Monitor, NAI Sniffer (compressed and uncompressed), Sniffer Pro, and NetXray, Network Instruments Observer, Novell LANalyzer, RADCOM WAN or LAN Analyzer, Shomiti or Finisar Surveyor, Tektronix K12xx, Visual Networks Visual UpTime, and WildPackets EtherPeek,TokenPeek, or AiroPeek.

Tags: BitTorrent, file-sharing, p2p

BitTorrent’s SoShare Offers Special Edition BitTorrent Wallpapers

June 14, 2013 by Yonah · Comments
Filed under: Announcements & Events, File-Sharing Programs, Networks & Services

SoShare It: Special Edition BitTorrent Wallpapers

Back in February we reported BitTorrent daring p2p-technology based project that would allow people to share up to 1 terabyte of data. Its name was SoShare. Now the company comes with a little treat so you can give SoShare a try and decide for yourself if it’s all worth it.

From BitTorrent blog:

[SoShare] It’s a simple, elegant solution to an issue we face all the time: delivering big files to friends and collaborators. SoShare lets you send terabytes of stuff, all for free. And if you haven’t tried it yet, well, here are eight new reasons to test it out. We’re giving away wallpapers crafted with pixels and love by our team over here in SF.

You can test drive SoShare and grab some epic desktop decor right over here.

BitTorrent's SoShare Offers Special Edition BitTorrent Wallpapers

Tags: BitTorrent, file sharing applications, file sharing service, p2p

Vuze Celebrates Geek Pride Day with A Dive into the History of File Sharing

May 25, 2013 by Yonah · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, File-Sharing Programs, Networks & Services

For those who don’t know it yet, May 25th – the day when the first Star Wars film was released back in 1977 – was chosen as the day when all geeks should get together and celebrate the culture and technology that has connected people in ways unconceivable not that long ago. In a short, funny message Vuze reminded us that file-sharing has come a long way…longer perhaps than most of us are taking the time to consider and invites us in a journey back in time.

Once known as Azureus, Vuze is today one of the most used file-sharing clients in the world and has managed to create a solid platform for video discovery and user-created content publishing using social networking as the binding material. Today, on Geek Pride Day, Vuze sent us this message inviting us to share it with you in return. So here it is:

“The geeks behind Vuze, one of the most popular bittorrent clients on the Internet, took a nostalgic look back at the history of file sharing and put together a pretty cool interactive timeline. The more literal forms of file sharing, like floppy disks and mixtapes, are covered in addition to the forms of file sharing we’re used to today, like torrents.”

http://blog.vuze.com/2013/05/23/a-history-of-file-sharing-the-tech-that-paved-the-way-2/

filesharing connects people

Tags: BitTorrent, file sharing applications, file sharing service, file-sharing, p2p, p2p clients, Vuze

Online Streaming Makes BitTorrent Drop Considerably in US, Report Claims

May 22, 2013 by Yonah · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, File-Sharing Programs, Networks & Services, Legal P2P News & Issues

A new report from policy control company Sandvine states that BitTorrent accounts less and less for the traffic generated in the US

According to the recently published research, BitTorrent only generated 9.2 per cent of peak-period traffic over the past six months, compared to 20.5 per cent in 2012 and 26.4 per cent in 2011. The company points to streaming video services such as Netflix and the likes and the fact they have made improvements in terms of availability of their subscriber-based, paid-for, on-demand content for this great drop in popularity of the controversial file sharing protocol.

“We believe as more over-the-top Real-Time Entertainment sources are made available to subscribers in the future, the rate of decline in share will begin to accelerate,” says the report.

Reportedly, Netflix managed to hold on to a leading 29 per cent peak-period traffic share in the US. YouTube came in second, but also went up 1.6 per cent this year compared to last year (from 13.8 to 15.4 per cent).

Things, however, behave differently when it comes to Europe where BitTorrent peak period traffic share remained high at 40.63 per cent and in the Asia Pacific region where BitTorrent is still the undisputed leader of traffic (because, says the report, here services like Netflix have not penetrated the market yet).

From the report: “Subscribers are likely using applications like BitTorrent to procure audio and video content not available in their region. We believe that Filesharing’s share of traffic may have finally reached its peak in terms of traffic share and will begin to experience a steady and significant decline, as paid OTT video services continue to expand their availability throughout the region.”

Last month in an interview with MotherBoard, Matt Mason, BitTorrent’s Executive Director of Marketing and Content, brought arguments on why ISPs should seriously consider to use the protocol themselves.

Tags: BitTorrent, file sharing service, file-sharing, ISPs, p2p

Digital Piracy Is Not What It Seems To Be, A Large-Scale Analysis Informs

May 15, 2013 by Yonah · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, Digital Media, Mobile Phones, P2P technology, File-Sharing Programs, Networks & Services

The comprehensive report on sharing PC games via BitTorrent’s networks reveals some interesting aspects of the “digital piracy” issue. The results are to be published in the “International Journal of Advanced Media and Communication”.

The illegal sharing of digital content (using peer-to-peer technology) has been the catalyst of thousands of debates and media headlines. With one side claiming that online piracy is the death of the American jobs and responsible for billions of dollars lost by the entertainment industry, the other one’s flag reads “freedom of speech”, “internet’s freedom” and “piracy is not theft”. The most epic controversy of the past decade is born, but what we really know about each of the coin’s side proves to be limited.

The report, as mentioned before, focused on game piracy and used open methodologies to gather data that covered a three-month period – between 2010 and 2011. One hundred and seventy three games were included. The results prove to tear down all the myths surrounding online piracy. For example, “shooter” games are not pirates favorite dish, but also children’s games and family games. Moreover, it highlights that the real figure of illegal copies that are being accessed via BitTorrent is under what other reports (the gaming industry’s) claim to be.

Specifics of the report reveal that 12.6 million unique peers (covering more than 250 countries/areas) shared pirated games, including Darksiders, Fallout: New Vegas, NBA 2k11, Call of Duty: Black Ops, TRON Evolution, Starcraft 2, Star Wars the Force Unleashed 2, The Sims 3: Late Night, Two Worlds II, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit. Furthermore, of the 173 sampled games, the ten most popular titles drove more than 4 out of every 10 unique peers on BitTorrent, and just 20 of the monitored countries were contributing to more than three-quarters of the total file-sharing activity.

An average of 536,727 unique peers (spread across the globe) sharing the most popular games titles via BitTorrent were acknowledged during the three-month period. The most dedicated unique peers seemed to cover the following territories: Romania, Croatia, Greece, Poland, Ukraine, Italy, Armenia, Serbia, and Portugal.

Another interesting aspect is that mass-media’s positive game reviews drive the most attention on BitTorrent’s networks.

“First and foremost, P2P game piracy is extraordinarily prevalent and geographically distributed [at least it was during the period analyzed]. However, the numbers in our investigation suggest that previously reported magnitudes in game piracy are too high,” Anders Drachen (working for the Department of Communication and Psychology, at Aalborg University and the PLAIT Lab, Northeastern University and Robert Veitch of the Department of IT Management at Copenhagen Business School, in Frederiksberg, Denmark) said.

“It also appears that some common myths are wrong, e.g. that it is only shooters that get pirated, as we see a lot of activity for children’s and family games on BitTorrent for the period we investigated.”

Tags: BitTorrent, digital piracy, file-sharing, game piracy, p2p