BitTorrent Under Fire

Over the last several months a silent war has been raging between some of the big Canadian ISPs and their customers. Rogers and Shaw, two of the larger cable internet providers in the Greater Toronto Area, have begun to implement traffic shaping policies to dramatically curtail the ability for subscribers to make use of the BitTorrent protocol. This is accomplished though bandwidth throttling, which limits the amount of requests the ISP’s servers will respond to. BitTorrent users can set their own limits by imposing restrictions on maximum upload and download rates already; the issue here is that the ISPs are imposing these limits indiscriminately, restricting the ability of their subscribers to make use of BitTorrent, often to such a severe degree that it becomes useless. Maybe it’s time for Rogers and Shaw customers to take their business elsewhere?

New versions of µTorrent and Azureus have both implemented encryption in order to get around these problems, though it should be noted that the creator of BitTorrent does not condone obfuscation. I’d have to side with those who argue for encryption as a pragmatic solution to the oppressive actions of the ISPs in question. An interview with µTorrent developer Ludvig Strigeusat at Slyck may shed some more light on the subject.

I suggest all BitTorrent users upgrade to the newest beta version of µTorrent at this time, and enable encryption by opening Options, Network, and then setting the appropriate properties.

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One Comment

Brian Damage
March 9th, 2006

µTorrent is indeed a great client (easter egg - Help/About and hit T on the keyboard!), and encryption is a mostly effective means of masking packet payload. However, any ISP that enacts traffic shaping - particularly those who advertise “unlimited internet” - are real scumbags an do not deserve your money. They effectively break the internet by giving preferential treatment to services sold directly by the ISP, and to users who are unaware of the full potential of the internet. These ISPs particularly harm struggling artists who rely on low-cost distribution as their primary means of marketing and income!

Give your money to a more deserving ISP who will toil day and night to ensure their customers’ satisfaction. Check out http://www.canadianisp.com for a huge regional repository of ISPs accompanied by quantifiable customer reviews, lists of limitations and special features, and availability.

Props on the relaunch.

Brian