Why ISPs do not stop torrents

maharaliel

Can anybody tell me why these website that are sharing resources like books, videos, software etc are not being stopped by Internet Service Providers. I am wondering how ISPs continue to allow them to work while they know that they are sharing for free some properties that are to sold. Probably it is allowed and my worry is for nothing.

JustFred

I don't know i always figured those working at ISPs are just like us.

Anyway I'm grateful for tablets. Though i buy 90% paper books because I'm just old fashioned and love the smell of going through the pages and writing things down. I have also been buying a lot of books for my kindle/Nexus because its often cheaper than its paper counterparts and i don't have to carry books around.

Now if only the video training series were affordable for those of us whose employers are not willing to pay for a video series. I'm always looking at cbt nuggets hoping they would make things cheaper for individuals like Udemy does. I absolutely love Udemy because its affordable.

2cents

docrice

Being a service provider and being a content-enforcement point require different resources and business priorities. File-sharing isn't necessarily evil, and like many tools it has the dual-use for both good and bad. Some providers do step into the water of traffic throttling but when you're tasked with identifying and containing application-layer functions, a false positive means you're hampering someone's business which potentially has legal consequences.

Cert Poor

Censorship is a very bad, slippery slope. Look at what's happening in Turkey right now censoring Twitter, YouTube, and hijacking DNS servers. Look at other countries where information and freedom of speech are not present: China, Iran, North Korea, and many others.

BitTorrent is a wonderful protocol for file transfer and the spread of ideas, knowledge, information, and legal content. I prefer to download large ISOs (such as Linux distros) via BitTorrent vs. HTTP mirror. It also takes the load off mirror sites, reducing their fees. There's a lot of legitimate altruism to seeding legal Torrents. It's like you're giving back to the world community.

Re: sharing illegal content: the onus of responsibility is not on the ISP. There are plenty of entitites out there such as the MPAA/RIAA and the like that go after illegal file sharers. We don't need ISPs to get their hands dirty in that mess.

Edit: There's also a difference between blocking a known piracy torrent webpage (like TPB) vs. blocking the BitTorrent network traffic itself. I'm *somewhat* OK with the former but not OK with the latter.

Edit 2: I'm perfectly OK with a company or a university blocking that kind of traffic (even if it's legitimate) to keep their employees and students in line and from hogging the network. But residential ISPs? No way. Just focus on uptime, customer service, and lowering your darn prices!

SweenMachine

REMOVED UNNECESSARY QUOTED REPLY FROM PREVIOUS POST

Very well thought out response.. Couldn't have formed my own thoughts better..

-scott

gorebrush

Big bandwidth users also arguably make money for ISPs. If you are willing to pay that bit more for an unlimited service, and the ISP can cope - then surely ISP's will be happy to bring on those customers in return for more subscription revenue.

jibbajabba

A lot of ISPs in the UK do

gorebrush

Yes but blocking at the ISP level is generally trivial to get around, would deter most "non-savvy" users though.

networker050184

You are assuming an ISP knows what a customer is actually pushing over their service. As docrice pointed out, it's a very different business to provide bandwidth and do application level monitoring to know.

gc8dc95

Cert Poor wrote: »

Edit: There's also a difference between blocking a known piracy torrent webpage (like TPB) vs. blocking the BitTorrent network traffic itself. I'm *somewhat* OK with the former but not OK with the latter.

I agree with most of what you said, except this part. Whether some people like it or not, a website (even TPB) should not be blocked by any service provider without legal due process. I see no reason that they should limit content based on their feelings of what a website is doing.

***Maybe this is what you meant and I misinterpreted your point?***

Also, +1 docrice.

MAC_Addy

Not all torrents are illegal.

--chris--

Here is a good example of the unknown problems that pop up when ISP's are required to censor traffic:

How Russians Are Outsmarting Internet Censorship - Global Voices Advocacy

tl:dr
The Russian government forces ISP's to actively seek out and block certain websites. An attacker found a way to use the system against the government, blocking any site at will.

Cert Poor

gc8dc95 wrote: »

I agree with most of what you said, except this part. Whether some people like it or not, a website (even TPB) should not be blocked by any service provider without legal due process. I see no reason that they should limit content based on their feelings of what a website is doing.

***Maybe this is what you meant and I misinterpreted your point?***

That makes sense. Blocking websites willy-nilly is something I need to think about more. It seems the legal due process would make for a better requirement.

JasonIT

I work for a service provider....we just don't have the time

Sandvine will give you a report on torrent traffic if you want to know though.

SephStorm

Have you seen what happened with SOPA/CISPA? The same thing would likely happen if ISP's tried to totally wipe out torrent usage. Not to mention the first time they blocked a torrent with legal content they'd get sued back to the stone age.

GeeLo

The first reason is, that there is a lot of files that people use distributed networking like torrent to host and share, so people can download them. There is a lot of 100% legitimate files out there.
So, torrents can not be blocked as that would stop "any" legitimate files.

What files are "legitimate"? That is a whole big discussion that I do not even want to start.

But, as others have said, any types of "censorship" is considered a bad thing as the internet should be open for "all". As for working in Information Technology for over 20 years, I agree.

[Deleted User]

There are legitimate pieces of software offered through bit torrent. I believe that the humble bundle offered their games through it for a while (that might have changed). There is so much gray area when getting into bit torrents.