[tor-talk] Monitoring and blocking the bittorrent monitoring spies

Aymeric Vitte vitteaymeric at gmail.com
Tue Feb 24 11:25:27 UTC 2015


This is a study based on the DHT only which shows how to 
find/track/block real-time the bittorrent monitoring spies, how to set 
methods to protect the bittorrent users and make their use of the 
bittorrent network much more private, how to create/maintain a dynamic 
blocklist and possibly how to set a more fair relationship between the 
users and the copyright holders.

The abstract and begining of the study is here: 
https://gist.github.com/Ayms/077b114a27450f773939

At the begining of the study the assumptions were:

- the spies are millions
- they do legal things
- they can prove that you downloaded a torrent
- no methods inherent to the bittorrent protocol exist to stop them
- no methods can exist to protect the privacy of the users

At the end it is:

- what are doing the spies is very questionable from a legal standpoint
- they are hundreds, or a couple of thousands, not more
- they cannot prove anything
- a simple change in the bittorrent protocol would defeat them all
- some efficient means can be used to protect the users and could be 
implemented in any bittorrent client without disturbing anything

The method to create and maintain the dynamic blocklist is explained 
here: 
https://github.com/Ayms/torrent-live#how-is-the-dynamic-blocklist-createdmaintained

But it might not be enough and it is recommended to combine it with:

The method to protect the users is explained here: 
https://github.com/Ayms/torrent-live#findspies

The technical details, code and installation details for the 
anti-spies/private bittorrent client are here: 
https://github.com/Ayms/torrent-live

A less technical general presentation is available here: 
http://www.torrent-live.org

PS1: it's under consideration whether the optional 'total freerider' 
feature should be the default or not, because, of course, this one does 
disturb the network, but this is not the key feature here.

PS2: while it's obvious that protecting the bittorrent users might not 
please some people, unexpectedly we have to fight with the VPN folks 
too, who argue that blocklists cannot work and don't realize that, 
despite of some advantages, using a VPN just consists in destroying the 
magic of the bittorrent network. The blocklist here is determinist and 
its accuracy is just a matter of processing capabilities, combined with 
the privacy methods it becomes extremely unlikely to encounter a monitor.

PS3: indeed, the methods might block by mistake some peers that are not 
spies, but this is completely marginal given the size of the bittorrent 
network.

PS4: no, the monitors are not using the Tor network (unless they tunnel 
udp through Tor to some proxies, which would seem completely absurd).

PS5: yes, financing would be appreciated to support this work (and 
related projects Peersm, node-Tor) and to disclose the full study.

-- 
Check the 10 M passwords list: http://peersm.com/findmyass
Anti-spies and private torrents, dynamic blocklist: http://torrent-live.org
Peersm : http://www.peersm.com
torrent-live: https://github.com/Ayms/torrent-live
node-Tor : https://www.github.com/Ayms/node-Tor
GitHub : https://www.github.com/Ayms



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