College Campus forbids torrenting

[Col. Skillz]

I've got a good friend who can't download thru bit torrent. supposedly the campus scans for that shit and will fine you/report you if you do...

What I want to know is how they do this, and, can be circumvented.

Would using a private tracker keep him in the clear? I mean how exactly can they know you're torrenting...they can scan ports, but what does that do? ports are used all the time... they can keep a tracker list i guess, or they can monitor upload, but how effective is that?

does bit torrent use special packets or something that scream out "p2p"

[rulebreaker]

Try using a vpn than

[teresckova]

Or a seedbox...

[Sonnentier]

Yes, BitTorrent can be detected, even with protocol encryption turned on.
This is the most complete way to block it, although some might also try to stop people downloading by just blacklisting major trackers...

The new µTorrrent supports uTP, this new UDP based protocol - if your friend is lucky, this still works.

[MadIrish]

I've got a good friend who can't download thru bit torrent. supposedly the campus scans for that shit and will fine you/report you if you do...

What I want to know is how they do this, and, can be circumvented.

Would using a private tracker keep him in the clear? I mean how exactly can they know you're torrenting...they can scan ports, but what does that do? ports are used all the time... they can keep a tracker list i guess, or they can monitor upload, but how effective is that?

does bit torrent use special packets or something that scream out "p2p"

I reckon they can tell pretty easily mate, and yeah, it will scream p2p. They've probably had a lot of practice at detecting it too, most colleges will have received plenty of unpleasant legal notices from anti-p2p agencies in the past and be right ontop of it. At the very least the volume of traffic will be obvious. They control the firewall/router remember, usually torrents simply won't work, let alone them work and then the college catch you doing it. Without being able to open ports uploading would be a mare too even if you could get away with it.

He/she could try ssh - http://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-over-ssh-071014/ or vpn, but imo the best thing for him to do if determined to use torrents would probably be to get a really cheap (ie shared) seedbox and then ftp the files.

Or they could just try to locate the local DC++ hub and use that instead

[susiserken]

Go for a seedbox or simply use rapidshare and filehosts like it

[no_bother]

Seedbox. Dont try and bypass it, Its not worth it.
Dont do SSH, dont do UDP, seriously, its not worth the risk. MY college would fine you for it.

[yankeezfan1]

Use a seedbox

[Col. Skillz]

so just using private trackers wouldn't be safe enough?

are there any cost free alternatives?

[MadIrish]

so just using private trackers wouldn't be safe enough?

are there any cost free alternatives?

Nope, the traffic's still the same, and I very much doubt they filter purely on the basis of looking for connections to well known sites like TPB.

Its really not worth your mate taking the risk imo. Might be worth them talking to some compscis at the college however, they'll probably know the score there specifically rather than us all just talking generally.

I suppose they could try something like setting up a pc at home to run their torrents then remotely access it and transfer the files through ftp.

Otherwise, cost free alternatives would really be different protocols. Most colleges have DC++ hubs, using those wouldn't involve going outside the network so I believe the college wouldn't be at all bothered. Have to admit not knowing that much more about those myself though.

Or, possibly, they might want to consider newsgroups (although there is a minor cost involved). Not sure of the potential implications though, sure there's plenty others here who'd know better, but usenet might be safer.