BitTorrent Pirates Marooned
Allot Communications, a company specializing in "intelligent IP service optimization solutions" has unveiled the newest feature built into its NetEnforcer device. The device is now capable of detecting encrypted BitTorrent traffic. ISPs using the NetEnforcer will now be able to throttle BitTorrent traffic more efficiently.
As P2PNet observes, many ISPs recently began shaping their network traffic to keep BitTorrent users from sucking up all of the available bandwidth — in some cases, BitTorrent accounts for half of an ISP's traffic. However, BT users were quick to work around the ISP's detection schemes by using RC4 encryption. All of the major BitTorrent clients recently added the option to encode transfer files using RC4 encryption.
The NetEnforcer uses Allot's deep packet inspection technology "to identify and analyze hundreds of applications and protocols, track subscriber behavior, prioritize traffic and shape traffic flows."
Here's more from Allot's press release:
Previously, companies have been able to detect and manage applications based on the BitTorrent peer-to-peer (P2P) file transfer protocol. However, detecting encrypted BitTorrent has been nearly impossible… Today, Allot is announcing that its NetEnforcer is the first broadband traffic management device to identify and help manage applications based on the encrypted BitTorrent P2P file transfer protocol.
Back to the drawing board, kids!
UPDATE: I'd also like to point you to this blog post by BitTorrent creator Bram Cohen in which he argues against developing an obfuscated version of the BT client. He has some interesting points, one of which is that not pissing off the ISPs is usually a good thing…
