Monday, December 11, 2006

Is Rogers Blocking/Shaping P2P Traffic

It is, according to the folks here and here. Since the only use I have for a cable Internet connection is to down-load music through Limewire and the other P2P programs, should this prove true I will soon be switching to another ISP.

Thanks, Rogers, for making Xmas suck so much worse.

8:30 am update: Got a guy to admit that they have been setting the priority for P2P networks so low that you automatically time out when trying to connect. For some reason, this was not effecting me until I upgraded to a new cable modem. The choice is to try going through a proxy or find an ISP that doesn't throttle bandwidth. My techy said the RCMP advised them to do this because they were finding too much child-porn on the P2P networks. Lotta bullshit, that. You can find any porn of any kind on either P2P or the web in about ten minutes.

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Er...

I used Rogers Cable over the summer and all my P2P worked fine. I was never d/ling below 100 KBPS. There was a rumor that Rogers blocked a file format called torrents. However its only certain programs they block, Bit Comet worked fine.

I'm sure certain P2P clients won't work so well, but its definitely not all of them. I wouldn't doubt if they were shaping P2P traffic, but blocking it completely? Don't think so.

Saskboy said...

This is serious news, you're not fudging the story in any way? The Rogers rep actually confirmed that they are shaping based on RCMP recommendation?

If so, I'll be blogging about it later.

Saskboy said...

Paul, Bit Comet uses bit torrent protocol.

bigcitylib said...

Well, I am not sure what's going on anymore. One techy gave me the line that P2P programs are given such low priority that they are bound to time out-- this to stop the downloading of child porn (his very words). Another Rogers rep said he uses P2P at home all the time and he's fine. He thinks I've got firewall issues, and that the new modem has nothing to do with it. However, all my firewall stuff looks good to go (ie it allows these programs to go through). I've kind of gone from times where I can't connect at all, to times where I can do searches but can't really do any downloading.

On one forumn it was suggested that switching up to Rogers extreme (the premium service) would solve the problem. But there I could do searches, yet nothing would actually download.

So I am massively confused.

bigcitylib said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
bigcitylib said...

Let me be a bit clearer, if you're thinking of blogging.

The one techy I spoke to said basically that the P2P networks were given such low priority by Rogers because the RCMP had advised them that there was "alot of child porn on the networks".

I have spoken to about four different guys since last night, and that's the only one who gave me this particular story.

bigcitylib said...

Whoopsie! And now, after taking about twenty minutes to connect, its (Limewire) downloading fine. I played around with the firewall settings a bit, but don't know if that helped. So I am inclined to think the one techy was bullshitting me.

Anonymous said...

So BCL is upset he cant steal music as fast as he would like. A good socialist, he feels the work of others should be provided to him at no cost.

Saskboy said...

Anonymous, how do you know he hasn't bought [a CD or ] download of the music, and now he's just getting the DRM free version so he can use it like Canadian law allows? Or perhaps he attends the musicians concerts and gets their merchandise where they can make most of their money.

bigcitylib said...

Actually, Saskboy, I buy a ton of t-shirts.

Anonymous said...

In Canada we are charged a premium for blank media to cover P2P and other uses.
At the moment, it's legal to download music.

Anonymous said...

I hate that ISPs are now using excuses for their cheap services. It's a private business offering one service (connection) they have no reason to start filtering what I do unless stated clearly when I sign up.

Anonymous said...

Shaw Cable in Vancouver does shape P2P traffic, especially bit torrent.

BUT thankfully there are things you can do to get around this. For example if you want to use bit torrent most clients support protocol encryption which effectively hides the packet headers from your ISP (this is how they determine what you are doing, and throttle your speeds.)

The settings I use in utorrent (my preferred bit torrent client) are Forced protocol encryption, and I dis-allow incoming legacy (non-encrypted) connections. This ensures that all my bit torrent connections (incoming and outgoing) are encrypted, and my speeds have been faster.

As for other P2P protocols a quick google search should provide solutions.

Simon Pole said...

BCL, you mentioned you were a Mike Patton fan. You might want to check out the new album by his buddy Hank Williams III Straight to Hell. There's also this gem by Hank III's bassist Joe Buck.

bigcitylib said...

Well, the Joe Buck concert shots look promising.

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