Matt
Running Free
Premium
join:2003-07-20
Jamestown, NC
 ·North State Commun..
 ·Corporate Colocation
|  How is this any different than a VPN?
How is this any different than say a VPN? If it works at the network layer (Layer 3) how is that going to prevent an ISP from throttling it if they can throttle L2TP (Layer 2) now?
I respect the motivation of the Pirate Bay, but I question their fundamental knowledge of network protocols.
This protocol, like any other, will have an easily detectable signature, encrypted or not. If you're opening 150 encrypted sessions, you're obviously not using a VPN. In addition, an ISP knows the difference in an HTTPS/SSL session and a PPTP or L2TP/IPSec VPN session, so this traffic will stick out even more.
The only way right now to trick an ISP is to create an encrypted tunnel to a single endpoint, then let that endpoint open the 100+ simultaneous connections. If you do that however, your ISP won't care as a customer using a single session at max bandwidth is much easier on the network than a customer opening 100+ sessions and using their max bandwidth to boot. |
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avd706
Premium
join:2003-02-06
Great Neck, NY
| said by Matt  :your ISP won't care as a customer using a single session at max bandwidth is much easier on the network than a customer opening 100+ sessions and using their max bandwidth to boot. Does this really make a difference? |
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jester121
join:2003-08-09
Lake Zurich, IL
 ·ViaTalk
| reply to Matt
said by Matt :I respect the motivation of the Pirate Bay, but I question their fundamental knowledge of network protocols. I question yours. L2TP is actually a layer 5 protocol which operates over UDP (layer 3). It's called "L2" because to the applications using it, it appears as a layer 2 transport. |
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Matt
Running Free
Premium
join:2003-07-20
Jamestown, NC
·North State Commun..
·Corporate Colocation
| said by jester121 :said by Matt :I respect the motivation of the Pirate Bay, but I question their fundamental knowledge of network protocols. I question yours. L2TP is actually a layer 5 protocol which operates over UDP (layer 3). It's called "L2" because to the applications using it, it appears as a layer 2 transport. Thanks for the clarification. I didn't realize it actually operated at the session layer.
It still doesn't change the fact their approach is flawed. This isn't the first half-baked idea they've come up with that - even someone who didn't know that L2TP is actually a Layer 5 protocol - can see the holes in. |
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jester121
join:2003-08-09
Lake Zurich, IL
·ViaTalk
| I agree, and the rest of your statement was pretty much correct. A point-to-point connection doesn't do much good in the P2P model, and the processing load associated with creating and tearing down VPN-type tunnels to hundreds of peers would render it pretty much useless.
I don't know what the profit motive would be, but if someone wanted to create a "hub" in a friendly jurisdiction that would basically proxy encrypted connections for P2P transfers, it would completely stymie the MPAA/RIAA in their enforcement efforts. Just like the anon proxies people use for web surfing, but with encryption. All the **AA could do is sue for the hub provider to provide IP addresses, and like TPB this probably wouldn't accomplish much. The bandwidth and processing requirements would be huge. |
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Matt
Running Free
Premium
join:2003-07-20
Jamestown, NC
·North State Commun..
·Corporate Colocation
| said by jester121 :I don't know what the profit motive would be, but if someone wanted to create a "hub" in a friendly jurisdiction that would basically proxy encrypted connections for P2P transfers, it would completely stymie the MPAA/RIAA in their enforcement efforts. Just like the anon proxies people use for web surfing, but with encryption. All the **AA could do is sue for the hub provider to provide IP addresses, and like TPB this probably wouldn't accomplish much. The bandwidth and processing requirements would be huge. That is what I was thinking too. Create a centralized hub, but then we're back to the days when the **AA's just have to go after one set of servers ... unless it's a Tor type network. Tor definitely could not support torrents though, so I just don't see where they are going with this. |
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punker
deleted by moderator
Premium
join:2004-06-21
Palmdale, CA
clubs:
·Time Warner VOIP
 ·RoadRunner Cable
| reply to Matt
said by Matt :How is this any different than say a VPN? If it works at the network layer (Layer 3) how is that going to prevent an ISP from throttling it if they can throttle L2TP (Layer 2) now? I respect the motivation of the Pirate Bay, but I question their fundamental knowledge of network protocols. This protocol, like any other, will have an easily detectable signature, encrypted or not. If you're opening 150 encrypted sessions, you're obviously not using a VPN. In addition, an ISP knows the difference in an HTTPS/SSL session and a PPTP or L2TP/IPSec VPN session, so this traffic will stick out even more. The only way right now to trick an ISP is to create an encrypted tunnel to a single endpoint, then let that endpoint open the 100+ simultaneous connections. If you do that however, your ISP won't care as a customer using a single session at max bandwidth is much easier on the network than a customer opening 100+ sessions and using their max bandwidth to boot. i open at lest 2,000 to 4,000
simultaneous connections. |
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