MatrixLeaks: Researchers find most BitTorrent users being monitored.
Researchers from Birmingham University in the UK have found that users who frequent BitTorrent file sharing sites such as The Pirate Bay, risk having their IP address logged by monitors as quickly as within three hours of getting on. The team, led by Tom Chothia, discovered the extent to which monitors are tracking users on such sharing sites by monitoring activity themselves over a two year period. They found as they note in their paper presented this week at the SecureComm conference, that virtually all users of such sites wind up having their IP address noted and recorded at some point.
BitTorrent file sharing sites work by means of a Peer to Peer sharing scheme. Users log in and download chunks of a file they want from several different other users at the same time who share the load as a swarm. At the same time, files that they’ve already downloaded are shared with others. The protocol and hosting sites, known as trackers don’t differentiate between files that are traded legally, or illegally, hence the presence of monitors, which are “users” or clients that log in for the express purpose of finding out who is downloading illegal content. The very nature of the protocol makes it very easy for such monitors to note which users are downloading which files as it’s all tracked via IP addresses…
