Limiting Bandwidth Hogs on Public Wireless Nets?

arglesnaf asks: "I'm a consultant and spend a lot of time on public wireless networks at client sites (mostly hospitals / universities), coffee shops, and hotels. Quite often, the problem is that some person is running BitTorrent and eating 100% of the bandwidth. The result is that I can't get email during the day or play World of Warcraft in the hotel. I have considered sniffing and spoofing TCP resets to free up some bandwidth but need an automated way to handle new BitTorrent connections. Does anybody have any ideas on how to automate the sniff and reset strategy, or other ways to carve out a little bandwidth from hogs on public wireless?"

Steps for getting bandwidth

[Kadin2048]

Step 1: Find wireless network with SSID "linksys" or "netgear"
Step 2: Point browser at gateway
Step 3: Log in with default password
Step 4: Change channel, change SSID, enable WPA-PSK, change password.
Step 5: ???
Step 6: Profit!

Re:

[steveo777]

Sad thing is that this would work 50% of the time. Especially in any residential area or an appartment complex without lead paint under the wallpaper.

Re:

[smbarbour]

How about this method instead of completely hijacking the router?

1) Gain access to the router controls
2) Place the offender's MAC on the ban list.

It's a little more transparent than kicking everyone off except yourself.

(If you're really creative and the capability is present, change the DHCP settings for the MAC such as don't assign a gateway address or assign it to a different subnet.)

Re:

[smbarbour]

How about drop the banhammer and reboot the router/AP? That should do it. That will force the connection to drop, causing a new request for a DHCP lease. No one else will notice the downtime from the reboot since Mr. Hog is effectively blocking them anyway.

Re:

[Doctor Memory]

I think my WRT-54G allows me to force a disconnect for a particular connection. Don't most WAPs? ISTR I had to use this when I was trying to get a new laptop configured, and I wound up eating all my DHCP leases (I have it set to five to discourage mass leeching).

Offtopic question: do any consumer-grade WAPs support both WPA and WEP simultaneously? It's a hassle when my dad drops by, as his old laptop only handles WEP, and I've got all our systems at home configured to use WPA. Is there some technical (p

Short answer: No.

[Stavr0]

I'm a consultant and spend a lot of time on public wireless networks at client sites (mostly hospitals / universities)

Get yourself an EVDO cellular modem. You can deduct it as a business expense. And stop trying to disrupt other peoples's connection.

If you have a problem with bandwidth hogs, complain to the WiFi service provider. Don't take the matter into your own hands. You are not the bandwith police, what you are doing is probably illegal.

Re:Short answer: No.

[Chanc_Gorkon]

Exactly what I was going to say. A free wifi network is NOT your network. Just because someone else is being a asshat doesn't mean you need to be one as well.

Re:

[arglesnaf]

I concur, I'm not trying to be an asshat as well, its just that one person is ruining the wireless for the 40 or so others trying to use it.
see here [slashdot.org]

Re:

[arglesnaf]

I already have spoken to management. The hospital wants to deploy whatever solution I come up with here, the hotel is supportive. One person can literally kill the connection, to the point you can't load google. This is not a question of policing, its a question of making wireless usable at all.

Re:

[Kadin2048]

Well in that case, if you have the cooperation of the hospital and hotel, why not replace the router with one that will take a more flexible firmware (like DD-WRT) and then enable its QoS controls? You can put almost all P2P stuff into the "Bulk" category, while putting WoW, HTTP, Citrix, and SSH stuff in higher categories.

Also, you could create a whitelist of known MAC addresses and give them higher priority than everyone else who just walks in off the street, and you can have the router's logs forwarded t

Re:

[networkBoy]

I'm just wondering if /. is the right place to be asking about throttling BT bandwith? Might have better luck at TPB?

-nB

Re:

[Vellmont]

Well in that case, if you have the cooperation of the hospital and hotel, why not replace the router with one that will take a more flexible firmware (like DD-WRT) and then enable its QoS controls?

Because he's "just some guy" using the network, not the network administrator. He doesn't want to administrate the network, and the people who run the network don't want to go to all the trouble of pulling out one solution that works (minus the hogs).

It seems to me the solution of disrupting peoples network conne

Re:

[dougmc]

It seems to me the solution of disrupting peoples network connections who're hogging the bandwidth is a perfect solution for all involved

For all? Even the p2p user?

Personally, I'd call it a DoS attack, and would believe that the perpetrator (the person intentionally disrupting other people's connections) is a criminal and should be treated as such. It's also possible that merely sniffing the network (arguably to see where all the bandwidth is going) is violating the law.

And yes, BT can suck u

Re:

[Vellmont]

For all? Even the p2p user?

Sorry if I forgot about them. One doesn't generally worry about the troublemakers when devising a solution to a problem. I suppose law enforcement isn't really optimal for thieves either. I take it you're one of the slimeball p2p users taking up scarce bandwidth on free wi-fi networks?

Personally, I'd call it a DoS attack, and would believe that the perpetrator (the person intentionally disrupting other people's connections) is a criminal and should be treated as such.

Uh huh. A

Re:

[dougmc]

while putting WoW

It's just a hunch, but I'm guessing that the hospital would want to put WoW into the same lower QoS category. Which wouldn't gain the WoW player much.

Ultimately, this sounds like another case of `what I want to do (WoW, and I'll throw in some things that sound like work too) is more important than what you want to do (Bittorrent, but who knows what else would be included.)'. I believe the general problem has been explored in great detail over the years under the name tragedy of t [wikipedia.org]

Example script

[autocracy]

I use these settings for iptables and tc on my network gateway box for ensuring that even when it's under heavy upload & download conditions, latency will still be low (my ssh sessions used to kind of suck). The idea is the link can always be fully utilized, no one grouping of traffic gets the entire reservation group, and things should (and have) remained fast for all. If you can't figure this out between the advanced ip routing documentation (google) and my script, get in touch with me and I'd be hap

Re:

[rpbailey1642]

If you're feeling adventurous, you can get a Soekris box, install OpenBSD/FreeBSD and have a completely customizable wireless access point. With PF and ALTQ, you can do bandwidth throttling, can disable certain types of traffic with Snort+PF, or anything else that you feel appropriate. This site www.netgate.com [netgate.com] has everything you need, hardware-wise. Google can help you find instructions on getting the OS installed.

Re:

[Achromatic1978]

So you're consulting on this for the hospital, and yet your "solution" involves you sending tcp resets to other people's connections, rather than bandwidth throttling / QOS?

Re:

[Vellmont]

Exactly what I was going to say. A free wifi network is NOT your network. Just because someone else is being a asshat doesn't mean you need to be one as well.

Well, my argument would be it's not the bandwidth hogs network either. If someone were blasting really loud music in a public space, would anyone but the music blaster complain if you were able to send sound cancelling noise to block the loud music (and do it in a perfect way that only stopped the loud music)?

In this case the guy isn't being an "assha

Re:

[Barny]

I'd be more worried about legal implications of doing this

Can you say DoS attack?

As someone said, if its that important to you, get a "mobile network" solution, whatever is applicable in your country (in australia we have one supplied by telstra that is dog slow, but useable for MMOG).

Re:Short answer: No.

[Erwos]

The guy who sent in the question may not appreciate EVDO or HSDPA, because, IIRC, latencies are much higher. While this isn't a big deal for web or email usage, it's going to be painful on WoW.

Then again, if the business is paying for it, that's quite acceptable.

Re:

[Primis]

Then again *still*, whether he can play WoW or not in a hotel is a rather stupid, frivilous issue and one not even worth commenting on. That alone speaks to the original question poster's mentality, right there, that it is somehow a "priority" over everyone else's traffic...

Re:

[bcat24]

Word. I let out a little chuckle when I got to that part of the article. I can understand emailing and web surfing on an open wifi connection, but who says his WoW is more important that the other guy's BitTorrent? Personally, I think they're both bandwidth hogs. :)

Re:

[arglesnaf]

Its not about priority, it's just a demonstration of the same issue. The ping time to the second hop gets as high as 3000ms due to bandwidth saturation.

I live in a hotel every weekday for the last seven months and have asked the hotel about the bandwidth problem, and they are supportive of this approach. They know one or two guests are ruining the internet access for everybody, and wish they could do something about it. Since it is a corpoarte big chain hotel they do not have the ability to implement the

Re:

[Atzanteol]

That's quite harsh. You're probably not a consultant who travels a lot. I've spent my share of time on the road alone working at client sites, it gets boring. Sometimes you work off-hours or weekends.

Being able to play WoW or some such really helps to kill the time while doing nothing at night.

Re:

[ArsonSmith]

Umm, that wasn't the only spelling error you had.

Just an FYI.

Re:Short answer: No.

[arglesnaf]

What you find many times if you talk to a Hotel Manager or Coffee shop owner they realize it is a problem and have no way to deal with it. They will tell you they wish they had an easy way to throttle these people, without investing in things like inline IPS / bandwidth management.

Most of my clientel is small city midwest, and EVDO is not an option.

At the hospital I am at today the IT security people think it is a great idea. Since they outsource their wireless management and the provider refuses to deal with it, they think using a wireless IPS like solution to limit hogs is their only way to fix it.

I came up with the idea to ask slashdot after talking to my Hospital client and the manager of the hotel I normally stay at. Abusing the network by eating all the bandwidth is not someones right, and not all wireless providers are capeable of ensuring equitable wireless access.

Re:

[plover]

they wish they had an easy way to throttle these people

Sneak up behind these people with a short piece of rope held between your hands, loop it over their heads, and pull. They are then throttled. [princeton.edu] Easy.

To make it easier, do it one person at a time.

Re:

[Hizonner]

Um, get a smarter provider? I know they're mostly pretty stupid, but they can't all be that stupid. Your clients didn't all do anything really dumb, like signing up for a long-term contract with a crummy provider, did they?

As for self-help, it makes no sense to say that they don't want to invest in inline bandwidth management, and then suggest that they invest in an equally expensive packet-sniffing, RST-sending hack. That hack is going to be just as hard to administer, and is going to involve just as

Re:Short answer: No.

[CXI]

I have considered sniffing and spoofing TCP resets to free up some bandwidth but need an automated way to handle new BitTorrent connections. Does anybody have any ideas on how to automate the sniff and reset strategy, or other ways to carve out a little bandwidth from hogs on public wireless?"

When you want to know about the correct way to do it, you ask about QoS and other bandwidth limiting methods. You do NOT, as you've done, talk about TCP resets and "automated sniff and reset strategy".

Re:

[Bender0x7D1]

I'm not sure if this applies, but is there a way to change to Point Coordination Functionality (PCF) instead of Distributes Coordination Functionality (DCF)? PCF means the AP will "ask" each connected system if they have something to transmit. They don't just send it out and hope there aren't any collisions like in DCF. If it was set up in a round-robin style, you would get your x% of the bandwidth - as long as you had something to send.

Don't know what settings would have to be changed on the AP or cli

Re:

[Bender0x7D1]

True. However, it should still have some effect. Since the AP has gone to polling, it will take a longer period of time for the "bad" client to receive a packet and send an ACK (it has to wait its turn in the queue). This will cause the AP to start buffering packets for the client, but it will eventually start dropping packets. Once packets start to drop, congestion control should kick in and start throttling the traffic back.

As long as the AP only allows each client the opportunity to send a single A

Re:

[Ant P.]

Do they have control of the access point's OS? With Linux you can rate limit layer 7 in the firewall (with the right tools), and there's always QoS.

Re: Short answer: Yes.

[sleeper0]

From what I understand, one of the only effective ways of limiting a 3rd party's access to a common AP without any administration rights would be to use spoofed 802.11 packets with the offender's MAC Address to send disassociation packets that will reset their connection, possibly causing them to have to manually cause a reconnect, and definitely causing all of their connections to dump and go through the process of reassociation and getting a new IP even if their client will automatically reconnect.

http:// [tu-darmstadt.de]

What if you're the network admin?

[OlivierB]

I'm currently thinking of setting up a Fon acces point at home (www.fon.com) however I am worried that some people will just go stupid and hog all the bandwith.
Is there anyway to limit individual bandwith to approx 150kps?

Re:What if you're the network admin?

[Yonder Way]

Use OpenBSD as your gateway OS and set up queues so that BitTorrent is allowed on its well known ports, but carve out dedicated bandwidth as well for other services like imap, smtp, http, https, etc. to make sure they always have priority over torrents. You can prioritize the queues so that interactive services like ssh and http/https will pre-empt bandwidth from bulk transfer services like BitTorrent and ftp. The amount of control you have with pf is any geek's dream. You can even go so far as to say that hosts running Windows get put in a lower priority queue than hosts running anything else. :)

D-Link DSA-3100 works great

[transporter_ii]

It is more expensive than an old computer with OpenBSD on it, but it very simple to set up and is very easy to limit the speed of users by class.

We had a hotel with a 1.5Mb wireless connection that had a movie downloader just hammering us night and day. Not only was it killing the service for other users at the hotel, it was killing service for other users all over our wireless network.

Solution: We talked the hotel into getting a D-LINK DSA-3100. I had it installed in an afternoon, the hotel had a captive p

Re:

[misleb]

Solution: We talked the hotel into getting a D-LINK DSA-3100. I had it installed in an afternoon, the hotel had a captive portal to boot, and everyone got a smaller but much fairer share of the bandwidth.

I recently installed a DSA-3200 (the successor to the 3100) and I can't figure out how to make usage fair. I can limit the overal bandwidth used for each authentication group, which is great because we use our T1s for other things besides wireless, but how do I limit bandwitdh per protocol or make usage f

Re:

[misleb]

So I guess that only works with authenticated users. We have a truely open network so there is no way to group users and give each their own 128k. Oh well.

-matthew

Re:

[swv3752]

Setup QoS. If using something like DD-WRT, fairly easy to do it on the router itself to throttle everyone.

Re:

[Stavr0]

Prioritized Internet Sharing for Home Users? (from the bandwidth-preservation dept.) [slashdot.org]

Even a plain jane Linksys router has basic QoS support. I have mine setup to prioritize port 25, 110 and 80.

Re:

[Knara]

If you have a WRT54x router, are you still using the original firmware? I had very little luck getting prioritization of packets through its QOS to work right. The DD-WRT seems to work a lot better, wondering if I'd missed something in the factory setup (though now that I think about it I think I was prioritizing by switch port, but that shouldn't matter I wouldn't think).

DIY or off the shelf

[akb]

To DIY, put a distribution like OpenWRT [openwrt.org] on something like a Linksys WRT54G, that will give you all the flexibility you need to setup bandwidth management.

For an off the shelf solution, the Asus 500gl has various bandwidth management features. Haven't used it myself but it seems worth a look.

Re:

[Strolls]

I'm currently thinking of setting up a Fon acces point at home (www.fon.com) however I am worried that some people will just go stupid and hog all the bandwith. Is there anyway to limit individual bandwith to approx 150kps?

Yes. When you log into the Fon router using the registered email address & password you are redirected to your "Fon homepage" which has a sliding meter to set the amount of bandwidth you wish to share. You can also add "guest" accounts - users logging in with one of these do not have

Reboot the router

[swv3752]

Go and unplug the router. Most likely, anyone using bittorrent is leaving the computer unattended so, dropping thier connection will likely keep them from reconnecting, particularly if the hotspot is using nocatauth.

Though it it was properly setup, they would just have QoS set on the router, so no one person could be a hog.

I suggest

[Acy James Stapp]

You go from room to room asking if anyone is running bittorrent. When you find someone who is, shoot them and close bittorrent. I think any judge would consider this reasonable, after all it's *your* bandwidth they're stealing, and clearly thoes denied their WoW fix can't be expected to behave entirely rationally.

Re:

[camusflage]

clearly thoes denied their WoW fix can't be expected to behave entirely rationally.

Jack Thompson, it's good to see you've seen the light. Can you please stop going after Take Two now, mmmmkay?

Re:

[loraksus]

No, no, WOW players would use the +36 sword of truth to slay the hogs...

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

You kids these days...

[Rob T Firefly]

It was fun getting online while travelling, back before public connectivity was widespread. I used to pack my hefty old 486 portable with a modem cord with alligator clips on the end (beige box style) and some straight pins of the type normally used for sewing. If you could stick two pins into the phone cord at different spots, one touching the "ring" line and the other touching the "tip," you could clip your modem onto those pins and get online without having to explain to some backwater motel clerk (or

Re:

[Doctor Memory]

I used to pack my hefty old 486 portable

486? 486?!?!? Back in my day (about the time dirt went beta), we used the trusty old TI 765 [xmission.com]. With real acoustic couplers, none of your fancy-pants alligator clips. And everything was PRINTED on PAPER, so you had a permanent record of your telnet session to ucbvax to prove you'd been there.

You kids with your microprocessors and your CRTs and computers you can lift — GET OFF MY ROCKS!

Re:

[plover]

A Silent 700? Well, weren't YOU the rich kid? You and your high-speed 300 baud modem, and your shiny expensive thermal paper! We used to dream of the day we might be able to get a Silent 700.

We had to make due with a Data Products PortaTerm, which apparently was invented and destroyed before the advent of photography, 'cuz I can't find an image of one anywhere on Google. It was a full briefcase-sized impact-hammer-through-the-paper terminal, complete with a 110 baud acoustically coupled modem. The br

Barter consulting time for services

[davidwr]

Step 1: Find a solution you could impliment cheaply if only you had permission.
Step 2: Buy the coffee shop or hotel manager lunch. Explain that they have a problem and that you are willing to fix it in exchange for goods and services. Explain how this will make life better for all their customers.
Step 3: After getting permission, fix the problem.
Step 4: Enjoy the coffee or free room-nights.
Step 5, required in some countries :( : Pay self-employment taxes on value of bartered goods.

Step 6: Use refere

Re:

[peacefinder]

Excellent idea. For Step 1, I suggest looking at this comment. [slashdot.org]

Of course, it may be that the AP already supports QoS and it just needs to be configured. If not, running OpenBSD's PF as a bridge on a Soekris 4801 [soekris.com] (or equivalent low-power box) with compact flash for mass storage would allow him (with the owner's permission) to place it upstream of the access point and forget about it. The whole thing is US $300-$400 plus time.

(It could be done even cheaper on a salvaged old computer, of course, but the reliabi

um, I'm a little supprised...

[josepha48]

.. that you are asking that in public. What you are asking to do is possibly against the computer abuse and fraud act. You are asking to disrupt someone elses connection by 'hacking/cracking' thier traffic.

I'd suggest you go to the front desk and tell them that you are having problems with the wireless. That you are staying in this hotel because they have internet access. I'd suggest that you tell them someone needs to look into the situation or move you to another hotel. Tell them that you suspect that someone is doing something against the law ( I know running bit torent is not against the law ) and taking up all the bandwidth. Who knows you can drop in the comment, I think that someone is running an unlawful site and allowing people to download pirated movies and that the MPAA and RIAA may come after the hotel and sue them. That would get their attention.

Complaining often works!

Re:

[arglesnaf]

I actually already have complained. See this post [slashdot.org] I've been living in this hotel for the past 7 months and they know they have a problem and are powerless to fix it. They know one or two guests ruin the connection for everybody, but their outsourced wireless provider isn't fixing things. The Hospital has the same problem. Both are supportive of the idea of interrupting the bandwidth hogs to use the connection. (I actually consult for the Hospital security dept, they can't get the outsourced wireless pr

Re:

[LurkerXXX]

Well if you are a security consultant, than you should know some network security guys. Ask them and I'm sure one of them would be happy to consult or point out a consultant who could fix them right up. If they can't get permission to replace the wireless equipment they have, but you have physical access to the wireless access points and the central tie-in to the cable/dsl/T1 or whatever, drop in an IP-less OpenBSD machine between them, and have it throttle the users.

Re:

[illumin8]

What you are asking to do is possibly against the computer abuse and fraud act. You are asking to disrupt someone elses connection by 'hacking/cracking' thier traffic.

I would disagree. This is not illegal, but it is unethical. You are not hacking or cracking anything on their computer. All you are doing is sending a TCP reset packet on an open wireless network. Their computer can choose to ignore it or honor the reset request; you are not accessing or tampering with any data on their computer itself. B

*chuckle*

[TrebleJunkie]

...ya bitch about The Next Guy hogging your bandwidth, and yet most of you clamour for "Net Neutrality."

Irony.... glooooorious irony.

not that simple

[Chirs]

Comparing a coffee shop or hospital to an ISP is a bit much, don't you think?

The ISP has common-carrier status. They have regulations that assume they are neutral and treat all traffic equally, in return for various benefits. Also, in many cases there is no real competition. If the ISP decides to go non-neutral, there really isn't any way around it.

If there were many local ISPs, each with a different set of bandwidth rules, and they actually *advertised* those rules and charged a fair price for the vario

Re:

[bucky0]

That would be really ironic and funny if that was the argument against NN at all.

The argument about NN isn't about whether or not ISPs should be able to give certain type of traffic greater priority over the others (I.E. making VOIP take higher priority over HTTP)

The argument about NN is whether or not ISPs should be allowed to give certain organizations higher priority than others. What the submitter is talking about is prioritising HTTP over Bittorrent, which most wouldn't disagree about. What NN supporte

Re:

[balthan]

The argument about NN isn't about whether or not ISPs should be able to give certain type of traffic greater priority over the others

It really depends on who is doing the arguing. The point has been a bit muddled and it's hard, sometimes, to get people to agree on specifically what they're arguing about.

Re:

[bucky0]

Fair enough, there's been more than enough misinformation about NN, but it doesn't change the reality of what ISPs and companies like google are arguing for.

Re:

[TrebleJunkie]

They're the same issue though -- taking a finite resource (bandwidth on particular pipes) for granted and expecting it all for nothing at the expense of the bandwidth's provider, never mind that that provider *owns* his infrastructure and can and should part it out or prioritize it or charge for it whatever he wishes.

You seem to be implying

[Tancred]

expecting it all for nothing at the expense of the bandwidth's provider

You seem to be implying that people are passing traffic across a bandwidth provider's network against that provider's will. That does happen sometimes (oops, accidentally left that wifi unprotected), but usually a bandwidth provider makes a conscious decision to offer it for free, charge someone for it, or come to a mutually beneficial agreement with another party to exchange traffic at no charge. Nobody's being taken advantage of again

Re:

[Phil Karn]

QOS is not a violation of network neutrality.

Actually, it is. Before QoS, routers handled all packets in neutral, FIFO order. QoS, by its very nature, handles packets in something other than FIFO order. With QoS, some kinds of packets are more important than others.

But there's nothing wrong with QoS per se. The real issue is who controls the QoS rules? The users or the carriers?

As far as I'm concerned, I pay for my DSL line so I should get to decide which packets on it are more important than others.

Re:

[TrebleJunkie]

But at the same time, if the candy bowl is owned by an ISP, and the trick-or-treaters are companies like Google or YouTube, you want them to be able to take all the candy they want, as long as they give it to you, with --no-- consideration given to the ISP.

The "no consideration" fallacy

[Tancred]

No consideration given to the ISP? Their peerings don't just happen; they are negotiated, contracts are signed and only then are peerings implemented. I don't know how the "no consideration" fallacy could have sprouted and become so widespread if not for the powerful lobbying machines trying to spin the public to their side.

Take a look at the candy bowl from the opposite view and you can just as easily see a Google or YouTube providing the candy and a middleman (ISP) taking it and selling it to other kids (

Fix the analogy

[SanityInAnarchy]

A senior citizen putting out a candy bowl is kind of like a coffee shop putting out a Linksys router.

An ISP is more like a supermarket. If I go to the supermarket and buy up every last bit of Halloween candy, that's my right. My mother should not be standing there at Wall-Mart telling me I should buy some vegetables.

lower your mtu or go to starbucks

[ufnoise]

If you reduce your mtu, you might be able to squeeze some packets through and reduce latency. At least that is what I did when sharing a 56K modem connection. This also helps when your webbrowser is trying to download multiple images simultaneously.

Otherwise, go to Starbucks and pay $.10 cents a minute, because hardly anyone else will.

Spoof some ARP packets

[haydenth]

We used to have this problem when I lived in a house where 10-15 people shared a wireless connection and none of us had admin access to the router. We couldn't play XBOX live or anything because some asshat was downloading porn on bittorrent constantly. I used to just spoof ARP packets and have all of the traffic route through me, whereby I'd summarily kill all of his traffic and mess up his routing tables.

best solution

[TheSHAD0W]

The proper way to handle this problem is for the hotel to install an intelligent LAN router that can limit bandwidth for each user. This solution is protocol independent and not easily bypassed.

Okay...

[LWATCDR]

Isn't WOW a bandwidth hog?
Sort of seems like you are asking how can I kick off OTHER bandwidth hogs?
Or how do I control a free open network I don't own?

Okay...

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

You are the most selfish Prig I know

[MerlynEmrys67]

So let me get this straight. For your convienience you are using a free service - then complaining about the service that you receive.

Hate to tell you buddy... If you want to get a good clean connection - work from home, setup your own network - brew your own coffee, and get the quality that you need. If you want to sit in a coffee house and drink overpriced drinks, talk loudly on your cell phone, and use their connection to gring your Tier II gear in WoW - Well, you get what you pay for.

Now quit whin

Re:

[arglesnaf]

I posted this above, but am reposting here:

What you find many times if you talk to a Hotel Manager or Coffee shop owner they realize it is a problem and have no way to deal with it. They will tell you they wish they had an easy way to throttle these people, without investing in things like inline IPS / bandwidth management.

Most of my clientel is small city midwest, and EVDO is not an option.

At the hospital I am at today the IT security people think it is a great idea. Since they outsource their wireless man

Re:

[MerlynEmrys67]

Wirless IPS and spoofing TCP resets to throttle bit torrent are the exact same thing.

Hardly... Wireless IPS/QoS/Packet Shaping are very simple TCP flow control mechanisms that will throtle TCP mechanisms fairly and in a managed appropriate way.

Sending spoofed TCP resets into a packet flow that you don't own, manage, or control is crossing the line. There is also the difference between allocating resources that you own in a way that you want to (ie Packet Shaping) and disrupting resources that you don't

Is it just me...

[Samurai Cat!]

...or does this fellow complaining about BitTorrent users eating up bandwidth preventing him from eating up that same bandwidth playing WoW just seem... kinda... ironic? :/

Re:

[toleraen]

Contrary to popular belief, well, actually just yours, MMOGs are typically pretty low on bandwidth use. I haven't played WoW on a dialup connection, but I know Everquest ran perfectly fine over a 28.8, even with 100+ people in the zone...and EQ was coded pretty badly, since it sends updates on everything going on in the zone, not just a limited area. Games don't use up the maximum bandwidth just because they can, unlike BT.

If story poster were on MY wireless network...

[Khyber]

...and I caught him fucking with connections, especially MINE, I'd walk the 800+ foot radius from my router, circle around the router at that distance, find this bastard and BEAT HIS ASS.

This is not your network, pal. Quit trying to fuck it up. First come, FIRST FUCKING SERVE.

*WHIIIINE* I Can't play my life-sucking WoW because of the Pir8s on BT!!!11one.

Gimme a fucking break.

And while I'm at it...

[SanityInAnarchy]

This isn't just about WoW. It's also about email. Personally, I use public wireless to actually get work done, from time to time.

Re:

[Khyber]

You're a moron. Turn off QoS and tell me it's not a first-come, first serve.

Ok..

[SanityInAnarchy]

It's not. Given two open HTTP downloads, they'll usually even out to about the same speed. The reason BT always soaks up more bandwidth is it will open an unlimited number of connections.

Re:

[Khyber]

You talk and assume without using what little brain matter you have. It's my network. I leave it open. When you access my connection, you get a page outlining the ToS for using my network. If you start deliberately trying to kill my services on my network, just so you can eat up more bandwidth, you're breaking the ToS, you're pissing everyone else off, and you deserve to have your ass beat in the first place. It's akin to trespassing, and in Tennessee, we've got a legal right do get you off our "property" B

Re:

[SanityInAnarchy]

If you start deliberately trying to kill my services on my network, just so you can eat up more bandwidth, you're breaking the ToS, you're pissing everyone else off, and you deserve to have your ass beat in the first place.

So go beat the bandwidth hogs. Remember, WoW uses an insanely tiny amount of bandwidth, even compared to typical web browsing. BitTorrent, OTOH, sucks down as much bandwidth as is available, effectively killing off other services.

Or is it that you own the network, and you're running Bit

Re:

[Khyber]

Bittorrent gets used occasionally on my network, mainly when I want to test x flavor of the week *nix distro. Most of my bandwidth is used up by Camfrog (voice/video chat) And I will guarantee you that it's first-come, first serve, when the server is up and running. After three or so people are on Camfrog on my network, anyone else is efectively shut out because the bandwidth is saturated. Again, FIRST COME FIRST SERVE, irregardless of your argument.

Very strange.

[SanityInAnarchy]

After three people or so are on Camfrog, without any sort of QOS, I'd expect a fourth person to start breaking up your video quality, especially if it was a torrent. I've seen bandwidth be almost saturated, ping times go up to 800 or 1000 ms, but it doesn't take that many round trips before BT will start pulling bandwidth back.

I'd love to test that on your network, but there's almost no chance I live anywhere near you. Oh well.

so....

[Lxy]

What you're saying is that some guy running bittorent doesn't have a right to bandwidth, but you do? Do you know the definition of "public network"?

Grow up already.

I'm an Student...

[UnifiedTechs]

"I'm a Student and spend a lot of time on public wireless networks at my university, coffee shops, and hotels. Recently I have noticed the alot of disconections in my Bittorent of linux distro's I need to download for my CS thesis. The result is that I can't my thesis completed, during the day I have noticed someone playing World of Warcraft without any problems. I have considered sniffing and spoofing TCP resets to free up some bandwidth but need an automated way to handle new connections. Does anybody have any ideas on how to automate the sniff and reset strategy, or other ways to carve out a little bandwidth from hogs on the wireless sytem that my college tuition pays for?"

Re:

[bergeron76]

The result is that I can't my thesis completed

The result of your thesis not getting completed is not due to wireless access. It's due to improper prioritization. There are plenty of places on-campus with LOTS of bandwidth: Use a Computer Lab or *gasp* "jack in".

If you can't complete your thesis at Starbucks (or in the Hilton lobby), the problem is not wireless bandwidth hogs.

Re:

[bergeron76]

Ok, I just actually read your post, and now the meaning of my previous reply has changed. Wierd.

That's not the question

[Kadin2048]

I think there's an assumption here that he doesn't control the WL router.

E.g., it's a public router, like in a coffeeshop or hotel, but which doesn't have any QoS set up on it, so it's being abused.

He wants a way of essentially chiseling out some room on the commons, when the other guy is already over-grazing his sheep there.

Re:

[joto]

So essentially, he wants to be able to control fairness on a public network, without having any other ability to control it than all the other people on the public network? Sorry, but that can't be done. Cooperation is your best bet. Walk over to the guy running bittorrent, and ask him to throttle his bandwidth ;-)

Re:That's not the question

[Ex Machina]

The excellent network attack package dsniff [monkey.org] has a really cool utility tcpnice [debian.net] that may help.

Sounds like that's the solution.

[Kadin2048]

This seems like the closest thing to a solution I've yet seen in the thread. (I was hoping for "Stab People In The Face Wireless Protocol" but apparently it still hasn't been implemented.)

I wonder if running it slows down your own connection though, since you're constantly injecting packets into the other guy's connection.

Might he have to get another computer in order to run tcpnice, and then do his normal internet activities from another machine?

Re:

[Ex Machina]

I wonder if running it slows down your own connection though, since you're constantly injecting packets into the other guy's connection. Might he have to get another computer in order to run tcpnice, and then do his normal internet activities from another machine?

I think that most of the overhead would come from runing your network card in promisc. mode and having to have tcpnice "consider" each packet on the interface. The bandwidth overhead from actually injecting the packets is tiny. Running it on an

Re:

[arglesnaf]

I am not a consultant for this, I simply happen to be consuming these services. I happen to be consulting for something completely different, and just need wireless access.

Re:

[LurkerXXX]

So? Just set up queue's for each user(ip) with borrowing. When others are surfing Mr. Bittorrent/slashdot-mirror gets throttled down to a 'fair' rate, forcing him to share the bandwidth with others. When they stop using it, he gets to go hog wild using it all.

It's not just ports.

[SanityInAnarchy]

Most places that filter BitTorrent don't even consider ports, because those are so often randomized now. They check for something that looks like a BitTorrent header. Of course, it's possible to fool these, too, but port 80 simply doesn't matter at all.

"BitTorrent ports?"

[SanityInAnarchy]

Not applicable anymore. BitTorrent ports are randomized, and many clients set it to something weird out-of-the-box. Unless you're blocking everything except port 80, BT will easily slip past that.

It is possible to throttle BitTorrent, but not in the way you expect to.