How is Torrent Data Identified and Throttled?

[Sir Topham Hatt]

After reading another post it got me thinking how is torrent data identified?

I thought the likes of encryption would stop ISPs knowing you are downloading and uploading.

[Daedroth]

Encryption only hides the contents of the data. They can still see where it's come from, how large the overall download it, how long you've been downloading it, your download speeds, etc. Only using proxies or VPN can you start masking those details.

[LittleNeutrino Veteran]

its not the data that is being throttled is the manner in which it is being transmitted

BitTorrent makes many small data requests over different TCP connections to different machines, while classic downloading is typically made via a single TCP connection to a single machine.

BitTorrent downloads in a random or in a "rarest-first" approach that ensures high availability, while classic downloads are sequential.

This make it easier for the ISP to tell if the traffic is Bit Torrent or not. However with different levels in encryption it is getting more and more easy to trick the ISP into thinking that the traffic is not torrent related.

[Detection]

HTTP use port 80

HTTPS uses port 443

p2p uses some random crazy ports like 37546

[Phouchg]

HTTP use port 80 HTTPS uses port 443 p2p uses some random crazy ports like 37546

So does FTP (for data) and various game servers and clients :ermm:

[Detection]

So does FTP (for data) and various game servers and clients :ermm:

Maybe theres some unencrypted packets that identify torrent clients / p2p data that FTP doesnt have sent along with the data