How can I tell if other bittorent users are downloading

[Solaris]

I suspect my housemate is Bittorenting in secret, whenever I enquire he gets very rude and is a dick about it.

As he pays his share of the internet bill, I can't cut him off. However, it would be very helpful if I could tell if he was bittorenting or not (I have router password) without invading anyones privacy.

Any idea's solutions?

 

[Vegeta897]

Hmm... Check what ports have been forwarded in the router settings? Or would it not have been possible for him to have access to those settings to forward a port for his torrenting?

 

[Solaris]

Hmm... Check what ports have been forwarded in the router settings? Or would it not have been possible for him to have access to those settings to forward a port for his torrenting?

Nah, I have sole control over the router and router settings. He doesn't even know what port forwarding is.

 

[Vegeta897]

He can't be getting very good performance then. To my knowledge, anyway.

 

[Solaris]

Well when my friends are away, I run BT and can get speeds of 400kb/s, which is perfectly reasonable to me. I don't do any Port forwarding either.

 

[Acepilotf14]

Go.. ask him?

 

[Vegeta897]

Go.. ask him?

whenever I enquire he gets very rude and is a dick about it.

Enquire means ask :O

 

[Acepilotf14]

I didn't actually read all of the OP, and I gave an example as to how to get by it.

If he's being a dick about it then I can tell you with 100% certainty he is torrenting porn.

Spoiler

or anime

 

[VirusType2]

whenever I enquire he gets very rude and is a dick about it.

Maybe tired of you accusing him of using it when he's not?

 

[Robbo]

Can't you set it so that each IP only send a set amount of data each month?

 

[unozero]

why do u care if he's torrenting?

 

[Shamrock]

Well, torrenting slows down one's internet as it takes bandwidth. If he doesn't regulate it, then it usually takes a huge chunk of the bandwidth causing gigantic slow downs to other users.

Have you tried setting a Web UI in his torrenting program? That's what we do. Our one roomie used to torrent regardless of the hour, and he's not very computer literate/doesn't care much. Anyway, we set up a Web UI in his uTorrent program, and you can check via his IP and whatever password you set it as in your web browser. You can then check for certain if he is torrenting or not. If you are able to do it in secret, that would be your best bet.

Hope this helps!

 

[Solaris]

Mmmm, he's a friend so I'm not going to spy on his laptop.

Tbh, I think he's autistic or something. Sometimes he leaves bittorent running with no active downloads or seeders. I claim this still slows the internet, he says it doesn't.

Just he's such a dick about the topic when I ask politely, I'd rather just be able to know if he is and have just cause to cut him off.

 

[unozero]

if there's nothing being upped it shouldn't slow the i-net down me thinks

 

[smwScott]

Well if he's paying for half the internet bill I don't think you're in any place to cut him off completely. BT is one of the main reasons people have broadband....

Usually in situations like this compromise is the best solution. If you just tell him you don't give a **** as long as he doesn't do it when you're on then that's pretty reasonable. It isn't hurting you at all to have it running overnight or when you're at work or whatever.

But yeah, I think some routers have built in ways to throttle/limit bandwidth to specific IPs.

 

[Stigmata]

Sometimes he leaves bittorent running with no active downloads or seeders. I claim this still slows the internet, he says it doesn't.

It doesn't. Bittorrent only accesses the network if it actually has a reason to upload or download.

If you have good firmware on your router, see if you can set up some QoS. I have custom firmware on my router, and have set traffic priority so games traffic (Xbox Live, Steam, Battle.net) gets the highest packet priority, instant messaging and voice comm (think Ventrilo) gets medium priority, http gets low priority, and Bittorrent/ftp gets bulk priority. In short, I can torrent at 400kbps on my computer while my sister watches Youtube and my brother plays Modern Warfare 2 on Xbox Live, and nobody complains about lag.

If that fails, tell your friend/roommate to install utorrent and set up a bandwidth schedule. It's really easy to do, utorrent is great.

 

[Asus]

My brother used to use a lot of bandwidth when we shared a net connection. When I got bad ping playing online games I'd just have him drop his upload to 10kb and download to 50 and I would be good. Then I'd let him raise his rates after I was done. I didn't cut him off and he didn't kill my ping. All was good.

If you are complaining about slow web speed rather than ping than he must be really really maxing the connection or you are just connecting to a slow site or you've got something going on with your PC.