Torrenting on a University Network

[SignusX-1]

Alright so I'm on a University network, and any method of torrenting that I know of requires a computer external to this network that I can VPN or SSH to, which I currently am lacking.

I tried a few ways to get around the access lists on these routers, either by exploiting the IOS or brute forcing the router with known open services. No luck, the IOS was recently updated so I can't upload my own run-config, and my computer lacks sufficient power to brute force an alphanumeric 5-12char password in a time frame that I'm comfortable with.

I currently am using a proxy, at least so I can get SOME torrenting done, which is a complete drag. If you get a max 7kB/s on a download and a simple music album takes a couple hours, it drives you mad.

So really I'm looking for a way to get around the firewall/access lists on the network so that I may torrent at decent speeds without the use of an external machine.

Any ideas would be great. Thanks.

[VaKo]

A: Check your university's AUP for network and systems. When I worked in a end user IT department at a university, if we caught you using p2p your internet was cut off (as in the cable was unplugged from the switch) until *we* removed the app from your machine, 3rd and subsequent times this happened and your network access was cut off for a month, and there was nothing you could do about it.

B: Hacking the Router will get you kicked out of university, and you probably won't get your money back. If the people in the NOC are bastards you might even have the police knock on your door.

C: The university network is not for torrenting, its for academic stuff. Bitch about it if you want, it won't change anything. The very nature of the protocol is that it is designed to use all the bandwidth it can, and in a shared environment that's just being a dick.

That being said, there is a very easy way of getting around this you have ignored. Set up a machine outside the university network, use that to torrent from, and connect to it over FTP or similar (which is one of the few protocols that you can say "its for academic stuff" and no one will check even if you are pulling down half a TB per night). You must have a friend or your parents you can use for this purpose.

[SignusX-1]

I am actually very aware of the legality of the matter, however, I have some free playing grounds as a friend of mine is in the NOC, although he can't tell me how to torrent because even he doesn't know, he at least allowed me with the network administrator's permission, to do some exploitation.

I wouldn't want to hog other people's bandwidth, but since I'll be one of the few people staying on campus during the holidays doing research, I can't imagine there being many other people to hog bandwidth from.

The reason I asked was because I wanted to do some torrenting without an external connection to another computer, and I'm sure a friend of mine could allow me to VPN into a machine of theirs, but I was trying to scratch that method.

I'll remember to post when I have legal permission next time.

[VaKo]

I am actually very aware of the legality of the matter, however, I have some free playing grounds as a friend of mine is in the NOC, although he can't tell me how to torrent because even he doesn't know, he at least allowed me with the network administrator's permission, to do some exploitation.

I wouldn't want to hog other people's bandwidth, but since I'll be one of the few people staying on campus during the holidays doing research, I can't imagine there being many other people to hog bandwidth from.

The reason I asked was because I wanted to do some torrenting without an external connection to another computer, and I'm sure a friend of mine could allow me to VPN into a machine of theirs, but I was trying to scratch that method.

I'll remember to post when I have legal permission next time.

Should have stated that tbh, 99% of people asking that question just want bootlegged MP3's over the halls network. Nothing to do with legal permission needed, but most people asking don't have it and don't think of the repercussions of being caught. If you do, that's cool, and apologies for jumping the gun.

So your trying to torrent within the network I take it? What part of the infrastructure is stopping you and how?

[Norwat]

You can use a private tracker, or any other tracker that uses full torrent encryption, TorrentBytes does, and your able to DL at very high speeds but you cant upload. With that you may f* up your ratio and get kicked out of the tracker

That being said, there is a very easy way of getting around this you have ignored. Set up a machine outside the university network, use that to torrent from, and connect to it over FTP or similar (which is one of the few protocols that you can say "its for academic stuff" and no one will check even if you are pulling down half a TB per night). You must have a friend or your parents you can use for this purpose.

Best advice you'll get imo ^^ you should try torrenflux!

TorrentFlux is a web-based system for managing bit torrent file transfers. It is an open source package (GPL) and developed for Linux, Unix & BSD platforms on the ubiquitous LAMP stack.

Cheers

[d4rkfe4r]

Most uni's dont allow any p2p of ANY type. I was fortunate to not live on campus but my friend had to and their system was setup where everyone had an account they logged into to access the net and it matched their mac addr to the account so you needed to submit a master reset on the account if you wanted to change hardware. Here is what I suggest:

A.) move out of the dorms

B.) if your uni is set up my like my friends then hijack a user account and mask your mac addr to theirs

C.) get a sprint/verizon/etc... wireless card

[SignusX-1]

Well I'm sure it's the switches and routers stopping me. Both Cisco gear, so they have the ability to block certain port traffic, i.e. access lists, etc.

I know it's basically impossible unless I have physical access to the network components, which I do not. The admin in the NOC specifically let me know he couldn't hand me passwords, but that what he doesn't know won't hurt, thus I can obtain them on my own, which I attempted with brute forcing and SNMP exploitation, etc. No luck really.

So I was thinking along the lines of trying to mask torrent traffic as HTTP, FTP or SSH traffic, without the use of an external machine like I mentioned which is hard or nearly impossible at the least when I don't have another machine to point it to.

I am forgetting another idea that I had, but certainly yes I am trying to do the torrenting myself.

[SignusX-1]

Thanks I'll try out TorrentFlux and let you know if that worked.

I am actually about to get a new wireless adapter, an Alfa b/g 1000mW adapter for my laptop. I can't reach any of the networks from my room, so I'm going to reach out and see if I can't get on my friend's apartment network, who happens to live about two blocks away, but my crappy Intel abgn chipset can hardly get a thing.

[VaKo]

Setup a darknet and torrent over that, from the sounds of it the torrent traffic probably doesn't get any further than the switch on your floor. You could try running it on port 80 though, but I doubt it would work.

[d4rkfe4r]

I currently set up TorrentFlux on my website and it works awesome!

[VaKo]

Its just a web based client and it won't solve the fact that the torrent traffic itself is blocked

[d4rkfe4r]

No but they said to set up a seedbox elsewhere to do the actual torrenting.

[SignusX-1]

Well I plan on setting up TorrentFlux if I get an external machine.

However I'm still exploring some methods to get torrent traffic through on the network WITHOUT using a machine on another network.

[d4rkfe4r]

Well I have TorrentFlux set up on my website and my webhost is killing the torrent connection.

[H@L0_F00]

http://www.bitlet.org/

http://torrelay.com/fresh/web.pl?d= <-- Size limit of 800 Mb/s (I think)

There was another site like those, I forget the name though, which I actually used and it wasn't too bad. I'm sure a bit of googling and selecting the right words to search for could give you a few more similar sites.

Also, when I got caught pirating by Cox, I simply went to downloading almost everything from free online storage sites (rapidshare, megaupload, but most preferably mediafire). The best thing to do for music is find a music "sharing" (read uploading/downloading/pirtating/stealing/whatever) blog that satisfies your taste in music. From that blog, you'll probably find more because they always have links to "friends." They're usually GREAT with requests too.

[thefatmoop]

find an old pc and throw it in the basement of ur house. PROBLEM SOLVED

ssh tunnel all your web stuff too. your university can track and do w/e they want to ur interwebz

[SignusX-1]

http://www.bitlet.org/

http://torrelay.com/fresh/web.pl?d= <-- Size limit of 800 Mb/s (I think)

This is all blocked by hardware. The only way around this is a proxy, which does me no good.

find an old pc and throw it in the basement of ur house. PROBLEM SOLVED

ssh tunnel all your web stuff too. your university can track and do w/e they want to ur interwebz

If you read the post, you would know that is exactly what I don't want to do. The reason being is that I will not be going home over the holidays to do some research, so to do that I would have to have someone set it up for me, and few of my friends are computer literate, so it's just ultimate fail.

If I had access to another box outside of the network, there would be no problem, I would be done here, but I was looking for any extra ideas anybody had about how to torrent on the University network to get past hardware port blocking with some decent speeds.

[d4rkfe4r]

Well I am looking to get a seed box and I found a decently priced one.. $30 am month for 200 gb storrage, 100 mbit connection, unlimited active torrents, and 3 TB upload bandwidth a month (you can add more but its like $30 a month for 2 TB more).

[VaKo]

The only option you have is to create some form of tunnel from your machine, over the university network to an external machine. You can't hack the network setup to disable the blocking without creating a lot of noise and the IDS will pick this up pretty quickly.

[SignusX-1]

From what I can tell, and what I've seen in the NOC, this University lacks an IDS.

Granted I was given legal permission by the network administrator in the NOC to do exploitation like I explained, so if any noise came from my traffic he would have waived it if that is true, however I asked him to see if he noticed any of my traces around the network, and contact me, which he has yet to do.

Even if there is an IDS I am at least legally permitted to do any exploitation.

That's about all the creativity I've gotten out of this was that I need another machine, so if there aren't any other "clever" ideas, I'm sure this thread is done.

[wh1t3 and n3rdy]

You could always purchase stuff legitimately.

Your pal in the NOC is breaking some pretty important rules by giving you admin privelages on the network, and the more you fuck around trying to torrent the more attention you will bring to you and him. Personally I get sick of dealing with dicks who fuck around on a network they don't own and break shit. There would be a terms of use policy or something to that effect you are meant to abide by.

Hacking and being a hacker has been so obscured and warped over the years it makes it hard for me to call myself one.

[VaKo]

Your mate in the NOC saying "sure, have a go" and the University signing off on your activities in an official capacity are 2 very different things.

As I said, there are 2 options, disable all the anti-torrenting stuff on the network or tunnel through.

[operat0r_001]

giganews/ssl + truecrypt = DONE

15$ a month charge it to yer moms CC

[SignusX-1]

Your pal in the NOC is breaking some pretty important rules by giving you admin privileges on the network, and the more you fuck around trying to torrent the more attention you will bring to you and him.

I haven't been given administrator privileges. I've been given the freedom to freely exploit the network and report any vulnerabilities to the NOC.

If I had administrator privileges, I wouldn't have this question, I would have already disabled access lists across the network, disabling any hardware from blocking my access to torrents.

I wanted really to test any ways to get around hardware port blocking without an external tunnel, but I can probably manage a spare machine whenever I do go home, which means torrentless holidays. How sad.

Hacking and being a hacker has been so obscured and warped over the years it makes it hard for me to call myself one.

I know exactly what you mean. From "hacking" in video games to "hacking" a MySpace/Facebook. I'm really more of a hardware "hacker" but I've been in the software game a few years but really when it's software it's technically "cracking".

giganews/ssl + truecrypt = DONE

15$ a month charge it to yer moms CC

Is that what you do? Pretty sad.

I'm not a little kid who charges my mother's credit card. I pay for my own college, housing, etc. The reason I'm actually doing research over the holidays is for a pay incentive and a scholarship.

I thought about Giganews at one point, and Diamond would be something I need but at $30 a month, I can't afford the expense, and I would rather not use the service than choke the bandwidth that I need for half the money.

[Joe C]

I came across the same problem when I moved to on campus housing and it turns out that my solution (giganews) was already recommended by another user. It was when I could not run torrents that I started doing lots of reading about Usenet. Initially i was concerned about the whole bandwidth limit on accounts (I have 15GB 20 connections and SSL) but after 6 months of service I have yet to go over. It should also be noted that giganews blows torrents away in speed, so much that I had people on my floor asking for things, so they did not have to use torrents. Both torrents and Usenet are great my bottom line, give giganews a second thought.