Deliver torrents with only a few seeds / hide torrent traffic

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peterfarge

Deliver torrents with only a few seeds / hide torrent traffic

Post by peterfarge »

Hello Forum,

some time ago I switched from uTorrent to qBitorrent. While my uTorrent time I collected ~150 of old public domain german films. These films never had more than a dozen of seeds and nowadays it seems I'm the only seeder and it is very unlikely that they get a re-release. With uTorrent the release was easy and the only thing I watched was how many Gigabytes I uploaded. This rare films are not requested frequently, so the upload stutters. But with qBitorrent I rarely upload anything at all. I'm using qBitorrent on Debian behind a VPN solution. Encryption is on preferred and not required mode.

Now I'm tweaking with the settings. Can you give me some advise?
1. In this forum some reported you have to "Force Resume" the uploads to get them working again. I'm trying this at the moment.
2. In the setting "Torrent queueing" the number of active torrents can be bypassed for slow torrents with a low upload. This setting should make the 100+ of rare torrents also available simultaneously?
3. Super seeding mode makes no sense I think, because its seldom that one of my torrents is requested. When it happens there is only one downloader.


I'm using a fast Virtual Private Server with a good internet connection, but the TOS forbids torrent traffic. I didnt know that and in the past I was releasing the torrents without the VPN. The internet provider send me an email where he wrote the names of the files I was seeding and he suspended me for a week to fix the problem. So I bought the VPN solution to hide the VPN traffic. Is there an easier way to hide the torrent traffic from the internet provider? Problem is: I really need the VPS for other things and the VPN IP is blacklisted, which is bad for delivering mails, connecting to other services, etc.
4. According to this paper, if the encryption-required-mode is activated, the torrent traffic between the peers is unreadable. But the connection to the tracker is not encrypted. So I could use a service that converts the magnet link into torrent files on my private internet connection and upload the torrent files to the server (if I want to download a new torrent). But the IPs of the peers must still be obtained from the tracker occasionally. And most of the trackers still use port 6969. Can the tracker<->client traffic identified as Bittorrent traffic beside catching the metafile download?
5. Are still many clients out there that dont support encryption? I cant remember: Was the default setting in qBittorrent disable or prefer encryption?

Thanks

Peter
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Re: Deliver torrents with only a few seeds / hide torrent traffic

Post by Peter »

1. Force resume: Only ignores limits set in the Settings. Like queue.

2. Ignore slow torrents: Yes, if you set a high-enough limit, slow torrents should bypass the limit.

3. Super-seeding: Seldom used in general. Only found it useful on my super-old, super-slow connection where I could actually seed to the first peer. Then again, this first peer could just disappear, leaving you to seed it all over again to another peer.

4. Encryption is not meant hide your traffic or prevent fines. It was added so people could bypass ISP p2p traffic prioritization. Basically, a few years ago, ISPs started throttling torrent users and enabling/forcing encryption got people around that most of the time. But I don't see many ISPs do this lately.

5. Encryption is supported by a lot of clients. You can enforce it, but it will not do much.

You have two options to seed properly:
- VPN with port forward (such as Windscribe, Mullvad).
Basically a normal VPN will put you behind "NAT". You don't get an open port, it's like being behind a badly configured network. So yeah, it's okay for downloads, but you won't ever upload properly with that. If you get a VPN with port forward? Set up the port forward and you should be able to seed OK. I also recommend using qBittorrent Advanced Settings to "bind the interface" to the VPN. What this means is - you will not do any torrent traffic until the VPN is connected. It's a safe-guard essentially.

- A seedbox. It's kinda techy but also not. You get a remote machine with a given amount of space where you can download and seed whatever you want. You can download/upload files via FTP/SFTP and other remote protocols. You need to learn some basic IT stuff but it's not as scary as it sounds. It's 100% safe because you do not torrent from your own PC, and no one can look into what you grab from your seedbox. I tried PulsedMedia a while ago, it's a pretty affordable/OK provider in my opinion - but they offer a refund period, like many others. See: https://www.reddit.com/r/seedboxes/
peterfarge

Re: Deliver torrents with only a few seeds / hide torrent traffic

Post by peterfarge »

Thanks for your reply :). You are right. Now that I have the VPN I cant be reached anymore from the outside. Most likely this is the problem of the low uploads. My VPN provider doesnt offer Port Forwarding. I'm seeding old film, I dont feel threatned by fines. I have done it for years without VPN.

I have already 2 VPS running, and I dont need the traffic volume or the hard drive. This was the idea of this project. I already had the VPN for my private downloads. But I dont wont to spend more money/month for an extra seedbox.

Its the provider of the VPS that detects the torrent traffic and suspends my VPS. I'm thinking to remove the VPN and switch to encryption required mode. So the traffic between the peers is unreadable. The last problem is the communication with the trackers. The seeder has to update the tracker in intervals how to find him (IP+Port). I'm guessing this traffic is encrypted, because it should be easy to create Snort rules otherwise. But most of the trackers are known by IP, default port and domain name. The connection itself cant be hidden and identifies a running torrent client. The question is how much effort does the provider put in finding torrent traffic. I will test it when I dont need the VPS for my other tasks.
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