Torrents blocked by Vodafone - what to do?

Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2011 7:49 am

Greetings all,

I am in Iceland and I use wireless internet hotspots of Vodafone (three different ones, but all Vodafone). BitTorrent downloads here were very fast (up to 1.2 MB/sec) up until a few days ago. Suddenly, internet was down for about one minute and then came back on, but all BitTorrent downloads were ceased – zero peers, zero MB/sec. I tried everything – torren2exe, ThunderMOD, encryptions, changing ports – every trick I could find online. Nothing works. Torrific doesn’t work either – the download always aborts towards the end. Regular internet connection is fine, and so are direct downloads.

Can anyone explain what’s going on? Is it Vodafone blocking BitTorrent, and if so how can I get around it?

Technical details:
OS: Win 7
BitTorrent client: uTorrent
All cookies cleaned with CCleaner and SpyBot
Same computer, same OS, same firewall, same client for over a
year and no problems (in three different countries!) until
now.

You help is appreciated.

Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2011 7:59 am

Not sure if this is of any help as the last dates aren't entered?

Quote:

Censorship is prohibited by the Icelandic Constitution and there is a strong tradition of protecting freedom of expression that extends to the use of the Internet.[5] However, questions about how best to protect children, fight terrorism, prevent liable, and protect the rights of copyright holders are ongoing in Iceland as they are in much of the world.

The five Nordic countries—Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Iceland—are central players in the European battle between file sharers, rights holders, and Internet service providers (ISPs). While each country determines its own destiny, the presence of the European Union (EU) is felt in all legal controversies and court cases. Iceland, while not a member of the EU, is part of the European Economic Area (EEA) and has agreed to enact legislation similar to that passed in the EU in areas such as consumer protection and business law.[6]

Internet service providers in Iceland use filters to block Web sites distributing child pornography. Iceland's ISPs in cooperation with Barnaheill—Save the Children Iceland participate in the International Association of Internet Hotlines (INHOPE) project. Suspicious links are reported by organizations and the general public and passed on to relevant authorities for verification.

On 10 June 2009 the two major ISPs in Iceland, Vodafone Iceland and Síminn at the behest of SAFT (Save the Children Iceland) and other interest groups instated a null route on the website ringulreid.org , making it inaccessible to most commercial Internet users in Iceland.[7][8] Other members of the Reykjavik Internet Exchange didn't institute the null route, but both Vodafone and Síminn blocked it at their Icelandic routers.

The ringulreid.org domain subsequently expired[9] and the site was taken down by its operator. But a similar site slembingur.org sprang up to replace it.

Both Vodafone Iceland [10] and Síminn[11] updated their blocks to null route 83.99.152.251, the IP address slembingur.org resolves to.

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_Iceland

Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2011 8:11 am

I only download torrents from VTV, EZTV, TPB, and the like. I never touch any of the stuff mentioned in that Wikipedia entry.

Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2011 9:37 am

First thing i would do if not done already is uninstall then reinstall utorrent. Also try another client just for troubleshooting purposes.

Sounds more likely though thats somethings changed on your machine thats blocking it. Whether be your utorrent, a firewall or AV or whatever. Something may have been changed unknown whether via an update or whatever.

Can you system restore back to a date when you know it was working, as may save alot of troubleshooting.

Can also use below link to test if maybe check to see if your being throttled by vodafone?

http://ca.isohunt.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=184837

Failing that check event viewer for any network errors or similar which may point to problem.

Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2011 9:56 am

yup do as posted above and also run a security app. Sounds a little like you picked up a something that may have changed some settings.
If it were a sudden block by Voda it would be al over the local help sites and easily found via google. The only google result is actually your post so I am pretty sure the issue is with your own hardware software settings.
And welcome to the forums by the way.

Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2011 10:11 am

if all 3 access points you mentioned are out, then its probably vodaphone.
however i think it could be rogue APs (wHackers). you could be connecting to a whacker, not vodaphone. Get something like network stumbler, or inSSIDer and you can see all APs and thier MAC addresses, and see the average whackers rogue AP.

Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2011 11:03 am

Thanks all for your help.
1. I tried BitTorrent client as well as uTorrent. No difference - nothing works.
2. I found another hotspot (non-Vodafone), and on that one torrent downloads, especially with ThunderMOD, are super-fast (1.5 MB/sec). So, it's not my computer.

I too thought that if Vodafone blocked torrents it would be all over the net, and I checked before I posted here. The Vodafone I used is unlikely a hacker - it belongs to the public library and they told me themselves that this is their signal. The whole thing is weird.

Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2011 11:45 am

well did you try the link for glasnost which checks for throttling?

Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2011 11:48 am

bazzer101 wrote:

well did you try the link for glasnost which checks for throttling?

I actually tried it yesterday, before I posted. I got an error message, something along the lines of "could not finish test" or something like that.

Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2011 12:42 pm

RF198 wrote:

bazzer101 wrote:

well did you try the link for glasnost which checks for throttling?

I actually tried it yesterday, before I posted. I got an error message, something along the lines of "could not finish test" or something like that.

you could try connecting with a different wifi adapter...and see if they blocked your MAC

Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2011 12:56 pm

Quote:

you could try connecting with a different wifi adapter...and see if they blocked your MAC

Thanks, I didn't even know they could do that... But my internet access wasn't blocked, only my torrent downloading. Can they do that - throttle torrents on an individual MAC address? And how come ThunderMOD doesn't work there? Doesn't it mask torrents as regular downloads?

What do you mean by a different wi-fi adapter? Isn't that a part of the hardware?

Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2011 2:15 pm

RF198 wrote:

Quote:

you could try connecting with a different wifi adapter...and see if they blocked your MAC

Thanks, I didn't even know they could do that... But my internet access wasn't blocked, only my torrent downloading. Can they do that - throttle torrents on an individual MAC address? And how come ThunderMOD doesn't work there? Doesn't it mask torrents as regular downloads?

What do you mean by a different wi-fi adapter? Isn't that a part of the hardware?

if you use a laptop get a USB wifi adapter disable your onboad adapter install the usb one, and you have a different MAC adress , yes they can restrict certain actions based on MAC

Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2011 3:13 pm

RF198 wrote:

Greetings all,

I am in Iceland and I use wireless internet hotspots of Vodafone (three different ones, but all Vodafone). BitTorrent downloads here were very fast (up to 1.2 MB/sec) up until a few days ago. Suddenly, internet was down for about one minute and then came back on, but all BitTorrent downloads were ceased – zero peers, zero MB/sec.

Sounds like they just busted you and everyone else doing it, not vodafone but whoever controls the hotspots and got vodafone to block p2p traffic.

Posted: Sat Nov 19, 2011 6:28 am

LORD! GARTH! wrote:

RF198 wrote:

Quote:

you could try connecting with a different wifi adapter...and see if they blocked your MAC

Thanks, I didn't even know they could do that... But my internet access wasn't blocked, only my torrent downloading. Can they do that - throttle torrents on an individual MAC address? And how come ThunderMOD doesn't work there? Doesn't it mask torrents as regular downloads?

What do you mean by a different wi-fi adapter? Isn't that a part of the hardware?

if you use a laptop get a USB wifi adapter disable your onboad adapter install the usb one, and you have a different MAC adress , yes they can restrict certain actions based on MAC

Can I change my MAC address without a USB wifi adapter? These will cost a fortune here. I did a Google search and found plenty of tips on how to change MAC addresses. Do you think these wil work?
Thank you for your advice.

Posted: Sat Nov 19, 2011 9:38 am

Im not sure if im right guys, but would using a VPN help at all?

Or would the ISP still be able to discern the data as P2P?

I might be barking up the wrong tree, but just a thought...