Bittorrent Port Question

[Fishbong]

So i moved to my new place in Hildesheim, where i´m studying. I have a 10Mb/s internet connection here (a student dormitory, quite nice place really. I might post pics tomorrow).

However i wanted to start downloading some stuff off Bittorrent with my new superspeedy connection, but surprise surprise - the ports i was using were locked and i was getting like 500bit/s Down, but 300Kb/s Up. After a bit of fiddling i decided to set my BT port to 80 in the Azureus settings (this one can´t possibly be locked ). After a while i got some decent download speeds, but somehow i have a bad feeling about it - there must be some reason BT uses other ports normally.

Are there any problems with using port 80 for BT? Privacy problems? I dont want to get into trouble...

 

[PSyMastR]

Port 80 and 8080 are for web traffic. 21 is FTP, etc...

 

[Fishbong]

I know that. That´s why i use port 80, because that´s the only one they can´t lock

I just want to know if there are any problems with that. Imgine someone whoshares my connection does run a webserver, wouldn´t i interfere? Or are there any other problems my new neighbors have to suffer because of me P2Ping?

 

[Shikaku]

You're fine... However, they still might be suspicious of you because network monitoring is very easy.

"This guy is uploading a lot from port 80... seems very suspicious. PORN! *ARREST*"

 

[PokeParadox]

Yeah I think it's only a problem if you yourself were wanting to run a web server on port 80.

 

[___]

Azureus has an FAQ about this whole port issue. ISPs tend to block certain ports for high traffic, too. That is why the Azureus FAQ recommend to set the port to some extremely high value... something like 65000. Apparently they don`t or rarely scan those ports for traffic. Maybe you can try this, too. After all, you still need to surf the gp32x forums with port 80, don`t ya?

 

[Fishbong]

So why isnt Bittorrent using port 80 as default?

 

[PokeParadox]

Because as you know. Port 80 is a very common port. two port can't be shared by different applications.
So it could cause problems if you have programs wanting to use port 80 and your BT client is happily downloading away on it. So this is why it isn't made 80 by default.

 

[nickspoon]

There's nothing wrong with using port 80. It won't mess up web browsing. Only thing it'll mess up is a web server running on the same port.

 

[Fishbong]

Yeah, thats ok then. I just wanted to know if it could affect others that are using the same connection. I don´t want to have an angry mob standing before my door because they cant acess the web anymore :lol:

 

[Squidge]

If your doing P2P or other internet apps which are normally banned, then watch out for the Ellacoyas! These can sniff out P2P traffic on any network, and regardless of port number. They sniff at the protocol layer, and thus can identify most P2P traffic very easily. They can even detect P2P packets if you use encrypted traffic (For example, the "Encrypt my traffic" option on some BitTorrent clients).

So, even if you use port 80, your IT dept can still block your P2P traffic if they want to, or just keep statistics and ask you about them later.

 

[aapje89]

If your doing P2P or other internet apps which are normally banned, then watch out for the Ellacoyas! These can sniff out P2P traffic on any network, and regardless of port number. They sniff at the protocol layer, and thus can identify most P2P traffic very easily. They can even detect P2P packets if you use encrypted traffic (For example, the "Encrypt my traffic" option on some BitTorrent clients).

So, even if you use port 80, your IT dept can still block your P2P traffic if they want to, or just keep statistics and ask you about them later.

Everything is possible... but is it likely?

 

[Squidge]

Well, most major ISPs are implementing Ellacoyas to prioritise traffic rather than just constantly buying more bandwidth.

So it's only a matter of time before Uni's decide that there 10mb connection should go further and buy one too, disable P2P traffic using it, and then find out that there network utilisation drops from 95% to 10%

 

[Fishbong]

Today i talked with one of my new neighbors, and i asked him about filesharing. He turned out to work in the server center of the Uni and said noone cares about people using P2P networks, first off because the locked ports are an obstacle for anyone using emule etc. only bittorrent works (if you use port 80) and most ppl dont know about it. And according to him, the connection isn´t even halfway used most of the time, so they don´t need to care about short banwidth. The dorm is connected to the backbone in the uni via a antenna, so he says the connection is somewhat unreliable when it snows...