Privacy In BitTorrent By Hiding In the Crowd

pinguin-geek writes "Researchers at the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science at Northwestern University have identified a new 'guilt-by-association' threat to privacy in peer-to-peer (P2P) systems that would enable an eavesdropper to accurately classify groups of users with similar download behavior. While many have pointed out that the data exchanged over these connections can reveal personal information about users, the researchers shows that only the patterns of connections — not the data itself — is sufficient to create a powerful threat to user privacy. To thwart this threat, they have released SwarmScreen, a publicly available, open source software that restores privacy by masking a user's real download activity in such a manner as to disrupt classification."

Comments

Ahh, great, just what we needed

[galorin]

Now my downloading of Linux ISO's and pre-release movies is going to be mingled with horse porn. Just what I always wanted.

Re:Ahh, great, just what we needed

[ndavis]

Now my downloading of Linux ISO's and pre-release movies is going to be mingled with horse porn. Just what I always wanted.

Nope instead it will always show you downloading a CD from the RIAA so they can send you a bill. This is the new idea to raise money you write a program that makes everyone look like a criminal.

Maybe if we did do this we could invalidate their methods?

Re:only works with

[0100010001010011]

Utorrent, which I dropped because of how bloated it is. Why GUI? rtorrent is the way to go.

Re:only works with

[FinchWorld]

"Since taking up 1% of my CPU and 300MB of ram to seed 10 torrents doesn't bother me much on a quad core with 4GB of RAM?"

So you like things needlessly eating up more resources? Man, you should run a vista vm, inside a vista vm, on vista!

Re:only works with

[Rip Dick]

Yeah, it's 4,500K memory footprint is ridiculous.

Re:only works with

[courseofhumanevents]

I wish there was a +1 Correct mod. This isn't exactly insightful or interesting.

Re:So now not only am I guilty being a linux nerd

[castironpigeon]

Help! Help! I'm being repressed!

.... alright... Why terminal? Raw socket is the wa

[SmallFurryCreature]

...alright...why terminal? Raw socket is the way to go!

Re:only works with

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the point of buying RAM and CPU only to have it underutilized all the time?

You over bought then. If global warming is a real concern, then it should matter to you that software is inefficient. True it may not matter a lot that one person is running some bloatware, but when you've got three hundred million people running bloatware, then being a few percent more efficient makes sense.

Re:only works with

[AliasMarlowe]

Vuze's bloat problem isn't Java.
It's feature creep. Sometimes I just want to download a torrent.

I'd call it malfeature creep with a commercial bent, in an unnatural union with a hideously malformed GUI.
I installed Vuze innocently and optimistically enough, but as soon as I started it and saw the abomination appear, its days - nay, minutes - on my system were numbered. It was utterly expunged after a quick kill.

Re:.... alright... Why terminal? Raw socket is the

[c0p0n]

Unless you can interface directly with the network media using a battery and a metal pin, STFU.

Re:.... alright... Why terminal? Raw socket is the

[Mister Whirly]

I can get WiFi on the fillings in my teeth.
Oh, hang on a sec, downloading an attachment!

Re:.... alright... Why terminal? Raw socket is the

[pbhj]

What do you need the battery for? Stick the pin in your brain at one end and use nerve impulses to generate the charge to send the signals with ...

Re:only works with

[Mister Whirly]

Exactly. What is the point of having your CPU idle? Wouldn't the ideal be to use as much resources as you can all the time? I have never understood why people build these massive computing machines and then never do any serious computing.

Re:only works with

[Anonymous Coward]

Correct! :)

I mean.. informative!

Re:.... alright... Why terminal? Raw socket is the

[Anonymous Coward]

Is your tooth blue?

Re:only works with

[Anonymous Coward]

Saying that Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders

culled from bash.org