BitHammer, the BitTorrent Banhammer

michaelcole writes: Its name is BitHammer. It searches out and bans BitTorrent users on your local sub-net.

I'm a digital nomad. That means I travel and work, often using shared Wi-Fi. Over the last year, I've been plagued by rogue BitTorrent users who've crept onto these public hostpots either with a stolen/cracked password, or who lie right to my face (and the Wi-Fi owners) about it.

These users clog up the residential routers' connection tables, and make it impossible to use tools like SSH, or sometimes even web browsing. Stuck for a day, bullied from the Wi-Fi, I wrote BitHammer as a research project. It worked rather well. It's my first Python program. I hope you find it useful.

Comments

Alternative headline

[OzPeter]

Vigilante beats up on people in order to get public wifi access that he believes is rightfully his

That's what it amounts to. He can't get the access he wants, so he just pushes his way in and takes it.

If access is so important to your work, why aren't you/they paying for it?

Re:Alternative headline

[TubeSteak]

He can't get the access he wants, so he just pushes his way in and takes it.

As opposed to the bittorrent user(s) who are pushing everyone else out of the way and preventing their access?

Assuming that both parties are wrong does not logically lead to the conclusion that their wrong acts are equivalent.
I'm on the side of preserving the common good, not protecting the random data hog.

Re:Alternative headline

[Anonymous Coward]

Assuming that both parties are wrong does not logically lead to the conclusion that their wrong acts are equivalent.
I'm on the side of preserving the common good, not protecting the random data hog.

In one case a person can't access Internet as he wants as an unfortunate side effect of the others usage and bad network configuration.
In the other case the other person can't access Internet as he wants due to actively being suppressed by the first user.
Yes, clearly the two wrong acts aren't equivalent. The torrent user is just an inconsiderate asshole while this dude is an outright malicious asshole.

Free Wifi

[Anonymous Coward]

You're using a free public network and selectively booting the users who don't fit into your specified profile.
Why not just buy your own connection and stop being such a fucking Nazi?

an opinion from the self entitled generation

[Fnord666]

Over the last year, I've been plagued by rogue BitTorrent users who've crept onto these public hostpots either with a stolen/cracked password, or who lie right to my face (and the Wi-Fi owners) about it.

Huh? They lie right to your face about it? Wait a minute. Who the hell are you anyway and what do you have to say about it? If it bothers you, buy yourself a mobile hotspot and STFU. At least maybe they are actually buying food/coffee/whatever and aren't just using the cafe as their personal office. What's the next complaint? That their conversations are too loud and you can't hear your conference calls?

Re:an opinion from the self entitled generation

[omtinez]

Mod parent up. It's the tragedy of the commons, but taking justice into your own hands makes you just as bad if not worse than the BitTorrent users

Re:Traffic Shaper?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe he should be more angry at the business owners for using cheap routers and/or not implementing traffic shaping, etc.

Or he could do the correct thing and pay for a portable hotspot of his very own. Once you are paying the bills, you get to dictate the terms.

If someone else is monopolizing the business owner's bandwidth, that's not your business. You can inform the business owner of the situation, but if they choose to do nothing, that is their choice to make, not yours.

Re:Incredible

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd be upset if his solution was to poison the food so the people that took it all started vomiting.

Re:It's okay when I do it...

[Anonymous Coward]

thats not what this is about, it's about people who don't share some bandwith they payed for, it's about people who just use up all the bandwith anywhere they can no matter if they payed for it or if it's gratis or if they're using it illegitimately

Re:It's okay when I do it...

[Grishnakh]

Of course it's more efficient. It's the classic centralization vs. decentralization problem. Centralization is always more efficient overall. However, it has disadvantages: single point of failure, inflexibility, etc. In this case, one big disadvantage is cost: cloud distribution requires signing up for and paying for an account somewhere to store all this data. Peer-to-peer tools don't have this (though they do have the problem of how to distribute the .torrent files, which is semi-centralized but doesn't have to be since anyone can send them around to anyone else directly). Cloud distribution puts the data at the mercy of a single provider; peer-to-peer tools let everyone share data willy-nilly, and as long as one person, anywhere, has the data, it can be replicated to everyone else easily.

Similarly, it would likely be more efficient if we all gave up our PCs and went back to using mainframes of some sort (or some kind of centralized server infrastructure, not an actual zOS mainframe), with our "PCs" just being thin clients, and us all having user accounts on them. The administration would be much easier and more effective, and the power usage would probably be much less than what we're doing now. However, that would put us at the mercy of a few providers, would likely cost more long-term, at least for those of us who manage our own computers and don't have to regularly call the Geek Squad for personal visits like my dumb neighbor, and would massively limit flexibility since we'd only be able to do things that are pre-approved for the most part.

Re:It's okay when I do it...

[Half-pint HAL]

Note that I'm NOT talking about using public wi-fi here, just the idea that bittorrent has no place.

Then you are discussing on the wrong article.