dats downloads

[mercmanuk]

have been looking at changing from virgin media to sky for broadband,phone and tv services.
called virgin regarding prices and deals and was told my broadband useage for last 30 days was 240gb of data,previous 30 days 220gb.what are my kids doing online or is it an error on virgins part.
240 gb is a lot

 

[Ted]

Might be worth checking to see if they have a torrent/sharing program on their computer as they may be peering for uploads as well as downloads unknowingly.

 

[markjay]

As above, HD movies downloads are between 4gb and 8gb each (BlueRay MKV etc), easy to rack up the gigabytes when you have a fast Internet connection. Then you should also take into account that once they downloaded the movies/music/games, other Internet users are uploading them (that's what peer-to-peer is all about), and this also counts as part of your Internet traffic. How do I know this? I read it in a book....

On the other hand, your kids could be perfectly innocent and Virgin Media completely wrong... who knows.

 

[clegsr]

240 gb means that someone using your connection is definitely using P2P software: utorrent, limewire etc to download movies and or games and or music.

I would first check that your wireless network is secure and it is not one of your neighbours using the connection?

Then I would ASK your family if anyone is using such software and downloading such stuff, and get them to show you if they have - then ask them to stop as it will be you who gets sued not them...

Unfortunately it is almost impossible to use software on the router to stop this - the best way is to talk to the people. (it might be their friends on laptops etc- in which case change the password so only you know it).

Perhaps leave it a few weeks after talking to them and then perhaps spoof a Virgin Media letter like this one (which isn't a spoof) and then confront them again and perhaps threaten to block their internet access - which is easy to do from the router.


...good luck!

 

[Spinal]

Unfortunately it is almost impossible to use software on the router to stop this - the best way is to talk to the people. (it might be their friends on laptops etc- in which case change the password so only you know it).


...good luck!

Actually, with most linux based routers you can limit the number of active connections per minute on every assigned internal IP address... this makes most torrent/P2P apps quite useless, as they rely on the ability to make many connections in and out to achieve speed.

That said, it will also impact your ability to watch BBC iMovie, Spotify, Last.fm and a variety of other legitimate programs that use P2P protocols.

Might be worth asking Virgin if that figure takes into account digital TV useage? Does anyone in your house use download movies in iTunes?

Finally, run a quick malware scan on all machines to make sure they haven't been turned into zombie servers...

M.