Blocking Bittorrent by Router

[Bayushi]

Good afternoon.

I have a Netgear branded Wireless-N router that I am directly attached to via CaT5e cable.

The Wireless is available to the other residents in the home, one of whom feels the need to use bit torrent to pirate films. He has been asked, then instructed to cease & desist, but does not feel the need to do so.

So as to avoid liability for his illegal activity, I would like to specifically block BitTorrent traffic at the Router itself (port blocking, iirc; apologies, I've been out of the IT field since 2003, so a lot of this feels new to me again).

Is this possible, and if so, how? What configuration changes do I make in the router's setup?

Thank you.

 

[USAFRet]

That depends on the router in question.

But further considerations...this is tricky. What if I, another house member, utilize bittorrent for downloading completely legal files? A Linux distro, for instance.

Sometimes, people just need to be voted off the island.

 

[crookedmouth]

Read through this.
http://kb.netgear.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/20483/~/set-up-a-netgear-router-to-block-access-to-certain-websites

 

[hapkido]

This is a roommate that is helping pay for the internet connection?

Bittorrent isn't illegal. Downloading illegal files through bittorrent is illegal, although I don't know why you'd be worried about being legally culpable for his actions. I'm guessing you're less worried about the legal ramifications and more worried about the bandwidth or data usage.

If you truly are worried about getting sued, don't let him chip in for the connection and change your WPA2 password. Problem solved.

If you're worried about him using all the bandwidth and/or exceeding your data cap... depending on your router's firmware, you can set up QoS for traffic, and/or set speed/usage limits for each client (including by time of day). Trying to block ports is pointless for bittorrent traffic because he can just change ports.

 

[USAFRet]

Bittorrent isn't illegal. Downloading illegal files through bittorrent is illegal, although I don't know why you'd be worried about being legally culpable for his actions. I'm guessing you're less worried about the legal ramifications and more worried about the bandwidth or data usage.

Any 'investigation' or legal notification would go through the primary account holder. Eventually it could (probably) be proven that is was not 'him', but only after a lot of hassle.

But yes....torrenting is not automatically illegal. Torrenting copyrighted files, as seems to be the case here, is a different story.
The bandwidth that is sucked up is a whole different story.

 

[Bayushi]

This is a roommate that is helping pay for the internet connection?

Bittorrent isn't illegal. Downloading illegal files through bittorrent is illegal, although I don't know why you'd be worried about being legally culpable for his actions. I'm guessing you're less worried about the legal ramifications and more worried about the bandwidth or data usage.

If you truly are worried about getting sued, don't let him chip in for the connection and change your WPA2 password. Problem solved.

If you're worried about him using all the bandwidth and/or exceeding your data cap... depending on your router's firmware, you can set up QoS for traffic, and/or set speed/usage limits for each client (including by time of day). Trying to block ports is pointless for bittorrent traffic because he can just change ports.

The issue is less bandwidth (top tier Xfinity residential service), and more in that I am the owner and guardian of the network (and router) itself.

Bittorrent isn't illegal. Using Bittorrent to download the complete Lord of the Rings film trilogy, on the other hand, IS illegal.

As per the hardware, I am using a NETGEAR WNDR3700v2 Wireless Router. The above provided link does not help much (I have already been through that. I need to specifically block bittorrent and only bittorrent).

Lastly, a question posed to me by another roommate was, "Will blocking Bittorrent affect Netflix streaming?"

 

[USAFRet]

Lastly, a question posed to me by another roommate was, "Will blocking Bittorrent affect Netflix streaming?"

No, it won't.

 

[hapkido]

You cannot use your router to block applications. You can block ports or you can block users. If you had a professional-grade router, you could block certain types of traffic, but that's easily bypassed with encryption (assuming you're not performing a man-in-the-middle attack in intercept key-sharing). Most bittorrent clients should have the ability to both arbitrarily choose a port (including a well-know port like 80) and enable encryption. Basically, you're going to have a really hard time blocking bittorrent traffic while still allowing the offending user access. It's probably impossible on commercial-grade hardware.

If you know he's downloading illegal files on your account and he won't stop, stop taking his money and cut off his access.

 

[USAFRet]

If you know he's downloading illegal files on your account and he won't stop, stop taking his money and cut off his access.

As said earlier....some people just need to be kicked off the island.

If he was using up ALL the hot water every day...
or if he was eating everyone elses lunch out of the fridge...
or if he was hogging the communal TV in favor of LifeTime channel 24/7...

...the question, and answer, would be far less ambiguous. You'd kick him out.

With normal commercial routers, there isn't much you can do to stop 'him' from torrenting illegal files. You can't port block, because he can simply use a different port. You can't block only 'part' of his access.

Cut him off from the communal service, and let him get something (3/4G ?) in his own name.