Torrent troubles

[64 bit tech]

Hi, guys. I recently accepted a position as head of IT at an E-waste management company. Every department has their own computer terminals. We have a strict anti- piracy policy, but my boss doesn't officially monitor the other departments' computers- that's pretty much my job. Lately he has been complaining about the connection running slowly, which is a result of all the employees downloading torrents.

I don't know how to stop all the downloading short of completely restricting network access, which wouldn't really be practical. I know there is a way to restrict downloading like they do at public access points like libraries and schools, but haven't figured that trick out. Can you gurus offer up any tricks that might solve my problem?

 

[CalcProgrammer1]

All I know is that it is pretty hard to block...being on the receiving end of one of those blocks is annoying (my university "blocks" BitTorrent) but simply throw in a proxy server and you can torrent away. Most BitTorrent blocking involves blocking connections to the trackers, not the peers themselves. Without being able to access trackers, your BitTorrent client won't know where to go to get the download and thus won't work. HOWEVER, simply stick a SOCKS proxy at home, tell your BT client to send all tracker requests through that, and it'll work fine. Blocking the peer connections themselves will be hard because you don't know what IP's to block...anyone can be a peer.

Also, if you try to block SOCKS proxies...they can always use Tor (makes a proxy on the local machine and sends the information along a network of Tor protocol exit nodes).

 

[KSoD]

Block any port range over 5000. While trouble some not many applications use a port range that high. If they do you can always allow that port.

But as Calc already said there are ways around it. You in the end would have to block all proxies and that will be troublesome.

 

[septic]

Is Comcast's BitTorrent filtering violating the law? | Surveillance State - CNET News

this is all way out of my league. I'm sure you've already seen what sandvine has to offer.