Thread: College torrenting...Q's on ssh and https

Heres the situation....



I transferred to a small (something like 3000 students) christian college and i just want to make sure im not going to get in trouble for torrenting. Within my first few weeks here, i have hear and read alot of warnings against torrenting. In email's and orientation meeting, p2p is often mentioned to avoid. Any p2p site is blocked. This is posted in multiple places:

The University has the technical ability and legal authority to monitor network access.

In order to use the campus network, i have to login. I have my own laptop and only go to torrent related websites from off campus or the network created from tethering my phone. So i download .torrent files and manage my seedbox (i use whatbox) from off the campus network. The only time i use the campus network is to download content from my seedbox via sftp using filezilla.


These are my questions...

1. Is there anything that im doing that could get me in trouble?
-can they see that ive been to torrent related sites once i log onto the uni network? (i set firefox so it doesnt remember history)

2. Im not exactly sure how ssh works...Can the uni see what im downloading. For example can they see the folder names or file names?

3. Can the uni. see where im downloading the content from (my seedbox).

4. Whatbox.ca is not blocked on the uni network. Would it be a bad idea to regularly go there. it is https...does this mean that they cant see where im going, or just that they cant see what im doing.



I only know a little about ssh and https so my questions may not make complete sense. any help or links further explaining the matter would be greatly appreciated. I saw a few threads about similar situations but i couldnt find answers to my specific questions so i created a new thread. Thanks in advance.

This topic has been discussed to death around here. But I'll tackle it anyway. P2p file sharing is a big target for universities and schools are well known for monitoring network activity. So you are right to have concerns. But it sounds like you are being smart about this. You are using a seedbox, so the network endpoint is the seedbox, not your campus connection or residence.

So what remains? Well you certainly wouldn't want them to know what you are transferring from/to your seedbox or see what you're doing on the tracker website either. SFTP (secure file transfer protocol) encrypts packets, so they shouldn't be able to eavesdrop on the data stream. They will still know your seedbox IP and the volume of data.. but it shouldn't scream p2p and wouldn't be definitive even to a paranoid IT department.

That brings us to browsing your tracker. If you do that from your campus network, you should again ensure that it is encrypted e.g. secure http (https address, not http!). More knowledgeable IT personnel may connect the tracker name or IP to p2p activity.. but I doubt it. And more importantly, it they still wouldn't have any specifics other than you went to the tracker website. I suppose that this could be open to sophisticated man in the middle attacks, in theory at least. But it seems rather unlikely.. I've never heard of a campus that has tried undertaking such an attack. If you want to be extra cautious, you could arrange a VPN connection to an off campus computer and browse your tracker there. Or possibly browse from your seedbox if you have shell access/browser or VPS. But don't use a direct proxy to your tracker unless you do your due diligence first. Many trackers prohibit proxies and may disable or ban you if you use one.

So to recap here. Seedbox: good, check. Using off campus network to visit tracker: good, check. If you wish to access your seedbox from campus, ensure that the connection is encrypted e.g. sftp (not plain ftp !!!). And if you want to browse your tracker from the campus network ensure that it is encrypted e.g. https (not plain http !!!). And if your paranoia level is high, look into a VPN as well. Do all of this and I would feel confident in your place.

The only other thing that comes to mind.. is to confirm an assumption that you would be using *your* computer to access your seedbox or tracker via the campus network. That is a computer that was not configured by the university, that they don't hold keys or certificates for it and haven't had an opportunity to install any kind of monitoring or remote access software on it. In other words don't trust a computer that the university owns or one that they have configured for you.

Well, if they are that serious about their internet policy, it's probably doubtful that bittorrent even works, ports are probably blocked.

So personally what I'd do is get a cheap seedbox, and use that to download your torrents and then ftp them to your computer with sftp as mentioned. Furthermore, to make browsing websites a non issue, use your seedbox as a proxy via ssh tunnel and setup your browser to connect to it.

You mentioned whatbox, I'd say they'd be a great option for this, as they are cheap and already setup to do this, they even have a guide telling you how to set it up to do so.

They would have no way to eavesdrop on you and the only thing they could tell is that you were just using a large amount of traffic, dunno if that would be an issue, but doubtful.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it, overly strict christian univerity

*edit*
Don't know if I made it clear, but this way they wouldn't be able to tell what sites you visit, bittorrent or otherwise, and no reason to mess around with https

I am using my own computer...no university software or anything. Apparently whatbox provides ssh access to its users...i didnt even know it! I will be looking into this as it sounds like a great option. Just to make sure....browsing private torrent sites using ssh is ok? i wont get banned for connecting through a proxy? (again, my technical knowledge on the topic is not the greatest).


Thanks so much for your help! Didnt even know ssh could be used for browsing.

EDIT:
oh...just to get on the right track...i would need to install the program PuTTY since i am using windows?

Putty is a good client for windows users. So putty get my recommendation.

Browsing torrent sites, provided that it's a SSH connection should preserve your privacy as far as your school is concerned. But be careful how you go about this with respect to how your tracker sees it. If you have a web client on your seedbox and access/control that remotely e.g. from your PC using putty.. that should be all right. Because your tracker will see it as just another client. But DO NOT use your seedbox as a proxy unless you are certain that your tracker is okay with it. Most trackers do not allow proxies and will warn/disable or even ban you if you try to use a proxy.

In short if the browser is really on your computer and you're just connecting through your seedbox.. that is a proxy and likely to cause you problems. You need to find out if you can install a web client/browser on your seedbox. Then control that client via putty/SSH from your computer. Be certain that you understand this distinction between a remotely accessed client and proxy before you actually try using it to visit your tracker(s).

Yes you would need to download Putty if you want to proxy. However using a proxy to access trackers could easily get you banned, make sure you check the rules first to see if it is allowed before you attempt to access them via proxy.
Btw, in case you didn't know, using a proxy to access T-I is not allowed either.

I'd just like to note that you do not need to install Putty. It's a stand-alone program for SSH in Windows. If you want to transfer files to and from a machine that you have access to I *highly* recommend WINSCP. Using the SFTP protocol (which is essentially secure file transfer through ssh) you can connect to your server and have the nice "drag-n-drop" functionality.

Also, if you ever have to use private key encryption Putty's system is a bit different from how openssh works... so just be aware.

Okay, i think i understand. Under the wiki for Whatbox.ca i only see information about tunneling traffic from a browser on my computer (not what i want). So i suppose ill contact support at whatbox and see if i can get a browser installed on my seedbox. In case whatbox does not support that, do you know of any seedboxes off the top of your head that do support that? if not thats fine, i will search the forums. Thanks again. this is extremely helpful

Btw, in case you didn't know, using a proxy to access T-I is not allowed either.

But i could visit T-I if i had a browser installed on my seedbox (not my my computer) and controlled it using putty, right?

---------- Post added at 06:48 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:43 PM ----------

Originally Posted by roamer

I'd just like to note that you do not need to install Putty. It's a stand-alone program for SSH in Windows. If you want to transfer files to and from a machine that you have access to I *highly* recommend WINSCP. Using the SFTP protocol (which is essentially secure file transfer through ssh) you can connect to your server and have the nice "drag-n-drop" functionality.

Also, if you ever have to use private key encryption Putty's system is a bit different from how openssh works... so just be aware.

interesting....
You are talking about using WINSCP to transfer files back and forth from my seedbox right? So WINSCP would be an alternative to filezilla right?

Or are you saying use WINSCP instead of putty to control clients on my seedbox?

What you're after is X-11 forwarding. If you look in PuTTy --> SSH --> X11 you'll have to check Enable X11 forwarding. From there you'll need some sort of X-window server on your local machine. I used to use XMing a long time ago and it still looks like it's being cared for Xming - PC X Server. Anyway there are a ton of tutorials online to get you going with this.

---------- Post added at 06:53 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:49 PM ----------

Originally Posted by BathtubGin

Okay, i think i understand. Under the wiki for Whatbox.ca i only see information about tunneling traffic from a browser on my computer (not what i want). So i suppose ill contact support at whatbox and see if i can get a browser installed on my seedbox. In case whatbox does not support that, do you know of any seedboxes off the top of your head that do support that? if not thats fine, i will search the forums. Thanks again. this is extremely helpful




But i could visit T-I if i had a browser installed on my seedbox (not my my computer) and controlled it using putty, right?

---------- Post added at 06:48 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:43 PM ----------



interesting....
You are talking about using WINSCP to transfer files back and forth from my seedbox right? So WINSCP would be an alternative to filezilla right?

Or are you saying use WINSCP instead of putty to control clients on my seedbox?

As long as Filezilla supports SFTP you should be fine. But I really do prefer WINSCP. You can do some cool things like temporarily download a file you want to quickly edit, edit it using a program locally on your computer, save it, and WINSCP will handle sending it back to the server for you (and cleaning up temporary files on your local disk when you are done).

WINSCP is for transferring files ONLY. It uses an ssh tunnel but is definitely not as robust as shell access. If you were on OSX or Linux you could use the sftp command to do something similar to what WINSCP or filezilla does nicely for you in a GUI :)