Bandwidth hogging roommates

D

Diesel_Power

Limp Gawd
Joined
Nov 23, 2007
Messages
259
My roommates are raping my bandwidth! My ISP only gives out a 60 gig limit per month, but honestly thats enough for my dad, brother and I. My dad and brother only surf the net and I play online games. Aside from buying a game or two every 2 months on steam, I don't download anything. I'm against pirating.

But my dad's girlfriend's kids (my unemployed roommates) spend every waking hour at home d/ling crap off of pirate bay and lime wire and stuff like that. They have no regard for anyone else and they don't pay a cent for the internet.

I had to call my ISP today to get our internet back because they suspended it for exceeding the bandwidth limit by nearly 40 gigs! Since this was my first warning they let me off with 1 gig for the rest of the month.

I've told my roommates they can't download anything for the rest of the month and to cut back on the amount of garbage they download. But they are totally computer illiterate and have no idea what bandwidth is. I get the idea they didn't understand what I was telling them. I'm waiting for them to use up that last gig and we lose our internet for 24 hours. Plus they lie to me telling me they've only downloaded an album or two.

I haven't been able to play any of my Steam games for the past month because they constantly leave their file sharing sites on, running over night. This really pisses me off because I had no idea this was going on until today and I spent the week defragging my HDD, then clearing/uninstalling all the useless software and finally reformatting my PC just to try to get my online games running faster but to no avail.

I have the modem and router in my room. My router is a Linksys WRT310N. Can I limit thier bandwidth use? I miss TF2 :(
 
Turn off dhcp and give all the computers static addresses. Make yours 192.168.1.2 and then block all services except 80 and 443 for all ip's except 192.168.1.2 and then they can only use web browsers. Since they are illiterate to computers the last thing they will think of is to mess with is the router. Show them it works on your pc and they will think its their computers are the problem.

problem fixed

Thats what I do here at college with my roommates except I also allow wow's play port (not the updater and voice), aim, and msn messenger. It's funny to hear them talk about stuff not working and them looking up how to forward ports on their computer like anything they do will work. I think I may have screwed up though, I showed one http tunnel to get around the school network for him at his work. That might end up biting me in the ass. For added bandwidth to myself I made QoS rules to set all traffice from their mac addresses on the network to low priority and gave myself highest priority. Problems work themselves out :).
 
Oh what my solution will do is limit eveything they do on the internet to using a web browser so they can connect to http and https sites. port 80 is normal web traffic and 443 is ssl (secure socket layer).
 
Initiate them to the family with a hardcore ass whooping.

Im willing to bet no matter what you do with the router they will find a way to fix it or get around it eventually.
 
This is going to hurt a bit, but let them eat up the bandwidth and have them go without internet for the rest of the month. This is the only way that they'll see what they're doing is bad. Also look for another ISP.
 
what ISP do you have? they sound like Nazi's. Any who, put viruses on their computers and when they complain they have a virus and their comps don't work, just tell them they shouldn't have been downloading pirated stuff in the first place. A nice Benjamin worm could fix their wagon.
 
Build a *nix distro router using PFSense.
Throttle P2P traffic big time...you can even entirely block it.
 
Tell them to get their own phone line and internet connection unless the abuse stops.
 
Destonomos's solution is probably the most comprehensive so far.

You need to simply set up access rules so that the ports in question cannot be established. If your firmware doesn't support this, you can use dd-wrt.

www.dd-wrt.com

DD-WRT expands the capability of your router to that of a professional grade $500+ router and allows you to easily do the kinds of things you want to achieve here.
 
Volcanon said:
Destonomos's solution is probably the most comprehensive so far.

You need to simply set up access rules so that the ports in question cannot be established. If your firmware doesn't support this, you can use dd-wrt.

www.dd-wrt.com

DD-WRT expands the capability of your router to that of a professional grade $500+ router and allows you to easily do the kinds of things you want to achieve here.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure that will succeed.
I dont have any extra ports open and I can use torrents on port 80 without any issue.
 
Send the family a cease and desist letter (make it look legitimate), claim you are representing the RIAA. Not only do you not have to do much, but you get the full entertainment value when they get their asses kicked.
 
valve1138 said:
Can you throttle P2P based on IP address? Restricting a specific computer on the LAN?
Click to expand...

Yes. Yes.

What I like about it....you can throttle down all P2P traffic, give it lowest priority, even "cap" its max speeds. I have mine setup that way, I allow P2P traffic only up to 256 down, 64 up, that way..when the boy is pulling down tunes or whatever...it has no impact on my online gaming.

I run my PFSense on an old P3 laptop 256 meg with a PCMCIA NIC as the 2nd NIC. Low power, built in battery backup, small space taken up, no heat, barely any noise.
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
Yes. Yes.

What I like about it....you can throttle down all P2P traffic, give it lowest priority, even "cap" its max speeds. I have mine setup that way, I allow P2P traffic only up to 256 down, 64 up, that way..when the boy is pulling down tunes or whatever...it has no impact on my online gaming.

I run my PFSense on an old P3 laptop 256 meg with a PCMCIA NIC as the 2nd NIC. Low power, built in battery backup, small space taken up, no heat, barely any noise.
Click to expand...

Cool beans. Thanks for the info. :)
 
Just add a password to your computer and stop them from using it or when you go out, take the ethernet wire with you or hide it, unless you are using wireless, in that case disconnect the wireless and make it so they have to login to connect to the net, but they wont know the password = tuff shit for them.

problem solved, also, if they are totally computer illiterate and they are downloading all that shit from p2p, what shape is your pc in regarding spyware and viri etc ????

I personally would cut their fucking hands off if they touched my shit, family or no family, its my shit, they want to use it, they use it on my terms and if they abuse it, then they get to feel what a kick in the teeth feels like, simple as.

As for your bandwidth problem, if they must use your pc, then tell them that 1 gig costs X amount and for every gig they download they have to pay you, failing that they get cut the fuck off from the net, that will either teach them that BW costs money or it will teach them that fucking with other ppls shit and not giving a fuk = boring time sitting about the house watching tv as their isnt anything else todo since they got cut from using the internet due to them not giving a shit about your BW restrictions.
 
EVIL-SCOTSMAN said:
I personally would cut their fucking hands off if they touched my shit, family or no family, its my shit, they want to use it, they use it on my terms and if they abuse it, then they get to feel what a kick in the teeth feels like, simple as.
Click to expand...

I couldn't agree more.
 
EVIL-SCOTSMAN said:
Just add a password to your computer and stop them from using it or when you go out, take the ethernet wire with you or hide it, unless you are using wireless, in that case disconnect the wireless and make it so they have to login to connect to the net, but they wont know the password = tuff shit for them.

problem solved, also, if they are totally computer illiterate and they are downloading all that shit from p2p, what shape is your pc in regarding spyware and viri etc ????

I personally would cut their fucking hands off if they touched my shit, family or no family, its my shit, they want to use it, they use it on my terms and if they abuse it, then they get to feel what a kick in the teeth feels like, simple as.

As for your bandwidth problem, if they must use your pc, then tell them that 1 gig costs X amount and for every gig they download they have to pay you, failing that they get cut the fuck off from the net, that will either teach them that BW costs money or it will teach them that fucking with other ppls shit and not giving a fuk = boring time sitting about the house watching tv as their isnt anything else todo since they got cut from using the internet due to them not giving a shit about your BW restrictions.
Click to expand...

I dont think hes sharing his computer.
 
Well, if they aint using his pc then hua, but they are at the least using his internet connection and that would crack me up even more, if I came home one day to find my internet slow as f00k and I didnt know some idiots were hooked upto my connection and my internet was slow and I could hardly use it, I would freak out, their is nothing more that I hate than something happening with my inet connection, because over here, if something happens with your adsl line it can take forever to get it fixed and if I ever got cut off due to someone leeching shit from me, I really would beat the shit out of them.

It wouldnt be so bad if I didnt use the inet so much, but if I did get cut off due to neighbours or whoever raping p2p on my line I would personally make it my mission in life to cause them as much pain as I could.

EVIL-SCOTSMAN believe's in REVENGE
 
You have the router, right?

Are they wired in? Disconnect the wire, problem solved. I did this a few times when my roommate was pissing me off with his bandwidth hogging (Playing online games from his PS2 and surfing the net - the minute he noticed any lag, he would yell at me. I would then promptly disconnect the wire to his room, and act as though nothing happened - when he was done bitching, plug him back in :D ).
 
Jesus what a situation you have... I would talk to your dad and tell him the situation. Make them get their own connection... or throttle their net as others have stated.
 
I don't think this is a situation where he can dictate to them to get off his internet.

Sounds like it is his dads internet connection. I would expect whoever pays the bills to have control and authority.

Sounds like a step family is forming here...and they have to learn to get along. Put something in place that can handle this..and keep everyone happy.
 
I say put static IPs on them and throttle them to no end.

If they're illiterate, I doubt they would know what happened while you just sit back and enjoy.
 
I think the RIAA letter is best solution here. I'm always up for a little fun at others' expense to get a point across.

Of course, you could also do those other things too if they don't get the point.
 
if they are stupid or not there are dozens of faqs and guides to get around it. There will most certainly have to be some sort of confrontation to resolve this.

Besides they should respect your rules in your home and not hog all of the bandwidth. Capping/throttling them is a cop out and merely delaying the inevitable.
 
Ockie said:
Send the family a cease and desist letter (make it look legitimate), claim you are representing the RIAA. Not only do you not have to do much, but you get the full entertainment value when they get their asses kicked.
Click to expand...

haha, i love it. My brothers ISP just sent him a letter like that beause he was downloading movies. I wonder if it was fake because he was using so much bandwidth. I know it sure worked and he hasnt downloaded a movie for a couple months now.

Just do as YeOld says. I bought a used p3 600 sever with 512 ram in a 2u rack for 15 bucks on ebay (35 after shipping). Threw PFsence on it and have never looked back.


and evil-scotsman is evil
 
Like he said they don't know a lot about computers so I doubt they will change their torrents to work over port 80. For my current situation I did what I said I would do and it worked for me. My roomates use computers all the time and even though I'm a Telecommuncations Systems Management Major (graduating next semester) they don't like to ask for my help until they have no other options. Which is funny because once they hand it to me I fix the problem is literally a matter of seconds.

Last semester for instance one of my roommates came to my room and actually have the gaul to ask me if I was blocking one of my other roommates from getting on the internet completely. I was like how long has he not been able to get on the net? They were like 2 weeks.... I then asked why they didn't ask me earlier and they didn't have an answer. I took his laptop, switched it from dhcp to static and gave it an address like i've told him countless times and had it working in literally 5 seconds. They had a look of I'm sooo stupid but I don't want to show it on their faces.

In short I love being a networking major because literally EVERYTHING doing with computers has to go through me :). I'm a demi god of sorts :D.
 
Destonomos said:
Like he said they don't know a lot about computers so I doubt they will change their torrents to work over port 80
Click to expand...
uTorrent doesnt need to be told to use port 80, it will automatically if there is no open port.
Other clients may do the same.
 
Destonomos said:
In short I love being a networking major because literally EVERYTHING doing with computers has to go through me :). I'm a demi god of sorts :D.
Click to expand...

Don't get too caught up in the "I'm a network administrator, and I'm a god" mode. Too many networking professionals get this attitude. When you graduate, and make your way through the ranks, like everyone else has, and finally get in a position of Network Engineer. Remember, your users are your customers, treat them like such.
 
Aku12 said:
haha, i love it. My brothers ISP just sent him a letter like that beause he was downloading movies. I wonder if it was fake because he was using so much bandwidth. I know it sure worked and he hasnt downloaded a movie for a couple months now.

Just do as YeOld says. I bought a used p3 600 sever with 512 ram in a 2u rack for 15 bucks on ebay (35 after shipping). Threw PFsence on it and have never looked back.


and evil-scotsman is evil
Click to expand...

I've done this before, and this gag is priceless. I wrote one up for a co-worker's after he complained multiple times about VPN access to the office being dog-slow. After a home visit, it turned out his kid was downloading fullbore eating up almost every bit of available bandwidth, and causing me to pull my hair out until the home visit (this coworker occasionally isn't the easiest to deal with). After finding this out, I turned on bandwidth limiting on the kid's p2p proggy, and we cooked up the idea to fake an RIAA letter. Faking a letter from Verizon, was priceless. The kid paniced and went overboard and deleted his entire music collection. Kinda felt bad for the boy... Well, for a moment or two anyway.

Send the letter and see what happens. Like a prevous poster said, the entertainment value alone is worth it ;)
 
you can start by setting up opendns

opendns.com

use the content filtering to block everything.

It won't stop limewire, but it'll stop them from GETTING it... also stops them from piratebay, etc.

Say that the internet service provider is doing it to "punish" you all.
 
Hey guys. Thanks for the help. I've learned quite a bit about networking in the past 2 days.

How do I use linksys's QoS system to make online gaming on my PC the top priority?

And just to clear some things. Everyone in my house has their own computer, and my dad is behind me 100% because he doesn't want to pay extra for them to download stuff.
 
dd-wrt and use these commands
iptables -I FORWARD 1 -p tcp -m multiport --dport 21,80,443 -j ACCEPT
iptables -I FORWARD 2 -m state --state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT
iptables -I FORWARD 3 -j DROP
 
untangle or astaro home on a dedicated PC. Completely block all P2P file sharing cervixes through protocol control. block file transfers through IM programs. block FTP access. Just fucking hose them for a while. If dad complains then you can turn the P2P back on but set QoS to drop that stuff to the bottom of the bit bucket.

I have Untangle successfully managing about 100 college kids on one DSL modem. Once I got everything tweeked they went from 14GB/day down to 7GB/day of traffic and most of it is all legitimate as far as I can tell from the reports. The nice thing about one of these UTM appliances is you can also setup malware blocking and download virus scanning. Save yourself having to removing all the malware they get onto their computers from looking at warez and pr0n all day and night. :D
 
just only open the ports that you want to use and screw everyone else...just tell them that what they were doing is illegal and ISP is blocking them...if they are as dumb as you say something that simple should work.
 
Motley said:
Don't get too caught up in the "I'm a network administrator, and I'm a god" mode. Too many networking professionals get this attitude. When you graduate, and make your way through the ranks, like everyone else has, and finally get in a position of Network Engineer. Remember, your users are your customers, treat them like such.
Click to expand...

Totally Off topic but this is sooo True.

Back on Topic-
You can use DD-wrt to take care of what you are looking to do. You can throttle P2p traffic (torrents, Lime-wire etc.) on just certain Ip's Also, if your really computer literate run a pfsense ( I think pfsense does it) box and monitor traffic per IP this will help you get ammo for when that $500 bill comes.

I used to have a roomate that was so lazy he would download games rather than just come up stairs and ask for the cd's Ended up with a 200 gig overage one month... oh yeah at $5 a gig I was pissed, so I left, and talked my way out of the bill :)
 
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