Identify P2P- "pirates" by their activity on Skype
Media corporations are looking for new ways to combat “piracy” on the Internet and are actively funding research in this area. A new method has developed a group of researchers in France, Germany and the United States. They offered to monitor simultaneously the IP addresses of P2P users and the IP addresses of Skype subscribers. Comparing the start / end time of the distribution with the change of the user's Skype online / offline status, as well as the change of the IP address (if the user has moved geographically), the program makes a reasonable assumption about the identity of the “criminal” at this IP address. Information is taken from the profile of Skype.
In the Skype network, participants can see the IP addresses of other users in the case of a direct call (even if the call is blocked). At the same time, IP addresses of siders and lichers are transmitted by the tracker, this is open information (note that there are closed F2F systems like OneSwarm , where IP addresses are protected).
The authors found a way to find out the IP address of a Skype subscriber using an imperceptible call. They launched a Skype tracker 1 on a test sample of 100 thousand random Skype IDs and conducted successful system tests.
Now law enforcement agencies are experiencing difficulties with the mass identification of violators of intellectual property laws. Even if there is an array of IP addresses (say, 100,000) from which pirated content was downloaded, it remains unclear at what addresses to send intimidating papers about compensation. Internet providers often refuse to cooperate and issue email addresses of their subscribers, and tens or hundreds of users may be hiding behind a single external IP address, so it’s unclear who among them is downloading torrents because of NAT.
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In our case, the NAT problem is solved, because the automatic distribution program uses the data (name, surname, date of birth) from the Skype user profile, easily calculating its identity and home address to which you need to send a receipt.
Such receipts indicate the title of "illegally" downloaded files and the amount of "damage" that the user must pay in order not to bring the case to court. Although no one is going to bring to court due to insufficient evidence, but experience shows that most of the users still agree to pay for the damage, which was required by the copyright holders. Due to such fees, they often raise more money than from selling licensed content .
During testing on a sample of 100 thousand Skype users, 765 IP addresses were discovered that match the addresses in file-sharing networks. The validator confirmed 52% of these cases, giving a list of names of 398 users who use Skype and BitTorrent at the same time. Almost all of these users indicated their real first and last name in their Skype profile.
Skype has a global audience of 560 million people. Thus, if you apply their program on such a scale, you can calculate a huge number of offenders, which promises large profits to media corporations. If the same proportion persists (398 violators per 100 thousand users), then among the entire Skype audience you can count on 2.2 million potential fine payers.
By the way, during the "surveillance" of the 9,500 active Skype ID, other interesting facts came to light. It turned out that within two weeks, 40% of users changed their current city at least once, and 4% changed their country. Among all active Skype users, about 20% of Skype IDs are online 50% of the time.
For details, see Exploiting P2P Communications to Invade Users' Privacy , Stevens Le Blond, Chao Zhang, Arnaud Legout, Keith Ross, Walid Dabbous
1 Out of 100 thousand. Skype ID, about 10 thousand were online. They were chosen to monitor activity. For hourly dialing of 10 thousand. Skype ID had to raise a cluster of 30 machines with different IP addresses. Each machine with a Skype client made 340 calls per hour. Researchers estimate the cost of operating such a platform on Amazon EC2 at about $ 500 per week.
In the Skype network, participants can see the IP addresses of other users in the case of a direct call (even if the call is blocked). At the same time, IP addresses of siders and lichers are transmitted by the tracker, this is open information (note that there are closed F2F systems like OneSwarm , where IP addresses are protected).
The authors found a way to find out the IP address of a Skype subscriber using an imperceptible call. They launched a Skype tracker 1 on a test sample of 100 thousand random Skype IDs and conducted successful system tests.
Now law enforcement agencies are experiencing difficulties with the mass identification of violators of intellectual property laws. Even if there is an array of IP addresses (say, 100,000) from which pirated content was downloaded, it remains unclear at what addresses to send intimidating papers about compensation. Internet providers often refuse to cooperate and issue email addresses of their subscribers, and tens or hundreds of users may be hiding behind a single external IP address, so it’s unclear who among them is downloading torrents because of NAT.
')
In our case, the NAT problem is solved, because the automatic distribution program uses the data (name, surname, date of birth) from the Skype user profile, easily calculating its identity and home address to which you need to send a receipt.
Such receipts indicate the title of "illegally" downloaded files and the amount of "damage" that the user must pay in order not to bring the case to court. Although no one is going to bring to court due to insufficient evidence, but experience shows that most of the users still agree to pay for the damage, which was required by the copyright holders. Due to such fees, they often raise more money than from selling licensed content .
During testing on a sample of 100 thousand Skype users, 765 IP addresses were discovered that match the addresses in file-sharing networks. The validator confirmed 52% of these cases, giving a list of names of 398 users who use Skype and BitTorrent at the same time. Almost all of these users indicated their real first and last name in their Skype profile.
Skype has a global audience of 560 million people. Thus, if you apply their program on such a scale, you can calculate a huge number of offenders, which promises large profits to media corporations. If the same proportion persists (398 violators per 100 thousand users), then among the entire Skype audience you can count on 2.2 million potential fine payers.
By the way, during the "surveillance" of the 9,500 active Skype ID, other interesting facts came to light. It turned out that within two weeks, 40% of users changed their current city at least once, and 4% changed their country. Among all active Skype users, about 20% of Skype IDs are online 50% of the time.
For details, see Exploiting P2P Communications to Invade Users' Privacy , Stevens Le Blond, Chao Zhang, Arnaud Legout, Keith Ross, Walid Dabbous
1 Out of 100 thousand. Skype ID, about 10 thousand were online. They were chosen to monitor activity. For hourly dialing of 10 thousand. Skype ID had to raise a cluster of 30 machines with different IP addresses. Each machine with a Skype client made 340 calls per hour. Researchers estimate the cost of operating such a platform on Amazon EC2 at about $ 500 per week.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/130982/
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