How do I find if someone is torrenting on my home network?

[CptSpudders]

Hi everyone!

Lately I've noticed my internet speed dropping radically during certain hours of the day.

I have a feeling my older brother is Torrenting a LOT because I've noticed them pop up on his computer when he's showing me something.

I've recently asked him multiple times if he is torrenting and he constantly claims he isn't, despite a couple times I actually went and checked his computer when he was at work

and Low-and-behold, he was torrenting. Shutting them down drastically imporved internet speed for everyone else in the house. Lately I can't do that though. As he has put a password on his computer.

I would just shut down his computer when he's out but I'm not sure if he's running important things while it's locked.

Our advertised internet speed is 15Mbps (I know it's not much but in NZ that's average) but the times I suspect he's torrenting it drops to anywhere between 50Kbps-400Kbps.

Attached is a picture of our network map. It's layed out strange for some reason so I'll explain it.

 

F9J1002 v1 is the Main Modem/Router connected to the copper lines outside

            - "Dads computer" Is directly connected to it.

            - "Macwireless Guest" Is directly connected to it. (I'm not sure why it shows it as a seperate connection because it's literally just a router, not a modem"

                              -The devices connected to this are of no importance at the moment as they are rarely used, and aren't good for much other than emails and Facebook.

 

            - "Switch 1" Is a switch we have in the roof that connects all our wired in computers to F9J1002 v1, it is our "Mother Switch"

                              -Router "F9K1002 v1 is my personal wireless router so I can connect my many wireless games consoles/devices to the network without interfereing with other peoples connections.

                              -"Liams Computer" is My computer with Admin rights on ALL wireless Routers/Modems

 

            - "Switch 2" Is a switch my brother installed in his room when he moved home.

                              - "Vostro-3400" Is his computer and the suspected Torrenting machine.

                              - "Switch 2" is another switch he installed in his room when he came home, God knows why. He has stuff all computers in his room.

                                        - "Media Server" is literally just that. A networked server for movies/music and some games.

 

What I'm asking is, is there a way to know for certain if he is torrenting? His PC is locked 90% of the time and I have a limited knowledge of networking (More advanced than everyone in my family and most regular people but no expert knowledge) Sorry if this is in the wrong area, feel free to move it.

 

 

[Askew]

You already know he is, this is a waste of time either make him stop or deal with it.

[elguito]

you can setup your router's QoS system to throttle his internet if he is torrenting 

[Suika]

If you have a rooted Android device, look up WiFi kill. Extremely useful for such situations.

[NInety]

You could just check their search history or ask them politely. Or see if they have any torrent clients installed.

[Craftable124]

I don't know a lot about networking, but it could be good to throttle his PC to like 5Mbps, or tell him to limit torrent DL speeds (I know you can do that in Bittorrent settings or whichever client he uses)

[Sauron]

1) pull his ethernet cable out ^^ or shut off wifi if he's using that.

2) (the better and definitive solution) if your router supports it, use Quality of Service to deny access to/ put at the bottom of the priority line your brother's pc. This effectively stops your brother from using internet and accessing the network in the first case, and gives everyone else who needs internet the priority (and hence all the bandwidth they need) over your brother's pc. No matter what he's doing, if you're using all the bandwidth he'll be getting nothing and you'll notice no slowdowns.

[harrynowl]

My brother does this too (but for something else). I use Wi-Fi kill or BT Access control on the router if I need the internet for something important.

[Razzaa]

You are on the same network as he is........you have unlimited access to his computer and can really do anything you want. Im sure it is against the ToS to make any suggestions. Do some more research though and you will see how much fun you could have!!! :-)

[Excon]

We have a rule in our house, no major downlaods (movies, games etc) during the day. Only at night

[Tygron]

If you don't like it shut his PC down. Doesn't matter if he's running anything important, just do it. He's going to get mad at you though.

 

Otherwise you gotta put up with it or figure out how to get the QoS on your router working to throttle his downloads.

 

 

However still in doing that i'd be pissed if I were him and figure my way onto the router (assuming someone else changed the password to login) and then lock everyone else out of the control panel and drop everyone to as low a priority I could. I did that a long while ago when I played on consoles. Made sure my 360 had priority over every other computer. All they do is browse facebook and the like anyway, they didn't need the priority. Only seemed to be a feature on this old Linksys router though, and I couldn't figure out the QoS to do it at the time.

[SSOB]

You have a lounge o_0, pics or it didn't happen.

 

OT: Sorry, i have no idea...

[elguito]

We have a rule in our house, no major downlaods (movies, games etc) during the day. Only at night

most bittorrent clients have a built in scheduler that you can use to control when downloads are allowed you can tell him to start using that method or you will throttle his connection to something really slow

[babbaj]

If you have a netgear router you can check the logs

[TetraSky]

Setup QoS in your router and put him on the lowest possible priority while putting you and the other devices Higher. That way if he's torrenting, it will not really affect your internet speed, you won't get 100%, but you will at least get 40 to 60% of it back.

You could also block torrenting entirely in the router, make torrent website inaccessible and all that, too. If you set up a QoS, chances are, he will never notice. Because QoS manage the speed each users get depending on their priorities, putting certain packets as more important than others.

Then there's the actual throttling, if your router support it, you can give him a set speed and he will never be able to go above it, like say, 5Mbps, leaving you and the others, 15 Mbps. (Yes, 15, because even if he gets 5 out of it, you still get the whole thing, so if he's not using the internet, you get 15.)

[Akolyte]

just open the admin settings for your router and in the parental controls, block all the torrenting websites.  Then, if he says anything to you, you know hes torrenting.  If he doesn't say a word, whether hes torrenting or not it doesn't matter cuz he can't access the websites. 

 

Then, if he really wants to torrent, he has no choice but to admit it.