How do you prevent someone over-using the internet in your flat?
 

Someone(s) in our 6-people flat have been downloading so heavily that they've used up 15G in the last 4 days (we've only got 7G left this month).

Has anyone dealt with the same problem before and what were the solutions that worked?

Is there anyway you can do something to the router so if someone's been downloading more than 1G per day the router will deny access from that computer for maybe 48 hours?

Depends on the brand of router but you might have some luck installing OpenWRT on it, if you pay something around $20 you can then traffic limit peoples computers based on mac address I think.

Either that or just say something to them..

I'm getting this real mental image of a flat full of geeks sitting in their rooms, downloading porn and not talking to each other right now :D

Thanks Synergist@. I'm thinking of holding a meeting, but I won't count on it working. We have our suspicions, but can't confirm or confront the perpetrator without catching them red-handed or something.

The best-case scenario is we hold a meeting, reiterate how we have a limited DL plan, and would everyone please stick to downloading during the off-peak (we have 110GB allowance for off-peak for god's sake!). Then hopefully, the perp(s) get the point and behave themselves.

It'll still be best if we can somehow tweak the router so it freezes connection from the perpetrating computers (if that's at all possible), then we don't have to count on people's goodwill.

What keywords should I use on google for this?

Your attitude suggestions that what you really need is a course in the most basic of communicaiton skills. Once you have that talent mastered you can hold a simply conversation and achieve your aim surely?

GT's method would work, assuming that the perpetrator is both reasonable and completely unaware of the consequences of their download patterns. The likelihood is that neither of these is true, and no amount of good communication (unless backed up with appropriate and legitimate coercion) will help.

When was the last time you flatted?

So this has happened once? twice? every month?

If it's the first time there's a good chance the person who did it may have left their PC running while at work and it's all upload from P2P. Just talk to everyone in a generic way, it's not hard.

"yo guys, our peak usage is nearly used up, make sure you turn off file sharing programs during the day yeah?"

If it keeps happening and you haven't yet said anything.....then say something.

If I was inadvertently using up data in a flatting situation and then found my usage throttled by my flatmate who hadn't even bothered to talk to me, I'd be pissed.

If you can't prove it's one person doing it, then it's possible it's a combination of all of you - or more than one person at least.

I think you'll get a much better reaction if you just make a general comment about the usage rather than attack and accuse someone or sneakily install software to punish them.

hahahaha it has nothing to do with communication, it has to do with if the perp wants to be/is a fucktard or not, generally if you ask in a flat it never stops, so glad im not living in a flat anymore

We'll you've got enough human responses, heres a technical one.

Find a spare old pc with a few network cards in it. 400mhz will do.
Install http://www.pfsense.com/ on it, plug WAN card into your router, and flat switch into LAN port. Can assign these during bootup.

Also install ntop as a package, this will allow you to monitor traffic usage per pc.

You can also do traffic shaping per ip etc etc. Might want to set up some static DHCP leases.

We had an issue at our last place where one of the flatmates would leave p2p going during the day which affected VOIP and browsing and gaming for the rest of us during the day. When asked to tone it back a bit (ntop told us it was her) she said "I pay my share I should be allowed" so we just pemanently throttled her to 256k and she hardly even noticed i think.

Streaming Oddy cam to the world takes it's toll... At least the Freddos are safe.

STOP DOWNLOADING ALL THE MEGAHURTZ OFF THE INTERTUBES!! THERE'S NONE LEFT FOR ME AND NOW I'M PISSED!!!

ipcop transparent proxy works too

as GT said 1. communicate
if that fails, then 2. choose your flatmates better
and lastly 3. get a pay per usage isp and use an app to monitor traffic

Threaten them like violent video game taught you

what game taught you to threaten?

just kill them like the games said
its ok medics will come and make them ok

GT I think you're predicating your suggestion on the assumption that audience also has basic communication skills.

This man speaks truth.

^^^ That way you can raid the pr0n cache for your own use...

Timeline?

http://www.nzgames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=79502

I would have considered as an alternative solution - everyone else paying a share of the cost and not charging her for the internet - and completely cut her off. She doesn't want to show any consideration for anyone else, no one else wants to share their internet with her. This way she learns some consequences for being a selfish bitch. Maybe also find a replacement flatmate and kick her out if she is also inconsiderate to the rest of the household in other ways.

^delicious hatred in that post.

Fuck i hate flatting...

But now that i think about it, theres not much i don't hate.

Too true. The whole "fuck you all, I do what I want" attitude is a real gear grinder to me. When flatting you often have to compromise and show consideration to maintain harmony - people that just blatantly disregard everyone else then say "I pay my share I should be allowed" are not the sort of people I would want to be flatting with.

The truth is that I have had some inconsiderate flatmates in the past and was VERY happy to see the back of them. Everyone does stuff that annoys others, but not everyone will cop a complete selfish arsehole attitude when something they do inconveniences others and it is pointed out to them.

give her 2 weeks notice, keep her bond & shit in her pillowcase.

agreed, but flatting is up there

Yeah, but you flatted with Inc, that's gotta leave some scars.

Nah - it was Toad's porn collection that left scars

This reminds me of the two times I've walked in on flatmates abusing their groin areas with heat from too much friction.

You never knocked first?

If hand on cock, one's door must lock.

Why would he do that if he wanted to walk in on them doing that?

You're probably right. I was being a bit cheeky too. Rather more than basic skills are needed here.

Successful communication would almost certainly help here. If all of the parties are challenged with reagrd to this skill then the likelihood of a quick pieceful outcome must be small.

Thanks for the input guys.

I agree that communication is the simplest method, and plan to hold a household meeting whether we end up installing a bandwidth manager or not.

Right now I'm doing some research, I'm thinking it will give us more incentive to manage our own downloads properly if we know more about internet activities and the DL they will use.

Does anyone know (as a rule of thumb) which type of activities requires more downloads and should be avoided? (we're on a 40GB plan).

What keywords should I use on google if I want to get a general idea of the amount of download that maybe used with different type of internet activity.

The only stuffs I know for sure that my flat mates do are: normal surfing, youtube, facebook, and downloading movies/tv episodes. I do normal surfing and I read manga releases every friday. What'd be the most taxing out of these?

Apparently someone's been watching streaming TV from China but that's still a rumor at this point.

TV episodes will be chewing your bandwidth, as will YouTube.

You may even have a couple of P2P apps left running sharing all those TV episodes to the world, so it might even be a case of reconfiguring those to upload 6k/s max. YouTube is more "innocent" use tho, so I would not make as big a deal of it.

I think you are best to have a bandwidth management solution in place, so that you can rate shape flatmates computers when they have exhausted their fair share of bandwidth. Drop them down to 256k/128k and they'll appreciate their bandwidth a little more next time round.

That way you don't need to ask and decide whether their usage is "justified" or "worth it", just give them what they're entitled to and let them decide how to waste it.

So is she hot?

and the pieces must be small

I find the best way to find out who is abusing the internets is to organise an outing with some (but not all) of the people to keep them out of the house for a day that's usually a high usage day for your household (maybe the weekend, maybe a weeknight?) until you come up with who's using too much. I was questioning myself when the internet usage for my flat came out higher than expected but then I tried a couple days without using the internet myself, and had a few days where the other flatmate was out and was able to tell it was them being the abuser rather than me unknowingly abusing.

It seems like you're looking for a way to stop anyone from being abusive without wanting to know who the perpetrator is and that sounds too annoying to set up compared to the alternate options of finding out who's doing it and shit in their pillow :(

Edit: This ofcourse relies on you being able to access the usage stats through some isp website or something, no idea who you're with :O

change the wireless password. or pull out their cable. then they won't overuse it.

avoid streaming radio stations if you have a datacap. They can chew through shocking amounts of traffic.