Thread: My network won't let me download torrents

Originally Posted by Mr. E

You can tell it to do it another way, the fact that it defaults to open is a non-factor. As for the renaming thing I thought up, it all depends on how the university detects what you are downloading whether it would work or not. It was just a suggestion for something to try.

However, if your university is blocking you from even initiating the link, I don't know what to tell you. Have you tried to 'Save Link As...'? If not, give that a try. If that doesn't then it might be time to accept that your university's safeguards are too good for you and just wait until you go home to download things. I found a workaround for my university network, but I have to go to the library and use my flash drive to boot linux.

That is a possible other thing to try. In my experience, university networks have trouble dealing with linux.

You're missing my point. Open/Save As is irrelevant as you are doing the same exact thing either way. Changing the extension is just as irrelevant as the server is still sending the correct mime type. It doesn't matter if you call it a jpg or txt; that only affects how the file is saved on YOUR machine. The .torrent is still being served in the exact same way. Neither 'solution' actually changes anything. That's all I'm trying to point out.

Based on what's happening it's pretty obvious that he's behind some kind of NAC setup which is doing packet inspection. If this is true, the only way you're going to get around it is tunneling outside the network or figuring out a way to get the .torrents on his PC (assuming they're not shaping torrent traffic, which is probable given what we already know.)