Data Usage


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Old 01-14-18, 05:18 PM
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Data Usage

I live in the middle of nowhere and my Internet comes via satellite and have a 15 gig allowance per month. Last month and now this month there has been a large, unusual data usage. I have contacted my satellite Internet provider and the last large occurence of data usage was a week ago and they can only narrow it down to bittorrent on a certain date and time. Is there any way to determine what is causing this usage?
 
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Old 01-14-18, 05:22 PM
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bittorrent is for file sharing. Is it a program that you use ?
 
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Old 01-15-18, 02:54 AM
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Kids in the house downloading movies?
 
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Old 01-15-18, 06:06 AM
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Uploading pictures and files to the cloud?
 
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Old 01-15-18, 08:33 AM
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No, there have been no file uploads or downloads. No video streaming and no online backups. I've also run full scans on all the computers and found no viruses or malware.
 
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Old 01-15-18, 08:41 AM
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Phones? If WiFi is on they will connect to your home network. Any viruses or malware (or legit backup apps) on either your phones or PC can then access the WWW.
 
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Old 01-15-18, 09:00 AM
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The satellite company has identified big downloads once a month and always on a Sunday. Each download is 3.2 to 3.7 gig. I'm wondering if they are Windows 10 updates???
 
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Old 01-16-18, 04:33 PM
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Right size, but wrong day of the week.

Is your satellite co. also your TV supplier?
Becuase that sounds sort of like something is downloading an episode of an "on demand" tv show every week.
 
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Old 01-16-18, 04:46 PM
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My first thought.....

Computer updates. Which could be several gigs. I learned this the hard way, just like you. It sucked about 4 gb from my 6 gb plan.

If you bought a new computer, it updated (O/S) first thing after setup.... automatically.

If you did not buy a new computer, your existing computer (O/S) updated ... automatically.

You can change the settings so it does not automatically update.
The settings can also be set to update at a set date & time each month etc.
 
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Old 01-17-18, 08:22 AM
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Our cell phones wifi stays off as we have unlimited data. Our satellite Internet and TV are different providers and use separate dishes. Our TV DVR's are not connected to the home wifi and have no access to our Internet service. All our computers are set to the most restrictive for downloads but unfortunately Windows 10 Home offers only limited control over updates and they cannot be scheduled or stopped.
 
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Old 01-20-18, 08:52 AM
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There are a number of ways to address, from pretty technical (use Wireshark and capture) to pretty rudimentary (turn one device off on a Sunday until you find it through process of elimination.)

Are all the devices connected to the same router? A wifi router, I presume? How many different users? Are all of the users your family members? What kind of devices are in your household? Windows PCs? Smartphones?

P2P can be tough to block, you can block the ports 6881-6889, but it can be run on virtually any port.
 
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Old 01-21-18, 11:04 AM
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Originally Posted by Pilot Dane
No, there have been no file uploads or downloads. No video streaming and no online backups. I've also run full scans on all the computers and found no viruses or malware.
Eh, first things first, if the internet supplier said it was bittorrent, do you even HAVE bittorrent installed on your computers?
 
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Old 01-21-18, 03:10 PM
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No, we do not use nor have bittorrent installed. The first thing I did after hearing that was to check the computers and run deep virus and malware scans. It is sometimes difficult to nail someone down who is not a native English speaker. Was it bittorrent or was it some other large file download "like" bittorrent.
 
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Old 01-22-18, 07:42 AM
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There are at least a dozen programs that can open a bittorrent so searching only for "BitTorrent" might not be useful. You might scan your computer for any leftover .torrent files, which might indicate what was transferred via your network.

Did you turn off your PC Sunday?
 
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Old 01-22-18, 03:18 PM
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Yes, we are traveling so all computers were turned off but I left the Satellite modem and router turned on.
 
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Old 01-25-18, 04:01 PM
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Dane –

I don’t know whether this would be helpful but don’t most routers today have a logging capability? I know my NETGEAR does. But I think the logs are pretty small, like maybe a few thousand characters.

I wonder if you cleared the log on Sunday evening, or whenever you think the problem occurs, and looked at it later it would shed some light.

Just a thought.
 
 

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