How can my isp see what i download

I am not asking if they know if I download something I assume they would know , but rather what it is I download. Again, I am referring to legitimate files. I don't like the idea of my ISP knowing more about me beyond what they already know.

After all, anything related to schooling, medical things etc. Not theirs. The reason it's hard to find a quick and easy answer to your question is that there really isn't one. The closest thing to a quick and easy answer that is right is:. Your ISP can see every byte of data you transmit on the internet, and every byte any server sends to you across the internet. They have the physical wires you're sending bits over.

They not only can read this data, they are obliged to read it, in a sense, because they need to route it to the right places. However, what that doesn't account for is the readability of those bits. Some protocols, like http, send everything "in the clear," meaning anyone who can read the data on the wire can get access to everything you transmitted. Other protocols, like https, encrypt the data so that the ISP can see bits were transferred, but they can't glean any meaning out of the data.

This is all very protocol specific, so there is no one answer. For example, with HTTPS, the ISP can know the IP address of the server you are talking to because it has to be sent "in the clear" for the internet to work , but they don't get to know the hostname. In most cases, they can do a reverse IP lookup and figure out the host name, but a single server may serve many host names. For all we know, the servers that service www. All the ISP knows is that you accessed Digging deeper requires a very careful threat model.

If your adversaries are Three Letter Agencies or major nations, you may find that you leak information in timing or file sizes, and they may be able to do something with that.

Related: What can VPNs do with your data? Of course, the government could then go to your VPN provider and try to get the data from there, ignoring your ISP tracking data. The only major downside to using a VPN is that it will invariably cost you money to get a good service.

To get the most security and convenience you can, a paid VPN is what you need. We highly recommend giving those a read! Encrypted browsers are also a pretty good way of keeping your internet data private. Most of these browsers — including the most popular product, Tor — mimic a VPN by bouncing your data around multiple nodes, which are actually the computers of other users.

The idea is the same here: a government agency requests the data logged through ISP tracking and the ISP can only produce gibberish. However, in this case, there is no VPN service so there is nowhere for the agency to turn to request the data. Since Tor is free, you might think that this is better than a VPN. However, there are two very important factors to note.

This means that somewhere out there on the internet, your data still exists. Obviously, it would be incredibly difficult for anyone to find it and match it to you, but it is not impossible. What about using both? Interestingly, this is not advisable. So, join us, and we'll answer all your questions. That means VPNs indeed boost your privacy and security online — but they don't simply "delete" your Web data. That data is still out there, so you're probably wondering what exactly an ISP can see in that case?

Here's what, precisely:. However, it's important here is to understand what 'downloading files' means. As soon as you connect to the Web and interact with any website, you start to download and upload files simultaneously. For a website to load, your device downloads bits of information to display the content you're trying to see. That would refer to downloading actual data from the Internet onto your computer, like downloading music, songs, photos, documents, software, and more.

To learn why, make sure to check how VPNs work , where you'll see that a VPN breaks down data into small packets, which are encrypted and whose contents no one can see except for you, of course.

From what I understand, the police need a court order or something to get information from ISPs. But Im not sure how hard those are to get. And a lot of them I imagine are outside of jurisdiction. Not since the Patriot Act. All ISPs are required to keep record of Internet traffic for years and let the government take a peek when it needs something.

Optic degrades 6 times faster than co-axial which means you have to strip it out and replace it every years otherwise it becomes useless. Cost for connection of fiber escalate out of sight compared to coaxial cable. Coaxial is far easier to repair, resists damage where optic will crack, split, fracture, break and is a pain in the proverbial to join — joins further degrade efficiency. Not being too knowledgeable about bandwidths etc, I thought that all the massive movie streaming, tv catchups etc that were being urged to watch and my wife does due to the hours she works would use more bandwidth than just downloading file-sharing material or am I wrong?

I have music playing on the internet all day, am I being greedy? Getting back to the original question, I think I read somewhere that they can only track what we upload and not download, or am I wrong. How and what are the protections of this vs. And you wont know until the next bank statement. P2P, in fact, is ludicrously amateurish, and you will discover that once you learn to use Google. Filename, data type, etc?

This seems to be the correct article to ask this question. Hi Leo, thanks for your insight and you were correct about your comment on 30 Aug ! SOPA, Megaupload, etc. If I use this proxy on windows mail, will it stop my isp or others being able to view the data being sent etc. I recently past 3 weeks began downloading movies off of torrent sites.

As soon as the file was completed downloading I stopped it from seeding. After downloading about 80 movies I started receiving emails from my ISP saying that they were contacted by the movie distributors ie. Sony, Universal, etc. Each email listed the title of the movie in question and demanded that I remove the files and stop downloading or I will be disconnected.

I have stopped downloading and removed the PSP sharing software Vuze from my computer but can they my ISP or the movie distributor see if I have actually deleted the movies off of my computer or personal shared network media drive? I understand how the ISP sees what I am doing but how did the movie distributor know I downloaded one of their movies? Do they upload the torrent themselves and watch to see who downloads it?

There are a lot of activities that use a lot of bandwidth, are all of them going to be disallowed? If so, I might as well kill myself now. Afterall, they are almost up my butt. Im very sorry for posting here but i am completely out of ideas!! I have a question, is it legal for a comcast internet tech to tell me i have to install something on my computer that in turn erased all my bookmarked pages that i use for reference for work?

Well, as soon as it was finished installing I imediatly opened google crome to start my work writing ebooks on political topics. To my dismay, ALL of my reference matirial I had spent months looking for and bookmarking was gone!! No bookmarks!! I called the service center, they sent out a tech guy to my place again. He told me that he was not sure why they make people install this software because people are unhappy about it usually. He also told me that other people have had the same problem before and that there is nothing they can do about it.

This is unacceptable to me!! It has ruined my focus and direction associated with my writing as I now have absolutely no references!! Please someone tell me this is illegal so i can put a stop to this kind of guided misfortune!! Thank you! Just wanted to thank you for this simple, clear and concise post on downloading!

It really helped me to understand this topic. I really appreciate it! I became instantly addicted with torrent downloading when i first found BitLord. I constantly downloaded discographies and many movies and games.