- #1
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- TL;DR Summary
- About limiting the net download and upload speeds in a Linux system to prevent fast download of data from your computer by hackers.
A few days ago, I noticed that there is a Linux terminal command 'tc', which can be used for limiting the download and especially upload speeds of your internet connection. When I write
in the terminal, the download speed remains good enough for browsing websites, but the upload speed gets really slow, like an early 1990s modem connection. The 'eth0' in that command is the name of the connection. As far as I know, this is used by server administrators for limiting the bandwidth consumed by a single user. However, shouldn't this also prevent a hacker getting real time data from your computer's microphone and webcam in the case they get around your firewall? The upload speed after applying that setting should be way too slow for that. I can't find any information about anyone using this for that purpose, but it should be difficult to circumvent if the intruder doesn't know what's causing the slow connection.
It should be easy to make a Java GUI application where you can select the percentages to which you want to drop the download and upload speeds from the original values. Then it could do several connection speed tests with different values of 'rate', 'latency' and 'burst' parameters and find the correct ones to get the data transfer rates to what you're after.
The tc command is also introduced in this wiki page:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/advanced_traffic_control
Code:
sudo tc qdisc add dev eth0 root tbf rate 100kbit latency 10ms burst 1540
in the terminal, the download speed remains good enough for browsing websites, but the upload speed gets really slow, like an early 1990s modem connection. The 'eth0' in that command is the name of the connection. As far as I know, this is used by server administrators for limiting the bandwidth consumed by a single user. However, shouldn't this also prevent a hacker getting real time data from your computer's microphone and webcam in the case they get around your firewall? The upload speed after applying that setting should be way too slow for that. I can't find any information about anyone using this for that purpose, but it should be difficult to circumvent if the intruder doesn't know what's causing the slow connection.
It should be easy to make a Java GUI application where you can select the percentages to which you want to drop the download and upload speeds from the original values. Then it could do several connection speed tests with different values of 'rate', 'latency' and 'burst' parameters and find the correct ones to get the data transfer rates to what you're after.
The tc command is also introduced in this wiki page:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/advanced_traffic_control