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FAQS! FACTS! FAX! 615 (03/06/08)
Q. I have recently dragged myself into the
21st century and upgraded from dial-up to broadband. With a view to monitoring my usage I have installed a
bandwidth-monitoring program. When I
check my logs I see that it gives figures for my wireless network connection
and also my Ethernet cable connection.
It also shows readings for something called ‘TCP Loopback interface
127.0.0.1’. I understand that this is a testing utility and is not necessary if
you have another connection to the Internet. I am unsure as to whether or not
the readings for this interface count towards my broadband usage?
Mike Spruce, via email
A.
Internet Protocol (IP) address 127.0.0.1 crops up quite a lot and its appearance
in the configuration menus of email and security programs often mystifies PC
users, so let’s begin with that.
As you may know when
you go on line your ISP allocates a ‘public’ IP address to your connection.
Devices attached to your computer, like modems, routers and other PCs on your
internal network are assigned ‘private’ IP addresses. The 127.0.0.1 address,
also known as Localhost, is your computer’s internal address. In other words
this is the address your computer uses when it wants to communicate with
itself. As you mentioned it’s sometimes used for testing and faultfinding and
some mainstream programs also make use of it, such as the email scanning
components in anti-virus software. This intercepts incoming (or outgoing)
email, and sends it to the scanning program on your PC for checking, before
sending it on its way, to your email program, or out onto the Internet.
That’s a rather
long-winded way of saying that the data traffic your bandwidth meter is
measuring is all Internal and doesn’t count towards your Internet usage. One
last point, if you are on a ‘capped’ broadband contract I urge you to upgrade
or switch providers as soon as possible. These days, with so many competitive
deals on offer there really is no need to restrict your surfing in this way,
but do it now rather than later. The signs are that following the huge success
of web TV services like BBC iPlayer bandwidth could be in short supply and
prices could start to creep up in the next year or two.
Q. I have a Mac iBook G4 (OSX.3.9), an
iPod Classic Video and a dial-up Internet connection (yes, I'm blushing...). I
occasionally have problems fully downloading podcasts. For example, one out of every 10 or so
episodes of The Archers will only partially download, sometimes 8 minutes, 6
minutes, sometimes as little as less than a minute. .
Here are my questions: Is this my problem
or something to do with the BBC? The only way I've managed to correct this and
re-download an incomplete episode is to delete my subscription to the podcast
and to re-subscribe, which means I lose all the previous episodes I've
downloaded. This isn't so much of a
problem with The Archers, but there are other podcasts that I would listen to
over and again. Is there some other way to re-download the same episode without
deleting everything?
Morag Boyle, London
A.
You may well blush and I suspect that you might already know the answer. I am
sure that there is nothing wrong with your PC, but you are trying to drip-feed
it with large volumes of highly compressed data at an appallingly slow rate.
Dial-up connections can
generate high error rates and when an incoming packet of data is flagged as
faulty a request has to be sent back to the server resend it. Eventually, on a
poor line the errors mount up, the server or the modem gets bored with it and
the download fails. The solution is simple, get broadband, and since you live
in London it shouldn’t be a problem. You might even find it saves you money,
when you take into account what all those failed downloads are doing to your
phone bill.
Q. My broadband supplier claims that the
only people who can measure the amount of data I am downloading is its fraud
department but there are several free broadband download measuring programs
available. Can you tell me how accurate and reliable they are?
A. Shore, via email
A.I am going out on a limb, reading between the lines and mixing my metaphors but
I suspect that there may be a dispute between you and your ISP about the amount
of data you’ve been downloading? I’m also going to stick my neck out and
surmise that the mention of the fraud department infers there’s quite a large
discrepancy between what your bandwidth meter is telling you, and what they say
you’ve downloaded.
If so then in the end
they hold all the cards and it is their figures that will hold up in a Court of
Law, if it comes to that, but that’s not to say your measurements are
incorrect, as least far as the data flowing into your PC is concerned.
If you are using a
wireless modem-router, and you haven’t enabled encryption or it has been hacked
then it is entirely possible for an unscrupulous neighbour to make use of your
Internet connection and download or upload massive amounts of data. If so it
could be difficult to prove, but if you think that it is happening to you, and
the amounts involved in the dispute are significant then I would have no
hesitation in calling in the Police.
Using your Internet
connection without your permission is theft, pure and simple and there have
been a number of successful prosecutions.
It is in your interest to clear up the matter because if your connection
has been hijacked there’s no saying what it has been used for. It could be
anything from downloading child pornography or pirated movies to email scams,
and since it’s your Internet connection, you are the one who will carry the
can…
If you have a computer
problem write to: fff@telegraph.co.uk
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© R. Maybury 2008 1305
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