Recent reports have shown that some BitTorrent users were being blocked by their own Internet Service Providers. It was found that the blocking in the US was primarily being done by two cable service companies, Comcast and Cox. Blocked users in Singapore were on the StarHub network. Recent studies by students at the Mac Planck Institute of Software Systems have reached conclusive results.

The students of the Institute conducted a test called Glasnost. The test results show that most of the people in the US are being blocked by the two companies. The test results also showed minimal blocking from 10 other service providers. The study shows that 491 out of 788 Comcast users and 82 out of 151 Cox users cannot use BitTorrent. 26 out of 45 people on Singapore’s StarHub cannot access BitTorrent.

The companies have released statements saying that they only restricted BitTorrent access in cases where the bandwidth was being congested. However, the test shown that the blocking was being enforced at all times.

The Glasnost test is an open-source program developed specifically by students of the Mac Planck Institute of Software Systems in order to check into allegations of BitTorrent blocking. The program sends BitTorrent flows between a user and a test server. Afterwards, they check the data for any flows in the transmission. If there is a disruption caused by a command that was not sent from the user or the test server, then this was noted as a block from the internet service provider.

BitTorrent is an open-source application that allows users, or hosts, to share files. Some files that can be distributed include software and various multimedia files.