2:1 Down:Up internet traffic ratio?

[Ori Berger]

Dotan Cohen wrote:
> I just noticed this info in my modem's interface:
> Data Transmitted	1285141280 bytes
> Data Received	2111269904 bytes
> 
> Could it really be that normal internet browsing and emailing produces
> only a 2:1 downloaded:uploaded ratio? I figure with youtube and all
> the images on websites that the ratio would be much higher. We do not
> do any filesharing or other p2p activities. And the network consists
> of two linux machines, so I doubt that there may be a malware
> infection. Can anybody shed some insight?

Two things I can think of:

1) Is your modem also your hub/switch? perhaps it is also aggregating 
internal network traffic in those numbers somehow?

2) Both numbers are between 30 and 31 bits in magnitude, which means 
they might just be the result of some weird overflow or scaling law due 
to using a 32-bit counter.

If you can, reset the counters before you go to sleep; if you don't have 
a torrent or mule running, counters in the morning should be very low. 
Then work for a day and then check your counters again.