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Peers that suck up my upload bandwidth


Brandy Down Under

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I've got a few large torrents that I'm at 86% ish, which are getting slower and slower.  One issue appears to be some "[FAKE] uTorrent/2.2.1.0" peers that show flags IHX and 0.0%.  They constantly download and never go up in percentage nor reciprocate by sending anything.  What's with these guys?

 

I've tried putting their IP Addresses in the ipfilter.dat file, which does block them.  Unfortunately, the one peer with 100% to download is coming from that same ISP, and thus has the same IP Address.  I tried adding the port numbers for the FAKE peers, but IP Filtering doesn't seem to pay attention to the port.  I end up blocking the good with the bad.  So, I've abandoned that idea.

 

OK OK, these torrents are just about dead, but that suffices to make me all that much more greedy to get them.  The question I have is, are these peers harmful? Should I be blocking them on general principles, or are they just another aspect of torrenting that everyone else is unconcerned about?

 

I'm running uTorrent 3.4.2 build 39744

 

Brandy

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I hope not.  I haven't made any changes to the Advanced Options, as it says "WARNING: do not modify!".

 

While watching the Peers tab, I can see three peers coming from a "lightspeed" ISP in irvnca.  All three have the same IP Address, but different Port Numbers, which one would expect of an ISP NAT.  Two of the peers indicate they are running "[FAKE] uTorrent/2.2.1.0", while the third says it's running "libTorrent 0.13.2".  The former have the flags "IHX" and show 0.0%, while the latter has the flags "D HXE" and shows 100%.  The former only upload from me, while the latter will download (albeit at a low rate).  If I place the common IP Address in an ipfilter.dat and right click and load it, unsurprisingly all three disappear.  I then tried appending the port number of the first in the form "172.9.188.164:47738", but that didn't make any difference.  After reloading the file they're still gone.  After clearing the file, all three come back.  It looks like ipfilter ignores port numbers.  Then again, the help file discussion on pfilter.dat doesn't really say anything about file format.  Given this lack of success, I gave up on trying to filter peers.

 

I'm still somewhat paranoid about those FAKE uTorrent peers though.  Are they harmful?  Do I need to filter them even if it means loosing visibility to a good seed?  Or are they just leaches that don't want to share?  Objectionable but harmless.

 

Brandy

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It is false.

 

The actual peer machines likely have unique IP Addresses, as they are coming from the same ISP.  What I'm seeing on the net is the ISP's address, which would be the same for all machines on the other side of its NAT.  The NAT performs dynamic port mapping for each connection to keep it all straight.  Since the flags were IHX", there is a connection from the peer to me,  Which is why the Port Number appeared to be constant.  Now that I think this through, blocking a particular IP/Port combination wouldn't be effective.  The peer would eventually try again, get a different port number, and defeat any value in the ipfiiter file.  Likely explaining why any port number in the ipfilter file is ignored.

 

I am still curious about those FAKE uTorrent peers.  I've been studying the internals of TCP/IP for a number of years, and find it all quite fascinating.  I'm a relative newbie to torrenting, though, and haven't found much to describe how it works.  What with all the different implementations and their variations, there's not enough time or documentation to study this as much as I'd like.

 

There may not be an answer to what [FAKE] means.  I can accept that.  Thanks for your time.

 

 

Brandy

 

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So, this would mean that I can connect only to one peer at the same ISP.  That might explain why I was uploading to the one FAKE uTorrent, with no upload/download from the 100% libTorrent.  I didn't take a screen shot, and don't recall exactly what was going on.  But, I do remember using the right-click and "Copy selected hosts" to make the entries in the ipfilter file.  So they must have been visible at the same time.

 

This might indicate that the FAKE uTorrent's purpose is to block torrents from other peers at that ISP.  Just a guess, but would make sense.

 

Brandy

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