My mini-crusade to get uTorrent 1.7.1 unbanned.

I know 1.7.2 will be out soon.. but here goes.

A certain private tracker site that I use.. well.. a lot, let's call this site: XWT, recently banned all versions of uTorrent 1.7***. Well, I decided to upload 3 different files to the tracker and appended "unban uTorrent 1.7.1!" to the torrent titles for all 3. I also included additional information within the torrent descriptions. Here's a copy of the information I posted:

Also... I really don't mean to stir up any controversy but I really hope maybe I can raise awareness about the uTorrent 1.7.1 ban on this site. I understand why the 1.7 build was banned. In case you don't know, the 1.7 build had tracker reporting issues, so perhaps the ban was justified. However, the 1.7.1 build fixed that problem so the latest uTorrent build works just fine and since it's the most popular BitTorrent client around (not to mention my personal favorite), there's no reason it should get banned...

I realize a lot of people are suspicious about uTorrent for another reason as well. And that's because the BitTorrent protocol creator and author of the software Bram Cohen recently purchased the uTorrent license from Ludde. A lot of people think that this will result (or already has) in security exploits being built into the client. I want to assure you all that this paranoia, while understandable, is completely unfounded and is... to put less elegantly, nothing but FUD. If you disagree, the challenge to prove yourself has been open for a while. http://torrenthelp.depthstrike.com/2007/07/utorrent-171-and-all-claims-about.html

There's nothing wrong with uTorrent... please help me get it unbanned from the #1 wrestling tracker around!!! Together, we can do it!"

As you can imagine... I've stirred up quite a bit of controversy... I'll post the comments of one of the torrents:

#122743 by crueDonor (VIP) at 2007-07-20 07:47:22 GMT

Rules are rules, whether you agree with them or not. If the site operators ban the client, then it's banned.

#122747 by phrostbyte (Power User) at 2007-07-20 08:34:06 GMT- [Edit]

crue: That's a very naive way of looking at things. The client was banned, sure, now it's time for the client to be unbanned.

#122751 by HempKnightDonor (Donator) at 2007-07-20 09:23:09 GMT

Why? Admins can ban and unban everything they want. It's their site and their call.

BTW there is "private torrent" flag for a reason in utorrent.

#122760 by SaMaRa (Uploader) at 2007-07-20 11:12:22 GMT

It's not like XWT is the only tracker to do this. Alot of other private trackers have taken the same route. Personally, I dont see how it is difficult to download a file less than 1meg and use it. (1.6.1)

#122766 by Xnotion (Power User) at 2007-07-20 11:37:46 GMT

Have you ever thought of just going back to 1.6 and going along with the rules of the tracker, whether you argument is founded on truth or not, that really is not the point.

#122767 by wannabe (Power User) at 2007-07-20 11:41:53 GMT

Unless it gives you higher speed, I dont see the problem with using the old one. Even tho it's annoying for me, because on swebits.org ( movies, music etc downloads) has banned 1.6.

So I have to use Azareus to download from there and thats annoying. Coz I have to save the file, then open it

Im a lazy person

Last edited by wannabe at 2007-07-20 11:42:21 GMT

#122772 by phrostbyte (Power User) at 2007-07-20 12:03:31 GMT- [Edit]

How can you people seriously support the ban? It makes no sense to me... the latest version of uTorrent has bug fixes, that which include those targeted at security maintainence. The fact of the matter is there's nothing wrong with uTorrent 1.7.1.. and I shouldn't have to use an older version just because one tracker hasn't updated their ban list. And the argument that other sites are doing it so it must be right? No... no major sites are doing this because well.... there's no reason to, it's just stupid.

#122776 by peterpiper (Power User) at 2007-07-20 12:31:22 GMT

What do you call a major site??

30,000 members is pretty damn big for any tracker

#122841 by phrostbyte (Power User) at 2007-07-20 15:41:39 GMT- [Edit]

Does it really matter? The point is uTorrent 1.7.1 should be unbanned.

#122897 by jerichohol (Uploader) at 2007-07-20 21:07:17 GMT

I'm pretty indifferent to the whole utorrent banning, but I am surprised by the sheep-like devotion to the decision.

#122905 by HypemanDonor (Power User) at 2007-07-20 23:30:48 GMT

It may be owned by X and that, but the people who use the site are the people that make it all happen. I've had to revert to Azureus because of this crap. Unban the damn build!!!

#122913 by eenuDonor (VIP) at 2007-07-21 00:47:30 GMT

Keep uTorrent 1.7.1 banned! It sucks!

#122914 by badstreet (Uploader) at 2007-07-21 01:46:09 GMT

this is idiotic...It is very simple.Follow the rules set forth or don't use the site.The staff has already explained why its banned.Suck it up and move on.

#122916 by beggheadDonor (VIP) at 2007-07-21 01:58:40 GMT

^^^ Couldnt Agree More badstreet.

Would like to remind every one that TORRENT COMMENTS ARE ONLY FOR THANKING THE UPLOADER..

This Torrent has been reported for its comments

#122929 by phrostbyte (Power User) at 2007-07-21 05:32:06 GMT- [Edit]

badstreet: I don't see any explanation.. so I have no clue what you're talking about. I saw one on the rival site... and I agree with banning 1.7. But just like the rival site says, 1.7.1 fixed the bug in 1.7... 1.7.1 SHOULD NOT BE BANNED.

eenu: You can say that uTorrent sucks and that's your opinion. But it is the most popular client around there's a reason for this. It's (obviously in my subject opinion) the best client there is. What could you possibly say is better? Azereus? No thanks.. no download client should use that many resources.

begghead: Good job reporting this torrent (narc). Hopefully it'll be brought to the attention of someone who can actually listen to me...

#122930 by badstreet (Uploader) at 2007-07-21 05:44:24 GMT

wow your quite an ass had you bothered to read in forums you'd see explanation.....the new version reports bad stats to tracker so isn't needed.And as was stated try using torrent comments section for reasons stated.

#122934 by phrostbyte (Power User) at 2007-07-21 06:19:10 GMT- [Edit]

badstreet: I don't have access to the forums... anyway, the latest version (1.7.1) does not report bad stats to the tracker... that was the previous version (1.7) and as I've mentioned countless times, this bug has been fixed. If you claim otherwise, my response to you is: prove it. If you try to, you'll soon find that it's impossible... as the bug has been fixed. Maybe you're the ass in this situation? Seeing as how you haven't listened to anything I've said.

Thoughts?

It's a conspiracy.

Well no...actually, it's mainly due to a well-meaning article posting the list of new hostile ip ranges that was taken as completely accurate. More details about that here:

http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?id=26653

Link to original article:

http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?id=26653

Except in original form, the article included the multicast ip ranges that µTorrent recently started using to detect local (LAN) peers/seeds that probably have much faster download/upload rates with you. Almost no other BitTorrent client does this yet, so it looks like µTorrent is majorly hostile...unless detect local peers is disabled fully.

µTorrent v1.7 did have a serious but mostly non-beneficial error concerning not reporting stats properly for torrents over 4+ GB in size. v1.7.1 fixed that, but apparently has a bug with seeking out local peers/seeds even on private torrents. So that bug has to be fixed too...and soon!

Hopefully, v1.7.2 doesn't cause as much controversy.

A LOT of the private sites are allowing v1.6.1 even though it can easily be used to ghost leech even from private trackers due to an exploit common with many BitTorrent clients. So the latest µTorrent is trying to be more honest than many/most other BitTorrent clients that are also allowed at private websites.

I don't think discarding download figures while reporting all upload figures is entirely honest

Ghost leeching is possible no matter what you build into the client. Unless you remove any possibility of continuing to seed/leech if the tracker becomes unreachable.

But yes, 1.7.1 has the private flag bug, and will probably be banned from more private trackers.

bitme.tv wrote this:a flaw/bug was just discovered with utorrent 1.7.1 that would allow massive ratio cheating, make legit uploaders look like cheaters, and even allow banned cheaters whose IP addresses are banned to potentially download bitmetv torrents. This is amazingly similar to what Bitcomet did 2 years ago that resulted in it's being banned at nearly all private trackers.

uT staff appear to have already acknowledged this problem in their own forums (search and read about it there if you like: www.utorrent.com) and say that a fix is on the way.

I think it's a safe bet that within a few days, most private trackers will follow the bitmetv lead and ban uT 1.7.1. I guess all the "paranoia" was justified...

Sent By: tequilavip - 2007-07-21 03:25:01

Yep, it's the private flag bug.

With network peers, you can reach the maximum speed supported by your LAN. Not many regular users showing in the peer list on regular ISPs can hit 100mb/s and not be noticed by staff

If LAN leechers wanted to leech, it isn't much easier with LPD on than disabled. They still need to exchange the .torrent files, and it's as simple as exchanging IPs at the same time (if the IPs aren't already known). That said, I definitely agree with the fix, but it still doesn't justify the original reason behind the ban.

Easiest way to get a torrent file is from indexing sites. The problem is that they have their passkeys disabled pretty quickly once it's noticed that many peers are on the same one.

Without LPD, the user would have to do a scan of all IPs and ports and hope to get lucky.

With LPD, they simply send out a single multicast request.

system said: "I don't think discarding download figures while reporting all upload figures is entirely honest :P"

Perhaps it seems dishonest, but if it's been fixed in v1.7.1 I'm more inclined to consider it a bug.

The Local Peer multicast behavior with private torrents will DEFINITELY be corrected in the next build.

?

The numbers being discarded isn't related to LPD.

Nope, the download stats is a seperate issue.

Any massaging of the stats should be done on the tracker side if the tracker admins wish to discard bad pieces, not on the client side.

It takes a single line of code in the tracker to do it, how many does it take in the uT code?

if($self['downloaded']>$tsize) $self['downloaded']=$tsize;

Easily implemented for trackers that want it, and it doesn't break specs and force the thing on everyone else.

That's not the same thing. That assumes there can't be hashfailed pieces until after the entire torrent size's amount has been downloaded, which is almost never the case; there's such a thing as getting hashfailed pieces early in the torrent downloading process. What about selective file downloading? And 'downloaded' isn't cumulative from the very start of the torrent anyway.

Point taken.

But still, it would be better to propose an extension to the protocol and add a failed key to announces.

It's not like adding a key to the announce string has never been done before.

Forget this crusade, 1.7.1 will stay banned at our tracker due to not respecting the private flag for LPD. However 1.7.2 is now allowed, so it seems you want the newest version anyways. Download that.

People will need to update manually until Monday most likely, when the updater will have 1.7.2.

:hmmm: There is stuff to read in wrestling now?

Doesn't sound like wrestling to me.

lol

Just upgraded to 1.7.2 and that's still banned too

not sure what to do now cos 1.7 works loads better than 1.6 with vista

Beat the tracker admins until they give.

If they don't give, leave.

XWT have banned all versions above 1.6.1 because of the new owner/developers post 1.6.1! something to do with having links with copyright people or something.

how daft. if they are worried about someone closing down their site then they should worry about it being found on google!

Beat the tracker admins until they give.

If they don't give, leave.

Don't you think that's a bad attitude? As a tracker admin, I can say the MAJORITY of us that are heavy on banning clients do it for the community. We get no personal gain except maybe users appreciating us looking out for them, on occasion. Try to work with them and don't bash them. They are doing this for free because they enjoy sharing(well, 95% of them). I think most will unban once they are convinced utorrent is safe but not until they verify it themselves, and some have busy lives. I am the same way. utorrent 1.7.2 release just happened to catch me when I was free enough to get right to testing. If you like utorrent so much, make it your main client, but always do have a backup. Use the backup to use the other trackers until the admins get to test. Seeding 1:1 on smaller content should not take long on a reasonable line, unless you download a games collection or a whole season of TV shows.

There are lots of changes here that admins must get used to and you can't blame us for being skeptical and paranoid. Look at what we do that you know about and then consider there's twice as much behind the scenes that you don't know about. utorrent is but a small fraction of happenings we have to worry about. Let's just say you don't know half of what goes on in this war of the man vs torrentors until you're on the front lines.

I am probably one of the more paranoid admins out there, but I don't feel it's a bad thing. In the end, I banned 1.7 and 1.7.1 but allowed 1.7.2, which was the fair thing to do. It turned out this version was clean and eliminated bugs that got the other 2 banned. I expect more widespread allowing of 1.7.2 but it may take time. Just be patient.

If I were a Site Owner, I would give more thought to scrutinizing Open Source Clients with the plugin add-ons that nobody pays attention to.

With the available enhancement plugins for some of the Clients being written by Third Party Programmers, just how safe can they be?

I like uTorrent and it's closed source code. If I have to point the finger on any issues, it only has to point in one direction. The others start passing the buck until reality finally strikes.

I'm surprised this latest confrontation has lasted this long. As for myself......any Site that inhibits my use of uTorrent is one that I can do without until the issues get resolved.

I agree about some of the plugins though most are open source themselves. I highly advise against them under any circumstance, unless you can actually pick apart their source code or a reliable coder has, Most of the truly great open source clients have little to no plugins developed for them. Az is very suspect at this point, with or without plugins, but 2.x.x.x versions up through 2.5.0.4 remain safe. Zudeo, now Vuze, is banned because it has been found guilty in some versions of one of the things people suspect utorrent of, and the developers were not in the least honest about it in any way. So I hope you don't think all of us are just picking on utorrent. This is not the case. utorrent just gets showered with lots of forum discussion, press, and attention because of 1 thing-its huge userbase. More discussion makes scrutiny more visible. However, we have historically been just as hard on other clients policy-wise, as the Vuze ban shows. Consider this as well: which of these would be more trouble if tainted? A) utorrent, which has millions of users worldwide an obscure plugin that only a few obscure users will install closed source ones. I think the answer is obvious. We are in a balance of protecting the user vs fair use of a popular client. So we test the client to maintain the previous while allowing the latter, It can result in delays, as well as alarms which we sort out with the utorrent developers here. I am still in a position of working with utorrent by providing feedback that will make it meet the tracker's standards while protecting my own users.

I feel I have been prudent on this. 1.7 and 1.7.1 deserved a ban. There is no buts on this one. They may not do anything purposefully malicious, but with the userbase that uses utorrent, the potential issues of stats in 1.7 and not respecting private flag in 1.7.1 could make a bloody mess of a private tracker if they were allowed and given widespread use, 1.7.2 clears these bugs once again, thus was allowed after careful testing, Don't you think I have excellent reason to go through this even if utorrent was never bought, given the last 2 versions had VERY SERIOUS bugs and not even the same bugs? If another client released buggy versions like that, it would come under scrutiny as well, Bram or no Bram. I'm not trying to bash utorrent, as they did try to work fast to fix it. I'm just giving you some faint idea of where I come from.

I agree.......the 1.7 and 1.7.1 version issues needed to be addressed. I serve as Staff on some of the larger private trackers and Security is always a priority.

However, I feel that uTorrent has been punished a bit more than it deserved. The Client Development Team has always been responsive to the needs of the Mass.

Their response time is among the best and many fixes or upgrades....even in the Public Betas has been nothing less than professional.

I have never claimed to be not harsh.

I've seen private tracker admins ban clients for all the wrong reasons (case in point is XWT mentioned above).

Enough trackers bandwagon ban a client to prove to me that they're NOT doing it for the community. Those that were leading the bandwagons were NOT actually proving their claims.

Over 90% of those admins that banned because uT reportedly sent data to the RIAA/MPAA simply bandwagoned.

Let's just say you don't know half of what goes on in this war of the man vs torrentors until you're on the front lines.

You say that like I haven't been on the front lines. I have to put up with reseed request after reseed request where the torrent is already seeded, people not reading any FAQ (which happens here and on the sites I maintain).

The smarter admins do their research before they ban and actually give valid reasons.

XWT have banned all versions above 1.6.1 because of the new owner/developers post 1.6.1! something to do with having links with copyright people or something.

Just proves how daft these people are because 1.6.1 was released MONTHS after the takeover. De facto 1.6 is the latest version before the takeover.

Try to work with them and don't bash them.

Wait. They ban our clients coming with the same old story again and we are the ones bashing them? If they work with us, if they come here and read these forums, if they do their own research into the activities of µtorrent before blindly following someone else's baseless accusations this whole community will be GLAD to work with them. I'm not talking to the trackers that banned version 1.7 and up in general. Just those that come with the wrong reasons for it. I would expect Tracker admins to be technical savvy or have people around who know what they are doing. 1.7 and 1.7.1 deserved a banning but putting the wrong reasons under it gives false credibility to these reasons and thats the most damaging aspect of it all and thats where I personally are most pissed about.

The right reasons are obvious if you read the changelog:

--- 2007-07-21: Version 1.7.2 (build 3458)

- Fix: Disable Local Peer Discovery for private torrents

--- 2007-07-13: Version 1.7.1 (build 3360)

- Fix: Invalid download amounts being reported to trackers for >4GB torrents

Those admins out there like TheHound that banned 1.7 and 1.7.1 for the right reasons: You were right. There were two bugs/exploits in µtorrent and the devs solved these reasonably fast (unlike another very famous client) and the newest 1.7.2 should be fine again. And we all hope you will unban 1.7.2 and future clients after you have confirmed this with your own research. Of course if you find another major bug we all hope you let the devs know as soon as posible because they have proven themselves willing enough to solve these issues. And personally you all have my respect.

To the admins who banned µtorrent for the wrong reasons: There have been accusations about µtorrent sending data to the MAFIAA ever since the takeover. However in those 8 months nobody has been able to find a single shred of proof even though technical savvy people agree getting this prove would be very easy if µtorrent was indeed sending out info. People still making these claims are spreading fud and/or have NO idea what they are talking about. You can't expect this whole community and the devs of µtorrent to stay friendly after 8 months of baseless accusations and other fud. It had finally died down a bit the last few months and now is springing right up in our faces again.

The smarter admins do their research before they ban and actually give valid reasons.

Yeah you would think that after having to point all the noobs on their forums to their FAQs and rules admins would know when to do research. Although I can understand preventive temporary banning based on rumors you still do the research asap after that and come out with the proper reasons for the ban or unban.

Yeah you would think that after having to point all the noobs on their forums to their FAQs and rules admins would know when to do research. Although I can understand preventive temporary banning based on rumors you still do the research asap after that and come out with the proper reasons for the ban or unban.

You hit it 100% correct. Bandwagon banning has some merit if only used to decide what to preemptively do before your research is complete. It should not be a means to decide what to permanently do with a client. I've gone with the bandwagon a few times if a client had serious accusations against it, until I was able to disprove it, if it was disproved. In Vuze's case, it led to a timely ban on it and then I was able to prove the allegations true, as well as ill-will on the devs part after speaking to them. Hopefully, I can lead the bandwagon this time and every site will use the same version of utorrent-1.7.2, since I had the privilege of being one of the first to test it this time due to having the time and being on this site at the right time.