Jump to content

uTorrent banned on several trackers!

dumdum

By dumdum
in General

Recommended Posts

amc1 Advanced Member

amc1

Posted
Posted
Using Peer Guardian 2 or ipfilter.dat or NOT running µTorrent/BitComet/Azureus has almost NO effect on whether or not a copyright monitoring agency gets your ip on a torrent.

I stopped caring once I read someone's claim that they got a C&D letter, therefore, uTorrent must have been sending this data back "home". :o

Even though µTorrent is compressed, where is there ROOM for complex monitoring and phone-home features?

Umm... speaking from a programming perspective, I can't actually think why such features would actually take up a lot of space to implement.

The more esoteric the program is, or the more compressed it is, the longer it may take.

Again, from a progrmaming perspective, I'd say something like poorly documented code or poorly thoughout or unorganised code would probably take more time. I wonder how big the uTorrent source actually is? :)

But yes - you're pretty much preaching to the convinced here. And I don't blame you, since trying to convince that lot would be much a lot more work for a lot less gain. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • Replies 158
  • Created
  • Last Reply
Honeyfrog Advanced Member

Honeyfrog

Posted
Posted
Using Peer Guardian 2 or ipfilter.dat or NOT running µTorrent/BitComet/Azureus has almost NO effect on whether or not a copyright monitoring agency gets your ip on a torrent. The TRACKER hands them your ip without thought as to whether or not you are blocking the copyright monitoring agency's ip ranges.

They may know your IP, but if their IP is blocked at, say, my end, then there will not be proof of me trading with them, and given the massive number of traders compared to the very limited number of available court dockets, they are going to go after those who are (a) dumb enough to respond to their letters and (B) against which they have a slam-dunk, air-tight case, and, lastly, © someone whose conviction they can either "play" in the press, or soak for a fat wad of cash. The ordinary college schmo who rents a cheap apartment and drives a beater car has nothing to worry about other than, at rarest, the possibility of having to find another provider.

It's all snake oil.

It's wonderful-smelling roses when it comes to blocking fake-bots and trojan-venders, or the ability to manually enter the IPs of leeches. And there's a lot more to PeerGuardian than P2P: It's well worth it for making general web-browsing more enjoyable by turning on the Ads list (which will catch massive amounts of stuff that Firefox's Adblock Plus misses) -- I haven't seen an ad on Demonoid, et al, in years, and I never sent 'em a dime. IMO, it's on the short-list of indespensible utilities everyone should have; and I install it on machines that I service for customers.

The only question is if you will get a Cease-and-Desist letter even if you NEVER connect to a copyright monitoring agency's ips.

My personal experience doesn't represent a valid statistical sampling, but I trade 24/7 with IP-filtering software, and haven't received those letters. My conclusion is that since letters cost money when mailed out by the millions, that they're only sending them out to those whom they have a record of sending or receiving pieces of copyrighted software from.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Switeck Advanced Member

Switeck

Posted
Posted

I said "snake oil" as far as total protection goes. You certainly make yourself a harder target. But unless the torrent tracker itself is blocking most/all hostile ip ranges, your ip address will still be revealed to all who are interested.

ip blocklists have their uses, but hiding your ip on torrents is not one of them. I use an ever-growing HOSTS file to block bad websites, as it does not depend on ip addresses. ...though Peer Guardian would certainly protect better against website hijacking and redirects.

A lot of the people who use the blocklists mistakenly think the blocked ip ranges are mostly accurate...and seldom if ever update their lists. As new hostile groups appear almost daily/weekly, this approach is near-worthless. So stuff like µTorrent's DHT initial link ip is flagged as "hostile" by Bluetack/Peer Guardian crew...and most people think it really is, which is what spawned MOST of this stupidity in the first place.

Also, the article about the ZipTorrent hostiles reported ip ranges...and because the multicast ip ranges were incorrectly on the list and µTorrent does use multicast to find local peers, surely µTorrent is "hostile"!

Various antivirus and antispyware products have flagged µTorrent as "hostile" or "potentially hostile" ...mostly because of the compression scheme µTorrent uses! If such blind behavior by both companies and consumers alike continues, the internet as an open environment for free thinking and exchange of ideas will cease to exist before most people even notice.

For µTorrent to be sending MORE information than it sends to trackers, peers, and seeds...there would have to be a bit more code. But if everything µTorrent sends to every tracker were also sent to some "secret" monitoring ip, the code could be small indeed. However THAT would be pretty easy to spot in web traffic/connection logs.

For the truly paranoid, there could be a future date that monitoring software hidden in whatever program/s you use reports a LOT of private information all at once. No line monitoring up to that point would reveal anything amiss...yet you'd be vulnerable nonetheless. Microsoft has lots of such crap in their products, as some hackers discovered on reading what really *IS* reported to Microsoft when you run a Windows Update.

Even pretty well documented code sometimes hides intent. Also the structure can be confused for the logic and vice-versa. µTorrent was made with an embedded custom DLL/s and it makes a few/lot of regular DLL calls. Without complete understanding of all the referenced DLLs, the source code alone may be insufficient. It's like blind men examining an elephant.

µTorrent cannot be considered totally clean, as even "good" programs may be infected with a virus either after you get them or at the source. Also, BitTorrent.INC may decide to do something bad to µTorrent in the future. But chances are you'll hear that HERE...and FIRST...rather than from some 2-bit torrent site that thinks they have a clue about the internet. :lol:

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Honeyfrog Advanced Member

Honeyfrog

Posted
Posted
As new hostile groups appear almost daily/weekly, this approach is near-worthless.

It's not any more worthless than anti-virus or anti-spyware utilities, which are also essentially just lists. Lists "work" very well for those who aren't visiting Siberian porno sites hourly with Internet Explorer.

So stuff like µTorrent's DHT initial link ip is flagged as "hostile" by Bluetack/Peer Guardian crew...

IIRC, Sourceforge, not Bluetack, maintains the lists PG uses by default.

(Rewind) You certainly make yourself a harder target. But unless the torrent tracker itself is blocking most/all hostile ip ranges, your ip address will still be revealed to all who are interested.

That's certainly very true, but I, for one, have never maintained that the purpose of IP-blocking software was to conceal one's IP address. (That's what proxies are for.) Regards "harder target" -- that's the plan. A person using daily updated PG lists on bittorrent is going to be a harder target than virtually any other protection scheme not involving proxies. Private sites are certainly no guarantee that you won't be trading with "moles".

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Switeck Advanced Member

Switeck

Posted
Posted

I said "Bluetack/Peer Guardian crew" because I don't really know who to blame. :P

"It's not any more worthless than anti-virus or anti-spyware utilities, which are also essentially just lists."

Many of the lists "maintained" by the above-mentioned crew are over 1 YEAR out-of-date. I put some effort into investigating some of the ranges for accuracy and found a lot more than I bargained for...many of the regions I searched turned out to be anything BUT what they said they were. Even then, it seemed like the ip ranges were reported by people with axes-to-grind or hostile plants. Also, my searches specifically in the 38.x.x.x address range revealed too-narrow ranges to cover all the rampant invasive and hostile companies out to destroy file-sharing. I pretty much gave up in disgust when it seemed like the vast majority of ranges were nonsensical (such as always starting with x.x.x.1 or ending with x.x.x.254 even when covering more than 256 ips)...or at least not what they said they were. Most of my WHOIS searches turned up deadzones that mapped to nothing. While they could easily be hostiles, they can also be fake/inactive ips (bogons) injected into peer lists by other hostiles to disguise their true source. ...or by "broken"/buggy clients on accident.

Why is this important to µTorrent being banned on several trackers?

Because they too are using these same blocklists as "evidence" that µTorrent is doing something "fishy".

...That and a fundamental misunderstanding in how BitTorrent, file-sharing, and even networking in general work. (ips try to recontact old peers/seeds even when disconnected...often seen as "hostile" traffic on firewalls.)

Bad data often leads to false conclusions.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Switeck Advanced Member

Switeck

Posted
Posted

If you wanted to be safe®, all this:

38.0.0.0-40.255.255.255

...but I'd only use that range in ipfilter.dat rather than as a Peer Guardian block, because so many commercial websites run in the 38.x.x.x range. If I ever see a 38.x.x.x ip blocked, I sometimes bother to do a little research to remove it if I'm pretty sure it's non-hostile...but they're more the exception than the rule!

Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • 4 weeks later...
Lord Alderaan Advanced Member

Lord Alderaan

Posted
Posted

Actually µtorrent secretly enables the V-chip in your computer (these are disabled by default to prevent large companies like Dell and HP to be sued over it but are mandatory to install according to federal law) so that the government can see and control your internet behavior.

[edit]And yes AGAIN I'm kidding'!!!

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Pixelated Member

Pixelated

Posted
Posted

Why are we even talking about this anymore? Bottom line if you like µTorrent use it and enjoy, if you don't and are afraid of being arrested for DMCA violations, then don't use it and don't pirate software. I'm so tired of hearing the same shit about how this program is acting suspicious.

I heard that when you least expect it µTorrent calls 900 numbers....

I was downloading porn and it started sending e-mails to the MPAA...

Joe said trackers are banning it because Universal Pictures owns it now...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Go to topic listing
×
×
  • Create New...