world torrent/p2p networks

[diesel_tron3000]

hey everyone. i'm new to the site. i've haven't used a torrent program since around the spring of 2007 and i wanted to see if anyone could spread some knowledge about the state of the torrent/p2p networks that span the globe.

one of my friends recently found his computer infected with a pretty terrible trojan that turned into a completely godawful rootkit. of course the first thing i asked was if he had been downloading anything and he had downloaded some crap (he wasn't using utorrent). it sparked my curiosity though, because from 2004 to about 2007 i used p2p networks to download a lot of things and never had any serious problems with viruses save for maybe 3 random hijacker experiences which i knew how to deal with.

my understanding of p2p networks these days is that they are used to infect computers and integrate them into a botnet for use in denial-of-service attacks; the unsuspecting user downloading legal and illegal content (mostly illegal? movies, warez, etc). i came to this conclusion after downloading several less than reputable p2p clients and studying how they wanted to configure my firewall, like what ports they wanted to open and what servers they wanted to communicate with. i then checked these servers on macaffee's website scanner, followed the rabbit hole and found the programs wanted to connect to servers in europe, china, russia and other places where i know cybergangs are known to operate. i also cross-referenced the port opening requests with a list of known entry ports for various trojans and worms, and the results were somewhat dismal.

is my analysis accurate? or has this always been the case for the majority of less than due-diligent torrent/p2p users?

i ask all this only because i know to be wary for this stuff, but i feel that the majority of people using p2p networks don't have a clue. also, sorry if i broke any of the rules; i felt i would get a good response from the utorrent forum seeing as it was the most highly rated torrent client i found.

[Switeck]

BitTorrent is made up of micro-networks, which are for 1 torrent each.

These are only very loosely connected via DHT.

Unless you download *AND* install/run a torrent that is actually hostile software, it is nearly impossible to get malware via BitTorrent...unless you're using older versions (pre v1.8).