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Is it true that uTorrent reports back user activity ?


edition

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Hello,

Reports from knowledgeable friends indicate me that uTorrent is using "call home" code to report user activity back to the source. Some people included the information that said activity is also reported to certain copyright and law enforcement entities, and that they use it to incriminate torrent users.

I have no idea if this is an accurate information nor can I agree or disagree with it, since I simply do not know the truth. And while I generally do not use P2P for anything illegal, I do value my privacy and my rights.

I am a coder, so if I could look at uTorrent's source code, my mind could be put to peace and I could trust uTorrent as my bittorrent client.

Where can I download uTorrent's source code for this end ?

Thank you very much.

/

John

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No it's not.

Your "knowledgeable" friends aren't as knowledgeable as they claim.

Independent groups routinely packet capture data that uTorrent sends in and out using wireshark. NONE of the claims of uTorrent phoning home with such information as your "friends" claim have been proven right.

I am a coder, so if I could look at uTorrent's source code, my mind could be put to peace and I could trust uTorrent as my bittorrent client.

Where can I download uTorrent's source code for this end ?

uTorrent isn't open source.

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I see... thanks for your answer. So the fact remains that, while it can't be proven easily, it also can't be disproven... there is no way of actually knowing whether those reports are true or false, except perhaps for those users that may one day have someone banging on their door, or a letter in the mail. :)

I for one am not willing to take the risk... but I do wish all current uTorrent users good luck!

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Being a coder, I know more than enough to know that while those packet captures are a reassurance to many people, they can't be liable as 100% failproof. Not that I have seen any of them myself, or that I know and trust whomever performed them.

But that's me. Please don't let me get in the way of anyone else... people should make up their own minds. Thanks again and sorry for bothering you. :)

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I am a coder, so if I could look at uTorrent's source code, my mind could be put to peace and I could trust uTorrent as my bittorrent client.

If you are a coder (and if you think you can understand what exactly the µTorrent code does you must be familiar with tcp/udp and http) use a packet sniffer (like wireshark).

The bytes don't lie :P Devs might.

If there is anything in the packets you don't understand or trust you can ask here and see if you get a satisfactory answer. Or you can ask your 'knowledgeable' friends :P

In fact I am very interested in what exactly they think they found. Ask them to explain here. Or maybe they are afraid they might suddenly not look so 'knowledgeable' after all :P

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@Edition what your asking is something that you can't do only thing is when they look at the tracker you used that is the only way it identifies your IP and your ISP that is how they contact your ISP and send a DCMA letter and then your ISP contacts you that your in violation of their ISP contract. If you want to avoid that you will have to use a secure or outside of US proxy to stop webcrawlers from snooping on the trackers to find out who is who and from where.

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so can any of you explain WHY I see these log entries (after confirming that the "randomized" port is far from any IRC port )?

3/3/2010 1:52:13 AM Blocked by port blocking rule C:\Program Files\uTorrent\uTorrent.exe Anti-virus Standard Protection:Prevent IRC communication 78.139.58.38:6668

3/3/2010 2:08:17 AM Blocked by port blocking rule C:\Program Files\uTorrent\uTorrent.exe Anti-virus Standard Protection:Prevent IRC communication 78.139.58.38:6668

3/3/2010 2:22:53 AM Blocked by port blocking rule C:\Program Files\uTorrent\uTorrent.exe Anti-virus Standard Protection:Prevent IRC communication 78.139.58.38:6668

3/3/2010 2:38:48 AM Blocked by port blocking rule C:\Program Files\uTorrent\uTorrent.exe Anti-virus Standard Protection:Prevent IRC communication 78.139.58.38:6668

3/3/2010 2:53:05 AM Blocked by port blocking rule C:\Program Files\uTorrent\uTorrent.exe Anti-virus Standard Protection:Prevent IRC communication 78.139.58.38:6668

3/3/2010 3:07:53 AM Blocked by port blocking rule C:\Program Files\uTorrent\uTorrent.exe Anti-virus Standard Protection:Prevent IRC communication 210.64.100.31:6666

3/3/2010 3:08:53 AM Blocked by port blocking rule C:\Program Files\uTorrent\uTorrent.exe Anti-virus Standard Protection:Prevent IRC communication 71.65.214.20:6666

3/3/2010 3:14:10 AM Blocked by port blocking rule C:\Program Files\uTorrent\uTorrent.exe Anti-virus Standard Protection:Prevent IRC communication 71.94.80.230:6669

3/3/2010 3:36:37 AM Blocked by port blocking rule C:\Program Files\uTorrent\uTorrent.exe Anti-virus Standard Protection:Prevent IRC communication 78.139.58.38:6668

3/3/2010 3:50:21 AM Blocked by port blocking rule C:\Program Files\uTorrent\uTorrent.exe Anti-virus Standard Protection:Prevent IRC communication 93.103.254.205:6666

3/3/2010 5:20:47 AM Blocked by port blocking rule C:\Program Files\uTorrent\uTorrent.exe Anti-virus Standard Protection:Prevent IRC communication 87.206.2.70:6666

3/3/2010 6:04:47 AM Blocked by port blocking rule C:\Program Files\uTorrent\uTorrent.exe Anti-virus Standard Protection:Prevent IRC communication 78.139.58.38:6668

3/3/2010 7:09:38 AM Blocked by port blocking rule C:\Program Files\uTorrent\uTorrent.exe Anti-virus Standard Protection:Prevent IRC communication 60.239.248.226:6668

3/3/2010 11:11:43 AM Blocked by port blocking rule C:\Program Files\uTorrent\uTorrent.exe Anti-virus Standard Protection:Prevent IRC communication 67.204.32.100:6669

3/5/2010 7:28:35 AM Blocked by port blocking rule C:\Program Files\uTorrent\uTorrent.exe Anti-virus Standard Protection:Prevent IRC communication 84.10.15.29:6666

3/5/2010 7:29:40 AM Blocked by port blocking rule C:\Program Files\uTorrent\uTorrent.exe Anti-virus Standard Protection:Prevent IRC communication 84.10.15.29:6666

and it goes on and on....

Looks kind of suspicious to me... It is trying like hell to send data somewhere...

Can anyone elaborate on this please?

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I agree with DWK. Those log entries lack a lot of info but my guess is it's outgoing connections to a port that is commonly used to host IRC servers on.

You're firewall blocked it purely based on the destination port number.

Some of those ip:port combinations even lead to pages with 'invalid request' when tried in your browser. Which is µTorrent response when it gets a non-bittorrent connection. So these are just regular peers.

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