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DOS type "attack" due to u-torrent?


billhard

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Dear Sir,

I have a ADSL account with a service provider (SP) on an Island. My service is capped at 5GB per month with a hefty overuse surcharge. I occasionally use U-torrent to download video files - no more than once a month. When not in use my computer is always off; U-torrent is never run in the background when not required. My router is generally left on; I think the SP uses a static IP address. Between 1st and 11th May my SP logged over 6 GB of traffic on my account. My activity only accounted for 2GB of this traffic. On investigation, my service provider discovered that multiple sites were continuously "pinging" my router directly - regardless of whether or not my computer was actually on. The service provider is insisting that this is the result of my having used U-torrent in the past. Is this in fact true?

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It wouldn't be an attack, not unless someones doing something REALLY stupid.

If by sites they meant other peers and by "pinging" they meant connection attempts rather then actual pinging, well, some attempts to connect to you would be made by others but it slows down pretty quickly as people realize you aren't on (I believe the norm is to double the time between every failed attempt, to a point, till giving up completely), it's not really continuous. I can't imagine it using 4 GB of traffic either, even in that time frame (though that may simply be a failure on my part). I'd try to get more information, as well as run wireshark for a while to see how much traffic you get and what kind (I think it can graph it for you).

Powering off your ADSL router may also be a viable option.

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Many thanks for this helpful reply. Could you perhaps tell me if peers will still attempt to connect if I am offline, or if U-torrent is not loaded? Also - shouldn't my server's firewall stop this sort of traffic? I have powered down the router (several times) but the problem persisted; I assume a new IP address will sort that out...?

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of course they will try to connect, there's no way for them to know that you're unavailable if they don't try. and if your server (whatever that might be) stopped that traffic you wouldn't be able to use torrents. a new ip address would solve the problem of peers constantly trying to connect to your client even though it is offline, but that simply is not the case.

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