"Get UseNeXT..."

[silverfire]

Selling tinfoil hats...

[Ultima]

@alangiv: You're worried that he'll give into his second objective to make some money, but you seem to not realize he's already made money from µTorrent, however little it may be (donation, ads, etc). The difference is that he hasn't, and won't sacrifice µTorrent's cleanliness for more. Want to prove the code is clean? Sniff the packets and find out if there's traffic that shouldn't be happening.

Have you ever met Bill Gates (if so, then pick another software you use whose author you've never met )? Even the products you may use, from food to appliances, you'll likely never meet their creators/inventors/whatever-ors, and a lot of times you'll never know if they add something malicious to the product. That's probably going a little overboard, but the point is that you're not going to meet a lot of the people who make the things you use, and you'll just have to trust.

[alangiv]

1. If the only reason for not releasing the sources is because of the threat of hacked versions, then there is a serious problem with the µTorrent (bittorrent) network. Obviously the security/reliablity of the network depends on the software, so its a catch 22 situation. I sure there must be *some* way to create a secure network in which security can be maintained.

2. It makes no difference if he releases the source or not from the perspective that it might get hacked - so what if µTorrent clients are re-compiled into hacked versions? What does that mean? I can re-compile bitcomet and have it masquerade as µTorrent? So? And if you mean that it could expose weaknesses in the software itself, well thats great - they can be fixed before they become exploited. Here is the #1 rule about security (incl. software): A false sense of security is worse than no security at all. If you need to hide a system's implemenation in order to make it "secure", chances are it is NOT secure.

3. I never met Bill Gates, but I do know that many major corporations, goverments and millitaries use their products. At least I know that Microsoft programs are *fairly* trustworthy. They may be mal/crapware themselves, but at least not on purpose.

Companies that derive their income from producing & selling software (and not media accessed by the software) would not risk inserting bad code as a company policy, especially not Public companies. You might get the odd bad-apple programmer, but it would not be a strategic decision. That means that I can trust IBM, MS, Corel, Adobe, Autodesk etc. But if its free and forum/web-based messages are my only guarantees of morals (not $$$), then I tend to wonder.

One thing about big corporations and their money: the more they have, the more they have to lose. These days the media have a field day on every little fart out there - Britney Spears burps and more than a Billion people know about it the next day. The same for corporations of any shape or size - bad publicity can hurt their income. Subsequently, that is not something they are willing to play with.

[Ultima]

My argument never was, and still isn't about security through obscurity. We didn't say µTorrent was secure because it's closed source, we said keeping its source closed mitigates the stupid forks. Good for you (or anyone) who can hack BitComet to do what they want, ludde does not want to see his code modified to include cheating tactics. Not releasing the source code isn't about preventing some security exploit in the network, it's about preventing hammering against other clients and trackers. It's about mitigating ratio cheating on trackers that keep track of ratios. It's about keeping the integrity of ludde's code. Heh since you're arguing because you don't believe ludde's code is (or will continue to be) clean, I doubt you'd believe that last line.

You have to have a certain level of trust if you wish to use anything on the Internet. Yeah, people use social engineering to exploit that, but if you can't trust an application regardless of what its developer says, just because it's not open source or it does not belong to some large corporation that has its reputation to lose (heh I guess Sony's DRM rootkit makes Sony not such a large corporation -- they definitely made a strategic attempt at protecting their content), then I don't know how I'm supposed to say anything more. I guess you just can't use any other application available on the 'net if it doesn't belong to some large company with a big reputation.

[junglemike]

You know what I think?

- I think that people who use utorrent are at least not among those who can be caught on this trap.

I mean come on... I can bet nobody in this thread hadn't been actually caught by this trap (meaning: installing usenext while thinking it's affiliated with utorrent).

And i bet anybody at all who use utorrent isn't going to be trapped.

After all, this link is not to the .exe file that downloads right away.

It redirects you to usenext site. So unless you are really really don't know what you are doing on your pc - you will immediately realize that you have been redirected to another site.

And if you really that computer noob (i don't want to use word dumb - because you might be very clever person, knowing little about computers/internet) - you probably have tons of malware on your computer, and usenext will be a least of your problems.

I worked 2 years as help desk and I know that _majority_ of people who *try to* use computer are incapable of installing any software at all.

[WebReaper]

Well said.

[alangiv]

Listen, I am talking more about protecting the average Joe here, not the seasoned Linux hacker. We can take care of ourselves, but most cannot. I never clicked on the UseNeXT crap link, but recognized it within 0.05sec as a scam. But the UseNeXT link is only the tip of the iceberg (or maybe not, as some would like to believe).

Bottom line: Most of us use bittorrent clients for ("il")legal purposes - [specifics removed]. We are *vulnerable* to any form of tracking/monitoring when it comes to our actions. It worries me and should seriously worry EVERYbody else when the author of your client software is getting funded and/or in any way related to organization(s) interested in preventing distribution of protected media/software and/or prosecuting downloaders. Think about that.

I call this type of ignoring facts as the Ostrich syndrome - stick your head in the sand and ignore the facts. Ostriches don't really stick their heads in the sand, just in case anyone wants to try correct me on this.

[WebReaper]

If you're that worried, stop using uTorrent, and stop downloading stuff via bittorrent.

Frankly, I'd rather Ludde was upfront about who he's making money from (irrelevant of the fact that I don't agree with UseNext) than potentially not knowing who he's in bed with.

I call this sort of stirring up paranoia "Lemming syndrome".

[Ultima]

Wait, so UseNeXT is suddenly an organization "interested in preventing distribution of" copyright material? What is this? I thought it was (supposedly) a scam site? And if you're using µTorrent for illegal purposes, *you're* stealing from the copyright owners, so why would you be trying to correct ludde's (supposedly) bad moral standings? That's not to say µTorrent is doing anything morally wrong or reporting any sensitive information back to anyone -- it most certainly is not -- but it sounds like you've a double-standard to me.

[WebReaper]

Good point, well made Ultima (which is why I said it in post #113 in this thread )

[junglemike]

C'mon guys... Look at torrentspy.com search portal or almost any other torrent search portal for that matter - where you are redirected to when you do a search in the utorrent. - There's so many ads that you can hardly find a line to input a text to search, including usenext ads.

Anyone who writes in this thread: I don't know you, your name, your occupations, or how clever your are. But i'm sure that pure fact that you was able to reguster on this forum and post here - means that you have 3 times (computer-related-)intelligence to avoid being caught on this trap.

Theoretical question:

Suppose FBI, MPAA, RIAA etc comes to Ludde, and thretens his family and forces him to include a malicious code in the next reliese of utorrent that would see what files you download and report back to FBI/MPAA.. - so that whey could prosecute you.

Now, is that possible to hide a traffic , which would report back to those organisations?

So that even firewall would not find anything suspicious?

Maybe hide it amont other p2p (using bittorrent protocol) traffic to a pre-defined clint.

So that those organisations would know your IP, and exactly what illegal files you are downloading.

Is that possible form technical ability standpoint of view? (not moral standpoint of course) ?

[WebReaper]

Of course it's technically possible, but why would Ludde do that? What would it gain him? (I'm intentionally ignoring the bit about them threatening his family - that is just plain daft).

But why would the MPAA/RIAA bother involving Ludde (or even uTorrent)? We're all identifiable by IP, so all the MPAA has to do is jump on a popular public torrent, list the IPs of all the peers, and then trace the IPs back through the ISP to find out who was using that IP at that time. They can do that now regardless of BT client.

If you're concerned about being prosecuted for downloading illegal material, there's only two options:

1. Don't download illegal material.

2. Use somebody else's computer.

[redubb]

It is disappointing to see utorrent advertising this so-called "company". There many other ways to make money without advertising a alleged scam site. They are not even a real usenet company, they have no "server farm", they just resell supernews usenet at a higher price.

Have some integrity ffs and ditch the link.

[Ultima]

lol again with abiding by good moral principles... I personally don't like the links, but I dislike it even more when I see people holding double standards to ludde (or anyone else for that matter).

FFS people, if you're going to be doing something dishonest, don't be telling other people to "have some integrity." Yeah, there are some of you who *do* download legal torrents only, and are complaining, but I'm willing to bet a majority of people telling ludde to be moral are not moral themselves. Want someone else to be morally correct? You set the example first.

[DonGato]

I think nobody stated they are not doing wrong... just that what ludde does is wrong (in their scrutiny) and has no justification.

And I remember the days when the FAQ promoted and explained how to use RSS to download series. If we talk about morals here and at this time nobody will be left unstained. So morals of others have nothing to do here IMO, just leave them out.

[jsac]

a little reading for all those interested in what a bunch of scumbags the usenext "company" are

http://www.slyck.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=26238

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14359842

[NOP]

@jsac: This has all been posted and discussed before in this thread.

But the point is not, what kind of company UseNext is, I don't care if it were a link to download WinDVD, a link to order the best wine in the world or a link with instructions to rob a bank or hijack Bill Gates.

The point is: it is not visble that it is an ad. The headline reads:

"Download µTorrent now - It's Free.".

Under this headline you find

- Get µTorrent 1.6 Standalone (170 kB)

- Get µTorrent 1.6 Installation Program (597 kB)

- Get UseNeXT - Download files without uploading

all in the same style, using the same font. It intends to make the impression that it is a product related to utorrent. Even more as the text "Advertisment" has been removed by orders of Ludde.

Of course, as Firon honestly said, this way more users click this link, as they don't recognize it as an ad/sponsored link. So the aim is to intentionally mislead average users coming from utorrent.com to enter the UseNext site (every website can trace back, where you come from) or even contract with them, whatever is required to initiate the payment to Ludde.

It is not wrong to earn any money from this website, it is not wrong to have a UseNext ad, but it is wrong to mislead people intentionally.

[tjobo]

I don't mind Ludde getting some payment for his work. Dumb users who clicks on everyhing and also deciding to give away their credit card on another site without reading the agreements just have to blame themselves. There are several catches where you SHOULD be suspicious before you actually pay something.

[D_IMMORTAL]

firon said the (Advertisement) text was removed because people don't click on the link otherwise.

if ludde gets paid for people clicking on the link instead of just the people who sign up for the service

i say support µtorrent click the link as often as poss.

just close out the window

hosting is not free neither is equip.

help the devs in any way u can

they have put a lot of TIME and EFFORT into µtorrent

and they really dont ask for much in return

if u dont like how they decide to make up for some of the cost

then dont visit the site

and quit your bitchin'