Comments on: BitTorrent poisoned by Aurora

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Mon, 27 Jun 2005 13:07:50 +0000

my bandwidth on winmx has dissapeared…if aurora how do I identify it and get rid of it?

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Wed, 22 Jun 2005 02:12:54 +0000

SpammerSlapper is located at http://www.plaza1.net/SpammerSlapper

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Fri, 17 Jun 2005 23:07:37 +0000

Its not the client thats the problem nor the .torrent file. Its the file that you are downloading VIA bittorrent thats infected. I have seen a disturbing trend, small .exe files following downloads that are not listed on the download site but I see them show up as being downloaded via Azureus from the seeder. They don’t effect me as I run Linux. I have started complaining to the administrators of sites that host the torrent files that do this and some have been taken down.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Fri, 17 Jun 2005 14:11:04 +0000

but either way, people using bittorrent are now liable to get hit with these files if theyre not careful.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Fri, 17 Jun 2005 12:43:39 +0000

I think that what he meant was that Aurora was using a BitTorrent client to dl the Ad/Mal-ware content. It may be fearmongering but I think it is entirely possible to create a BT client that runs entirely in the background, silently, and which receives a torrent pointing to a tracker. All that you’d then need is a seeder.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Fri, 17 Jun 2005 07:30:33 +0000

I’ve seen this story reported a few places, and it makes no sense. BitTorrent is not a centralized distribution tool — you add a .torrent file to the right directory and you join in with other people who have the same .torrent file to share the file (or directory) that is referenced in that .torrent file. I really don’t see how a third party could just add files without being the creator of the torrent file.

Is the real problem that people are downloading .torrent files from unknown locations? This is no different than downloading executables from an unknown place and trusting it. It isn’t BitTorrent that has the adware, but the source of the .torrent file….

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Thu, 16 Jun 2005 23:55:49 +0000

BitTorrent is a protocol, not a “program” per se.

A “Client” program is used to dl/ul files useing the
Bittorrent PROTOCOL.

There are MANY bittorrent client packages available,
from many different sources. Some CLIENT packages
have spyware/Adware/Malware.
Some very good ones, do not.

I use Bitlord, which has no spyware/adware/malware.

This appears to be a neat attempt at “fearmongering”

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Thu, 16 Jun 2005 23:52:58 +0000

That’s a very funny and original idea ! But won’t they brag about the traffic they’re getting?

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Thu, 16 Jun 2005 23:10:00 +0000

I am almost finished with SpammerSlapper. This is a signed java applet
that instructs computers to download webpages of sites advetised by spam. The information is discarded and is used strictly to raise bandwidth costs. The good part is that the list of sites the applet downloads is embedded in the webpage that hosts the applet.