uTorrent 1.6.1

**freakyflow7** · 02-19-2007, 09:09 PM

I don't believe what you're saying is true crossfade. Az had that up on their website stating that information was being sent back.. they even gave you the chance to select "no" to sending anonymous info at install.

**dollyoops** · 02-19-2007, 09:13 PM

Originally Posted by crossfade

it's that the feature was hidden

Hidden?

Well that depends. The source code that does it isn't hidden away, the data in the transmitted packet is encrypted to hide what is being sent.

What we do have is poorly maintained checkbox text in the Options -> Interface page ("Allow Azureus to send anonymous version number and random ID while checking for new version"). It did used to do just that - then as time has passed and things have been added to it, the text for the option hasn't changed. So something should probably be done about that.

There's a good wiki link indicating what is sent to the server - hopefully the Options page will link to it in future to make it clearer what's going on:
http://www.azureuswiki.com/index.php...on.aelitis.com

and staff from a BT tracker had to report it before they did something about it.

Well - yes. The only reason the upload / download stats were removed were due to a few complaints from people. Not that there was anything wrong with sending the statistics, but the developers took it out just to keep them happy, even though they know it has no real benefit to anyone at all.

If the phone home feature was not discovered by that staff, then it would continue sending data for years, woudn't it?

Until the developers took it out, yes. I'm not entirely sure what difference that makes, given that it's not reporting anything confidential or incriminating.

I'm not claiming that AZ devs do want anything bad to happen to their users but if the report home function was there it means they implemented it on purpose, right?

report home?

Look - this functionality does two things. One is how the software is being used - things like what operating system people are using, what version of Java, what screen size - this helps development of the program. Not a bad thing.

The second is to pass on information which the server can send back to the user. Running an older version - get this new version! Got a crappy ISP using traffic throttling - set the encryption settings like this! And so on.

So., err... what's the problem again - I mean, apart from the poor labelling of an option (which something should be done about it)? That it could potentially do something bad even though it doesn't?

By the way - this functionality certainly hasn't disappeared. The only thing taken out was the byte counts.

**dollyoops** · 02-19-2007, 09:17 PM

Originally Posted by reachnet

Any good links on this Az behaviour ?
I've not actually been interested in that aspect of Az up till now - but I'd like to "backtrack" to figure out the history of it.

I could point you to the source code in question if you really want.

You could read a post by "tuxpaper", one of the Azureus devs if you like:
https://sourceforge.net/forum/messag...msg_id=4160592

**reachnet** · 02-19-2007, 09:29 PM

Originally Posted by dollyoops

Originally Posted by reachnet

Any good links on this Az behaviour ?
I've not actually been interested in that aspect of Az up till now - but I'd like to "backtrack" to figure out the history of it.

I could point you to the source code in question if you really want.

You could read a post by "tuxpaper", one of the Azureus devs if you like:
https://sourceforge.net/forum/messag...msg_id=4160592

Thanks m8 - you've given me more than enough to "do my own digging" as it were.