My warning: being ignorant of BitTorrent stats "cheating" can still get you banned

[Jaits]

did u by any chance install WM Recorder on ur computer?

[Spillage]

Sorry to hear about your TheBox hassle BWA123 . I'd say welcome to FST, but judging by the amount of negative replies, i doubt you'll be staying long .

Anyway, for all the people laughing at the unintentional cheating idea, here's exactly how it's possible, on TheBox .

Upon joining TheBox , i checked the usual FAQ's & Rules, including the Allowed/Banned Torrent Clients thread . I use the latest stable version of Utorrent, downloaded directly from the Utorrent.com, so it hasn't been modified by anyone ( i've neither the inclination or knowledge to do so myself) . It's allowed, so i'm good to go . For some reason, i carry on reading & find the following in the Banned Clients list :-

WM Recorder (Do NOT install this - u will get an instant ban with this software installed)

WTF , i've used that . That's not a torrent client, it's for ripping audio streams from net radio . Luckily, i'd found an alternative source for the radio shows i was after & had uninstalled WM Recorder prior to joining TheBox .
Otherwise, i could have been banned, for cheating, unintentionally .

[BWA123]

did u by any chance install WM Recorder on ur computer?

Ack, yes! I've actually had WM Recorder on my computer for ages, but rarely use it - and when I have used it in the past, I always closed down uTorrent, because I wanted to devote all of my bandwidth to the video stream that I was recording. But I did use it to record something for a couple of hours on Sunday evening (Korean footie that I capped for fbtz.com), and I was banned from thebox for "cheating' on late Sunday evening. Must be that I was recording with WM Record and had my uTorrent open at the same time. I guess that would explain it!

According to Spillage above, the FAQ says that having WM Recorder results in a ban, but I was honestly unaware of this. I read the rules/FAQ inside and out when I joined 53 weeks ago, and regularly read the system announcements, but I don't recall ever reading about WM Recorder. I assume that the discovery of problems involving WM Recorder came up (and was added to the FAQ) within the past year?

Jaits, given that I've been a member of TheBox for more than one year, is there any chance you could let one of the admins know that this was what was causing "cheating" stats to appear on my account? If my thebox stats got messed up on Sunday evening, I don't mind if the admins take 5 or 10 gigs off of my ratio to make up for it. I would hope that my long-standing status on thebox would have some sway...

[Jaits]

i have already enabled ur account... make sure u uninstall the software be4 u hit the tracker again or else it will re-disable u

[Spillage]

According to Spillage above, the FAQ says that having WM Recorder results in a ban, but I was honestly unaware of this. I read the rules/FAQ inside and out

It's not in the FAQ or Rules, it's in the Forums, specifically the Read This First section .

Anyhoo , welcome back & au revoir to WM Recorder .

[saimer]

Glad to see a happy ending for BWA123.
The moral of this story -
Instead of educating myself how cheat works, I'd rather spending time to re-read rules, FAQs, and sticky posts in forum on every tracker I have.

[Funkin']

Well...I guess this just goes to show that not everyone that posts here about an account disabling has not necessarily cheated on purpose. Glad it worked out for you BWA.

[Tokeman]

^something to think about. but many people argue this isnt true because the torrent has a private flag. i, personally, wouldnt risk it

I don't think it can happen even when you put DHT on ... the tracker-side won't allow it

Well I dont agree with that one bit.
Not sure how things work now, or exactly what happened to be before, but:
Back when i first started working with torrents, I stumbled apon an unusual thing. There were torrents on TL I could not download due to wait times. I found a way around this using DHT. I would dl the torrent, set DHT to on, and wait. With some luck (didn't work all the time) eventually I would start getting peers and data, even though the tracker status was red saying wait time blah blah.

Now this doesn't work, but it did at one point, leeding me to the conclusion that DHT is not controlled by the tracker, in fact, its on the client and client only. Once my client found a peer that was using TL and on the same torrent as me, it would update my peers list and off I went.

Note: I dont condone this, I was new to torrents at the time, and this was years ago. Doubt it would work anyway, but this is my disclaimer for safety, lol.

[BWA123]

Thank you. Jaits. I really appreciate your efforts - especially taking the time to think of why this might have happened, and suggesting WM Recorder. Rest assured it is off my system.

Thanks to everyone else who had helpful things to say as well. This is a cool little forum. Shame I hadn't found it earlier.

[rulereric]

Can someone explain how WM Recorder affects stats a torrent client tells a tracker?