Attention Utorrent users!

[bedake]

If you are a member of demonoid.com check this out http://www.demonoid.com/forum/index.php?topic=80552.0



If not:

Quote
March 4, 2006
Michael Ingram


According to a statement by PeerFactor, the lead developer of µTorrent, Ludvig Strigeus, has agreed to help develop â??new content distribution applications on the Webâ?�.

The developer has signed a contract with PeerFactor for an initial six month evaluation period.

Since the public release of uTorrent in September, the client has risen to the number one spot on Slyckâ??s list of BitTorrent clients for Windows, as voted by users. This is mostly due to the tiny memory usage, which is around 6MB, compared to second most popular, Azureus, which is typically over 70MB. Yet uTorrent remains feature-rich.

By developing the PeerFactor software, which uses the BitTorrent protocol, Strigeus will be entitled to a share of any advertising revenue generated by the final product.

This move into the authorised distribution market is a step away from anti-P2P technology for PeerFactor, which is a subsidiary of French anti-piracy group RetSpan.

PeerFactor shot to notoriety in April 2004 by giving financial rewards to file sharers for spreading fake files and directing downloaders to authorised download sites.

News that µTorrent are selling their software will fuel speculation as to why uTorrent has remained close source, which is extremely uncommon for BitTorrent clients.

This is not of concern to Strigeus, who told Slyck News, â??This doesn't affect µTorrent, it's just a side project. If people like to be paranoid, I won't stop them.â?�

Strigeus denies that he is helping PeerFactor fight the P2P community by providing the coding.

â??The agreement says that the software will be used to distribute legal content over the internet. In my understanding, everything in our agreement says that it will be used for downloading legal content,â?� Strigeus told Slyck News.

Although Strigeus rejects that he knew PeerFactorâ??s history of attacking and disrupting P2P networks, he defends working with the company now he does know.

â??Just because I sell cleaning services to Microsoft doesn't mean I like Windows.â?�

Slyck article here:
http://slyck.com/news.php?story=1117

uTorrent forum thread here:
http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?id=7038

past articles about peerfactor/retspan:
http://www.zeropaid.com/news/article.../05062004h.php
http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=602



now, for some of the issues that have been brought up in the slyck.com thread:


Quote from: Malicious Intent (author of slyck article)
Although Strigeus rejects that he knew PeerFactorâ??s history of attacking and disrupting P2P networks, he defends working with the company now he does know.


Quote from: Smoovious (uTorrent development team)
For the record, Ludvig was not aware of PeerFactor's ties to RetSpan at the time he signed the contract with PeerFactor.

I was present during the interview Mike had with Ludvig.

Ludvig didn't know anything about the RetSpan connection, or that PeerFactor was distributing fake content to begin with. He found out about all of this from Mike.



from the utorrent forum, a copy of irc logs provided by Firon, the website administrator, in response #56:
http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?id=7038&p=3
screen here
Quote
12:43:20) (@segosa) so, since you didn't answer in the thread, did you really have no clue about them before you signed, ludde?
(12:44:35) (~ludde) I knew that they had done some anti p2p, but I didn't think it was such a big deal.
(12:44:48) (~ludde) and the stuff I was involved it wasn't related to that anyway.
so, ludde's own statements contradict the article and what smoovious had to say about it. those are the words from the man's own keyboard (unless Firon, a trusted admin of the uTorrent website is lying...)


Quote from: ludde
It's not like this will affect µTorrent. We did not sign a deal about µTorrent, we signed a deal that I will provide them with code that implements the Bittorrent protocol. This code will be used in an ad supported file distribution system webmasters can use to publish big content.
http://www.slyck.com/forums/viewtopi...=270004#270004

Quote from: ludde
If the recent deal with PeerFactor turns out to be about limiting file sharing, or making it harder for pirates in any possible or imaginable way, then I will terminate our agreement promtly and concisely.
http://www.slyck.com/forums/viewtopi...=270340#270340


shouldn't you be perfectly aware of what you signed the contract for, and what limitations and usage restrictions are placed on the code you provided them?

(((warning: opinion)))
if the lead programmer/developer of a program inks a deal with an anti-p2p company, it's only resonable to question what may happen with his other projects if the right amount of money is offered. especially after the developer has initially made statements that he didn't know of PeerFactor's involvement with anti-p2p. he had multiple chances after reading the article and the statement from one of his development team, to clear up what he actually knew about PeerFactor. yet it comes out in a post by his website administrator that he actually knew all along that PeerFactor was involved with anti-p2p work. if this doesn't raise a red flag, I don't know what does. are you going to trust someone who has intentionally misled you?


I think it speaks volumes that none of my questions or points of conversation have been discussed by ludde in the slyck thread. I'm sorry the last thread was attributed to 'rumor mongering' and it took the turn it did. perhaps we can keep this one civil. there are no rumors stated anywhere in this post. all links to statments are provided above.

and yes, I was a user of uTorrent before this story broke, and before that, I used BitTornado for the previous 2 years. I have never been a fan of Azureus as some have accused me of, nor do I have hidden motives for my posts. I'm just a simple filesharer, who can't support a program that's programmed by someone who's working with an anti-p2p company, and who has misled people.
(((/opinion)))

bedake Reviewed by bedake on 03-08-2006. Attention Utorrent users! If you are a member of demonoid.com check this out http://www.demonoid.com/forum/index.php?topic=80552.0 If not: Quote March 4, 2006 Michael Ingram Rating: 5

[lemonboy]

LOL. Just out of curiosity, why isn't anyone throwing up their hands about his capitalization on Bram Cohen's technology in the first place? Seems some people really like to pick and choose their battles.

[SomeGuy]

Ive tried uTorrent....but I still much prefer bitComet...even though so many of my fellow demonoid users bitch about it...

[bedake]

azureus is my second pick over utorrent im comfortable with it

today my utorrent asked if i wanted to update to the next version, im assuming it was released within the past 3 days since i havent ran it since like monday.... i denied it haha