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µTorrent is the world’s most popular BitTorrent client. Most of the features present in other BitTorrent clients are present in µTorrent, including bandwidth prioritization, scheduling, RSS auto-downloading and Mainline DHT (compatible with BitComet). Additionally, µTorrent supports the Protocol Encryption joint specification (compatible with Azureus 2.4.0.0 and above, BitComet 0.63 and above) and peer exchange.

µTorrent was written with efficiency in mind. Unlike many torrent clients, it does not hog valuable system resources – typically using less than 6MB of memory, allowing you to use the computer as if it weren’t there at all. Additionally, the program itself is contained within a single executable less than 220 KB in size.

uTorrent Changelog:

– 2009-08-27: Version 1.8.4 (build 16286)
- Fix: Fixed negative allocation in RequestChunks() for web seeds
- Fix: Fix startup race condition between network and disk I/O thread
- Fix: installer with UAC
- Fix: Crashes when removing labels
- Fix: selection of labels over 256 characters in length

– 2009-08-12: Version 1.8.4 (build 16150)
- Feature: Enabled magnet bundles.
- Change: run the 64 bit version of explorer when running as a 32 bit app in a 64 bit windows OS.
- Change: disable toolbar offers for Wine installs
- Change: uninstaller is added to all user profiles
- Fix: crash when assigning new label to torrents from RSS
- Change: Incomplete downloads sort after completed downloads if sorting by “Completed On”
- Fix: maintain category list selection on update for some edge cases
- Change: if selected, install start menu and desktop shortcuts to all users instead of only current user
- Fix: buffer overrun vulnerability in create torrent dialog
- Fix: Check at startup for incompatible versions of NVIDIA nForce firewall

Download µTorrent 1.8.4

Most of the features present in other BitTorrent clients are present in µTorrent, including bandwidth prioritization, scheduling, RSS auto-downloading and Mainline DHT (compatible with BitComet). Additionally, µTorrent supports the Protocol Encryption joint specification (compatible with Azureus 2.4.0.0 and above, BitComet 0.63 and above) and peer exchange.

µTorrent was written with efficiency in mind. Unlike many torrent clients, it does not hog valuable system resources – typically using less than 6MB of memory, allowing you to use the computer as if it weren’t there at all. Additionally, the program itself is contained within a single executable less than 220 KB in size.

Download µTorrent 1.8.1 Stable

Changes:
— 2008-10-06: Version 1.8.1 (build 12616)
- Fix: disconnect inactive peers sometimes not taking effect
- Fix: rare crash with very large peer lists

— 2008-10-02: Version 1.8.1 RC1 (build 12549)
- Feature: detect IPv4 external IP from Teredo address
- Change: revert “remaining” bytes to seeding goal change
- Fix: parsing of IPs with leading zeros, in ipfilter.dat

— 2008-09-29: Version 1.8.1 beta (build 12495)
- Feature: Remaining column displays bytes left to meet seed goal, when seeding (webui too)
- Fix: crash when deleteing torrent data
- Fix: do not log about moving torrent data if it is already in the correct place
- Fix: do not leave webui password field blank if no change occurred
- Fix: parsing of URLs with username:password@
- Fix: avoid duplicate connections with the same ID
- Fix: a few UPnP log messages
- Fix: crashes on Vista when network was changed (VPN, enabled/disabled, hibernation)

— 2008-09-21: Version 1.8.1 beta (build 12323)
- Fix: diskio.no_zero also when not pre-allocating
- Fix: magnet URI .torrent storage path still was not being set

— 2008-09-20: Version 1.8.1 beta (build 12320)
- Feature: diskio.no_zero, to avoid zeroing a file during allocation, where available (>= XP)
- Fix: kB/s truncated off upload speed in speed guide
- Fix: connection distribution system with large number of torrents and a low global limit

— 2008-09-19: Version 1.8.1 beta (build 12285)
- Feature: parse ‘downloaded’ if sent with announce response
- Change: do not include IPv6 addresses in ‘Copy Peer List’ if IPv6 is not installed (fixes []:12345)
- Fix: store .torrents from magnet URIs in correct storage path
- Fix: halfopen miscount with aborted https connections

— 2008-09-12: Version 1.8.1 beta (build 12183)
- Fix: duplicate connections to same IP
- Fix: canceled connection counting (solves tracker stuck in “updating…”)

— 2008-09-10: Version 1.8.1 beta (build 12154)
- Fix: IP detection on < Win2k
- Change: write DefaultIcon for .torrent association

--- 2008-09-09: Version 1.8.1 beta (build 12132)
- Fix: crash with udp:// URLs

--- 2008-09-09: Version 1.8.1 beta (build 12130)
- Feature: resolve hostnames through SOCKS4a and HTTPS proxies
- Feature: add option for hostname resolution through proxies
- Feature: isp.bep22, default off, inactive for private torrents (see: http://bittorrent.org/beps/bep_0022.html)
- Feature: report successful upgrade, with statistics
- Change: make room for the 'Downloaded' column header
- Change: save resume file when graceful_shutdown is off and the time runs out
- Fix: handle timed out sockets that connect eventually
- Fix: crash with guest login for the webui
- Fix: remove Teredo-specific logic from IPv6 support
- Fix: IPv6 with SOCKS5
- Fix: literal IPv6 addresses in tracker and web seed URLs

--- 2008-09-05: Version 1.8.1 beta (build 12083)
- Feature: Double clicking RSS feed in category view edits feed
- Change: Filter RSS log messages
- Fix: guest account for webui
- Fix: move halfopen counting improvements - should fix "tracker stuck in offline state" errors
- Fix: work around Kaspersky bug with DNS SRV records

--- 2008-08-29: Version 1.8.1 beta (build 12024)
- Change: reduce coalesce_write_size back to 2MB
- Fix: improved halfopen counting
- Fix: slow load with slow drives that are present

--- 2008-08-25: Version 1.8.1 beta (build 11962)
- Fix: Issue where dialogs would focus main window when closed instead of last focused dialog
- Fix: Copying of corrupt data from certain fields in the general tab
- Fix: Corruption and various other settings-related issues caused by previous 1.8.1 betas
- Fix: webui hashed password field auto-blanks and only hashes on change

--- 2008-08-19: Version 1.8.1 beta (build 11903)
- Change: Allow custom seeding time maximums
- Fix: webui hashed password upgrade from <= 1.8
- Fix: resolve conflicts between .torrents in move complete path with .1.torrent etc
- Fix: crash with cancelling HTTPS requests

--- 2008-08-18: Version 1.8.1 beta (build 11882)
- Feature: 2x faster hashing
- Feature: Open Containing Folder for Files tab
- Change: sort torrents without ETA after torrents with infinity
- Change: remove "Download Limited" behaviour
- Change: turn sparse files off by default, due to fragmentation issues
- Change: relax min_interval restriction on manual updates to 60 seconds if the last tracker request failed
- Change: store hash of the webui password instead of plaintext
- Fix: force non-sparse with preallocate on
- Fix: 'hostname not found' on NT4
- Fix: slow load with lots of torrents that point to a dead/missing drive
- Fix: Some checkboxes overlapping others in the connection section of preferences
- Fix: work around NOD32 IMON bug (HTTP 400)

Following a recent court loss, hugely popular file storage service Rapidshare might soon be faced with a tough choice: stop users from uploading/downloading copyrighted music from its servers, or get shut down.

German’s equivalent of the RIAA, GEMA, has won a copyright infringement case against Rapidshare, as the judge ruled that Rapdishare can be held accountable for the actions of its users. It’s the story as old as the internet: if you’re merely providing a hosting service, should you also monitor every file hosted on your servers and prevent any copyrighted files to be uploaded/downloaded? Lately, the answer has been yes: at the very least, if the music/movie industry points to a file and ask you to remove it, you have to comply.

However, although GEMA was quick to declare victory on this one (press release in German), claiming that RapidShare now must take preventive action and check all the files on its servers for copyright infringement, it’s not quite clear what the court has decided yet. We’ve seen pressure to put similar requirements on ISPs, and the general consensus among experts is that this would be either impossible or highly impractical; RapidShare, with the huge amount of material it hosts (they claim 4.5 petabytes of storage), would be no different.

The folks at TorrentFreak spoke to Christian Solmecke, a lawyer at the Cologne Chambers of Lawyers Wilde & Beuger, who thinks that RapidShare’s demise is far from inevitable. “RapidShare will appeal against the decision of the Landgericht (District Court) of Düsseldorf. If they do so, we will have to wait and see what the Oberlandesgericht (Higher District Court) of Düsseldorf (as the Court of Appeal) says,” he says.

RapidShare is fully operational at the time of this writing.

Source

In a blog on its Web site, Pirate Bay said the complaint alleges infrastructural damage, denial of service attacks, hacking and spamming on a commercial level.

The blog said the complaint named the Swedish or Nordic subsidiaries of Twentieth Century Fox, EMI Music, Universal Music Group, Universal Pictures, Paramount Home Entertainment, Atari (ATAR.O: Quote, Profile, Research), Activision (ATVI.O: Quote, Profile, Research), Ubisoft (UBIP.PA: Quote, Profile, Research), Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.

Pirate Bay spokesman Peter Sunde said the complaint, filed on Friday, stemmed from e-mails released to the public by hackers after an attack on U.S. firm MediaDefender, an online corporate security company.

He said Pirate Bay’s investigation of these e-mails showed the entertainment companies had hired MediaDefender to spam file-sharing sites, including Pirate Bay, with fake downloads.

“So we are actually filing the complaint against them as MediaDefender has no Swedish company structure. But these other companies are represented in Sweden,” Sunde said.

So, if true, regardless of where one stands on the Pirate Bay web site, should companies be able to acquire hired guns to perform illegal acts against another company or entity? Should these companies be able to take the law into their own hands? Are they powerful enough that governments will turn a blind eye?

Source

µTorrent was written with efficiency in mind. Unlike many torrent clients, it does not hog valuable system resources – typically using less than 6MB of memory, allowing you to use the computer as if it weren’t there at all. Additionally, the program itself is contained within a single executable less than 220 KB in size.

Most of the features present in other BitTorrent clients are present in µTorrent, including bandwidth prioritization, scheduling, RSS auto-downloading and Mainline DHT (compatible with BitComet). Additionally, µTorrent supports the Protocol Encryption joint specification (compatible with Azureus 2.4.0.0 and above, BitComet 0.63 and above) and peer exchange.

This release comes quickly on the heels of the 1.73 release due to a quick fix.

-Fix: DHT crash when Mainline clients were present

Download

It’s been argued before that the RIAA’s claim of $750 per song shared in damages — a standard figure used in all filesharing cases within the US — may be unconstitutional. According to Ray Beckerman of Recording Industry vs. The People, the defendant in Atlantic vs. Boggs has not only challenged the constitutionality of the claim, but has entered a counterclaim based on the challenge. That means we’re playing for real dollars and the RIAA isn’t impressed.

The RIAA moved to dismiss the counterclaim and, in a somewhat unusual action, the US Department of Justice filed a motion with the court asking for a 60 day stay in which it will decide whether or not to intervene.

If the RIAA’s constitutionality claims can be set aside, it will take serious muscle out of the spamigation being perpetuated, and could force an extreme change of strategy.

Source

Slashdot points us to an article about the relatively small Liberal Party of Norway is including some interesting positions on its platform concerning copyright issues. Specifically, it wants to make sure that free file sharing for non-commercial purposes is legal, it wants to allow sampling, it wants to shorten the length of copyright and finally, it wants to ban DRM. The statements backing these up point to the importance of having a free flow of culture and how that these changes will help spread culture more easily through the country. Of course, being a relatively small political party, this has the feel of a somewhat desperate attempt to appeal to younger voters. Also, while I tend to agree with many of the positions, it’s not clear how well the policy makers in question actually understand what they’re suggesting here. Banning DRM, for example, doesn’t actually make that much sense. While we think DRM is bad for everyone the real effort should be in convincing the content owners who insist on using DRM that it’s harming their business prospects by limiting their market potential. Doing an outright ban just seems to be going too far. Also, in terms of encouraging free file sharing, they should be pointing out how such things can expand someone’s market (making it a true win-win) rather than acting like it’s a some sort of trade-off between the consumer and the producer of content. We’re all for artificial monopolies on ideas through intellectual property laws becoming a point of political debate, but the understanding of what it entails needs to go even further than what’s being presented by the Liberal Party of Norway.

Source

Two Pittsburgh-based researchers have released code that they say can increase peer-to-peer download speeds by up to 500%, although actual tests have shown more modest speed boosts of 30 to 70%.

The software, called Similarity-Enhanced transfer works like BitTorrent, allowing users to download a file from multiple sources at the same time. But instead of looking for identical bits of information, the software looks for similar pieces.

In other words, if you’re using BitTorrent to download a movie that’s been dubbed into German, you’ll probably only be downloading from German sources. But if you use Similarity-Enhanced transfer, you could download the video file from sources throughout the world, and just download the audio from German users. With more download sources to choose from, your download speed should be significantly enhanced. continue reading…

*This is a mass email to All Faculty & All Academic Professionals & All Civil Service Staff & All Undergrad Students & All Grad Students

*This was sent March 31, 2007 at 1:07 AM

As you may have read in the popular press, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) among others are increasing their copyright enforcement activities. As part of this increased effort, the RIAA has begun to target college students specifically, which means that students who engage in unlawful peer-to-peer file sharing are more likely than ever to be identified and sued by the RIAA.

We think that these increased enforcement activities warrant taking a moment to discuss the relevant policies and practices at the Urbana- Champaign campus of the University of Illinois.

The University does not condone the use of peer-to-peer software for illegal file sharing. Those who engage in it violate U.S. Copyright laws as well as the campus’s own policies, including the Student Code and Policy on the Appropriate Use of the Computer Network. Additionally the University bears significant costs associated with responding to DMCA violation notices and the network capacity absorbed by file sharing reduces its availability for general research, teaching, and administrative purposes. For additional information of University related copyright issues, see continue reading…