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BitTorrent as the next big thing in Spyware/Adware distribution?Created by Kyle Johnson (Guilford College) on June 15, 2005
Well, this actually took longer than I thought. BitTorrent seems to be gearing up to be the next big thing for Spyware/Adware distribution. I don't know that I like eWeek's rather sensationalist title of "Spyware Floods in Through BitTorrent" but the points are well made. All of the good things about BitTorrent (fast distribution, relative anonymity, very little bandwidth usage for owner of the file) are all the same things that make it attractive to Spyware/Adware folks. Shoot, now they don't even have to pay for that much bandwidth. I must admit, there is a little part of me who wonders when I'm downloading the latest BitTorrent of something like Systm (which is perfectly legal, and yes, I am spelling it right) if I'm actually getting Systm or just something someone claims is Systm. I've gotten in the habit of trying to find torrent files that use the same naming convention every time, as those tend to be from the same person. Ultimately, there is still some amount of social engineering required for the final install, but if years of Internet Explorer and Outlook as virus vectors has shown us, that is a very low wall to hurdle. I hate to see good technology used this way, but maybe that's a good reason to use more private torrent files...
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Bittorrent no worse than going to a vendor site and downloading a file that might contain spyware. If I go to a vendor site and they provide a torrent and seed it is exactly the same. I was trying to describe why this could happen, but this is a better written description.
http://www.joestewart.org/p2p.html#SECTION00024000000000000000
Summary is that if the torrent file is valid, a bad actor can't put a bad file into the torrent swarm just by putting a file with the same name in his/her torrent folder (like could be done with other P2P apps). Bittorrent checks the file against the torrent file and the tracker. It the torrent and the seed are compromised, you are right it could be compromised (e.g. http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-5730254.html). If you trust the source of the torrent file by what ever criteria you choose to base this trust, bittorrent is a great way to distribute the bandwidth load for large files rather than a single sit taking a huge hit.