Hacking Are torrents safe?

[Panzer Tacticer]

Yeah, uTorrent. I would say I've never come across a virus or trojan in torrents, but recently I've found a spate of trojans in files. And now I have a Trojan installer I can't find. I looked up how to get rid of them, and most people said either re-install everything (which I'm just not going to do, as my Vista/XP dual-boot took ages) or go into safe mode, scan with loads of antiviruses, reboot a few times make sure the system is clean, and then run virus-scans again.
Trouble is, both take so long I just can't be bothered. The trojans don't seem to be doing anything anyway...
Any advice?

And avoid trying to get keygens and cracks, there are so many viruses and problems down that road it's not worth it. Everything else you're fine with if you use your common sense. No 500kb films or albums basically

.

Learn to reformat and reinstall your OS or one day learn to weep that you might have fixed it but didn't and have to deal with the consequences. How much do you actually know about trojans? "don't seem to be doing anything" Oh I can assure you it is doing "something". I hope you don't have any actual information you can't afford to have stolen on your computer. Bank details, passwords, other fun stuff. People don't make trojans to do nothing.

Can't speak for Vista (never installed that shit more than twice), but XP is a 40 minute experience. You should be able to have a dual boot done before a couple of hours ends.

And of course, if you have the right antivirus, and actually use it correctly, you usually don't get viruses.

 

[Defiance]

Enable encryption in uTorrent, use PeerGuardian, and use a private tracker, and you'll be fine.

 

[TrolleyDave]

The right person can send you the right file that can PHYSICALLY kill you computer. You know, make it so you are buying a new one.

What drugs are you on? Show me an example of a virus/trojan or anything else that can physically kill your PC.

 

[Trolly]

Learn to reformat and reinstall your OS or one day learn to weep that you might have fixed it but didn't and have to deal with the consequences. How much do you actually know about trojans? "don't seem to be doing anything" Oh I can assure you it is doing "something". I hope you don't have any actual information you can't afford to have stolen on your computer. Bank details, passwords, other fun stuff. People don't make trojans to do nothing.

Can't speak for Vista (never installed that shit more than twice), but XP is a 40 minute experience. You should be able to have a dual boot done before a couple of hours ends.

And of course, if you have the right antivirus, and actually use it correctly, you usually don't get viruses.

Dude, don't get pissy with me just because I'm not a brainbox on computer security. Wow, so many people jump on your back for dumb things on the internet. Thankfully in 3 years of having this computer I have not had ONE serious virus problem that I haven't been able to resolve within a couple of days. Anyway, of course I realise the trojan is doing something, I'm really not that stupid. Whenever a trojan has tried to run processes on my PC, AVG (yeah, I use free edition, and I've since realised it's not that great) has found and deleted the root of the cause. And in terms of personal data, I have none on my PC (except the obvious stuff like my name). And within this week of having trojans, I haven't had any file problems or such, so I'm honestly not bothered for the time being.

And as for dual-booting XP and Vista, it takes about an hour to install XP (more if you're going to re-format your hard disk), it took me 4 hours to partition my hard disk, and at least another hour to install Vista. In the middle of exams, I don't have time for that surprisingly.

And yes, of course you're right, Ant-Viruses do stop viruses. Hence the name. Though surely you agree viruses are built to exploit computer defenses and not get served on a platter to your virus-scanner. That being the reason why I haven't found the trojan installer. Care to apply your huge knowledge of defending against these things? Then help me rather than bleating aimlessly about how I'm an idiot for letting this happen.

 

[xJonny]

Yeah, uTorrent. I would say I've never come across a virus or trojan in torrents, but recently I've found a spate of trojans in files. And now I have a Trojan installer I can't find. I looked up how to get rid of them, and most people said either re-install everything (which I'm just not going to do, as my Vista/XP dual-boot took ages) or go into safe mode, scan with loads of antiviruses, reboot a few times make sure the system is clean, and then run virus-scans again.
Trouble is, both take so long I just can't be bothered. The trojans don't seem to be doing anything anyway...
Any advice?

And avoid trying to get keygens and cracks, there are so many viruses and problems down that road it's not worth it. Everything else you're fine with if you use your common sense. No 500kb films or albums basically

.

Learn to reformat and reinstall your OS or one day learn to weep that you might have fixed it but didn't and have to deal with the consequences. How much do you actually know about trojans? "don't seem to be doing anything" Oh I can assure you it is doing "something". I hope you don't have any actual information you can't afford to have stolen on your computer. Bank details, passwords, other fun stuff. People don't make trojans to do nothing.

Can't speak for Vista (never installed that shit more than twice), but XP is a 40 minute experience. You should be able to have a dual boot done before a couple of hours ends.

And of course, if you have the right antivirus, and actually use it correctly, you usually don't get viruses.

His firewall could have deleted it by itself if he can't find it I guess.

Anyway, if you want to get the things you are getting, get them from a source which is at least mostly reliable and safe (moderated and feedback saying it works, and so on).

 

[Sir Spanky]

Wow it took 3 pages before someone (Panzer Tacticer) actually posted any sense! The only thing I disagree with him is that utorrent is better than Azureus

What drugs are you on? Show me an example of a virus/trojan or anything else that can physically kill your PC.

I know it seems far fetched, but theoretically (and I think I read an example of it somewhere), a virus could simply set your disc drive/HDD to run a speed that is way over the safe limit and cause it to burn out.

 

[xJonny]

Wow it took 3 pages before someone (Panzer Tacticer) actually posted any sense! The only thing I disagree with him is that utorrent is better than Azureus

What drugs are you on? Show me an example of a virus/trojan or anything else that can physically kill your PC.

I know it seems far fetched, but theoretically (and I think I read an example of it somewhere), a virus could simply set your disc drive/HDD to run a speed that is way over the safe limit and cause it to burn out.

In practice, I'm sure your computer would shut down before damage like that happened.

 

[bennydigital]

I knew someone who made a virus that slowly over clocked your PC.

 

[TrolleyDave]

Wow it took 3 pages before someone (Panzer Tacticer) actually posted any sense! The only thing I disagree with him is that utorrent is better than Azureus

What drugs are you on? Show me an example of a virus/trojan or anything else that can physically kill your PC.

I know it seems far fetched, but theoretically (and I think I read an example of it somewhere), a virus could simply set your disc drive/HDD to run a speed that is way over the safe limit and cause it to burn out.

People also said the Y2K bug was going to make planes fall from the sky! lol Then there was the Michaelangelo (I think that was the one) virus that was going to stop Britain functioning in the 80s and bring the FTSE to it's knees. Most of the more insane virus theories are started by people who stand to gain financially from people who believe it.

As far as I know there's nothing open enough in the architecture of a PC for a virus to "kill" it. It can trash drives, delete programs, make your PC run funny, even cause you to have to reinstall your operating system - but that's it.

EDIT : Oh yeah, to the OP. Torrents are as safe as any other means of downloading. If your torrent comes from a site that you wholeheartedly trust then you probably won't get any viruses. If you're only doing Wii stuff as far as I know there aren't any Wii Brickers/Virii around, although I'm not much of an information kiosk when it comes to the Wii. With PC stuff just make sure that you have a memory resident virus guard, scan everything you grab as well just to be safe and never ever install something that you even feel the slightest bit of dodginess towards.

 

[BvanBart]

Not much of a deal... When your PC is infected... it will not boot... reset your bios and its gone

 

[Narin]

Enable encryption in uTorrent, use PeerGuardian, and use a private tracker, and you'll be fine.

PeerGuardian does nothing to protect you as I stated in my previous post. Its just a false sense of security that does more harm than good.

Also with Private Trackers, what stops the MPAA, RIAA and so on from signing up for an account and simply gathering IPs off that server? Why nothing of course. I mainly download from private trackers myself but I still got busted for downloading a movie.

 

[woland84]

Wow it took 3 pages before someone (Panzer Tacticer) actually posted any sense! The only thing I disagree with him is that utorrent is better than Azureus

What drugs are you on? Show me an example of a virus/trojan or anything else that can physically kill your PC.

I know it seems far fetched, but theoretically (and I think I read an example of it somewhere), a virus could simply set your disc drive/HDD to run a speed that is way over the safe limit and cause it to burn out.

People also said the Y2K bug was going to make planes fall from the sky! lol Then there was the Michaelangelo (I think that was the one) virus that was going to stop Britain functioning in the 80s and bring the FTSE to it's knees. Most of the more insane virus theories are started by people who stand to gain financially from people who believe it.

As far as I know there's nothing open enough in the architecture of a PC for a virus to "kill" it. It can trash drives, delete programs, make your PC run funny, even cause you to have to reinstall your operating system - but that's it.

In old DOS times there was something called CIH or Chernobyl and it could kill your PC. It inserted itself into bios and stopped computer from booting up. Technically it was not physical damage but without reprograming/replacing bios chip you couldn't do anything and in that days it wasn't easy thing to do.

 

[TrolleyDave]

Wow it took 3 pages before someone (Panzer Tacticer) actually posted any sense! The only thing I disagree with him is that utorrent is better than Azureus

What drugs are you on? Show me an example of a virus/trojan or anything else that can physically kill your PC.

I know it seems far fetched, but theoretically (and I think I read an example of it somewhere), a virus could simply set your disc drive/HDD to run a speed that is way over the safe limit and cause it to burn out.

People also said the Y2K bug was going to make planes fall from the sky! lol Then there was the Michaelangelo (I think that was the one) virus that was going to stop Britain functioning in the 80s and bring the FTSE to it's knees. Most of the more insane virus theories are started by people who stand to gain financially from people who believe it.

As far as I know there's nothing open enough in the architecture of a PC for a virus to "kill" it. It can trash drives, delete programs, make your PC run funny, even cause you to have to reinstall your operating system - but that's it.

In old DOS times there was something called CIH or Chernobyl and it could kill your PC. It inserted itself into bios and stopped computer from booting up. Technically it was not physical damage but without reprograming/replacing bios chip you couldn't do anything and in that days it wasn't easy thing to do.

The CIH virus wasn't even around in the DOS only days, the CIH virus is a W95/98 only virus. Yes it could wipe your BIOS but only if you had a particular type of flashable BIOS, which wasn't really that common in those days. Here's some info on it for you : http://www.geocities.com/siliconvalley/heights/3652/cih.html

 

[arctic_flame]

And as for dual-booting XP and Vista, it takes about an hour to install XP (more if you're going to re-format your hard disk), it took me 4 hours to partition my hard disk, and at least another hour to install Vista. In the middle of exams, I don't have time for that surprisingly.

If it takes 4 hours to partition a hard disk, you're doing something wrong. Rewriting the partition table might take 20 seconds. Formatting an 80Gig partition should take < 20 minutes.

 

[woland84]

...

The CIH virus wasn't even around in the DOS days, the CIH virus is a W95/98 only virus. Yes it could wipe your BIOS but only if you had a flashable BIOS, which wasn't really that common in those days. Here's some info on it for you : http://www.geocities.com/siliconvalley/heights/3652/cih.html

You got me

. But I'm sure there was something for DOS that could "kill" your PC. Can't remember name

 

[Defiance]

Enable encryption in uTorrent, use PeerGuardian, and use a private tracker, and you'll be fine.

PeerGuardian does nothing to protect you as I stated in my previous post. Its just a false sense of security that does more harm than good.

Also with Private Trackers, what stops the MPAA, RIAA and so on from signing up for an account and simply gathering IPs off that server? Why nothing of course. I mainly download from private trackers myself but I still got busted for downloading a movie.

So then what are you suggesting?

 

[Narin]

Enable encryption in uTorrent, use PeerGuardian, and use a private tracker, and you'll be fine.

PeerGuardian does nothing to protect you as I stated in my previous post. Its just a false sense of security that does more harm than good.

Also with Private Trackers, what stops the MPAA, RIAA and so on from signing up for an account and simply gathering IPs off that server? Why nothing of course. I mainly download from private trackers myself but I still got busted for downloading a movie.

So then what are you suggesting?

Suggestion? I'm not suggestion anything, I'm simply stating what I learned through observation and from studying up on the matter, PeerGuardian is useless, it doesn't protect you from lawsuits, the MPAA, RIAA or anyone else. Theres still people getting fined or having their ISP cut off their internet even when using PeerGuardian. All Peer guardian does is stop most people from connecting directly to your computer. It doesn;t stop anyoe from polling the server or network where the download information is stored and gather your IP (Which is basicly the only thing thats needed) for a lawsuit.

Also as I said before, Private Trackers are slightly more safer due to them being less public and popular then open trackers, but as I said before, what stops the RIAA or anyone else from signing up for an account like you did and posting fake files that act as a trap or stop them from gathering information about you? Well, Nothing of course. Even if yo use the encryption feature while tormenting, they can still find out the necessary information they need to fine you. All that encryption feature does is encrypt the packets in such a way to fool ISPs into thinking they aren't torrent requests so that ISPs won't throttle or cut off the downlods. Its useful for ISPs like Comcast but it doesn't protect you from lawsuits.

I can't believe how many people are oblivious to all this, they believe that some magic program can protect them from ever getting in trouble. The only safe way to not get in trouble is not to pirate at all over the internet, and thats about it. I'm not advocating or preaching to stop piracy, hell, I own a DS flashcard and use uTorrent myself to download a bunch of stuff, just don't let such things as PeerGuardian and such fool you into think your safe, because your far from it. In tne end, its a trade off if pirating the file out weighs the risks of getting caught. Of course there are methods to lessen the chace, but the chance will always be there. Especially in this day and age where ISPs are starting to crack down and installing hardware and software to monitor everything you do.

 

[Defiance]

Man, I wish ISP's had more respect for privacy... Can I get into trouble fore buying a modchip...?

 

[night_chrono]

The right person can send you the right file that can PHYSICALLY kill you computer. You know, make it so you are buying a new one.

What drugs are you on? Show me an example of a virus/trojan or anything else that can physically kill your PC.

A virus that shuts down the cooling fans. It is possible.

 

[cracker]

Wow it took 3 pages before someone (Panzer Tacticer) actually posted any sense! The only thing I disagree with him is that utorrent is better than Azureus

What drugs are you on? Show me an example of a virus/trojan or anything else that can physically kill your PC.

I know it seems far fetched, but theoretically (and I think I read an example of it somewhere), a virus could simply set your disc drive/HDD to run a speed that is way over the safe limit and cause it to burn out.

People also said the Y2K bug was going to make planes fall from the sky! lol Then there was the Michaelangelo (I think that was the one) virus that was going to stop Britain functioning in the 80s and bring the FTSE to it's knees. Most of the more insane virus theories are started by people who stand to gain financially from people who believe it.

As far as I know there's nothing open enough in the architecture of a PC for a virus to "kill" it. It can trash drives, delete programs, make your PC run funny, even cause you to have to reinstall your operating system - but that's it.

In old DOS times there was something called CIH or Chernobyl and it could kill your PC. It inserted itself into bios and stopped computer from booting up. Technically it was not physical damage but without reprograming/replacing bios chip you couldn't do anything and in that days it wasn't easy thing to do.

The CIH virus wasn't even around in the DOS only days, the CIH virus is a W95/98 only virus. Yes it could wipe your BIOS but only if you had a particular type of flashable BIOS, which wasn't really that common in those days. Here's some info on it for you : http://www.geocities.com/siliconvalley/heights/3652/cih.html

I was working tech support the day after the payload hit. It was madness! Nearly every call was for "Operating system not found".

Actually there was one virus that I know of that could cause physical damage to hardware. It sent all kinds of malicious commands to the hard drive which resulted in the read/write head hitting the platter(s) and breaking. I'm sure it was device dependent and was the result of poor quality in the hard drive.