I just downloaded an area for the Netherlands that is part of the package of airports newly placed on AVSIM. It seems that some very large multi gigabyte files must be downloaded from the NL site. Bit Torrent is the only way to get these. So, I grabbed one of the 2gb scenery files. Bit Torrent did its download and then started an extensive upload! I have never used this process before so I was surprised to see a heavy upload running. I checked the help file and saw the following in part of it:4. Don’t shut the program down after the download is complete. Leave it running for a couple of hours to seed downloaded data. Thus the data will be transmitted to other users. Your access to downloading other files can be denied if you don’t allow other users to download data from your PC.The last two words attracted my attention and I killed the process. So, what has been put out on the Internet that will allow someone to get stuff from my PC as mentioned above? What is the purpose? Is the damage already done and my data is on servers in Russia? Before I call my bank and the credit card company have I had identity theft?PS: I just saw upload activity despite killing the program from the Desktop. Had to use the Task Manager to stop it. Checked AutoStartup and saw Bit Torrent was set to restart on Bootup. Deleted that. Now I am really concerned!

Hello Dick, this is nothing to be afraid of, it is simply the way torrents work. The data being mentioned is only the same data you downloaded, not anything else.In a "normal" download, where you for instance download a file from a web page with your browser, it downloads all the data from a single server, putting all the bandwidth on that server. When downloading a file using a torrent program on the other hand, you download the file from other people who have downloaded the file before, downloading parts of the file from several locations, spreading the load on the network. Since you download the file from other users like yourself, the whole system only works if users like yourself upload the file to other people. It is generally considered nice to make sure you not only download the file, but also help others by uploading the file to others in return.But don't worry, the program should not upload anything else than the file you have downloaded.

Thanks for the info. "Probably" safe but given the human sewerage on the Internet it seems like a bad scheme. Torrent looks like a great program to hack as the innocent place trust into it. If Sony can be hacked Torrent should be easy. Will tighten up the firewall and prevent any of the socially shared uploads from my system. I'll stick to AVSIM. Since it has been burned it should be safer than ever but who knows. Got to go, the Black Helicopters are overhead....

Thanks for the info. "Probably" safe but given the human sewerage on the Internet it seems like a bad scheme. Torrent looks like a great program to hack as the innocent place trust into it. If Sony can be hacked Torrent should be easy. Will tighten up the firewall and prevent any of the socially shared uploads from my system. I'll stick to AVSIM. Since it has been burned it should be safer than ever but who knows. Got to go, the Black Helicopters are overhead....

HelloSo you managed to get your download courtesy of all the other torrent users being willing to share the files but you wont let the torrent program run for a while to help other users complete the D/LIf everybody felt like this then massive sceneries offered for free will never happen again.Or should the NL2000 team just use their own money to subsidise your scenery downloads.This great scenery is completely free it just depends on generosity of users sharing their bandwidth to propagate these files around the internet.If we all just D/L then shut off the App the system breaks down, but as long as you have your copy thats fine?

Torrent looks like a great program to hack as the innocent place trust into it.

Yes, but the same goes for every program on your computer (at least those that communicate over the internet). I don't want to scare you, just put things in perspective. Obviously writing a piece of software and hiding a part of it that steals your data is one way of doing it, but there is nothing special in regards to torrent clients here. The dangers are much more in what you download than someone somehow hacking a program on your computer (that has not been designed to be hacked). As long as you download the torrent client from a source you trust, you shouldn't have to worry, and if you don't trust the source you shouldn't download the program. Again, this is not something specific to torrent clients, it applies to all programs (and even data files).Most (probably, I don't have any stats) malicious software gets into your system through other means than you actively downloading it, most often through operating system, web browser or mail client bugs, which make it possible for the processor to run code that's sent to the program in a malformed message or similar. Some attacks don't even execute anything special on your processor per se, they just use some script somehow embedded into a normally safe website, e.g. on sites like this where we can post text, it might be possible to include some script that makes your browser send the same info you put in the login-boxes to a separate webpage. I hope, and think, that the forum system is safe from such attacks, as they have been quite well known for years.As I said, I just wanted to put things in perspective. Using a well-known torrent client like µTorrent (uTorrent if my µ (greek letter mu) wouldn't render correctly) you should be safe from hacking attacks (at least as safe as you are with any other piece of software). Like with web browsers, you mostly only have to be careful what you download. If you get the .torrent-file from a place you trust you can be sure you get the correct file when it is downloaded, the files are checked using pretty secure methods to make sure the file you get matches the original (though I think the check is more to make sure the file is completed, but it provides security as well).

I think we're seeing the outcome of some stereotype thinking (piracy equals torrent equals bad thing) and publicity. But this only is a bad thing to happen if it stays uncorrected and fixed on the current viewpoint. Don't worry, the torrent system isn't and wasn't intended to harm anyone and if your firewall helps and protects you while surfing the Net, it will do so too when using the fine and simple NL2000 method.You don't become a part of a huge pirate network then and the risk is just the same as listening to internet radio or clicking trough some sites for wallpapers to download.Pure Internet security would mean to cut that line, but that would be as black/white as the mentioned stereotypes, right?And, you can always use the additional methods which e. g. include a direct download from Avsim. As these direct downloads cause quite some traffic when speaking about a 30+gb package, the wise NL2000 guys set up this torrent solution too.So if you get those 30+ from Avsim for example, you may want to think about a small donation there too (together with one for the NL2000 later, when you experience their fine work). That step is of course optional, but will always be welcome. :(

Personally I would NEVER go near a torrent download. They are used by pirates and open access to your machine for anyone who has nefarious intentions. I actually can't believe that anyone providing downloads for FS would direct their users to a torrent, period.

Then please never user direct downloads, Rapidshare, Megaupload and the rest of the Internet (including Google and all ftp stuff) again since all those parts are used by pirates too. And please avoid newsgroups. Does that help?Sorry, Sir, but your across-the-board judgement about the very useful torrent system (it e. g. avoids traffic on the freeware authors side) just shows that stereotypes are wide spread and very fixed. So I hope that the next step of blaming the fine NL2000 guys to support piracy stays out of this thread and I'm also hoping that the need to look closer at some things got stressed enough. :(I think that the treadstarter showed an open mind when asking about the actual danger while using the system of NL2000. He didn't want to judge by stereotypes.As said, the NL2000 downloads are also on the Avsim servers for example, but they will cause some load there, so maybe a donation comes into view after downloading 30+gb per user of fine freeware (where you can donate too).Enjoy this stuff, it's of very good quality.

I am shocked by the level of naivety, in regards to torrents, expressed in this thread. Chicken Little is alive and well and most definitely posting at AVSIM. If you are that paranoid, I would suggest you never use Email as the chances of getting a virus reading your Emails are a magnitude above that of getting one from a legitimate torrent.Regards, Mike Mann

We should concentrate on this thread, showing some pictures then. http://forum.avsim.net/topic/335516-nl2000-v401-come-and-see-it/

Personally I would NEVER go near a torrent download. They are used by pirates and open access to your machine for anyone who has nefarious intentions. I actually can't believe that anyone providing downloads for FS would direct their users to a torrent, period.

This is simply not true. As I wrote in my post above, a torrent program is not more dangerous for your computer than a web browser or email client. The torrent client may accept connections from the outside if your firewall allows it, but unless there is a security hole in the client that will not be dangerous. Obviously, just as with your browser, you should keep the client updated to make sure you have the latest fixes for any security holes.There are many positive sides of using torrents, both for the end user and the publisher. Often the end user will get faster downloads, and the publisher will not need as much bandwidth. Torrents have better facilities for error-checking than simple HTTP downloads as well, so that when you have downloaded the torrent you will know that the file is absolutely correct. You can check this using the md5 sum from the webpage, but if there is an error you will have to download the whole file again. With torrents, you should be able to download the parts that are missing.

Personally I would NEVER go near a torrent download. They are used by pirates and open access to your machine for anyone who has nefarious intentions. I actually can't believe that anyone providing downloads for FS would direct their users to a torrent, period.

Torrent downloads are completely safe in themselves. The fact that they are also commonly used by software pirates does not make the technology itself dangerous. (However, if you download and run pirated software, you could well be exposing yourself, in addition to violating someone's copyright).Bittorrent software is used commercially too - for example, the Blizzard software that is used to update the World of Warcraft game client is torrent-based. It is just an intelligent way of providing distributed bandwidth.(I have a high-speed Internet connection so I decided to contribute some bandwidth to the NL2000 project. Currently uploading at close to 2 MB/s :( )

This is simply not true. As I wrote in my post above, a torrent program is not more dangerous for your computer than a web browser or email client. The torrent client may accept connections from the outside if your firewall allows it, but unless there is a security hole in the client that will not be dangerous. Obviously, just as with your browser, you should keep the client updated to make sure you have the latest fixes for any security holes.There are many positive sides of using torrents, both for the end user and the publisher. Often the end user will get faster downloads, and the publisher will not need as much bandwidth. Torrents have better facilities for error-checking than simple HTTP downloads as well, so that when you have downloaded the torrent you will know that the file is absolutely correct. You can check this using the md5 sum from the webpage, but if there is an error you will have to download the whole file again. With torrents, you should be able to download the parts that are missing.

If you like lighting a fuse and hoping the dynamite doesnt explode, then by all means, play with torrents, enough said.

If you like lighting a fuse and hoping the dynamite doesnt explode, then by all means, play with torrents, enough said.

Yes, Jay, we've got your viewpoint there and just posted comments about it. Sorry for that and if we take your 'enough said' serious now, we can enjoy some nice and free and legal scenery release while some of use are sitting in their houses, shivering in fear. :smile:Nobody from NL2000 forces you to load via torrent, please check their site to see the direct download sources.If you look at some of the comments, they gave you nice and valid examples for the torrent use and advantages though.I've actually used the torrent system to get those (initial) 30+gb and I can speak of no Captain Jack Sparrow around so far, not even that little monkey showed up, while you still seem to believe that the kraken will arrive soon.Sorry for that ridicule approach of mine now, but that's the only way to deal with stereotypes and some sort of paranoia while remaining sane.

For those wanting to go beyond all the FUD about torrents, the Wikipedia article is a decent source of factual information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent_%28protocol%29Note at the bottom there is a reference to a study that found that 18% of all executables available for download via bittorrent is in some way infected with malware. That may be why some have negative connotations from the word "torrent". My guess is that much of this are keyloggers and other trojans distributed via pirated copies of commercial software.The technology itself is safe, and you should not be concerned about using bittorrent software to download NL2000. Unless of course you suspect the NL2000 developers might be distributing malware ... But then you should be concerned about downloading their software from the Avsim file library, too.