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For a fair number of torrents I'm dealing with (qBittorrent 3.3.7 here), I see a number of entries in the "Peers" list (it apparently only shows peers that are currently connected) with client_test/1.0.6.0 in the "Client" column.

They appear to stay connected for extended time but not participate in uploading/downloading - and probably skew the numbers in tracker stats, too. They are predominantly US IPs while the "normal" peers for these torrents tend to be from the former Eastern bloc.

Is there any information/investigations on them out there? Are they fakes and should be banned/reported or something?

ivan_pozdeev
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I think it refers to iknowwhatyoudownload.com

This site made by russians and collects information about what you downloading and publish it. They are most often connecting via DHT and PEX.

enter image description here

Purple_Pony
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    It's quite possible that it's iknowthatdownload.com, but do you have any more substantial indications other than speculation? – Encombe Jan 14 '17 at 13:48
  • @Encombe I have contacted iknowwhatyoudownload.com and linked them to this question and they refuted the fact that this client was them : _"No, it's not we. Do you expect another answer ?"_ – Xavier59 Jan 19 '17 at 16:44
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    saw a new peer from amazonaws with 0.0%, but with another client id. this time they used uTorrent 3.4.9 as id and port was 8116. – Purple_Pony Feb 01 '17 at 00:23
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No, this isn't so suspect.

I'm thinking about 2 potentials case according to the fact that it doesn't upload/download:

  • Someone developping/beta testing his client torrent and it doesn't work as for now.
  • Government spying at people donwloading/uploading in order to punish them. It seems very unlikely because they wouldn't use such an anormal client id but rather a normal one to be discret.
Xavier59
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    It does look like [the minimalistic test client shipped with `libtorrent`](https://github.com/steeve/libtorrent/blob/master/docs/client_test.html) ([source line with the ID](https://github.com/steeve/libtorrent/blob/master/examples/client_test.cpp#L1457)) – ivan_pozdeev Nov 13 '16 at 14:21