btsync calling home.....

[PeterVerhees]

Dear Bittorrent,

After digging around in some wireshark logs of my btsync setup I found that btsync calls home to a server named: www.usyncapp.com.

I believe this is to gather statistics on which version is running where on what platform and so on. Especially important during the testing period I guess. Is the software still going to be doing this when it is final? And what info are you saving for how long and what purposes?

/nosy

Educated Guess:

Architecture,

Number of Files

Numer of shared folders

A unique ID

What options are used.

This is the URI I found. (some info scambled)

http://www.usyncapp.com/cfu.php?arch=x86_64&cl=BitTorrent%20Sync&direct=432129821&files=3567&folders=9&id=htRWdGwwER-daEraerE&pl=linux&relay=0&size=345675432&v=221122

[kos13]

Sync uses this call to check if there is new build available. It also contains some anonymized statistics, so we could better understand how Sync performs and used in the field.

This is the only information we collect and use, so we intentionally left it open. This way you could easily verify, that we don't have any access to any private information, just general statistics about app.

[PeterVerhees]

Thank you Kos, I expected as much.

[chiefsucker]

It would be great if you could elaborate more on security, what, why and when is transferred where, and give some more technological insights on the technology page. I think that P2P is one of your main selling points as it doesn’t required to store sensitive files on third-party servers and it’s worth to emphasize it even more and make everything as transparent as possible (you’re already doing a great job with this during the preview phase).

[PainFreePc]

Add This To Your "hosts" File and BTSync Can't Call Home

"127.0.0.1  t.usyncapp.com"

"127.0.0.1  usyncapp.com"

"127.0.0.1  www.usyncapp.com"

[Anh Huynh]

It also connects to config.usyncapp.com , for what?

stdout.log:Requesting folder config from config.usyncapp.com

stdout.log.1:Requesting folder config from config.usyncapp.com

stdout.log.1:Requesting folder config from config.usyncapp.com

Edited August 24, 2014 by icymatter

[GreatMarko]

It also connects to config.usyncapp.com , for what?

To retrieve the list of tracker/relay servers

[Anh Huynh]

$ curl -L http://config.usyncapp.com/sync.conf

{  "trackers" :  [    {"addr" : "54.225.100.8:3000"},    {"addr" : "54.225.196.38:3000"},    {"addr" : "54.225.92.50:3000"}  ],  "relays" :  [    {"addr" : "67.215.231.242:3000"},    {"addr" : "67.215.229.106:3000"}  ],  "mobile_push_proxies" :  [    {"addr" : "54.235.182.157:3000"}  ]}

 

To retrieve the list of tracker/relay servers

 

Thanks for your information I love to seee this open information, so that I can config my firewall correctly.

[Anh Huynh]

btsync uses the same domain http://config.usyncapp.com/ for both things

(1) get a list of tracker/relays

(2) report some user's information

[Anh Huynh]

List of domains may be accessed by btsync

    $ strings /home/btsync/bin/btsync \      | grep -E '[^ ]{3,}\.com' \      | sed -e 's#.*://##g' \            -e 's#\.com.*#.com#g' \      | sort -u    apps.bittorrent.com    bench.utorrent.com    config.usyncapp.com    download.utorrent.com    gui.com    link.getsync.com    raptor.utorrent.com    remote.utorrent.com    router.bittorrent.com    router.utorrent.com    search.conduit.com    syncdev.bittorrent.com    sync-help.bittorrent.com    tracker.openbittorrent.com    tracker.publicbt.com    update.utorrent.com    www.bittorrent.com    www.usyncapp.com

[Bitwise]

Sync uses this call to check if there is new build available. It also contains some anonymized statistics, so we could better understand how Sync performs and used in the field.

This is the only information we collect and use, so we intentionally left it open. This way you could easily verify, that we don't have any access to any private information, just general statistics about app.

 

If a user has 'Always check for updates to this version' disabled, does this tranfer of data still occur?

[RomanZ]

@Bitwise

No, Sync should not use this call if check for updates is disabled.