Could an RSS reader be seen as peer-to-peer threat by IT?

Networking/Security Forums -> Beginners // Misc. Computer Questions

Author: chrisHHR PostPosted: Thu Oct 28, 2010 4:12 pm    Post subject: Could an RSS reader be seen as peer-to-peer threat by IT?
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I work at a University Hospital as a web developer. I use a Mac Pro as my primary machine. All that to say I'm not computer ignorant.

Our network services office has quarantined my machine (blocks my IP and port from accessing the internet...can still access institution's resources) twice in the last month and a third time about a year ago.

They've told my LAN manager that they are seeing some kind of PEER-to-PEER activity from my machine going out and hitting several other networks on the internet trying to download files.

I've run countless VIPRE for Mac scans and have found ZERO hits. I am not intentionally running any peer-to-peer apps.

So I'm at a loss. As I type I'm reinstalling OS X because their policy requires me to rebuild the machine after two quarantines in 30 days. But I want to know the root cause so this doesn't keep happening.

I have an RSS Feed Reader (NewsFire) that fires up on login every morning and pulls articles from a half dozen sites. The last two quarantines have all been within a half hour or so after I come in and log in.

So, since I'm out of good options I am wondering if any of you network types have seen cases where an RSS reader is seen by network ops as a peer-to-peer app.

Any other suggestions would be very helpful. Thank you.

Author: Pathogenic PostPosted: Sun Oct 31, 2010 1:32 am    Post subject: Re: Could an RSS reader be seen as peer-to-peer threat by IT
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chrisHHR wrote:
I work at a University Hospital as a web developer. I use a Mac Pro as my primary machine. All that to say I'm not computer ignorant.

Our network services office has quarantined my machine (blocks my IP and port from accessing the internet...can still access institution's resources) twice in the last month and a third time about a year ago.

They've told my LAN manager that they are seeing some kind of PEER-to-PEER activity from my machine going out and hitting several other networks on the internet trying to download files.

I've run countless VIPRE for Mac scans and have found ZERO hits. I am not intentionally running any peer-to-peer apps.

So I'm at a loss. As I type I'm reinstalling OS X because their policy requires me to rebuild the machine after two quarantines in 30 days. But I want to know the root cause so this doesn't keep happening.

I have an RSS Feed Reader (NewsFire) that fires up on login every morning and pulls articles from a half dozen sites. The last two quarantines have all been within a half hour or so after I come in and log in.

So, since I'm out of good options I am wondering if any of you network types have seen cases where an RSS reader is seen by network ops as a peer-to-peer app.

Any other suggestions would be very helpful. Thank you.


I can't say for sure but I would think it is the RSS Feeds because your computer has to make the connection in order to download the Feeds.



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