marchk01

Join Date 12/2003

Potentially Worrying IP Connections from ObjectDesktopManager.exe

Long time Stardock user here (+18 years)

I was trying to understand why ObjectDesktop 4.1.7342.25505 (current version which is over three years old) is constantly prompting to upgrade my installed version of Fences 4.1.0.6 to 4.10.6 (which is obviously just a minor error in the version parsing or embedded version number in the EXE) so I decided to trace network traffic from ObjectDesktopManager to find out where it gets the list of available software updates from.

Using SysInternals Process Monitor I discovered all the comms goes to/from:

tnmi-static-82-209-79-66.ip.telnetww.com (https)
tnmi-static-91-209-79-66.ip.telnetww.com (http)

Whilst teletnetww.com is a US company providing proxy and VPN services, the hostname part of the URL seems to contain an IP address that WHOIS reports back to Russia ?!?!

It may be that I've got completely the wrong end of the stick and the hostname is not an encoded destination address, but thought it worth raising as it's a tad concerning.

Please put my mind at rest !

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DrJBHL

Join Date 04/2002

+4253

Object Desktop manager talks to "home"...otherwise it couldn't download updates, nor check versions. Home, though, is far from Russia. "Home" is Stardock's servers which are in Michigan, USA (to the best of my limited knowledge). If you downloaded via software downloaded from Stardock's servers, you needn't worry. Хорошо?

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The "worrying" part was the appearance of "82.209.79.66" and "91.209.79.66" embedded in the hostname part of the URL rather than something obvious like ftp.stardock.com etc.

OK so sounds like Stardock use telnetww as their hosting provider and the numbers are just coincidence ?

Если вы уверены, вероятно,

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Neil Banfield

Join Date 04/2001

+1104

I wouldn't be surprised if those were backwards ip addresses.

So 66.79.209.82 and .91

But Stardock are not hosting anything in Russia.

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Now we know why Object Dock hasn't been updated for years; it's Vladmir Putin's fault!

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Now that makes sense. 66.79.209.* is telnetww. Phew. I’ll turn my PC back on and reinstall all my Stardock software now

Thanks for the quick and understandable explanation.

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