title: What is this bittorrent network flow?
body: <p>I've recorded some network traffic in my home that only appear up while running BitTorrent or uTorrent.<br>
  I've been reading the <a href="http://www.bittorrent.org/beps/bep_0000.html" rel="nofollow">bittorrent protocol descriptions</a>, but I am stuck trying to figure out a particular network flow.</p>
  
  <p>Can someone help me identify what the following bittorrent network traffic is exactly?<br>
  It lasts quite a long time, even after stopping downloads.
  All packets are in one direction - from my local machine running Bittorrent to a remote machine.</p>
  
  <p>Here is data payload of one packet (copied from Wireshark):</p>
  
  <pre><code>00000000  60 00 00 00 00 00 3b 15  20 01 00 00 9d 38 6a b8 `.....;.  ....8j.
  00000010  04 b9 18 bf 9c 90 d8 81  20 01 00 00 9d 38 6a b8 ........  ....8j.
  00000020  20 5a 01 45 bd 13 b1 65  01 04 44 4a e7 d5 04 04  Z.E...e ..DJ....
  00000030  01 00 00 00 05 02 ea cf                          ........ 
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>All the packets in the network flow are similar, here are two more:</p>
  
  <pre><code>00000038  60 00 00 00 00 00 3b 15  20 01 00 00 9d 38 6a b8 `.....;.  ....8j.
  00000048  04 b9 18 bf 9c 90 d8 81  20 01 00 00 9d 38 6a b8 ........  ....8j.
  00000058  20 5a 01 45 bd 13 b1 65  01 04 08 8e 35 9f 04 04  Z.E...e ....5...
  00000068  01 00 00 00 05 02 ea cf                          ........ 
  00000070  60 00 00 00 00 00 3b 15  20 01 00 00 9d 38 6a b8 `.....;.  ....8j.
  00000080  04 b9 18 bf 9c 90 d8 81  20 01 00 00 9d 38 6a b8 ........  ....8j.
  00000090  20 5a 01 45 bd 13 b1 65  01 04 12 3e ba 6c 04 04  Z.E...e ...&gt;.l..
  000000A0  01 00 00 00 05 02 ea cf                          ........ 
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>These bittorrent packets are typically several seconds apart, and this flow seems to go on indefinitely.  Which one of the <a href="http://www.bittorrent.org/beps/bep_0000.html" rel="nofollow">bittorrent protocols</a> describes this network flow?</p>