Timeout guard is part of HttpClient -- it was built for Java 1.3, so it uses an extra thread to do socket connection timeouts.

See http://limewire.org/fisheye/viewrep/...ler.java?r=1.1 , http://limewire.org/fisheye/viewrep/...ava?r=1.6#l652 , & the various socket factories.