Does peerblock work?

I've been wanting to increase my online security for awhile now and have a few questions...

1 - would upgrading my nod32 anti-virus to the entire "internet suite" make a difference? do those software firewalls really do anything? I'm pretty sure my router has spi and nat firewall already.

2 - does peerblock work? i only use private sites, except for very rare occasions. and if so, should i only enable the spyware and antip2p lists? or could enabling all 4 have a benefit.

3 - any other good protection methods aside from seedboxes and vpns?

4 - any private trackers out there with unsafe rep? I know TL is one of them..

I'm a small time pirate, mostly downloading games and tv shows, or older movies. I dont download music or newer movies nearly as often, and I think those are the big targets. I still want as much protection as I can afford though, which isn't much :lol:

thanks!

I started using PeerBlock a few months ago. When I did, I was surprised by the number of very recognizable corporate names that were being blocked. Also a lot were notorious "anti-p2p" entities. I posted here that I had been using it and there were some critics and some believers.

I have continued to use it. It really is your call as to whether or not you want to use it. It has not caused me any trouble.

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Originally Posted by megabyteme

When I did, I was surprised by the number of very recognizable corporate names that were being blocked. Also a lot were notorious "anti-p2p" entities.

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Same here, I started using it not too long ago and it's been working well for me. I guess it can't really hurt you to be using it anyway..

about peerblock, it goes both ways:

pros: it indeed blocks a lot of potentially dangerous IPs. It can get very alarming when you go check the logs and see the amount of IPs blocked at some very popular trackers

cons: it does block many valid IPs, mostly universities and host ranges. The impact it can have is to decrease your download speed, though in my particular case, doesn't affect at all, as I always max out my DL speed.

I don't use peerblock, I use the ipfilter.dat on my torrents client, but it's mostly the same thing, as they share their block lists.

About places where I get a lot of people on the block list, private trackers speaking, the big ones as TL, IPt etc, and some at bcg. At the other places it's very very rare to get people blocked.

hmm ill probably use it then...cant hurt right?

i have a few questions on settings...

there are 4 lists...spyware, antip2p, advertising, and education. any recommendations on which ones to use? all of them? just antip2p and spyware?

i assume if i use the education list it will disallow a lot of file sharing between college students, which would be bad, i think.

also, i get the message, stopped displaying allowed packets for performance reasons. should i check show allowed connections or not?

thanks!

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Originally Posted by Col. Skillz

I'm pretty sure my router has spi and nat firewall already.

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Then you should be fine, only ports you manually opened and active connections are forwarded, everything else will be discarded.

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2 - does peerblock work? i only use private sites, except for very rare occasions. and if so, should i only enable the spyware and antip2p lists? or could enabling all 4 have a benefit.

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The program is to block certain addresses, and yes that works. However, blocking certain addresses does not make your downloading safe per se.
Also, you might block seedboxes, because not only snitches can rent a server there; if you don't, how do you know if snitch or not?

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3 - any other good protection methods aside from seedboxes and vpns?

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No, actually there isn't much you can do... one swarm and everybody connects to everyone else, so it's infiltrated or it isn't...

In the U.S., they also send a lot of warnings for TV series - I do not think they really care in Italy, but I don't know!

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Originally Posted by Col. Skillz

any recommendations on which ones to use? all of them? just antip2p and spyware?

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That's what I did as well.

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should i check show allowed connections or not?

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Will mostly be useless information unless you want to monitor something specific, there will be a whole lot of allowed connections that don't mean anything at all.

Peerblock looks interesting. Thanks for the tip to check it out!

it gives you false security... you think all the baddies are banned... but they are not...

when they have so much hard time getting a difficult private tracker... do you really thing they would trow everything away by using well known anti-p2p addresses?

peerblock and the like are perfect for public torrents/public p2p... when they are on private trackers they are doing a little more advanced investigations and are using common ips.....

I would definitely recommend peerblock. It has never hurt my DL speeds or caused any problems.

Also, downloading from public trackers just once got me before (isohunt, if i remember). Since then, I started using Peerblock and only going on private trackers and I've had no issues.

I have always preferred P2PFire, since it blocks connections and not transfers. A shame it doesn't work on Vista or 7.

I have just downloaded peerblock. From what i hear i can be very useful. unfortunately it simply doesn't work on my laptop.
I am told i have- "10 lists: 0 up to date - 10 failed updating - 10 disabled"
I try to update it manually with the 'check updates' button but i am either told 'Error contacting URL' or that it is 100% completed yet nothing has actually happened.
Please help me!

You can go here to download the lists manually:
http://peerguardian.sourceforge.net/lists/

Don't waste your time with programs like PG and PB. Use a VPN.

Thanks for your speeds reply guys. unfortunately those links aren't working for me. they won't load.
as for VPN's, i don't understand the technicalities of how it works or who is best to connect to. a noob like me is best off keeping things simple :)
any other suggestions/alternate manual download links?

okay, i've been on the iblocklist website. i noticed their update link were different. they included their own url instead of an update from the bluetack website. i changed my lists to match these new ones. now i have a different problem. an error message comes up saying "exception occured" and a load of comptuter ramblings. have you ever encountered this problem?

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Originally Posted by craiggauld

as for VPN's, i don't understand the technicalities of how it works or who is best to connect to. a noob like me is best off keeping things simple :)

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Basically, a VPN allows you form part of a private network while away from it, transferring communication and data over another channel - the Internet. Because it's easy for someone to eavesdrop on that traffic, encryption may be used. For commercial VPN services, the attractive isn't forming part of a virtual LAN, but getting data through their servers to your computer encrypted.

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now i have a different problem. an error message comes up saying "exception occured" and a load of comptuter ramblings.

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Sounds like a problem with your computer, rather than the site. Try disabling any running antivirus, antispyware and firewall programs that may be conflicting.

Peerblock does not work. Maybe it used to, but my experience after using it for only 2 weeks was a termination from an ISP. It was definitely on at the time and updated every day - we're talking a 10 min lapse of removing a finished seed. Granted, it's freeware so you can't bitch too much. I wouldn't exactly call it "an extra layer of protection" as someone else earlier did. I used the $7/month btguard version 2.0 socks5 with encryption dht disabled of course, which seemed to work for 3.5 yrs for me, then ended up in a termination. Seems to me like p2p blocking and socks5 with encryption does not work anymore. I don't know anything about VPN, but it's like the radar dectector vs. cop thing. Each side has to update to keep up with the other. Don't feel safe with Peerblock or BTGuard.

I'm on win 7 and peerblock works fine, I'm in the u.k if that's any use.
On xp i used protowall with blocklist manager to update the lists, it worked great also. Somebody isn't reading the Instructions carefully.
It's irrelevant its a laptop. It keeps them damn edu's links and spying out of my pc.

http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d9...ing_batman.jpg

Guys, this thread is over 10 months old...

waste of time man...much better apps.

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Originally Posted by spacey

Peerblock does not work. Maybe it used to, but my experience after using it for only 2 weeks was a termination from an ISP. It was definitely on at the time and updated every day - we're talking a 10 min lapse of removing a finished seed.

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Which trackers did you download from?

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I used the $7/month btguard version 2.0 socks5 with encryption dht disabled of course, which seemed to work for 3.5 yrs for me, then ended up in a termination.

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SOCKS proxies will only work for outgoing connections, not inbound ones. If another peer somehow finds your real IP, it's as good as nothing. Use a VPN to avoid that, as well as the routing tables trick, if necessary.

I never saw the point using peerblock or any of those other programs when you can add a block list to utorrent manually that does basically the same thing without having another running program. You can download the blacklist from Bluetack directly at http://www.bluetack.co.uk/config/nipfilter.dat.gz This list is updated daily, and contains known Anti-P2P organizations, trackers,peers,and Goverment/Military IP addresses.

Download, extract and rename the file to “ipfilter.dat”

Then put it in utorrent AppData folder in "Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Roaming\uTorrent"

Then in utorrent preferences go to the Advanced tab and set “ipfilter.enable” to true.

Restart utorrent and check the log to see if it worked. ATM mine says [2010-11-06 12:01:37] Loaded ipfilter.dat (250632 entries)

Honestly it took me longer to write this post than it does to implement.

Also you can sign up at Bluetack and get individual lists and such. It's a good helpful site really. I know you can add this list to Azureus also but I'm not sure how.

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Originally Posted by Detale

I never saw the point using peerblock or any of those other programs when you can add a block list to utorrent manually that does basically the same thing without having another running program.

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I used this method in uTorrent, also. My favorite list is uIpfilterX, which you can find here:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ed2k-ipfilterx/files/

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I know you can add this list to Azureus also but I'm not sure how.

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http://wiki.vuze.com/w/Safepeer_Migration

Thanks bud. I wonder which list, as I'm sure there are more then 2 out there, Is better? By better I mean updated more frequently/more thorough like.

EDIT: as of now the ipfilterx was updated oct 13 and AFAIK Bluetack is updated every day.

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Originally Posted by Detale

EDIT: as of now the ipfilterx was updated oct 13 and AFAIK Bluetack is updated every day.

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Supposedly, Bluetack's list is updated every three days, but the uIpfilterX may not need to be renewed so often because it focuses on blocking "real" and confirmed harmful IP ranges. That's why it's so small.

If you feel like trying, this site offers many blocklists from different places:
http://www.iblocklist.com/lists.php

Why did you say "real" harmful ip's?

With "real", I meant IPs that have been actively spotted monitoring swarms or uploading fake torrents by the IpfilterX team. :)

Ah, well that's what the boys at Bluetack do as well man they collect this data and add it every day from what I've read. Again I'msure there are many groups of people doing this same thing out there.

Thanks for the info Detale. Never liked using an extra program, but this is a nice way to have a basic blacklist :)
Took me all of 2 minutes, downloading included!

Still I wonder which is the most up to date and accurate list out there. The search begins!

From my recollection, these lists block a majority of IP ranges including some large datacenters who may currently or at one time hosted an anti-p2p or corporate customer. They are aggressive about add large blocks to the list and thus end up doing more harm than good. I would only resort to a blocklist if you have to download from a public tracker.