PeerBlock Program

[megabyteme]

Found this article today: http://filenetworks.blogspot.com/2009/08/peerblock-block-anti-piracy-agencies.html

Decided to install the program. I though, I only use private tracker- it probably won't do any good, but I'll play with it and see what it does.

To my surprise, it found a lot of ip's from corporate sites and some that were specifically labeled "Anti-p2p". These have piled up all day.

The program currently has a database of 757,858,616 ip's. That's not a typo! :blink:

I am happy that I installed the program, but wish I had much, much earlier...

[Sonnentier]

"Anti-P2P" might also be seedboxes, you don't know who rented the server, I guess they ban such ranges generally.

I'd be interested in which corporations appear in the logs, maybe we can find an answer to this happening.

[mikejnger]

Nice post as I have just been using peerguardian 2 with Vista. This looks like it may be more complete.

[brento]

I always questioned how good PG2 really was. I never knew exactly whether it was actually helping keep me safe, or if it was just making me feel safe. It also seemed to slow down my torrents.

[EyeCandy]

Pretty much useless IMHO. It's supposed to block IP addresses from the RIAA, MPAA, and others like that.

But just think about it for a second. Even if it managed to block all IP addresses from every RIAA building and facility in the world (which seems rather far fetched), what prevents the RIAA investigator from going home and getting on his residential high speed internet account and monitoring IP's sharing copyrighted material? That's right, absolutely nothing.

Then you must consider the unintended opposite effect. While trying to block these large blocks of "bad" IP addresses, how many good or benign IP addresses are getting blocked by mistake?

It's sort of like snake oil. It might make you feel better, but it really doesn't do much good..

[The_Martinator]

Pretty much useless IMHO. It's supposed to block IP addresses from the RIAA, MPAA, and others like that.

But just think about it for a second. Even if it managed to block all IP addresses from every RIAA building and facility in the world (which seems rather far fetched), what prevents the RIAA investigator from going home and getting on his residential high speed internet account and monitoring IP's sharing copyrighted material? That's right, absolutely nothing.

Then you must consider the unintended opposite effect. While trying to block these large blocks of "bad" IP addresses, how many good or benign IP addresses are getting blocked by mistake?

It's sort of like snake oil. It might make you feel better, but it really doesn't do much good..

+1

The best thing you can do is to use smaller, more community oriented sites, where you (think you :P) know all (or most) members.

[Dithersky]

exactly, thats why i use just the pirate bay

[NA_Magus]

Pretty much useless IMHO. It's supposed to block IP addresses from the RIAA, MPAA, and others like that.

But just think about it for a second. Even if it managed to block all IP addresses from every RIAA building and facility in the world (which seems rather far fetched), what prevents the RIAA investigator from going home and getting on his residential high speed internet account and monitoring IP's sharing copyrighted material? That's right, absolutely nothing.

Then you must consider the unintended opposite effect. While trying to block these large blocks of "bad" IP addresses, how many good or benign IP addresses are getting blocked by mistake?

It's sort of like snake oil. It might make you feel better, but it really doesn't do much good..

+1

The best thing you can do is to use smaller, more community oriented sites, where you (think you :P) know all (or most) members.

I hold the belief that these anti-piracy organizations aren't total idiots and have research teams in place to search and simply register accounts on every tracker they can find in google searches. Even a tracker of less than 1,000 users, 1 of them may be of those organizations.




I don't know how effective this might be but I doubt that residential IPs would be used to catch other users in the act of piracy. It'd be more efficient to say to a court you used your organizations equipment and internet and followed a standardized procedure rather than saying "oh I was just browsing the internets and on this here log are some people who were downloading this file... oh that IP is mine, but don't worry, I wasn't downloading it."

Of course I could just be wrong. :s

[charliebitme]

Pretty much useless IMHO. It's supposed to block IP addresses from the RIAA, MPAA, and others like that.

But just think about it for a second. Even if it managed to block all IP addresses from every RIAA building and facility in the world (which seems rather far fetched), what prevents the RIAA investigator from going home and getting on his residential high speed internet account and monitoring IP's sharing copyrighted material? That's right, absolutely nothing.

Then you must consider the unintended opposite effect. While trying to block these large blocks of "bad" IP addresses, how many good or benign IP addresses are getting blocked by mistake?

Edit: My posts are way too long.:(

It's sort of like snake oil. It might make you feel better, but it really doesn't do much good..

+1

The best thing you can do is to use smaller, more community oriented sites, where you (think you :P) know all (or most) members.
I think paying for a non-logging VPN service is a better option than hunting "small,more community oriented" sites like FSC,FTN,FTWR,UK-T for months. +I don't think the security is that high really, I think it's more a question of scoring for the Anti-piracy organisations - they have tons of chances to catch people on big trackers like TL,IPT or SCT.

I think they could easily(if they aren't already) get into those sites mentioned above($*/"legal" threats talks) but it's a question of effiency. As far as I know, Anti-Piracy organisations/bureuas(spelling?:P) can't act outside they're own country so instead of having 10 peers on a movie on lets say UK-T and risking that those 10 peers are all from Pakistan, they'd rather have 40 peers on TL - they have moore to choose from(assume that we're talking about an american organisation here).

So yeah, those small ones may be a bit more secure but if anti-piracy organisations want to get in - I'm pretty sure they can.
*Yes, I know that some of those sites don't give any invites at all to users, only mods&admin etc get them but if you got tons of others that you've payed for to get into - you can prob. trade to get into the rest.

TBH, I don't think piracy organisations bother so much with private trackers, infiltrating the scene is more effecient and scares the public more(at least the 50-year-old dad that downloads 3 movies/week). They'll prob. always try to take the easiest way, and once those are closed they're gonna go down hard on private trackers.

[megabyteme]

Some of the latest blocks came up from Apple Computers and AMC Theaters. I know that there are still holes in the security of all BT systems, but an added level of protection (I believe) is better than not having it.

I have not had problems with my speeds.

The bottom line for me- I don't want to be the slowest water buffalo when the lions come. :no:

[Blackbeard]

Pretty much useless IMHO. It's supposed to block IP addresses from the RIAA, MPAA, and others like that.

But just think about it for a second. Even if it managed to block all IP addresses from every RIAA building and facility in the world (which seems rather far fetched), what prevents the RIAA investigator from going home and getting on his residential high speed internet account and monitoring IP's sharing copyrighted material? That's right, absolutely nothing.

Then you must consider the unintended opposite effect. While trying to block these large blocks of "bad" IP addresses, how many good or benign IP addresses are getting blocked by mistake?

It's sort of like snake oil. It might make you feel better, but it really doesn't do much good..

True, but it does help and filter them out every protection is better than nothing..
-

Anyways yea good thing too once I get a new video card I'm going to windows 7.. so I would like something like pg2 to work on it. :P

[beethoven]

are they really after all the individual peers? or the people running the sites?

[Sonnentier]

are they really after all the individual peers?
Some lawyers and their snitches are, to send you 'warnings' and 'settlements'.


or the people running the sites?Which is the task for professionals with more skill and time per case.

[EyeCandy]

[QUOTE=The_Martinator;3267525]

I don't know how effective this might be but I doubt that residential IPs would be used to catch other users in the act of piracy. It'd be more efficient to say to a court you used your organizations equipment and internet and followed a standardized procedure rather than saying "oh I was just browsing the internets and on this here log are some people who were downloading this file... oh that IP is mine, but don't worry, I wasn't downloading it."

Of course I could just be wrong. :s

That sort of thinking is fallacy, for the mere fact, the way the law works. Any file they would be downloading, is owned by a client they are representing. Or the law doesn't look at that, the exact same way the DEA makes bust by making a 'buy' from drug dealers.....

[QPD]

Some of the latest blocks came up from Apple Computers and AMC Theaters. I know that there are still holes in the security of all BT systems, but an added level of protection (I believe) is better than not having it.

I have not had problems with my speeds.

The bottom line for me- I don't want to be the slowest water buffalo when the lions come. :no:

+1:yup:

[Rart]

I'm rather skeptical about these kinds of programs - if the government or RIAA or whatever really wants to nab you - I think its easy to find ways around or circumvent these programs. And in reality, no government will go after petty users like us. Cut the head off the snake, thats why being in the scene is so risky.

The worst that can happen (and it still has yet to happen to me, even when I used public trackers or demonoid), is getting a notice from your ISP. And alot of that seems to happen for just released CAM's or things like that early release of xmen.

IMO its like a placebo, except it can block valid IP's =/

[EyeCandy]

. And in reality, no government will go after petty users like us.

First of all you can't be this naive, second of all, the RIAA/MPAA/SONY is not the government, they are private corporations, as have they have gone after "petty" users....

http://torrentfreak.com/student-hit-with-fine-in-riaa-case-090731/

[Rart]

He used kazaa.

He probably uploaded his own rips, to a publicly available source. Why do you think this doesn't happen to most BT users? Don't upload content, especially to public sharing places. They don't have time to go after everyone one of us.

[megabyteme]

There really isn't much to debate here. If people want to use it, they can. It is available for free and does not seem to hurt much, if anything.

If a list like this was built into every BT client, then there could be problems for those who had the misfortune of being on the "black list". As it stands, only a small portion of the community seem to be using it.

For the most part, PeerBlock has continually refused connections with same servers. So far, I have only seen 10-15 unique names. If these are being blocked erroneously,the end effect to the down-loader should be minimal. There are a lot of seeds on the sites I am currently connected to.

I cannot imagine large corporations going through the effort of setting up servers, to "infiltrate" private sites, and seed their own products (or those of their clients) endlessly without some end game in mind.

Perhaps they are only collecting data to see how many units of their product(s) are being distributed. That would be the most benign possibility. They could also be collecting data so they can report how much "damage" is being done to their companies. As more information is collected, we could see these numbers being used against our community of file-sharers and as a reason to limit free use of the internet.

Regardless, I personally believe that limiting information about ourselves and our community is always a plus.

[EyeCandy]

He used kazaa.

He probably uploaded his own rips, to a publicly available source. Why do you think this doesn't happen to most BT users? Don't upload content, especially to public sharing places. They don't have time to go after everyone one of us.


Read the article, he's just now going to court, but he used Kazaa FIVE years ago in 2004, when it was popular, even then he was only sharing 30 songs. I'm pretty sure you used Kazaa or some variation of it(WinMx) five years ago. And its easier to get caught in the BT World, then in the P2P world, I can turn sharing off in P2P, and just download. But, seeding is essentially part of the bittorrent protocol....