PeerGuardian: What P2P Mods Say

[SonsOfLiberty]

PeerGuardian: What P2P Mods Say
February 10, 2009

Most p2p users have heard of PeerGuardian (PG). Some trust its effectiveness while others swear to not ever use it. The question is “Is PeerGuardian effective in protecting you from anti-p2p groups?“

For those of you who haven’t heard of PeerGuardian, it is an open source program used to block incoming and outgoing connection attempts based on a blocklist. People often ask “Is PeerGuardian effective?” Yes PeerGuardian is effective in the sense that it blocks everything in its lists. Instead what they mean to ask is “Is PeerGuardian effective in protecting me from anti-p2p groups (such as RIAA and MPAA)?” In this article i will investigate this question. Note: PeerGuardian has many different good uses and I am not questioning those - I am only questioning its effectiveness in avoiding being contacted by anti-p2p organizations.

This is a question that cannot be easily answered because of several reasons. For example you cannot know how many ips that should be blocked are being blocked, and how many letters have been prevented by it (if any). I went to respected important figures, moderators, from several torrent related sites including The Pirate Bay, Suprbay, IsoHunt, ShareReactor and asked them for their opinions on whether or not PeerGuardian is good for this purpose. The average p2p user deserves to know what these “expert sharers” think.

“Its like a condom, its not 100% effective but its better than nothing.”
- Omega50

“Its like a condom with a hole in it, turned inside out.”

“Well if it gets more people to share more, sure I suggest they use it. heh. but i don’t think should.”

“Its like a second layer of tinfoil… for your crown of paranoia.”
- Toblakai

“I’ve never been able to understand why anyone who’s figured out there’s no tooth fairy believes it could possibly work. It could only do so if … the blocklist managers can read minds. Or by magic.” - Snake Plissken

“The only way to not get an STD is to not have sex. The only way to truly never get caught pirating is to never ever pirate to begin with. However, the chances of ever being found and prosecuted are slim to none. The lawyers and media groups only go after big time torrent spreaders like Axxo and so forth. We are peons and not worth the lawyer bills and frustration to them.” - TheFiveSisters

“If you were trying to connect to infringers and your IP constantly got blocked because of enlightened peers. What would you do. Right get pissed and spam forums and newssites about pg. I think that might well have happened.
Few years back many used blocking applications. It’s in decline and it’s all due to public opinion and not facts.” -nightspydk

“I never installed it. // So I have never tried it. // I am a PeerGuardian virgin. // And damn proud of it! ” -velvetfog

“That’s a bit like saying you shouldn’t run an antivirus or firewall because neither can protect you 100% and both will throw up false positives that stop you connecting to good IP’s or using good programs. I’m not pro-PG but I don’t get the mass hostility shown towards it, especially when the same ppl will go on and on about how great their AV+Firewall is, yet its no better or worse than PG at achieving what its owner hopes it will.” -akhiugo

Conculsion
What you must remember is that unless you are an uploader with hundreds of mainstream movies the chances have of being contacted by anti-p2p associations are slim (but still existent unfortunately). There is no 100% solution, but if you are still worried about this then you might want to get a bittorent friendly VPN.

We understand PeerGuardian does everything it claims to (it blocks the ips on the lists) but overall the mods of various torrent sites do not believe its block lists are effective for the purpose of keeping you safe from anti-p2p groups. 80% of these “expert sharers” do NOT suggest the average p2p user to use it. However only 47% think that it causes harm to the swarm. The overall reaction appears to be negative.

If you wish to use it, its up to you, just remember you are never safe, and you ISP can still see what you are doing. Another option when using block lists is using ipfilter.dat, which is built into utorrent. That way you dont have to load a separate program.

You can take a poll at the link and read more and even comment, but I figure it should come to light, I use IPFilters once in a while, not often, but I figured this should come to light




Source: Blog Pirate Homepage: PeerGuardian

[mr. nails]

i swear by this program.

i also know sumthing that i'm not at liberty to tell.

[stoi]

I have used it once, i also used protowall once.

No way on earth there can be that many nasties floating about, protowall blocked 2/3rds of the worlds ips ffs.

I think its a pile of crap, when we added the blocklist to the tracker, we had a few good members saying, they could not get on the site.

So it does block good members as well, not just those that you want to block, it also blocks some uni connections, which students use for high speeds, personally i would never touch it again, but each to their own.

[Sonnentier]

If you use public torrents, the filters will block the obvious spybots.
So for that purpose, I think it's better than nothing.

[Aliyans]

i used it once.. but even if it block govt releated ips n u can add the ips u want..but u have no escape from the threats come via ur ISP..But u have better protection if u use public trackers..do u need it when u use private trackers n if u use encrypion on torrent client??

My another question is How badly u r xposed to ur ISP?? i know its a hard question.. but anybody has any experince or info which is true can share it..To break down my question, can ur ISP see each file and its name u download/upload even if u use encryption in client.. i know its intended for protection from ISPs too as per guides, but then why some people get letters n calls from ISP for illegal downloads?? or they dont use encryption... share your exerinces please

[Brenya]

This is not news.

More trite so i don't get warned for spamming:

Yeah, I've used it... like 4 years ago. Then some wise folks told me the condom analogy and pointed out that there is nothing stopping Big Brother from using home connections. And since back then I had troubles using it on an x64 system, I decided it was more trouble than it was worth.

“Its like a second layer of tinfoil… for your crown of paranoia.”
- Toblakai

-This.

i swear by this program.

i also know sumthing that i'm not at liberty to tell.

You aren't at liberty to tell us that you know something that you aren't at liberty to tell, because it just p*sses me off.

[turin]

I use it. And the list of blocked IPs depends a lot on which tracker I use!

[Hairbautt]

i swear by this program.

i also know sumthing that i'm not at liberty to tell.

So tell us then.

[central2rbay]

Conculsion
What you must remember is that unless you are an uploader with hundreds of mainstream movies the chances have of being contacted by anti-p2p associations are slim (but still existent unfortunately). There is no 100% solution, but if you are still worried about this then you might want to get a bittorent friendly VPN.

We understand PeerGuardian does everything it claims to (it blocks the ips on the lists) but overall the mods of various torrent sites do not believe its block lists are effective for the purpose of keeping you safe from anti-p2p groups. 80% of these “expert sharers” do NOT suggest the average p2p user to use it. However only 47% think that it causes harm to the swarm. The overall reaction appears to be negative.

If you wish to use it, its up to you, just remember you are never safe, and you ISP can still see what you are doing. Another option when using block lists is using ipfilter.dat, which is built into utorrent. That way you dont have to load a separate program.

In truth, your security is a function of your choices and behaviors. In my opinion, PG simply does what it claims, and if you're truly worried about it protecting you completely - then perhaps it's time to re-evaluate your choices and what communities you're apart of. I second those who feel it harms the swarm... I think for those who are apart of closer, tighter-niche communities - it's unnecessary. I can only agree with those 80% who suggest "expert sharers" shouldn't use it. Net net, I feel it does negatively contradict and ultimately effect those "expert sharers" who are where they are.

[SonsOfLiberty]

This is not news.

Maybe not to you and I, or anyone who's been around since it started, that was way back in 2000. But to many users around, do not know about it, and also just use it to use it and don't understand...and yes it depends on what tracker you use, with TPB I use it all the time, but with a private tracker not at all...and there are reason's to use it on the ed2k network too, spammers,bots, etc...