Forget About Peer Guardian :(

I always use Peer Guardian when using utorrent, yesterday I hit a virus and I have to reformat my computer, and then I get utorrent and start using it and forgot about Peer Guardian , then I realized it after an hour and when I downloaded and installed Peer Guardian and launched it I see a flooding list of range named MediaDefender targeting at my IP address and port number, do u think it is specifically targeting me or it scans all the computer in the world??? Am I gonna get tracked by MediaDefender???

PG is useless.

pg blocks those riaa related ip though, at least it's better than nothing right?

It doesn't, really. The ranges it blocks are very non-specific and inaccurate.

"at least it's better than nothing right?"

PG can't archive anything for torrents that the ipfilter.dat used by µT itself could'nt archive itself.

and for "catching" guys will the companies use unsuspicious residential IPs like every legitimate torrentpeer uses too.

And to answer your question; no, they are not scanning the whole world for IPs, but yes, they were specifically targeting your IP which they got from the torrent swarm info.

Probably the best blocklist you can have...is one you tweak yourself.

so how do i protect my privacy and how do i use ipfilter.dat?

if they targeted my ip does that mean they're gonna get me?

Yes.

-- Smoovious

are they gonna contact me anytime soon?

you'll have to ask them... they aren't affiliated with us...

-- Smoovious

i heard that u get letters from them, but u can still download and ignores them.

I wanna know the safest way of downloading, using ipfilter.dat????????

safest way is NOT to download copyrighted material.

there is simply NO way to be absolutely safe from being watched if you use the bittorrent protocol to willfully infringe copyrights. It's simply not possible!

The inventor of that protocol hadn't "anonymity" in mind as a design goal.

Edit: how to use ipfilter.dat is explained in the FAQ.

i saw the faq but where can i download the ipfilter.dat already made???

PG is useless.

Published studies disagree with you.

www.cs.ucr.edu/~anirban/Anir-networking07.pdf

From the conclusion:

A naive user is practically guaranteed

to be monitored: we observe that 100% of our peers run into blocklisted

users. In fact, 12% to 17% of all distinct IPs contacted by a peer are blocklisted

ranges. Interestingly, a little caution can have a significant effect: the top five

most prevalent blocklisted IPs contribute to nearly 94% of all blocklisted entities

we ran into. This information can help users to reduce their chances of being

monitored to just about 1%.

(emphasis mine)

That kind of effectiveness is not useless.

funchords:

do not just quote some single paragraphs that seems to agree with your opinion that "That kind of effectiveness is not useless".

you must carefully define the "intended use" of such a list. And when the user of such a list/program things that the effectiveness includes the ability to "not be seen" doing copyrightinfringements, then is that simply not true and the list/program is useless for THAT purpose.

just because the conductors of the study do not know which domestic IP Mr. Millin of Media Sentry uses to record an IPaddress does not make there 1% argument valid.

Conclusion: blocklists/programs can not prevent that you being "detected" doing copyrightinfringements, they just prevent recieving waste data, which is a functionality that µT has built in (auto banning after hashfails), and/or which can be archived with an ipfilter.dat that has those well known highbandwith poisoners in it.

And because of these facts that a programm can perform the desired results itself makes aditional programs from a logical point of view "useless".

And thats what the "Anti-PGers" in this thread are arguing.

Noone with an open, logicly thinking mind disputes that this kind of lists has some use like preventing to recieve bad data from known bad data senders, but that's it!

@goldenswordsman: the guys that blocked µTs server IP addresses a while back do offer publicly filter lists. bluetack.co.uk

About the "useful"ness of those publicly known lists for the purpose of preventing problems with the law, see DWKs link.

Look for feedback.. If other people have been caught....don't download it.

If you do get caughthere is a tip.

Apparently the RIAA and friend don't keep records.

Several people have gone to the judge and asked the RIAA to report what they downloaded.....They didn't know. They try to scare you into paying the the settlement.

I'm sure the RIAA's and MPAA's methods are becoming less and less incompetent as time goes on.

However as far as blocking poisoners on "good" torrents are concerned, the blocklists are more than marginally effective -- they can often make the difference between downloading or not! The few poisoners they miss tend to either get quickly banned (if you use the new block range filter in µTorrent) or fail to upload anything to you at all.

Hilarious conclusion there funchords.

"Using blocklists reduces chances of connecting to blocklisted IPs."

Amasing study...

hmm... "Using blocklists reduces chances of connecting to blocklisted IPs."

...

I'd have to agree with that statement, and in fact, it works fairly well at doing exactly that...

-- Smoovious

Yeah, studies, don't you just love them?

I found the data itself they collected during their testing to be pretty interesting... taken by itself...

...but their conclusions were all flawed, being based on faulty premises to begin with.

-- Smoovious

Dread: I read your linked article. Of course, it is true. This falls under "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" -- MediaSentry, for example, monitors P2P networks and torrent swarms. While it is possible that they can do this from their home computers, we KNOW that they current do it from known IP ranges, too.

"Effective" never meant that the risk of detection is eliminated. It is simply reduced. Keeping these lists effective is a big game of "whack a mole." There are known entities (L1, L2, for example), but there are also unknown entities which are listed in the templist or watch list. And even with that -- there is the certainty (not probability) that they have IP ranges that Bluetack doesn't know about.

Several people have gone to the judge and asked the RIAA to report what they downloaded.....

And this is a big part of my point. If they cannot connect to you, they cannot download their alleged "Intellectual Property" from you. Sure, they have my IP because the tracker or the P2P network gave it to them. But without something collected from my computer, they have insufficient evidence to make a case.

In my case, I don't share really popular files -- I like Tin Pan Alley music and vintage movies. MediaSentry and the RIAA/MPAA has no claim to the stuff that I share. Yet, they constantly are trying to initiate connections with my computer. They have no permission and they have no cause.

And then there was the guy last week that got a DMCA Cease and Desist notice for sharing Fedora Core!

If you want a bulky program that can hamper your connection, blocks innocent peers and has even blocked µtorrent's website in the past to be protected from just a portion of the anti-piracy teams out there go ahead. I'd still not recommended it.

The only way to be safe from Infringement notices or prosecution is to NOT download illegal (=dependent on your local laws) material.

Besides a lot of people believe they are decently protected by using PG while in fact they are NOT. They wouldn't download illegal material without PG but feel safe doing so with PG... which is obviously a false sense of security. What use is such a program if it doesn't fully protect you or at least marginalizes the risk? Especially since we are talking about you being criminally prosecuted...

I seem to recall people being sued even though they DIDN'T download any copyrighted material illegally due to ip mixups either by RIAA or by their ISP. It's exceedingly rare though.

100% safe might only be possible by being in a country that does not prosecute copyright infringement.

If you're downloading MOVIES or CD albums, you can EXPECT a copyright infringment notice pretty quick. TV shows are getting the same way too.

Peer Guardian is essentially worthless without huge amounts of research to make decent blocklists... which almost nobody is interested in making. And even with that, you're better off using the converted blocklist in µTorrent itself.