help with utorrent and peerblock

i was recommended to use peer guardian resently, but since it doesnt seem to work well/at all in win7 im using peerblock.

after adjusting the lists to not include protection lvl 3 and bogons i got back to using utorrent successfully. yet recently something must have happened as no download is starting at all. all parts are at o% etc. this may be a issue that needs to be addressed in several places to get a full answer but i was hopping to speak with someone here if anyone can give me a greater clue.

forgive me if this is a problem for somewhere else, but i did see a post some time ago about someone having issues using peerguardian/peerblock etc.

i looked over general definitions of the lists provided and tried to make the ones i had as limited as i could, but perhaps there is still a issue there that is too extensively blocking something.

thank you for any help,

and although im new to the site, if there is a way to pm that might be helpful as well.

Does the problem persist with peerblock off?

no it does not appear to, but i did want to remain safe as possible which i was told peerblock was one thing that would indeed make it safer.

i got the general lists that were recommended, i just don't know what changed since the last time i used it. as apparently the bogons and lvl 3 security lists were enough when i took them away that all seemed normal.

i don't know if that answer makes this question def one for another venue...

Actually, based on the history we have here, peerblock and the bluetack issue blocklists it uses do NOT actually protect you from anything.

is that an all encompassing comment or is that in mention to viruses, fishing, p2p or something. i have read some things saying that those looking for your information are going to find it since their are infinite ip's for anyone to use for anything they want.

for this i simply aimed to protect myself from as many things as i can. although frankly i dont really know more than to try to look at a list and add it with hopes it doesnt restrict too much. i cant really use this the whole time im on the computer as i cannot really add my own perimeters really.

but is there anything that you can say about troubleshooting it back to were it was, or at least helping this effort of blocking what harmful things i can. even if its looked at as minimal...

Viruses will get on your machine, regardless of what blocklists peerblock has.

Ultimately, it protects you from good download speed and nothing else by blocking the part of the internet that DOESN'T have the bad peers in it.

i heard you say that in the other post i was initially looking at. could you possibly give a further explanation of that. as all i have read thus far has said that measures like peer guardian/blocker are ones that block a few of the see of things that might be sniping your computer/ip.

The anti-p2p organizations have access to the lists as well, and it's trivial for them to get access to IP addresses that are not on the blocked lists.

And that, coupled with the knee-jerk reaction that bluetack has for blocking MASSIVE ranges because of one or two IP addresses, means that you aren't protecting yourself from anything other than your internet being usable.

is that to say that by the same token you would either not care to publicly speak of a more reliable option as for it not to be spread. or that there is really nothing to do/ can you actually recommend something on this subject for a recently fear(warning) inspired person. sadly unlike all others doing the exact same as i, in the same area...not receiving the same fear.

I don't recommend an alternative package because any alternative package inherently has the same problems.

Protect yourself from viruses with good sense and a decent antivirus program.

Protect yourself from anti-p2p groups by not downloading content they're likely to monitor, because any other option doesn't protect you.

Blocklists don't work, have never worked, will never work. It's just that simple.

I worked as a copyright enforcer back when Napster was coming out (although I dealt with physical commercial piracy) and we knew how to deal with blocklists then, more than 10 years ago.

BTW, those people you're supposed to be blocking, look and act like any other peer, so there's no way to identify them to put them on the list.

Blocklists can be looked at 2 ways

1) a scam. They do nothing, and try and get you to 'dontate' money to make them feel important

2) a false-flag. a nice easy way to direct people TO their logging bots, and away from legitimate peers.

take your pick.

well i am not sure i know exactly what is a hotbed for things that are going to be highly monitored, and others apparently didn't get hit with bad luck. even at a higher usage, and less care.

although i do think that if there is anything that can be guarded against to any degree it probably should. if something might happen for several reasons, might as well stop those you can if you can.

so i would prefer to keep these guards in place, and get this working again alongside it. rather than a cautious fingers crossed attempt.

well i am not sure i know exactly what is a hotbed for things that are going to be highly monitored, and others apparently didn't get hit with bad luck. even at a higher usage, and less care.

although i do think that if there is anything that can be guarded against to any degree it probably should. if something might happen for several reasons, might as well stop those you can if you can.

so i would prefer to keep these guards in place, and get this working again alongside it. rather than a cautious fingers crossed attempt.

Ok, here's the thing. you see this as 'protecting you from some is better than protecting you from none'. What you've actually got is it blocking all the 'ok', and leaving the ones you want blocking, available. so, it tends to make it MORE likely you get monitored, not less.

These lists don't protect you from anything, they act as a magnet.

is that to possibly say that keeping these set of "dangerous" ip's from interacting with you might point a big gleaming arrow your way... or maybe be a reason for their other unknown assets to come after you? rather than potentially being skimmed over or something?

i mean dont get me wrong, all signs seem to point to f***ed if you do f***ed if you dont situation, but i guess i am scared curious by now. like a game of duck duck goose, i dont want to be picked out of the equal and unsuspecting group again here.

You are correct, if you don't "show up" to their obvious ips...you're certainly gaining more attention from their OTHER ips. And since you've blocked MANY consumer broadband ip ranges...your BitTorrent program has more time to retry those OTHER ips automatically. So it certainly stands out to those that care to look.

Keep in mind that even with a "perfect" blocklist they still get your ip from the trackers or if it's a public torrent from other peers/seeds. Many don't even bother to verify you're actually ON those torrents before sending out threatening emails to ISPs:

http://dmca.cs.washington.edu/

On top of that, a "perfect" blocklist cannot exist because of ip spoofing and usage of IPv6 (which is quickly growing common.) Almost all the blocklists block is IPv4, so ANY IPv6 address is likely to work and currently easy to "remap" to a different IPv6 address for anyone seeking to do serious monitoring of torrents.

would you say that any of these people could be parted with nearly any torrent, so the simple act of using the advanced setting and taking any unreliable one out is also fruitless?

not exactly looking to be taken in by one irate and swinging hand, while the other hand swoops in to slap me in the face... but i am most likely still going to remain iffy/irate over the damned if you do, damned if you dont situation.

and im not sure if there is any specific way to look/categorize things as "downloading content they're likely to monitor".

any tracker i meant, are most of them just as easily bound to be privy to all torrents just as well as trying to filter ip's. i suppose im still trying to isolate my degree of hopeless here : /

Do some searches of the matter on this forum alone...

well, i will honestly say that i did not know exactly what topic i was to be searching on. however, i did try to look into "bad trackers"(general i know), ip blocking, etc. but didnt really find anything all too interesting/outside of the damned if you do, damned if you dont chance game. with the exception of talks about vpn's, to which i posted a question for specifics on it there.

that appears to be the last issue to go over, outside of troubleshooting my block lists down to a point where i can actually torrent and run peerblock. which of course this site at least has talked about supposed bad ip's and how to use blocking efforts, but also that they can be laughable. so who knows, maybe its just a effort for a safety blanket.

though i did query elsewhere if there was any point to(my only working way thus far) allowing torrents to load up fully, and then turn on peerblock. less all information is made available before peerblock is turned on.

splitting hairs still i presume.

thanks for all efforts shown here.