Careful with peer guardian and peerblock . There ' s a great post from a very smart guy named Grey Wizard . I remember this post being super popular back in the day , and people a lot smart than me said he PROVED that peer guardian doesn ' t work . Quote from GreatWizard on August 30 , 2008 , 124630 PM PG 2 is a placebo . Of course , you see some addresses blocked . The #$% thing blocks ONETHIRD of the Internet address space , by its own claim . What you do NOT know is whether the addresses this piece of #$% blocked were , in fact , the very peers who had the pieces you were downloading . By inducing and then reinforcing paranoia , PG 2 does more harm to torrenting than the RIAA , the MPAA and the FBI combined . I ' ve said it before if PG 2 didn ' t exist , the MPAA would have invented it . Smiley Here ' s just a small selection of the problems with this overhyped garbage The Media Defender internal email leak offered plenty of information for the taking . MediaDefenderDefenders said that they hoped that the email leak will prove to be a viable tool to protect against antiP 2 P efforts . This is something BlueTack has been trying to do . After the email leak , a text file that compiles the complete IP Internet Protocol list Media Defender used while dropping fake files onto various P 2 P sites and networks was posted . While judging the effectiveness of these lists had proven to be an impossible task before the major leak , the effectiveness can now be tested . Slyck began the investigation when BlueTack ' s ' Paranoid ' IP filter blocked one of TVUnderground ' s new eDonkey 2000 servers . A request for comment or information on the matter to BlueTack ' s team went unanswered . To this day , why BlueTack has blocked only one of TVUnderground ' s servers is unknown . In the meantime , Slyck is currently in the possession of a copy of BlueTack ' s IP filter lists , and further investigation into related matters appeared warranted . According to the BlueTack website , B . I . S . S . is a site dedicated to improving the safety and awareness of all our members and guests , providing News , Security articles , Software Reviews , Technical Support , Guides , IP Research and Free Software needed to help us keep our connections to the net and each other safe , secure , and free from unwelcome intruders . Among the things offered are the blocklists , which have been met with either acceptance by the filesharing community or complete rejection . Some say that the blocklists allow users to simply block any antifilesharing company and allow users to connect with nonindustry IPs . Others say that there is no way to get the right IPs before the IPs are changed to different addresses , thereby rendering the filters ineffective . It ' s been the subject of debate for quite some time amongst many experts with no real way to test the lists , at least until the Media Defender email leak . The ' Paranoid ' eMule IP filter was retrieved on September 27 , 2007 . The Level 1 IP blacklist , which is supposed to block all known antip 2 p IPs , was retrieved on September 30 , 2007 . The idea behind getting these lists now is to offer ample time for Media Defender ' s now public IPs to be added to the lists for a much more effective blocklist for PeerGuardian users . Slyck then obtained a copy of the publicly available 14 . 3 MB compressed text file which lists all of the Media Defender ' s IP addresses . At this point , it became obvious that testing such a large volume of IPs would prove to be an overly timeconsuming challenge , at least by hand . In order to alleviate this problem , it was best to test one particular IP range . Conveniently enough , the first range started with 116 . Slyck then decided to test all of the IPs that started with the number 116 . The total number of IPs used by Media Defender starting with 116 was 1 , 474 . Obviously , BlueTack did block all IPs that started with 116 , but how many Media Defender IPs were successfully blocked ? When Slyck investigated , there was a common theme that blocklists seemingly jumped over several ranges used by Media Defender . After some extensive study using the Level 1 list for antip 2 p companies and the ' Paranoid ' list , BlueTack would have successfully blocked 16 IPs . Thus , this sample test offered 1 . 09 % protection against Media Defender in that range . The IPs that were successfully blocked were 116 . 255 . 1 . 109 , 116 . 255 . 1 . 154 , 116 . 255 . 1 . 244 , 116 . 255 . 1 . 27 , 116 . 255 . 1 . 52 , 116 . 255 . 1 . 85 , 116 . 215 . 157 . 243 , 116 . 212 . 14 . 223 , 116 . 199 . 202 . 170 , 116 . 199 . 202 . 240 , 116 . 199 . 207 . 83 , 116 . 199 . 207 . 84 , 116 . 199 . 226 . 78 , 116 . 199 . 227 . 11 , 116 . 199 . 227 . 27 , 116 . 199 . 227 . 67 . The remaining 1 , 458 IPs would still be allowed through even with these two filters being used today . While BlueTack may still perpetuate the idea that their filters are 99 % effective , these latest findings will only fuel criticisms towards BlueTack ' s actual effectiveness . A complete test might not be possible short of creating a simple program to test every single number or spending weeks handtesting every single Media Defender IP address . In the mean ime , it seems very apparent that BlueTack ' s filters have a few holes . And that was tested against known and published addresses ! ! In order to catch those 16 addresses probably by dumb luck and the law of large numbers , BlueTack also blocked more than 4 million INNOCENT addresses in the same range . A SECOND TEST I am convinced that it is not authentic . I did a reverse lookup on 500 or so somewhat randomly picked addresses from the 5 . 3 million addresses in that list . Look at the results it ' s pretty clear that the vast majority of the items in the list are residential dynamic IP addresses from all over the world . Not Much Anonymity for Unprotected FileSharers Researchers Examine P 2 P Networks The same technology that allows easy sharing of music , movies and other content across a network also allows government and media companies easy access to who is illegally downloading that content . Note that it is not our intention here to examine how accurate and comprehensive these lists are , though this would be interesting and challenging future work . after a quick look through the document , found elsewhere PDF thanks again guys , all their stats are based on a couple of assumptions that the blocklist contains no false positives , and more importantly , that it fails to contain no address that should be included . i will leave it to others to comment on the likelyhood of these assumptions being correct . FROM PGs ow website Well , it is accurate in the sense that it blocks everything on your blocklist . It is impossible to know all the addresses to block PeerGuardian is known to be incompatible with McAfee and BlackICE firewalls . Outpost is also known to cause a problem if you shut down PG 2 while it is running . There is currently no way around this , so we recommend you try switching to another firewall PeerGuardian blocked someone , should I be worried ? Well , it was blocked , so why would you worry ? PeerGuardian is slowing down my connection ! This occurs because of the way PeerGuardian blocks packets , not connections . PeerGuardian is blocking an IP like crazy , should I worry ? PeerGuardian will constantly block IPs . Many times you will see IPs get blocked three or more times before giving up this is due to the way most computers handle reliable connecting . After a period of time , people may retry to see if you are responding yet . This does not mean people are spying on you . A block list is a list of bad IP ranges that are know to spy on people ' s computers . This software is provided ' asis ', without any express or implied warranty . In no event will the authors be held liable for any damages arising from the use of this software . Total of IP ' s being blocked right now 2 , 377 , 645 , 666 first things first , if the government was andor are spying on you right now , it will be on a IP range that is not on our blocklists and is a secret range of IPs , second thing is , if the government was andor are spying on you right now , they would be doing it on a whole diffrent level . I have more . Lots more . Smiley Just felt that this will make explanations a bit easier . Smiley In summary Peerguardian does not work at all and actually damages bittorrent by blocking millions of good peers . I mean they blocked their own update servers . come on . Roll Eyes