Everyone loves fully licensed software such as Windows Vista and Microsoft Office 2007, movies in DVD format, albums of MP3, games for computer, XBOX, PS2, PS3, eBooks and comics, ALL FOR FREE! But not many will really support anti-piracy by buying original music albums and DVDs because it’s too expensive! Why pay when you can get it all for FREE?
It’s no doubt that P2P software are the most downloaded softwares in the world in all time. Even though P2P technology is for sharing, but it is widely being used for distributing pirated files. That’s when Anti Piracy companies such as MPAA and RIAA comes in to work. Questions is, are we all still SAFE from piracy?
There has been reports that MPAA and RIAA has infiltrated private torrent sites, uploading fake torrents and setting up fake torrent trackers. When they’ve done all that, they could have gotten maybe millions of IP addresses that’s violated the copyright law. There is a very important information you should know and that is “IT IS NOT SAFE” downloading from torrent or P2P. Latest report says that according to an insider who worked for several anti-piracy organizations, blocklists significantly decrease the risk of getting caught by the MPAA or RIAA. Their main conclusion is a user who is not using blocklist software is practically GUARANTEED to be monitored.
One of the very popular and free blocklist software that provides protection against MPAA or RIAA from monitoring you is PeerGuardian 2. PeerGuardian 2 are free and open source programs developed by Phoenix Labs. They are capable of blocking incoming and outgoing connections based on IP blocklists. Their purpose is to help protect the user’s privacy from organizations such as the RIAA and MPAA while using filesharing networks such as FastTrack and BitTorrent. The system is also capable of blocking advertising, spyware, government and educational ranges, depending upon user preferences.
I’ve discovered this blocklist software many months ago but back then, this software was quite confusing to use. I’ve just downloaded and installed the latest version of PeerGuardian 2, it’s very easy to use.
After installing PeerGuardian 2, you’ll be asked a few questions on the first run. First questions is which range you’ll like to be protected from. By default, only P2P is checked and I believe that’s sufficient. The more you block, the more problems you’re going to face while browsing normal websites.
Next questions is about Automatic Updates. It’s very important to always keep your blocklist up to date otherwise it’s like running an AntiVirus that has old definition. To be on the safe side, select Every day.
Before you get to run PeerGuardian 2, it’ll look for the latest updates on the software and the blocklist. After updating, it will run.
That’s all you need to do. If you see the PeerGuardian2 tray icon at your traybar blink 3 times, it means PeerGuardian2 is blocking a bad IP range.
There is an option in PeerGuardian which can block HTTP (website) connections. I noticed that it blocked a lot of websites and resulting the website unable to load. If you encounter this problem, simple click on the “Allow HTTP” button to stop blocking the HTTP. Another method is you can right click on the IP address in the log window and allow the IP manually, PeerGuardian 2 will automatically create a new list for you. The IP address can be allowed for 15 minutes, 1 hour or permanently.
According to an expert in the field, who worked with several anti-piracy organizations, the blocklists contains approximately 75 – 80% of IPs used by the anti-piracy companies he worked with. This means that they offer some protection, but that they’re not foolproof. Well, at least better than nothing.
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