Peer Guardian

[KrayZ33]

does someone use this and can explain this stuff to me? Does it even work? And which peers do I have to block without losing download speed with uTorrent?

Is this programm usefull or even needed when downloading?
I didn't use it up until now and after I came across this programm I thought: "well, it can't hurt" and so I told it to block bad p2p/ad/goverment/whatever and now I'm wondering if it is even allowing utorrent for me xD.

Is it even necessary to use this programm? because uTorrent seems save in my opinion, or will it slow down my downloads?

[Buffalobiian]

Well, I never considered it for P2P protection, but it was one of the things I had a look at for immunization functions and stuff. I had second thoughts after reading this though

Content of the list and criticism

Since at least 2006[4], the P2P blocklist used by PeerGuardian has been provided by an entity called "Bluetack Internet Security Solutions". ("Bluetack" was the name of the member of the original PeerGuardian team who owned its previous domain peerguardian.net and created the "Block List Manager" used to maintain the list.[2]) The PeerGuardian developers claim to have no control over Bluetack's list, yet refuse to promote or link to alternative lists, even in addition to Bluetack's.

PeerGuardian/Bluetack have been criticized for overly broad blocking based on unsubstantiated evidence.

PeerGuardian acknowledges that Battlefield 2, Blizzard, Steam, and ArenaNet connectivity is blocked, which creates problems for many online gaming users who are not aware that PeerGuardian will break game connectivity, and are thus directed to read the manual.

In 2007, Bluetack/PeerGuardian 2 were criticized for blocking denis.stalker.h3q.com, the second largest Bittorrent tracker as of December 2007, as an "Anti-P2P" address, and claiming that its maintainers (whose tracking software "Opentracker" is also used by The Pirate Bay) were conspiring with the MPAA and MediaDefender.[5] The maintainers are members of the Chaos Computer Club (CCC), a long-standing association of hackers and freedom of information activists, and had also briefly run their tracker from the CCC's own network. Bluetack also blocked CCC itself, accusing it of doing "anti-P2P work" and being a "threat" to file sharers, while others pointed to the fact that the CCC had been publicly defending P2P for years, and even called for boycotting the music industry to protest its file sharing lawsuits.[6]

Although IP addresses of government and business entities are easily added to a list of IP addresses to be blocked, there is no means for PeerGuardian to block access by a government or business using an undocumented IP address to identify people engaged in software piracy or criminal misconduct.

As for utorrent, I think it's safe enough. With the auto hash check/ban function, the only thing I can think of that can go wrong is an actual program security hole (one ever existed to my knowledge, and it's patched). That or gov't tracking. Is gov't tracking a bit problem these days? I'm living down under, and I don't think our gov't gives a damn at this point.

Interesting point though, is that they did push forth a bill to have compulsory ISP level content filtering, and can only be taken off by direct request of the account owner. Over 50% reacted negatively in the latest Australian Broadband Survey.

[KrayZ33]

I came across this program when I checked the logfile from uTorrent and it said "piece xxxx failed hash check" or something similiar to that, and tried to redownload it 10 times...

So, its not usefull? (I don't know what to read out of this article, because " Internet " is not my field of expertise :/, I just go with the "stream"

[Buffalobiian]

Well, pieces can fail for a variety of problems. Generally your computer'll automatically sort it out. That IP should be banned by now too, for the session at least. I wouldn't say it's useless, but it's got it's own set of problems, so it depends on what you're wanting it to solve. I'm not the best person to listen to here, so someone else should take on this.