tcharp
T C
Premium
join:2002-10-23
Lubbock, TX
 ·Suddenlink
 ·Vonage
·Cox HSI
|  Peer Guardian
I have a question about this little program. I've seen so many recommendations for it, but from what I can see it only blocks a specific list of addresses AND a simple firewall test shows that my IP is easily accessible when running this thing, so the question really is, "What does it do?" because I don't think it does what it is advertised to do.
Any ideas,
-TC
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"It's hard to leave when you can't find the door." - Joe Walsh |
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MattUK
Premium
join:2003-03-23
UK
edit:
July 17th, @02:30PM
| Does near to nothing. Wouldn't touch it with a barge pole. Waste of bandwidth, HD space and RAM, IMO.
Edit - it's meant to block corporations from seeing you. |
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backness
join:2005-07-08
K2P OW2 | reply to tcharp
it keeps your computer from connecting to groups that are known to be anti-p2p... 7 million ip's to be exact (just for anti-p2p)
the lists are updated regularly by people who spend thier time cross referencing ip's from logs... |
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ctrip
Islam is a Religion of Peace
Premium
join:2002-07-16
New Cumberland, PA
 ·EarthLink
| reply to tcharp
Pretty much useless IMHO. It's supposed to block IP addresses from the RIAA, MPAA, and others like that.
But just think about it for a second. Even if it managed to block all IP addresses from every RIAA building and facility in the world (which seems rather far fetched), what prevents the RIAA investigator from going home and getting on his residential high speed internet account and monitoring IP's sharing copyrighted material? That's right, absolutely nothing.
Then you must consider the unintended opposite effect. While trying to block these large blocks of "bad" IP addresses, how many good or benign IP addresses are getting blocked by mistake?
It's sort of like snake oil. It might make you feel better, but it really doesn't do much good.
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Spread Internet Explorer! - The browser you can trust to not have those annoying Firefox twits pushing it! |
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hitachi369
Embrace Your Rights
Premium
join:2001-10-03
Grand Rapids, MI
clubs: | reply to backness
Ie pulling IP out of there asses. They recently blocked news-hosting, hardly an **AA bady. |
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tcharp
T C
Premium
join:2002-10-23
Lubbock, TX
·Suddenlink
·Vonage
·Cox HSI
| What y'all have said is pretty much what I'm finding as well. It's hard for me to understand why it is so highly touted on a couple of torrent sites I've visited.
Also, the only address that I have seen it block is the Unix-girl address that DSLR is using for a substitute monitor site. I'm thinkin' she is not a bad guy.
I'll save my disk space.
Thanks,
-TC
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"It's hard to leave when you can't find the door." - Joe Walsh |
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THE MANN
join:2004-08-31 | reply to tcharp
pg is one of the biggest bs it does nothing for you but block good sites.
the idea of being safe by blocking IPs is just ridiculous
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KLT K++ 2.7.0 - EDONKEYLITE1.1 |
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Qumahlin
Never Enough Time
Premium,MVM
join:2001-10-05
West Chester, PA
| reply to tcharp
said by tcharp  :What y'all have said is pretty much what I'm finding as well. It's hard for me to understand why it is so highly touted on a couple of torrent sites I've visited. Also, the only address that I have seen it block is the Unix-girl address that DSLR is using for a substitute monitor site. I'm thinkin' she is not a bad guy. I'll save my disk space. Thanks, -TC It's touted on sites because the people that run them are idiots. These are the same people that still reference the "internet privacy act" and believe it actually exists and that they can just say "No police allowed!" and the police aren't allowed in...heh
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Forum Posts:6500 |
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kywirelessgu
Premium
join:2004-01-25
Nicholasville, KY
clubs:
edit:
July 18th, @04:45PM
| reply to tcharp
I don't use PG, but my feeling is, if it blocks one IP of some baddy then its worth it, right? Sure its not fool proof, but I'd rather be standing in the middle of the interstate with socks than with nothing at all.
You'll always be connecting to other people without PG, who have your IP in their logs who the baddies can track, so it'll never be foolproof as long as not everyone uses it.
I also think if the RIAA busted me from one of their home computers I'd have a pretty big loophole in court.
That being said, its pretty much worthless software, though the newest version allows you to pretty easilly turn off blocking http so it won't shut down your websites, though one of the great side affects of the software is it blocks IP's of known adware sites so it could potentially block a trojan.
I'm a llama
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the answers to all lifes questions... »www.google.com |
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KingWaffle
Premium
join:2004-06-12
| reply to tcharp
I noticed that it is useful for a few things. It can block ads if you choose it to do so. It also can give you a heads up if you're downloading a fake song or not...it goes balistic if you try and download a fake song off of P2P...but yeah...for the most part its useless. |
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Qumahlin
Never Enough Time
Premium,MVM
join:2001-10-05
West Chester, PA
| said by KingWaffle :I noticed that it is useful for a few things. It can block ads if you choose it to do so. It also can give you a heads up if you're downloading a fake song or not...it goes balistic if you try and download a fake song off of P2P...but yeah...for the most part its useless. Only if that fake song is coming from one of the listed sources. It really doesn't prevent fakes since the biggest problem is people do not delete the fake songs they download from their share directory so then you have joe schmoe sharing the fake song as well.
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Forum Posts:6500 |
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KingWaffle
Premium
join:2004-06-12
| Usually they target legit songs, then when you attempt to download the song, it'll contact one of the "bad" files and download garbage. I think they spoof the hashes on the songs. So they have a bunch of machines sharing "static" of popular songs. Speed of Sound by Coldplay is a good example of a song that'd be difficult to find if you tried to download it. |
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Kujo__
join:2002-07-18
edit:
July 21st, @11:13AM
| reply to tcharp
Prior to using IP blockers such as PeerGuardian and Protowall (I currently use Peer Guardian 2), on a few occasions, I got copyright warnings from my ISP at the time. Since using them, I've never gotten a warning. You have nothing to loose by using one of these apps. CPU usage, and memory usage are non issues with PeerGuardian 2. If you use P2P apps a lot, you should use them. Perhaps I use Peer Guardian out of paranoia, but it makes me feel safer.
From the Peer Guardian FAQ:
Q. How safe is PeerGuardian, really?
A. Well, it is accurate in the sense that it blocks everything on your blocklist. It is impossible to know _all_ the addresses to block, so while it will increase your safety to a good extent, it can never be perfect. |
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hitachi369
Embrace Your Rights
Premium
join:2001-10-03
Grand Rapids, MI
clubs:
| I've taped a banana to the side of my computer and haven't gotten a letter since then. Some say that I am foolish for doing so, but I have not gotten 1 fake file nor a letter since then. Too much of a coincidence not to be true.
I also switched to Usenet at the same time, but I don't think that factors into this.
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Please view the Hitachi3694MVM page at http://mvm4.hitachi369.com |
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kywirelessgu
Premium
join:2004-01-25
Nicholasville, KY
clubs:
edit:
July 21st, @02:46PM
| reply to tcharp
quote:
I've taped a banana to the side of my computer and haven't gotten a letter since then. Some say that I am foolish for doing so, but I have not gotten 1 fake file nor a letter since then. Too much of a coincidence not to be true.
way to turn a perfectly legitimate thread into a circus freak show.
I think this is the downward spiral that Jarmann was referring to.
If you feel more secure using PeerGuardian, then you don't need anyones permission. Just install it and see how many IP's it actually blocks (alot in my personal experience).
Can't be all bad, right?
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the answers to all lifes questions... »www.google.com |
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ctrip
Islam is a Religion of Peace
Premium
join:2002-07-16
New Cumberland, PA
·EarthLink
| said by kywirelessgu :Can't be all bad, right? Since we are discussing Peerguardian, I'd have to respectfully disagree.
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Spread Internet Explorer! - The browser you can trust to not have those annoying Firefox twits pushing it! |
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kywirelessgu
Premium
join:2004-01-25
Nicholasville, KY
clubs:
| reply to tcharp
quote:
Since we are discussing Peerguardian, I'd have to respectfully disagree.
Care to explain? You are saying its ALL bad? PG can do nothing worthwhile?
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the answers to all lifes questions... »www.google.com |
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ctrip
Islam is a Religion of Peace
Premium
join:2002-07-16
New Cumberland, PA | That is correct. |
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kywirelessgu
Premium
join:2004-01-25
Nicholasville, KY
clubs:
| reply to tcharp
When you browse the kind of sites I do a good IP blocker is a Godsend
Donkey on Chicken bondage porn shouldn't be adware supported 
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the answers to all lifes questions... »www.google.com |
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Morpheusneo1
@rr.com | reply to tcharp
Listen you fool! If PG blocks known addresses of peering eyes, that is good enuf for me. Plus it eats up 2 mb of your hard drive and maybe 1 mb of ram if that. So install and quit bitching. |
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