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News from PeerGuardian and Bluetack
By taklamakan | September 24, 2007
Fakhir (Phoenixlabs staff member) pointed out that:
PhoenixLabs (PeerGuardian publishers) don’t publish or have any control over what is or is not included in the IP lists.
So its not PeerGuardians fault, they just use the blacklist of bluetack. So bluetack compiles the blocklist and everyone else just trusts them blindly, thanks for pointing that out!
He also said we should contact bluetack about the block of our tracker IP-Addr., so we did! We sat down in an IRC chat on #bluetack together with Monk from bluetack (the only person in charge for the blacklist we found) and Andreas Bogk from the Chaos Computer Club (CCC) to discuss why the IP-Addr. of our tracker and all the networks of the CCC are blocked by them.
Their “facts” are:
The funniest thing was that they really believe that the owner and admin of the server our opentracker runs on, works for the MPAA because of the “You can click, but you have to hide!”-pun at his website linking to the MPAA website, which is obviously a pun joke on the You can click, but you can’t hide print and billboard campaign of MPA, MPAA and GVU!
I know this guy since like forever, first he couldn’t stop laughing when we told him that. In fact he now wants a T-shirt with the MPAA joke for the next CCC congress , but on the other hand he feels a bit stabbed in the back by those allegations from bluetack.
And those allegations are more than ridiculous! He is not working for MediaDefender, the MPAA or any other p2p or anti-p2p related company!
So we are a secret undercover anti-piracy operation funded by MediaDefense and MPAA! Whats next, maybe we are terrorists funded by Al Quaida?
The people too dumb to register their fake download-website miivi.com with a WHOIS record not related to MediaDefender, the people so dumb that one of them forwarded his email to a gmail-account protected by a “password” so easy that a three-year old child could bruteforce it by its first ever spoken word, those very same people are now suddenly capable of running a blog like this as a ploy, programm a high-scalable open-source bittorrent tracker, let a guy well respected in the hacker and software scene host it via his CVS, let another guy well respected in the software and hacker scene link on it more than once and then not even brag with one word about that in their leaked mail? Wow.
denis.stalker.h3q.com:6969 is of course not operated by MediaDefender or any other anti-p2p organisation, <paranoia>but maybe the leaked stuff is all a big decoy to cover all this up!!1!</paranoia>
So someone from an IP-Addr. range temporary (they do the Chaos Communication Congress every year) or permanent (they have branch offices in most of the larger towns in Germany) registered to the Chaos Computer Club downloads the bluetack blocklist more than its acceptable, we are sorry.
So over a year ago our tracker (before using the new opentracker software, before moving to the server we currently are running it on and before opening this blog) did run on a host at the Berlin CCC club with an IP-Addr. registered to the Chaos Computer Club because we were short of other hosting options.
So what? We think we already made clear that denis.stalker.h3q.com:6969 is not operated by the Chaos Computer Club but some of us have connections to the CCC.
Yes there were and probably are! Its an open bittorrent tracker, so yes anyone can announce anything on it (we do filter some selected networks which do strange things on our tracker, they are selected by hand because we don’t trust in blocklists like the one in question from bluetack). If there are fake torrents on our tracker we are sorry. We recommend to not use the fake torrents, read the comments before downloading a torrent from index sites! Throw the fake away if you downloaded one, comment the fake torrent on the index-sites and give something back to the community!
We continue to do our thing for the community: We run a fscking fast (even MediaDefender came to that conclusion) open bittorrent tracker for everybody and we think this is as un-anti-p2p as it can get!
Conclusion: Those “facts” are worth nothing. Every single one of them is rubbish.
To quote Fakhir again: Phoenixlabs uses the bluetack lists because their judgment and experience as far as IP research.. The way we see it, this judgement and experience in IP research is blinded by paranoia and self-content.
For us it seems to be impossible to get our entry deleted from the blacklist by talking to those guys.
We personally can not recommend the use of any filtering software that includes their blacklist without any form of quality assurance or review.
Topics: free speech, history | 19 Comments »
September 27th, 2007 at 2:13 pm
Dont feel bad. The Bluetack guys are unprofessional and their list is useless.
I have been telling people not to use it ever since I tried it 3-4 years ago. They had Time-Warner blocked, including the entire 24.x.x.x address range of their cable users!!!
I saw other stupid entries too. They enter any law firms they can find. So all law firms are evil, don’t use bittorrent for legit purposes, and of course the MAFIAA would pay law firms, who are not technical experts, $200+ to look for illegal users. ya right. :/
You will find your number of connections very low with PG because they block over half the world! The biggest reason not to use it, though, is that it is is quite simply useless. MediaDickfender dudes can just run BT from their home connections and process the logs later, or remote to it, or proxy, or they can get an anonymous class C to their office from a small local ISP, or even get a cable modem in their office. Maybe even get paid to work from home! How do I apply?! (jk)
Keep telling people what a bunch of bozos they are at Bluetack. They are just some kids trying to get street cred, and PG not taking any responsibility for them is lame and invalidates their product.
October 2nd, 2007 at 5:40 pm
Would you please post the IP range or ranges that those using Bluetack lists would need to unblock? Thank you for your attention.
October 2nd, 2007 at 6:28 pm
Sure, directly copy&pasted from the bluetack filterlist its:
Speedbone|Anti-p2p:217.13.206.140-217.13.206.161
November 2nd, 2007 at 4:09 pm
I just noticed that this ip was also blocked.
217.13.206.133
have they increased the range?
If you guys really are not anti-p2p, i’m sorry for this predicament.
So, all the Speedbone|anti-p2p blocks i’m seeing in pg2 are yours? if you can tell me a bit more about this, i’ll remove that range from my block list, and convince my friends to do the same. I would like to see this matter resolved for your benefit, my benefit, bluetack’s benefit. There is no sense in blocking legit trackers.
November 4th, 2007 at 9:54 pm
217.13.206.129 to 217.13.206.158 is our range with the tracker running on 217.13.206.133, we don’t know about the other ranges labeled with Speedbone|anti-p2p.
December 16th, 2007 at 8:06 pm
Hi there everybody ….
O.k. so far I understand that you (opentracker guys) and some other dudes posting here (and elsewhere) despise Bluetrack and Peerguardian.
(Bluetrack just jams up their list with any IP they come across and the Peerguardian lamers don’t care about what they distribute and just pass on Bluetracks looser list …)
So far so bad – but what to learn from that?!?
As average torrent user I have NO WAY of tracking down and maintaining my own blocklist for the real bad guys out there (MediaDefender and antiP2P companies …) so I HAVE TO RELY ON SOMETHING at least.
And to increase chances to keep a low profile towards antiP2P companies I’d definitely prefer to use any supposely reasonalble IP-Filter-List rather than running my client open doors spreading any content around like no good ….
(and to those lamers who say: any client can collect your IPs: YES, any client can log my IPs – but it makes a HUGE DIFFERENCE if my IP is listed in some trackerlist OR if I actually CONNECT AND UPLOAD file content to a spying antiP2P-cllient!!!)
So to all the cassandras talking dirty about Peerguardian and Bluetrack:
WHAT ELSE TO USE INSTEAD?!?
As long as noone here can provide better alternatives and in fact educate (!) people, all the moaning about bluetrack and PG will just be the same internet background noise as any other moron complaints posted anywhere in the vastness of the internets opinion dumps …..
As long as noone bashing bluetrack or PG can actually provide any better advice what blocklists to use rather than going without any decent one at all, I cannot follow your bickering and definetly would prefer to have some minor IP addresses blocked wrongfully than to have no blocking lists at all.
So again the question: If you really think people shouldn’t use Peerguardian or bluetrack, WHAT BLOCKLISTS should be used INSTEAD???
best regards
one active sharer
December 17th, 2007 at 3:14 am
Don’t mind. If you feel you can sleep better with that block list, just keep on using it.
December 26th, 2007 at 11:35 pm
Well i have been using PeerGaurdian2 & Protowall for quite some time now (years) and if along side Azureus or uTorrent and i have managed to connect to way more people than i needed to be able to finish my downloads
both of these ip blockers have served me well and defiantly agree with anonymous in post 6 there may be ways to circumvent this protection but what else is there to use?
December 27th, 2007 at 5:38 pm
… sheer idiocy. Anyone who blindly uses ANY SOFTWARE deserves to have themselves taken over by IE iframe exploits.
The ipfilter lists from bluetack are a prime example. To respond to DonkyBoy, you create your own list of course. Sure it is work to do whois queries on questionable peers you connect to or to actually WATCH your torrent clien from time to time seeing what kind of peers are connecting to you. Note I say questionable because there are legitimate peers within certain private ranges you don’t want to block… like any .edu (unless you hate downloading), but you would especially want to block sites which wouldn’t like it if they knew / could connect to you while you were downloading your favourite linux ISO would you? Regarding you believing #6, rubbish. IT TAKES WORK, period. Just like when you get a new computer, what’s the first thing you do?
Hopefully after unwrapping it and getting two pairs of scissors to eliminate the super-sticky tape they use to pack it… you remove the bundled adware that you will never open and don’t need. After that hopefully you remove sponsored security software and all browser toolbars and then only re-install software relevant to your regular operation of the computer. A perfect example which is relevant especially when relating to the process of torrenting, many people do not understand when they are behind a hardware firewall, unless they are on a large private LAN (.edu for example) where it would be silly to be wide open advertising services, you do NOT need software firewalls. They only contribute to headaches for users who can’t understand help manuals and to support personnel who have to reference / quote the “script” users hate, BECAUSE IT HAPPENS so often.
In any case, I appreciate the work you guys at H3Q do so I say thank you~!
December 29th, 2007 at 7:02 pm
@#9: “… sheer idiocy.”
yeah, the only reasonable statement applying in that context.
“Anyone who blindly uses ANY SOFTWARE …”
show me software you are NOT USING BLINDLY!
Are you writing your own OS?
Are you checking any source code line by line and compile everything yourself?
“you create your own list of course.”
yeah, and my firewall policy is to allow any traffic except the suspicious one that I stumble upon when going through my logfiles afterwards …
“Sure it is work to do whois queries on questionable peers you connect to or to actually WATCH your torrent client from time to time seeing what kind of peers are connecting to you. ”
surely! I WATCH a huge amount of 12 digit numbers rushing by and do my post mortem analysis spending a whole weekend for doing whois queries for each hour I deared to download anything …. not to mention the weeks of subsequent research to refine the whois querries and investigate the business models, professional affiliations and commercial relations of the yielded whois answers …
“you don’t want to block […] like any .edu (unless you hate downloading)”
sure. .edu-adresses are my most famous source for filiesharing and I would run dry without them, since no modern university ever blocks p2p protocolls and enforces copyright protection nowadays.
Students abusing their universities infrastructure for filesharing without getting cought must definetely be the real backbone of the filesharing world today …
“IT TAKES WORK, period.”
yeah, as much work as it takes to write your own OS, to weld your own car from sheet steel and to build your own house from scratch with your own bare hands ….
“many people do not understand when they are behind a hardware firewall,[...] you do NOT need software firewalls.”
well just a good security advice as all the before.
Actually there are people using personal firewalls to keep stuff ENCLOSED on their PC and prevent further downloading by suspicious programs and spreading in case some security breach occured on their PC locally – something that a normal external hardware firewall without outbound application level screening cannot provide …..
But as you said already: “sheer idiocy”
But to become reasonable again:
skipping through the bluetack forums it’s obvious that they also have some conspiracy theorists contributing at least in the forum … and It’s a pitty if CCC or innocent trackers get banished in the haze of suspicion.
Yet is is more of a pitty if there is no better alternative and it surely is easier and better to use the bluetack blocklists and manually correct for some known exaggerations than to go out on the street without any pants at all ….
An dieser Stelle einen herzlichen Dank an erdgeist für die vernünftige Antwort – und insbesondere für Euer aller Arbeit an OpenTracker
February 24th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
[...] almost exactly two years ago, after utorrent.com was added to the Bluetack lists. Similarly by the Opentracker people, and the German Chaos Computer [...]
February 25th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
[...] almost exactly two years ago, after utorrent.com was added to the Bluetack lists. Similarly by the Opentracker people, and the German Chaos Computer [...]
February 26th, 2008 at 11:18 am
[...] almost exactly two years ago, after utorrent.com was added to the Bluetack lists. Similarly by the Opentracker people, and the German Chaos Computer [...]
May 5th, 2008 at 5:22 am
I have to agree. What else is out there? If you don’t like an entry, you can take it out yourself or add to it yourself but here’s something to think about.
A Library is owned by the community and supported by the community. Many Libraries purchase movies that you, as a member of the community and part owner of the library, may check out. Soo.. check out the movie instead of downloading it, and make a nice backup of the movie to keep for the community.
July 17th, 2008 at 12:19 am
“WHAT BLOCKLISTS should be used INSTEAD???”
IpfilterX B5
http://nexus23.org/warfare/content/view/17/34/
https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=178440&package_id=205922
Check the links above and you will see it existed when you posted. Other stuff exists, you just have to use your brain to find it.
October 20th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
You guys can say the list is useless all you want, but I know it works from personal experience. My brother and I download similar things using P2P, but I have used PG with the Bluetack lists for years, while he has not, due to his running Windows Vista. He and his wife have gotten 5 copyright infringement notices over the last year and a half. I’ve never gotten a single one.
I’m not saying that is solely because of PG, but it’s another layer of protection to go along with being careful what and where you download.
November 15th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
MAHAHAHA! Need more popcorn for reading all the stuff the dumbasses are writing.
March 10th, 2010 at 7:05 am
Bluetack lists are so useless…
Nexus23 ipfilterX rocks!!!
Reading an interview of these nexus23 people ,
they started it all… not Bluetack that just copied from Method who was a nexus23 mate…
So they are the pioneers , not just a rival team ,
and who would use bluetack nowadays , they are like their filters… hogs ….
December 31st, 2010 at 10:54 am
I have used Bluetack since I left the Warez scene when the bottom fell out. I have since used P2P and Bluetack’s Protowall has been invaluable for my purposes. It has not been foolproof, I have been doing my own research with the usual whois, then adding deny entries for years.
I have accumulated almost 40k entries in a 3670K file of data, which are mostly single-IP denies.
I have also entered almost 2400 permits to allow me access to individual IPs within those ranges supplied by Bluetack.
For instance, there are 34 permits for Dell Computers and I don’t even own a $%#%$^ Dell.
While I definitely prefer clones, I also have about ten HP-Compaqs and over the years have entered 97 permits to gain access for HP drivers and documentation.
I recently downloaded the latest IpfilterXB18-Sheitan blocklist to see what it offered. My opinion? Not much.
For instance, there are a little less than 170 entries in the Bluetack ipfilter before the first entry in the IpfilterX file that I acquired. I won’t comment on the rest of IpfilterX, it isn’t worth the hassles and quibbling that would cause.
I will state that I may use parts of it to supplement Bluetack’s ipfilter, Bluetack hasn’t been helpful in over a year in keeping up with the thousands of sites that have been recruited by the anti-P2P crowd.
Someone here mentioned universities–It is obvious to me that they have long been actively participating in anti-P2P themselves, contracting out their spare computer time to get in on the action for a few bucks.
The Asians, Australians and even Africans have been jumping in big-time, not to mention large corporations, small software and hardware suppliers and even school districts. In desperation, before I wrote my own applications to generate denies, I was manually blocking huge blocks of IPs from the Pacific Basin, especially China. My rationale was that there weren’t that many BT users out there downloading software anyway.
Things have gotten so bad that I am actively blocking my own ISP, the bastards at Time-Warner who have been using every trick in the book to load rootkits on computers I use for P2P. I have gotten fairly adept at rooting out the rootkits using Hirens utilities and DOS/NTFS commands.
I got tired of the whois/manual entry of deny records and wrote a system to automate the process. It isn’t perfect by far, but the attackers are legion and descend like hounds from Hell. Some of the sites may actually be good guys, but I still get decent bandwidth even if some are inadvertently denied.
I’m not going to criticize anyone for their beliefs, but if anyone wants about seven years or so of tedious labor, email me at oledawg@bigfoot.com and I will send my personal permit and deny files for their perusal.
My own experience in the computer business goes back to the ’60s when I was a wet-behind-the-ears computer programmer writing assembly language applications on IBM mainframes. My last assembler gig was thirteen years ago, but after about ten years working for others, I started a small software house in the 80s and three hardware maintenance companies in the 90s that paid the bills until I retired at the end of the last century.
Since then I have piddled with PCs 24/7, surfing the ‘net, programming and managing to download a little less than a terabyte while maintaining an average seed ratio around 1.5.