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PeerBlock ~Effective IP Filter or Harmful~

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DaggerLite:
I've seen it debated on various forums, whether PeerBlock (and other IP (as in Internet Protocol address) blocking software) is useless or not. The main reason it is argued to be useless is that people use it to protect themselves from corporations snooping around for IPs that are sharing their [partners'] intellectual property through torrents, while these interest groups will still get IP addresses from the trackers you connect to. Whether they and your ISP cares about your privacy regardless of seeing you as a distributor (seeder) or not connectible is a different matter. The fact that anyone might connect from unblocked addresses is also used as an argument, although I don't see this as a good one, since you've already made their work harder for them in that case.

I personally wager high that it's not useless in terms of guarding oneself from undesirable IPs connecting to your computer. Of course, the program is useful as an IP blocker, but I'm thinking about the pre-constructed lists (iblocklist.com) in case that was not obvious.

The question is, however, is it doing more good or harm? Using PeerBlock, you'll naturally use the anti-P2P list, which includes dozens of corporations regardless of them actually being anti-P2P or not. All in all, I'm blocking 776 million IP addresses right now. I am fairly certain that I'm not really being targeted by anyone in specific, and while it is just another layer of security, it keeps blocking addresses constantly. It's obvious that most of them are just regular people that happen to be behind a blocked IP range. In addition to this, there's the issue of blocking legit companies, adding some work in figuring out what ranges to allow for your computer to work normally. Luckily, some IP lists have been made for certain popular service providers (Valve's Steam for instance).

tl;dr:

* Is PeerBlock worth the effort?
* Is it effective as a general IP blocker, or does it block too many legit connections and virtually no undesired connections?

K7IA:
Unfortunately I can't comment on PeerBlock software, I presume they rely on a custom mini-port driver implementation but I checked out the FAQ for some basic knowledge.

I am using mainly dat files for ip range filtering during P2P activities if supported by the BitTorrent client. I think it was a very big file (2 mb+) with a significant ip pool. I can't say for certain because my dedicated pc for P2P committed suicide 2 months ago.

My main reason for blocking ip ranges was because some peers inject corrupted/incorrect data during P2P activity and cause serious delays in file completion. I am using this feature since eMule 0.29~ , and I think it does what it is supposed to do.

DaggerLite:
For those who block IP ranges differently: PeerBlock is just an interface to easily block and allow IP addresses as you do other stuff. It auto-updates from URLs regularly, and you can control manual blocking as well, describing what exactly a range is for. Easily viewable.

The topic goes to all forms of mass IP blocking, though I assumed most people use PeerBlock or PeerGuardian 2. At least I've got the impression of that.

dogsinafen:
I use it.
The first time you set it up it can be a pain, since it's blocking servers for same gaming applications and similar stuff. But that's no big deal because you can permit those IPs.
If you're getting connection problems you just look at the list and see what's being blocked and permit it.

With private trackers the list is pretty much useless (depends if anti p2p get access to that site) since most if not all the peer group is safe.
I've noticed that with public trackers PeerBlock blocks a lot of unwanted connections.
As can be viewed here (list was generated while I was leeching/seeding public torrents):


So using that application does help. The only strange problem I had was that the IP of my seedbox was being blocked because of OVHSAS was also hosted on the same network. But that was a simple fix.

If you're really worried about who's connecting to you because of you're torrenting then you need to use a VPN or a SeedBox. Nothing like having another server somewhere else do all your connections for you. And, with a seedbox you get a great ratio out of it :D .

K7IA:
^ In fact this is some serious activity if the log entries are not connection retries etc which I can't tell since the src/dest ip addresses are concealed.

But may be I can assume these are indeed probes for infringement detection of copyright protected material if they originate from/to different ip addresses.

i.e if Euroaccess|Anti-p2p log entries are from a lot of different ip addresses, then the block is indeed protecting you. If it is from a single ip, the effectiveness assessment would probably be inconclusive.

You could drive some conclusions whether the software is helpful or not through simple logic just like this one.

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