PeerGuardian
Encyclopedia
PeerGuardian is a free and open source program developed by Phoenix Labs
. It is capable of blocking incoming and outgoing connections based on IP
blacklists
. The system is also capable of blocking custom ranges, depending upon user preferences.
The Windows version of this program has been discontinued in favor of other applications (Phoenix Labs encourage current PeerGuardian users to migrate to PeerBlock
which is based on PeerGuardian 2).
and quickly became popular among P2P
users despite blocking only the common TCP protocol and being known for high RAM and CPU usage when connected to P2P networks. By December 2003, it had been downloaded 1 million times.
The original version was released for free and the source code was made available under an open source
license.
Due to Version 1.0 only blocking TCP ports PeerGuardian.net then shifted to bluetack.co.uk where Protowall
,The blocklist Manager, B.I.M.S and the Hosts Manager were developed.
In order to resolve speed and resource issues, Version 2.0 was re-engineered and re-developed in C++. The new design consumed significantly less processing power and memory while running. As with most other desktop firewall software for Windows, Version 2.0 is installed as a kernel-level filter in Windows 2000 and later, giving the application greater access to the Windows networking stack and greatly improving overall performance.
Support for both Windows Vista
and IPv6
were in release candidate phase as of May 2009.
The format is as follows:
For example:
This format also is used in eMule
, in the SafePeer Vuze
plugin, ProtoWall
, KTorrent
.
Bluetack.co.uk developed an application called the Bluetack Internet Management System (B.I.M.S) that would spider whois servers to create a map of the internet and all of its IP Addresses.
With this database the admins of the site (Seraphielx, Moore, Firstaid, Tozanno, DeathAngel, R00ted) would search for names of Anti-P2P companies and set a status code in the entry to make the blocklists that would be downloaded by the blocklist manager for import into PeerGuardian, Protowall
, and other applications that would block Anti-P2P traffic from accessing your download.
They would also obtain logs from people who were sent letters for downloading "illegal" software, music and videos and figure out who in the list did not belong and flag the entry just to be safe.
The PeerGuardian developers state they have no control over Bluetack's list, and do not promote or link to alternative lists. They 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.
With the blocklist manager application the users would be able to add in these sites to a "Safe" list so they would still be able to access the Games and websites.
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
. 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.
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 other possibly unlawful activity.
, allowing for future derivatives by any party.
The blocklists are also managed by the public, but there is no fool-proof method on checking or reporting why an IP address or range are bad, nor on checking if the blocked IP addresses still remain bad. The list relies on the public to make submissions, and thus is vulnerable to attack itself (see above section on blocklist management issues).
Vista 64 bit and Windows 7 64 bit are listed for application compatibility, but require a work around involving disabling driver signing that may require some degree of computer skill.
Phoenix Labs
Phoenix Labs is a software developing community founded by Tim Leonard and Ken McClelland and best known for PeerGuardian, an open-source software program optimized for use as a personal firewall on file sharing networks.-History:...
. It is capable of blocking incoming and outgoing connections based on IP
IP address
An Internet Protocol address is a numerical label assigned to each device participating in a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. An IP address serves two principal functions: host or network interface identification and location addressing...
blacklists
Blacklist (computing)
In computing, a blacklist or block list is a basic access control mechanism that allows everyone access, except for the members of the black list . The opposite is a whitelist, which means allow nobody, except members of the white list...
. The system is also capable of blocking custom ranges, depending upon user preferences.
The Windows version of this program has been discontinued in favor of other applications (Phoenix Labs encourage current PeerGuardian users to migrate to PeerBlock
PeerBlock
PeerBlock is a free software firewall application. PeerBlock is the successor to PeerGuardian . It blocks incoming and outgoing connections to Internet IP addresses that are included on blocklists accessible over the Internet which may be selected by the user, but also any addresses manually...
which is based on PeerGuardian 2).
History
Development on PeerGuardian started in late 2002, led by programmer Tim Leonard. The first public version was released in 2003, at a time when the music industry started to sue individual file sharing users (a change from its previous stance that it would not target consumers with copyright infringement lawsuits).Version 1
The original PeerGuardian (1.0) was programmed in Visual BasicVisual Basic
Visual Basic is the third-generation event-driven programming language and integrated development environment from Microsoft for its COM programming model...
and quickly became popular among P2P
Peer-to-peer
Peer-to-peer computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads among peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the application...
users despite blocking only the common TCP protocol and being known for high RAM and CPU usage when connected to P2P networks. By December 2003, it had been downloaded 1 million times.
The original version was released for free and the source code was made available under an open source
Open source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
license.
Due to Version 1.0 only blocking TCP ports PeerGuardian.net then shifted to bluetack.co.uk where Protowall
ProtoWall
ProtoWall is a closed-source freeware program for IP blocking that is similar to PeerBlock. It is designed to block connections from organizations such as MediaSentry, BayTSP and MediaDefender while using peer-to-peer file sharing networks....
,The blocklist Manager, B.I.M.S and the Hosts Manager were developed.
Version 2
After 7 months of development, in February 2005 Version 2 of PeerGuardian was released as a beta. The development of version 2.0 was led by Cory Nelson, and aimed to resolve many of the shortcomings of Version 1. Version 2 enabled support for more protocols (TCP, UDP, ICMP, etc.), multiple block lists, and automatic updates. The installation procedure was also simplified, no longer requiring a system restart and driver installation.In order to resolve speed and resource issues, Version 2.0 was re-engineered and re-developed in C++. The new design consumed significantly less processing power and memory while running. As with most other desktop firewall software for Windows, Version 2.0 is installed as a kernel-level filter in Windows 2000 and later, giving the application greater access to the Windows networking stack and greatly improving overall performance.
Support for both Windows Vista
Windows Vista
Windows Vista is an operating system released in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs...
and IPv6
IPv6
Internet Protocol version 6 is a version of the Internet Protocol . It is designed to succeed the Internet Protocol version 4...
were in release candidate phase as of May 2009.
Binary formats
The binary formats (known as P2B) were created at the release of the first beta version of PeerGuardian 2, in order to create the smallest possible blocklist.- P2B Version 1 – This format was used only in the earliest releases of PeerGuardian 2. It was compressed using the gzipGzipGzip is any of several software applications used for file compression and decompression. The term usually refers to the GNU Project's implementation, "gzip" standing for GNU zip. It is based on the DEFLATE algorithm, which is a combination of Lempel-Ziv and Huffman coding...
format. Lists are no longer produced in this format. - P2B Version 2 – The most widely used format, this is supported among a number of applications, including eMuleEMuleeMule is a free peer-to-peer file sharing application for Microsoft Windows. Started in May 2002 as an alternative to eDonkey2000, eMule now connects to both the eDonkey network and the Kad network...
and the Linux version of PeerGuardian. It is equivalent to the first version of the P2B format, but instead uses UTF-8UTF-8UTF-8 is a multibyte character encoding for Unicode. Like UTF-16 and UTF-32, UTF-8 can represent every character in the Unicode character set. Unlike them, it is backward-compatible with ASCII and avoids the complications of endianness and byte order marks...
to store names. - P2B Version 3 – The newest version of the P2B format, this is currently supported only on the latest version of the Windows version of PeerGuardian 2. This format uses 7z7z7z is a compressed archive file format that supports several different data compression, encryption and pre-processing algorithms. The 7z format initially appeared as implemented by the 7-Zip archiver. The 7-Zip program is publicly available under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public...
compression for additional size reduction. The recent adoption of this format made it the least compatible one.
P2P plaintext format
The original format for PeerGuardian version 1.x was a simple plaintext format. Unfortunately this meant that lists became very large and cost a lot of bandwidth to distribute, heralding the construction of the smaller binary formats.The format is as follows:
RangeName:FirstIP-LastIP
For example:
Localhost:127.0.0.1-127.0.0.1
This format also is used in eMule
EMule
eMule is a free peer-to-peer file sharing application for Microsoft Windows. Started in May 2002 as an alternative to eDonkey2000, eMule now connects to both the eDonkey network and the Kad network...
, in the SafePeer Vuze
Vuze
Vuze is a BitTorrent client used to transfer files via the BitTorrent protocol. Vuze is written in Java, and uses the Azureus Engine. In addition to downloading data linked to by .torrent files, Azureus allows users to view, publish and share original DVD and HD quality video content...
plugin, ProtoWall
ProtoWall
ProtoWall is a closed-source freeware program for IP blocking that is similar to PeerBlock. It is designed to block connections from organizations such as MediaSentry, BayTSP and MediaDefender while using peer-to-peer file sharing networks....
, KTorrent
KTorrent
KTorrent is a BitTorrent client written in C++ for KDE using the Qt user interface toolkit. It is maintained in the KDE Extragear.- Features :*Upload and download speed capping / throttling & scheduling...
.
Blacklist management issues
Since at least 2006, the P2P blocklist used by PeerGuardian has been provided by "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.)Bluetack.co.uk developed an application called the Bluetack Internet Management System (B.I.M.S) that would spider whois servers to create a map of the internet and all of its IP Addresses.
With this database the admins of the site (Seraphielx, Moore, Firstaid, Tozanno, DeathAngel, R00ted) would search for names of Anti-P2P companies and set a status code in the entry to make the blocklists that would be downloaded by the blocklist manager for import into PeerGuardian, Protowall
ProtoWall
ProtoWall is a closed-source freeware program for IP blocking that is similar to PeerBlock. It is designed to block connections from organizations such as MediaSentry, BayTSP and MediaDefender while using peer-to-peer file sharing networks....
, and other applications that would block Anti-P2P traffic from accessing your download.
They would also obtain logs from people who were sent letters for downloading "illegal" software, music and videos and figure out who in the list did not belong and flag the entry just to be safe.
The PeerGuardian developers state they have no control over Bluetack's list, and do not promote or link to alternative lists. They have been criticized for overly broad blocking based on unsubstantiated evidence.
PeerGuardian acknowledges that Battlefield 2
Battlefield 2
Battlefield 2 is a computer game by the Swedish developer Digital Illusions CE . During development, Trauma Studios contributed to the development of the game after it was acquired by DICE...
, Blizzard
Blizzard Entertainment
Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. is an American video game developer and publisher founded on February 8, 1991 under the name Silicon & Synapse by three graduates of UCLA, Michael Morhaime, Allen Adham and Frank Pearce and currently owned by French company Activision Blizzard...
, Steam, and ArenaNet
ArenaNet
ArenaNet is a computer game developer and part of NCsoft Corporation, founded in 2000 by Mike O'Brien, Patrick Wyatt and Jeff Strain and located in Bellevue, Washington...
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.
With the blocklist manager application the users would be able to add in these sites to a "Safe" list so they would still be able to access the Games and websites.
In 2007, Bluetack/PeerGuardian 2 were criticized for blocking denis.stalker.h3q.com, the second largest BitTorrent tracker
BitTorrent tracker
A BitTorrent tracker is a server that assists in the communication between peers using the BitTorrent protocol. It is also, in the absence of extensions to the original protocol, the only major critical point, as clients are required to communicate with the tracker to initiate downloads...
as of December 2007, as an "Anti-P2P" address, and claiming that its maintainers (whose tracking software "Opentracker
Opentracker
opentracker is a free BitTorrent peer tracker software that is designed to be fast and to have a low consumption of system resources.- Features :...
" is also used by The Pirate Bay
The Pirate Bay
The Pirate Bay is a Swedish website which hosts magnet links and .torrent files, which allow users to share electronic files, including multimedia, computer games and software via BitTorrent...
) were conspiring with the MPAA
Motion Picture Association of America
The Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. , originally the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America , was founded in 1922 and is designed to advance the business interests of its members...
and MediaDefender
Mediadefender
MediaDefender, Inc. is a company that offers services designed to prevent alleged copyright infringement using peer-to-peer distribution. They are controversial because of their use of unusual tactics such as flooding peer-to-peer networks with decoy files that tie up users' computers and...
. The maintainers are members of the Chaos Computer Club
Chaos Computer Club
The Chaos Computer Club is an organization of hackers. The CCC is based in Germany and other German-speaking countries.The CCC describes itself as "a galactic community of life forms, independent of age, sex, race or societal orientation, which strives across borders for freedom of...
(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.
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 other possibly unlawful activity.
PeerGuardian Lite
PeerGuardian Lite is a derivative of PeerGuardian 2 made to consume as little CPU and RAM as possible. It has no UI or options and consists of a single tray icon. It is no longer developed, with the latest version released on April 22, 2005. It is also open sourceOpen source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
, allowing for future derivatives by any party.
Other criticism
Besides the original criticism of Version 1 being slow and buggy, most other criticism of PeerGuardian is around the actual technique used to block peers. Critics have pointed out that the blocklists are open to the public, and thus parties who may wish to circumvent PeerGuardian can actively check the list to see if their IP addresses have been blocked.The blocklists are also managed by the public, but there is no fool-proof method on checking or reporting why an IP address or range are bad, nor on checking if the blocked IP addresses still remain bad. The list relies on the public to make submissions, and thus is vulnerable to attack itself (see above section on blocklist management issues).
Vista 64 bit and Windows 7 64 bit are listed for application compatibility, but require a work around involving disabling driver signing that may require some degree of computer skill.