gHacks technology news » fake-torrents http://www.ghacks.net A technology blog covering software, mobile phones, gadgets, security, the Internet and other relevant areas. Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:22:46 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 en hourly 1 Block IP addresses with Peer Guardian http://www.ghacks.net/2007/01/30/block-ip-addresses-with-peer-guardian/ http://www.ghacks.net/2007/01/30/block-ip-addresses-with-peer-guardian/#comments Tue, 30 Jan 2007 07:55:01 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2007/01/30/block-ip-addresses-with-peer-guardian/ Why would you need another program to block IP addresses if you already have a firewall ? A good question that can be answered easily. Peer Guardian uses a database of bad IP addresses and blocks them automatically as soon as the IP is added to the database of blocklist.org. A single user would have to know that a new IP (range) poses a thread and add it manually to his firewall.

Peer Guardian already has many IP addresses blocked that are uses by the MPAA to spread fake torrents and record IP addresses of the peers that download the torrents. Blocklist distinguishes the following categories: ads, bogon, edu,game,gov, p2p,phishing, spam and spy. The most important category for most users will be p2p of course and a installed Peer Guardian client will make sure that your client will not connect to the fake torrent clients and IPs. (if they are in the range that is blocked)

You do not need to configure your file sharing application to work with Peer Guardian, everything is done automatically. You can add sites that you definitely need to the allow list to make sure that they will never be blocked by Peer Guardian.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2007/01/30/block-ip-addresses-with-peer-guardian/feed/ 4 Fake Torrent Finder http://www.ghacks.net/2007/01/29/fake-torrent-finder/ http://www.ghacks.net/2007/01/29/fake-torrent-finder/#comments Mon, 29 Jan 2007 08:24:40 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2007/01/29/fake-torrent-finder/ Fake torrents are spread into the system by organizations for two reasons. The first and in my opinion dominant one is to unsettle the torrent users by lowering the rate of successful downloads. Nothing is more discouraging than downloading the latest blockbuster for days only to see that you downloaded only garbarge in that time. In addition to this the trackers that spread the fake torrents are recording every bit of information they can get their hands on.

The IP address can be used to identify users and sue them in the process for instance, still the main reason is to destablizie the system and make users leave it. One way to find fake torrents is to use the newly introduced Fake Finder which is a script that displays and lets you search for the latest fake torrents that are known to them. There is no 100% guarantee that the site lists all fake torrents and trackers but it lists many and you should consult it before you begin to download a file.

The list of torrent trackers that spread the fake torrents is large and you should use a program like peerguardian to block them all. This prevents the connection at all and should protect your privacy.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2007/01/29/fake-torrent-finder/feed/ 1 Tired of fake torrents ? Block the sources http://www.ghacks.net/2007/01/12/tired-of-fake-torrents-block-the-sources/ http://www.ghacks.net/2007/01/12/tired-of-fake-torrents-block-the-sources/#comments Fri, 12 Jan 2007 16:31:54 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2007/01/12/tired-of-fake-torrents-block-the-sources/ We all knew and heard about the common method to upload fake torrents into the torrent system to punish downloaders of copyrighted media files. The Torrentfreak blog reports that some torrent admins were able to identify some of the IP ranges that spread fake torrents and probably also the company that is behind it. The easiest way to cope with the situation would be to block the IP ranges either in your firewall or in a utility such as Peer Guardian. Below are the information for Peer Guardian 2, simply use the IP ranges if you want to block the IPs in your firewall.

MPAA Tracker:66.172.60.1-66.172.60.255
MPAA Tracker:66.177.58.1-66.177.58.255
MPAA Tracker:66.180.205.1-66.180.205.255
MPAA Tracker:209.204.61.1-209.204.61.255
MPAA Tracker:216.151.155.1-216.151.155.255

The fake torrents look like real torrents on first glance and are disguised as valid group releases such as Battlestar Galactica S03E07 REPACK DSR XviD-ORENJi. According to nforce.nl Orenji is the group that is releasing Battlestar Galactica  episodes.

Everyone should be well aware that the worst thing that can happen is not a crippled file but legal consequences. Those trackers surely log every IP and connection that is made and this might lead to legal consequences as well. I’am no lawyer but it is at least doubtful if this is indeed copyright infringement if you download a file that is not working at all.

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