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Demonoid.com: What really happened.
This is a news report about the popular torrent site, demonoid.com
Recently, demonoid was shut down by the CRIA (Canadian). Demonoid was down for approx. 1 week, and is now back up with a slight modification: No Canadian ip may access demonoid. The CRIA sent a letter to demonoid telling them to block all Canadian ips from the mega torrent host.
“We received a letter from a lawyer represeting the CRIA, they were threatening with legal action and we need to start blocking Canadian traffic because of this.”
TorrentFreak, another popular website quoted on IRC that demonoid was really shut down by the CRIA. After demonoid is back up, it seems like TF was really correct.
For Canadian users of Demonoid, there seems to be an alternative that is easily found on Digg.com. You can use the Demonator proxy at http://demonator.jdbeitz.com/ ; However, this has not been tested at the labs at The Underground.
Originally, BREIN, a Dutch copyright rights protection firm claim victory over Demonoid. In BREIN Claims Victory over Demonoid (http://www.slyck.com/story1512_BREIN_Claims_Victory_over_Demonoid), BREIN has apparently been after the private torrent tracker for a while. BREIN is currently trying to shut down all torrent trackers in its area.
To quote from GeeksNotNerds (http://geeksnotnerds.com/zeekay/demonoid-done-singin-bittorrent-blues):
“Demonoid.com is online again, after a few days of downtime. The cause? Legal threats from CRIA, the RIAA’s “outreach program” in Canada. This comes after the disastrous BREIN fiasco, only a few months ago, when Demonoid was forced to move their servers to Canada, in an attempt to find safe haven.
In a move that befuddles the mind, Demonoid is now blocking Canadian traffic. On a site hosted in Canada. Is this genius, or simply an absurd attempt to postpone the inevitable?”
Peer Guardian 2
Do you like to download torrents and have you ever wondered if people can track what you are downloading?
Well, heres the deal. Yes, you CAN be tracked. Just as well, companies can ping you can slow down your download speeds a LOT.
“PeerGuardian 2 is Phoenix Labs’ premier IP blocker for Windows. PeerGuardian 2 integrates support for multiple lists, list editing, automatic updates, and blocking all of IPv4 (TCP, UDP, ICMP, etc), making it the safest and easiest way to protect your privacy on P2P.” ~Phoenix Labs
PeerGuardian blocks these ips and helps keep your computer safe from prying eyes. Doing some research, we found a bit of information on PG2
“Peerguardian works by blocking ranges of IP’s which are known to be unsafe. Depending on what you see, either they are trying to make a connection to you or you are trying to make a connection to them. It protects in ranges of P2P (addresses not good for P2P since they are logged or they are RIAA/MPAA spy IP’s) and other such as Ads etc. It is usually them trying to get into your computer because you have something they want, or maybe you’re connecting to them to try and get something. But whatever is blocked, is best blocked just for safety sake. note that if you are using filesharing – it is allowing people to get in to get files (that’s the point of filesharing) or if you are viewing websites you are making physical connections to toher computers. Peerguardian displays SOCKET OPENS – meaning that a connection was attempted. I don’t believe they are cracking in unless you are doing nothing wile being attacked, and it is against most ISP’s rules – hence illegal. I don’t think the US Navy is trying to get into your computer as such – maybe one of their computers have been hacked and being used as a relay or an employee is using it to hack – or someone not them is using their IP range. Even people in these gov’t IP ranges have been caught sharing. And no, I don’t think they are doing it for evidence in this case, but say BT users or Kazaa or anything else users, it is them (dangerous RIAA) initiating a connection to you in a perfectly legal manner because that’s what the software does – let people in. ANd you agreed to it on installation. Better yet, it goes the other way too – you make a connection to them to try and download and ur caught red handed.” ~ CD Freaks Forum
Peer Guardian is really effective, but only as effective as the blocklists. if some IP gets onto the list and it’s NOT a bad IP, then Peer Guardian actually HINDERS you. But for the most part it works very well. This is most noticeable when trying to use specific P2P programs like LimeWire or Xfire. (xfire tends to send pings back and forth from its internal servers and gaming servers as well as people on your friends list. LimeWire is a similiar case but this time other people are trying to connect to you). Don’t try to game online while using PG, you will not be able to connect unless you unblock the correct ips.
So, where do you go to get peerguardian? And does it cost anything?
Well, its open source, hence FREE.
for downloads, go to: