PeerGuardian

Infobox_Software
name = PeerGuardian


caption = PeerGuardian 2 under Windows Vista
developer = Phoenix Labs
latest_release_version = 2.0 RC1 (Windows), 1.5 (Mac OS X)
latest_release_date = June 1, 2007 (Windows), April 20, 2008 (Mac OS X)
operating_system = Cross-platform
genre = Firewalls
license = GPL or zlib/libpng license (depends on OS)
website = [http://phoenixlabs.org/pg2/ www.phoenixlabs.org/pg2]

PeerGuardian and PeerGuardian 2 are free and open source programs developed by Phoenix Labs. They are capable of blocking incoming and outgoing connections based on IP blocklists. The system is also capable of blocking advertising, spyware, government and educational ranges, depending upon user preferences.

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). [Brad King: " [http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/news/2003/05/58734?currentPage=all Program Lets P2P Users Roam Free] " Wired News, 6 May 2003] The original PeerGuardian (1.0) was programmed in Visual Basic 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.Thomas Mennecke: " [http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=342 PeerGuardian Interview] " Slyck.com, December 10, 2003] The original version was made open source, and development began on a new version (2.0, led by programmer Cory Nelson) to resolve the shortcomings of the original. The latest version, PeerGuardian 2, is coded in C++. It can block all IPv4 protocols and ports and is much more lightweight. Windows Vista and IPv6 are currently unsupported but there is a proof of concept version that shows limited functionality under these operating systems. A test build of PeerGuardian RC1 which supports Windows Vista is available. [cite web | url=http://phrosty.phoenixlabs.org/pg2-rc1/ | title=PeerGuardian 2 RC1 Test
accessdate=2008-03-13
authorlink=Phoenix Labs
date=13
year=2008
month=March
format=HTML]

Blocklist

The blocklist is stored in a number of different formats:

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 gzip 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 eMule and the Linux version of PeerGuardian. It is equivalent to the first version of the P2B format, but instead uses UTF-8 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 7z 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 plain text 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:

Range Name:FirstIP-LastIP

For example:

Localhost:127.0.0.1-127.0.0.1

This format is used in eMule, in the SafePeer Vuze plugin, and Protowall.

Content of the list and criticism

Since at least 2006 [http://phoenixlabs.org/2006/03/07/the-µtorrent-fiasco/] , the P2P blocklist used by PeerGuardian has been provided by an entity called "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.) The PeerGuardian developers claim to have no control over Bluetack's list, yet refuse to promote or link to alternative lists, even in addition to Bluetack's.

PeerGuardian/Bluetack 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.

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. [" [http://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-switches-to-opentracker-071208/ The Pirate Bay Now Running on Opentracker] " TorrentFreak.com, December 08, 2007] 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. [Janko Roettgers: " [http://www.p2p-blog.com/?itemid=373 Peerguardian blocks hacker club, accuses them of working for Mediadefender] "20 September 2007]

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 criminal misconduct.

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 22nd, 2005. It is also open source, allowing for future derivatives by any party. [http://phoenixlabs.org/pglite/]

See also

* Phoenix Labs
* ProtoWall
* MoBlock
* iplist

References

External links

* [http://phoenixlabs.org/pg2/ Official PeerGuardian website] (Phoenix Labs)
* [http://sourceforge.net/projects/peerguardian/ PeerGuardian] at SourceForge
* [http://wiki.phoenixlabs.org/wiki/Infringement_FAQ Infringement FAQ]
* [http://www.cs.ucr.edu/~anirban/Anir-networking07.pdf Effectiveness of PG]