! ATTENTION PeerGuardian Users

[Gibz]

I did not know where to post this in the WW forum, so I will put it here.

There has been a few problems concerning "PeerGuardian"  recently...  the full story can be found at the following link:

    http://peerguardian.sourceforge.net/

cheers.

[GhostShip]

Cheers Gibz, there is a thread going on somewhere in the forum but this is the place it should be, thanks for posting  

The bad news...

Heres the story folks, a month ago one of the methlabs staff Cerberius
whos real name is William Erwin re-registered the domain Methlabs to himself, he was able to do this as a trusted member of the Methlabs team, his responsibility was for the sites server and he was also charge of funding for the sites upkeep.

No one is sure why he has taken this action but, at the moment he is making all sorts of ludicrus allegations against all the other members of the team using the site as a platform.

One thing must be made clear here, there is no divide amongst the Methlabs folks this guy is acting alone and no other member of the methlabs staff are with him now, so the site is totally compromised, except for the areas that the team where able to delete from the server including all the members records, so rest easy that your info is safe.

Now to the good news ...

The sites founder and main programmers are using the open source facilities of sourceforge to host from as gibz mentioned and the program can be obtained from there still, the list should be set to not automaticly update

There are backups for the site and luckily the william erwin does not have these, he is currently asking folks to re-register at the site claiming a staff revolt  :roll:
The team have also stated that any further info from themselves will carry their names so look out for these

Cory Nelson  - Programmer of PG2
Tim Leonard  - Co Founder of the site
Ken McKelland - Co- Founder of the site
Joseph Farthing - Publicity officer for methlabs

As you can see it would be hard for the site founders to steal there own server  :roll:

here is the announcement from the sourceforge site
 
http://peerguardian.sourceforge.net/index.html

The majority of the Methlabs.org administration and development team have been forced out of their website following a series of threats and incidents. The member of the group that had been trusted to handle the finances and servers slowly managed to take over each individual part of the website's assets, eventually claiming control over the entire group and locking out the majority of staff.

The organisation's founders, Tim Leonard and Ken McKelland, as well as the majority of the organisation's staff and developers (including the main developer of the PeerGuardian2 application, Cory Nelson and the staff members responsible for auditing the PeerGuardian Blocklists) have all been forcibly removed from the servers that were funded from donations given to the organisation by happy users, and from text advertising placed on the websites forum and project pages.

The money, which was to have been used to help fund the development and hosting costs of the group is now unavailable, stolen by the one who was trusted to keep it.

Development of PeerGuardian will resume, and the website will temporarily move to http://peerguardian.sf.net/ until a new domain is registered and a new server found. The intention of the group is to register a non-profit organisation to handle the development of Methlabs applications and to promote open source projects that aid both security, privacy and peer-to-peer technologies, in order to prevent a repeat of this incident.

The team wish all their users the best through this difficult time, but promise that development will continue. Please visit http://peerguardian.sf.net/ for news as we make progress. All other sites, including http://methlabs.org and http://blocklist.org, are under control of the rogue member and should not be trusted for safe updates to our applications or lists.
A new build of PeerGuardian will be released soon to reflect these changes. Until then we ask you to continue using Beta 6a but with caution as the list update servers are no longer under our control and may be unsafe.

All staff are available in irc.freenode.net, channel #methlabs if you wish to chat.

Thanks,
The Methlabs Staff (looking for a new home),

Adam Hoier, Cory Nelson, Eric Mayuk, Fox Lowe, James Shanelec, Joseph Farthing, Ken McKelland, Steffen Tuzar, Tim Leonard
aka
braindancer, D3F, fox, FuRiOuS1, JFM, KuKIE, method, phrosty, r00ted

Updated lists from this site are safe still as they are not under control of the methlabs servers.

http://bluetack.co.uk/config/sources.txt

For a tutorial on how to do this

http://list.tglounge.net/tutorial1.php



For those bored amongst you it seems some folks are rather annoyed with this guy, here his pic  

http://img328.imageshack.us/img328/3886/cerb8ww.jpg

[NewB]

There has been a few problems concerning "PeerGuardian"  recently...  the full story can be found at the following link:

My experience is that the 'full story' seldom comes from listening to just one side.

I am more or less a disinterested party to this, as I do not use peerguardian and know none of the parties involved.  I have no ax to grind on either side.

Given that, after reading both webpages, I would tend to favor the group who were primary authors and contributors of the project and founders of the previous effort if they are still working as a team to continue development and support of their 'baby'.

If in fact someone violated a fudiciary responsibilities, absconding with group funds, improperly taking 'ownership' of domain name that rightfully belonged to the group, fraudulently usurping control, and excluding others from rightful access to group resources, I would hope that common sense would prevail and if not, there may be some legal remedies available.

As to peerguradian itself?  I am not sure I understand its function or usefulness.  Does it do anything more than a firewall?  other than having an automated common rule list for addy's to block?

And what does such promiscuous blocking guard one from?  From detection of sharing?  From RIAA snoops?  Really?  is that it?

If so, I think it provides a dangerous false sense of security.  Does anyone think that disney only uses disney.com to track file sharers?  Please..  If p2p users can use proxies certainly RIAA members have the resources to have an account at every ISP in the USA.  Certainly they can open AOL accounts for tracking.  Are you then going to block all AOL addys?

It would be easier to add a global block rule and then only allow firewall access to your friends on a IP by IP basis, and hope that the RIAA hasn't set you up with a social engineered sting.  The battle will be won elsewhere, by other means I think.

[GhostShip]

Luckily the fact is that the Cartel use many well know IPs to flood the networks with, and this is the well know defensive strategy behind peer guardian, its never been any secret.

Also its good to remember that the Cartel can sit and make allegations all day, but proving that the file was coming from a secondary or a primary is going to be a legal headache for them as I,m sure they are well aware, how many WnMX users have you seen being sued ?  

[NewB]

Also its good to remember that the Cartel can sit and make allegations all day, but proving that the file was coming from a secondary or a primary is going to be a legal headache for them as I,m sure they are well aware, how many WnMX users have you seen being sued ?  

erm.. afaik, all files are transferred direct, p2p.  The IP of the downloader is clearly exposed on netstat, netlimiter, firewall or other common net monitoring utilities.  If a klutz like me can figure out things like that I'm sure THEY can.

[KM]

if they request a file from you then they can hardly claim that the file transfer was done without their permission...

[GhostShip]

What they know and what can be proved in court is always a different thing.
Sure they can allege that that is the IP it came from and of course the defense can say prove it, it is fairly easy using some of the industries own tricks to invent  a false return IP  and has been done before as any trawl through the internets archives of hacker folklore will show.  

The Netstat I might take notice of, but all the items you mention are not really of any use in proving the following:

A) The subscriber is the downloader
B) Its not a wireless network hub
C) A minor who is not legaly liable in many countries was not operating the equipment
D) That there teeenage neighbours are not line tapping, who knows what can go on when your not home??

Add to this the legality of breaking data protection laws by harvesting IPs in many counries across the world, as well as having a media sentry/baytsp operative actually appear in other coutries courts at much expense to swear to the  gathered evidence I can see why they are prefering to terrorise folks in the US rather than face the courts themselves to try to obtain any real "legal" settlements.

[NewB]

What they know and what can be proved in court is always a different thing.
Sure they can allege that that is the IP it came from and of course the defense can say prove it, it is fairly easy using some of the industries own tricks to invent  a false return IP  and has been done before as any trawl through the internets archives of hacker folklore will show.  

The Netstat I might take notice of, but all the items you mention are not really of any use in proving the following:

A) The subscriber is the downloader
B) Its not a wireless network hub
C) A minor who is not legaly liable in many countries was not operating the equipment
D) That there teeenage neighbours are not line tapping, who knows what can go on when your not home??

Add to this the legality of breaking data protection laws by harvesting IPs in many counries across the world, as well as having a media sentry/baytsp operative actually appear in other coutries courts at much expense to swear to the  gathered evidence I can see why they are prefering to terrorise folks in the US rather than face the courts themselves to try to obtain any real "legal" settlements.

I agree all those things will muddle the water, but they are not related to the statement I was referring to, that inferred one's type of connection, whether as a secondary or as a primary, obscures ones IP.

I still think the best defense is a good offense.  Take the legal challenge to the RIAA/MPAA.  How?  Simple.  In the USA, challenge the constitutionality of the overreaching laws they rely on for relief.  How do laws that give investors/employers exclusive rights to intellectual property in the public interest?  how do they encourage artistic, creative achievement?

USA Constitution:
"Section. 8. The Congress shall have Power ... ***
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries; ***"

Do the acts of the RIAA, under color of current law, in fact "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts"?  If not, they are illegal, unfounded and unconstitutional.

How are investors/employers allowed to claim 'exclusive rights' when the constitution clearly intended the creators, the artists and inventors, be the ones to enjoy and benefit from the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries", which would of course allow them to grant non-exclisive, limited rights to others for fair compemnsation?

They are out of bounds.  If the constitution can be reinstated as setting the rules of the game, perhaps RIAA will lose and artists and inventors will be able to revel in the fruits of their personal creativity.

Bite on that RIAA!  Wanna dance?