Yes folks our old friends at blutak the self appointed guardians of the whole galaxy are yet again abusing their list to disrupt p2p users.
http://www.p2p-blog.com/index.php?itemid=373It turns out that one member of the CCC (Chaos Computer Club) used to run a open Torrent tracker from the organization's network. Mediadefender found that open tracker and used it to distribute fake files.
Peerguardian in turn decided to block ranges of IP addresses belonging to the CCC - a debatable decision. But the whole story gets even murkier: The tracker in question has long moved to a different network, but Peerguardian keeps blocking the club's network. Peerguardian forum moderator monk justified this decision this way:
"We are primarily concerned with P2P protection here, but we do block other things that are a threat to people, such as malware, viruses and hackers. The CCC certainly qualifies as the latter. I'm sure the majority of the CCC members are good, decent people, like anyone else you would meet, but I am certain that there are people who are involved with this organization which are a threat to filesharers."
Unfortunately, the proof monk quotes for for these accusations raises only more questions. Want an example? Well, how about this: One of the CCC members links to the MPAA from his website as part of a joke. Monk thinks this proves he works for the content industry. To which the CCC member in question responds:
"Is this your so called "expert knowledge" in judging which IP-Addr. belong to the anti-p2p people? Are you kidding?"
CCC member Andreas Bogk doesn't think it's funny either. He's concerned that folks at events like the yearly Chaos Communication Congress won't be able to use their P2P software anymore. Says Bogk:
"You're effectively crippling p2p service for literally thousands of users, namely our members and the guests at our events. They can't unblock themselves in other people's software."
Why they pretend that their list helps any p2p user is beyond me, they have neither the moral or technical right to claim anything on any network, perhaps they started out with good intentions but all I have ever seen is anti p2p activity these days with users wondering why it flags up so much activity when they are doing often nothing more exciting than looking at web pages, 900 Million IP's blocked make Blutak the laughing stock of the whole p2p community, especially so now in light of the fact 50% of the flooders IP's are now publicly published and many dont feature on their lists.