Categories
Firewall Linux

Do You Use Linux? The RIAA and MPAA Don’t Want You To Use This Program

Have you ever used PeerGuardian for Windows? Well good news my friend, there’s a Linux alternative available.

PeerGuardian is a program that blocks companies such as the RIAA and their affiliates (such as Media Defender) from connecting to your computer when you are running P2P software.  This is not foolproof by any means, but certainly a step in the right direction.

When I used Windows, one of the programs I used to protect my online privacy was PeerGuardian. Now that I’m using Ubuntu full-time, I’d like to find an alternative.

A quick google search found that PeerGuardian actually has a Linux client, but the installation is far more difficult than another program I found called MoBlock. Not only does it come pre-setup with most of the Bluetack blocking lists, the same ones that PeerGuardian uses, but it will also utilize the eMule ipfilter.dat file format, if you’re looking for that.

Ok, now I know we’re looking at the rest of this document and saying,

Sh!t Wayne, this looks complicated.

It’s actually really easy if you follow it step by step, and if you have any questions, feel free to comment and I’ll do my best to help you out.

Deep breath, here we go.

First, we edit sources.list to add a repository:

gksu gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

Paste these two lines at the end:

deb http://moblock-deb.sourceforge.net/debian feisty main
deb-src http://moblock-deb.sourceforge.net/debian feisty main

Save and Close the gedit program, just a few more commands:

gpg --keyserver wwwkeys.eu.pgp.net --recv 9072870B
gpg --export --armor 9072870B | sudo apt-key add -
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install moblock-nfq

Now it’s installed! Congratulations. Now we need to configure the program so that HTTP (website) traffic is unfiltered. This program likes to be as paranoid as possible to start out with, which can be a good thing for some people.

gksu gedit /etc/moblock/moblock.conf

Look for the following section about half-way down:

WHITE_TCP_IN=""
WHITE_UDP_IN=""
WHITE_TCP_OUT=""
#WHITE_TCP_OUT="http https"

WHITE_UDP_OUT=""
WHITE_TCP_FORWARD=""
WHITE_UDP_FORWARD=""

Remove the hash (#), save and you’re done.

Run this command to test and make sure it’s working properly:

EDIT

Thanks to mbsjoblom on Digg, I missed a step.

sudo moblock-control reload
sudo moblock-control test

You should get a message something like this:

* MoBlock blocked the IP. Test succeded.

EDIT 2

Thanks to “Moblockin” there is a GUI available , which I haven’t tried out, but seems like a more user-friendly than the command line.

Now, you have no more big brother looking after you. MoBlock will automatically do it’s magic behind the scenes with no interaction from you – ever!

Categories
Linux Windows

The REAL Fix For Comcast BitTorrent Throttling

First, a little explanation may be needed as to what is happening in between our computers, Comcast and the Internet.
Comcast is using a packet filtering platform called Sandvine. This platform is a at its core, a Quality of Service system that has legitimate uses, such as giving high priority to Xbox Live communications and VOIP packets. 

Unfortunately, Comcast has decided to use Sandvine (some say illegally) to impersonate us and send a reset packet (known as an RST flag), which is exactly like the Chinese goverment filters the internet!  (PDF)

TorrentFreak hinted on August 22nd, is that someone was working on a fix for Comcast users.

“…we know that at least two BitTorrent client developers are including this fix in their next update.” –TorrentFreak 

It’s two weeks later, where is the fix!?  And just exactly how do you find out if you’re being throttled by Comcast?  And how can we figure out how to avoid this traffic shaping?