I am a newbie and would like an answer about peer guardian. I have installed it and gone onto kazaa and it has indeeed blocked ip's. But here is my question. What are these blocked ip's trying to do? Are they just pinging for my ip address? Do they try to hack into my computer and see what files are on my hard drive? Do they try and access my shared files folder? Once they get into your computer what do they get and then what do they do with what ever information they get?
I have had blocked ip's from riaa, various corporations and even the US Navy!!!!!! What the hell are the navy after???
thx

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. The ranges are labelled with a name, which I don't always think is of an accurate representation of that netblock, but it really doesn't matter in the end cos it's working as intended.

So they are trying to access your computer files rather than just get your ip number? Is it legal for them to try and crack into your computer? If not how can any evidence they have against you stand up if it was gained illegally?
And what the hell is the US navy doing trying to get into my computer?

Ohk - well - please 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.

Ok let me try to make this simple for you.

What you see in that log window are all machines which have either tried to contact you OR be contacted by you that are on the blocklist.

You can't see "hack attempts". You're just seeing connection requests.

When you connect to ... say ... kazaa, and are downloading a file... there are maybe 20 other people who have that file. If one of those people has an IP in the blocked range, the kazaa software will keep trying to reach him because it is too stupid to see that the connection is blocked. (This is why eMule, for example, has blocklists built in - makes the program less stupid!)

Now, if you're SHARING a file (I'm guessing you have some files shared), then the Kazaa server lets people know that you have those files. Their kazaa software will, if they have selected to get those files, repeatedly try to contact you (and everyone else who has the file) in order to download it.

So when you see Machine X trying over and over to connect to your Kazaa port, that's not a hacking attempt. That's someone on Machine X who wants your Britney Spears "Live at the Teen Choice Awards" video clips.

In your case, that guy in the U.S. Navy probably likes looking at the same kind of porn as you, and wants to download some of it from your kazaa shared directory, that's all.

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.

Personally I think it's a waste of time. I doubt that Peer Guardian knows of every single "bad" IP and I'm certain that many of the addresses that it blocks aren't bad at all.

so what's the alternative ?
I mean someone who lives in a house with locks and stuff is less susceptible to break ins / robbing / theives than someon without any locks at all - but the person with the locks isn't as well protected as say living in a Bank Vault - but still safer in general than the person without locks

Better to have protection than none ... when you get an email from MGM or similar you might've wish'd u used it sooner