IP FILTERING with uTorrent
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IP filtering with uTorrent
If you've been using BitTorrent to download any of the more popular files, such as the latest episode of some major TV show, you may have found yourself
receiving lots of "Wasted" data. This is data that has been discarded after being deemed corrupt or invalid by your BitTorrent client. Every so often, you will
have received more wasted data than the size of the files you are downloading!This is happening because Anti-P2P organizations are actively polluting P2P networks with fake peers, which send out fake or corrupt data in order to waste
bandwidth and slow down file transfers. At its worst, when downloading major copyrighted torrents, as much as a fourth of the peers you are connected to
can be attributed to various Anti-P2P agencies. There is also a much more serious side to this. Once you've established a connection to one of these fake
"peers", your IP has been logged and will most likely be sent to the RIAA/MPAA!But there is a way to fight back! If you are using the latest µTorrent (1.7+), you can employ a little known feature called IP filtering. The author of µTorrent
has gone out of his way to hide it, but it's there nonetheless. But before we can activate this filter, we need to retrieve a list of currently known Anti-P2P
organization IPs.This is most easily done by downloading the latest blacklist from Bluetack (the same people who wrote SafePeer for the Azureus BT client)
at hXXp://www.bluetack.co.uk/config/nipfilter.dat.gz. This list is updated daily, and contains all known Anti-P2P organizations, trackers and peers, as well as
all known Goverment/Military IP addresses as collected by the Bluetack team. Once downloaded, extract and rename the file to "ipfilter.dat" in preparation
for the final step.To make the list available to µTorrent, you need to put it in %AppData%\uTorrent. So type this into the Address Bar, or click Start -> Run and type it
there. After placing the ipfilter.dat in this folder, start µTorrent and go into preferences (Ctrl+P), then click on "Advanced". In the right hand pane, make sure
that "ipfilter.enable" is set to true, and then close the dialog. That's it for the configuration.You can verify that the list has been loaded by looking under the "Logging" tab of µTorrent, where you should see the line "Loaded ipfilter.dat (X entries)".
Congratulations! You are now protected against most of the garbage-distributing peers; and the likelyhood of the RIAA or MPAA knocking at your door
has been substantially reduced! I'd go as far as to say that you shouldn't be using µTorrent at all without this feature turned on! And even if the law
enforcement side of it doesn't bother you, you should still be interested in reducing the amount of garbage data that gets sent your way, which in turn
leads to quicker downloads, and isn't that something everybody should strive for?
Note: It's advised that you update the list at least once a month, to keep you updated on the movement of the Anti-P2P organizations. One tool that will
aid you getting these updates is the "Blocklist Manager" from the same people who made the list; go to hXXp://www.bluetack.co.uk/ and download it.
On a related note, this note from the µTorrent FAQ should come in handy: "To reload ipfilter.dat without restarting µTorrent, simply open the preferences
(ctrl+p), and press enter to close it again."What is ipfilter.dat?
This is a simple text file that specifies IP ranges to block. The format is xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx - yyy.yyy.yyy.yyy
You can also use single IPs on a line (i.e. xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx). It ONLY supports blocks: it will ignore all text specified afterwards (such as what BLM and
Tiny BLM does).Do not pad IPs with 0s to ensure that it will work (i.e., write 64.12.15.0 not 064.012.015.000), though it is reported to work anyway.
Each new IP or IP range must be placed on a new line.Place it in %AppData%\uTorrent, and set ipfilter.enable to true in the Advanced Options.
To reload ipfilter.dat without restarting µTorrent (1.7+ only), view the Peers tab, right click, and select "Reload IPFilter." -
Anyone know how to put this in Vista x64?
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Anyone know how to put this in Vista x64?
(Quote from ISOHUNT Forum - Posted: Wed Mar 19, 2008 7:15 pm)
PG2 does work on Vista(x86) but not on Vista(x64) …
I am running Vista(x64) so I don't use PG2. I just add the ipfilter.dat to µTorrent's settings folder.
By typing this into the run dialog %AppData%\uTorrent. It will open the folder. Just rename the nipfilter.dat
to ipfilter.dat and copy it into that folder.
