Peerblock For Mac

Updating the Summary line to make it easier for people to find this bug. This is unfortunately going to be a long time coming at this point. The code right now has lots of Windows-specific stuff sprinkled throughout; this code will need to be changed before we can even think about creating a Mac version of PeerBlock. We will be doing this naturally as we start moving towards PeerBlock 2.0, at which point we will be in a much better position to start considering a Mac port.

None of the developers currently own a Mac, either, so once the code is ready for work to begin we'll need either to find a Mac developer who'd be interested in the project, or else hope that PeerBlock is well-funded enough by then that we can afford to use some money to purchase a development machine. If you're interested you should definitely 'Star' this issue though, as the more Stars we see the more interested we'll assume our user community would be in such a thing!

And if you're a Mac developer who'd be willing to help out - even just in an advisory role, if you're not willing to commit to sinking much time into the project - please let me know! (Original comment by peerbloc.@gmail.com on 22 Oct 2009 at 5:30. Changed title: Port PeerBlock to Mac / Apple OSX.

Added labels: Type-Enhancement. Removed labels: Type-Defect. Believe me, we definitely understand that there are a.large. number of users interested in a Mac version of PeerBlock!

The thing to remember, though, is that as per Comment #3 it will unfortunately be awhile before the code's ready to begin a port. At this point we're probably 1-2 months away from a PeerBlock 1.1 release, at which point we'll start working on PeerBlock 1.2 (estimated 3-4 months of effort) as well as PeerBlock 2.0 in the background. With PeerBlock 2.0 being the only thing we're working on after 1.2 is released. As we work on PeerBlock 2.0 we'll be getting the code into a shape where it should be possible to begin a port to Mac. I estimate a stable PeerBlock 2.0 coming out probably 6-9 months after 1.2, though Beta Releases should be available before then.

As we start getting closer to starting in on this Mac port we will still need to have some machine(s) upon which we'll be able to develop. One user has offered VNC use of his machine for development purposes, which should at least give us one platform upon which we can work. One other user had initially offered to donate his older Mac (a G4 dual-processor machine, as I recall) so long as we paid shipping, but I never heard back from him after his initial email. Worst-case scenario we'll hopefully be in a position where we'll be able to afford purchasing one or more low-end/refurbished/used Macs at some point. If we get more developers on board hopefully the above 'tentative schedule' will be able to be brought in a bit, but seriously. There's a.lot. of work that'll be required to rearchitect the code to be able to support non-Windows OSes.

That said, thank you all for expressing your interest in this Mac port! And definitely continue Starring the issue - the more requests we see for this feature the more 'hot to trot' we'll be to get to it, and additionally we'll post here once we start in on that project to hopefully get some of you guys to come on board as Alpha-stage testers. Original comment by peerbloc.@gmail.com on 8 Dec 2009 at 5:52. Changed state: Accepted. Added labels: Milestone-2.0. Thank you for outlining the Mac OS X version/port of PeerBlock.

(I used to do mainframe/server SW development many years back, so I understand the effort and time required;) I was happy to find PeerGuardian some while back, for my ancient Windows XP minitower. Now that I have managed to replace my equally ancient -and decommissioned:( - iMac, with a Mac Mini, I look forward to the Mac OS X version of PeerBlock. Thank you for your work. (repost, as I noticed that adding a profile to my google ID allows my full, real email address to be displayed! What a F disaster. How do people here manage to make comments with NO email to be displayed?

Sorry to ask these dumb question? Original comment by beyoun.@gmail.com on 10 Dec 2009 at 2:18. I have been a financial supporter since the old Methlabs days in 2002 (not a lot of cash but about $100 total). I would love to see a MAC version now as I have added a mac to my arsenal (due to video editing).

I no longer need antivirus but get very nervous as to who is trying to access my computer. I use Peerblock all the time on my PC, even though I am not doing p2p. It is scary to view what is trying to hit my system. So please let us know when a MAC version comes out. I will gladly send more cash.

(around $50 to help out as I appreciate it being free) Thanks Again, E. Original comment by faceless.@yahoo.com on 18 Mar 2012 at 10:15. Yes, we are still working on things - it's just going pretty slowly right now, Real Life taking precedence and such. We have a bunch more stuff on the roadmap, Mac support included. We're still working to re-architect things in such a way that it can be used cross-platform. In fact we need to do this even to better support Windows, and once that's done we'll be able to start figuring out how to best provide Mac support. And linux, ideally even DD-WRT/OpenWRT based routers.

Hopefully even Android devices. So no, we haven't 'ditched the project'. You just need to remember - we have jobs, children, families, etc. While the donations we receive are gratefully accepted, we don't receive nearly enough to support any of us for any meaningful amount of time.

It's primarily a 'labor of love'. Again, it'll be coming eventually. You just need to bear with us.

It's frustrating, I know, but there's little we can do to move things along more quickly right now. We understand there's a lot of interest in a Mac version of PeerBlock, and fully intend to try and fulfill those wishes as best we can. Original comment by peerbloc.@gmail.com on 8 Apr 2012 at 4:44.

Put it in the Mac App store and get some green for your labor. I know, that doesn't create time in your schedules ex nihilo, but it would be a way to get back some capital for all that you have invested in the project. I'd certainly drop $5.00 for it.

And kudos for letting us know what's going on. RL is priority uno, and we get that.

If there's anything we can do to help, ask us. I'm certain there's a number of people in the user/follower community who can assist in a variety of ways. Jake Original comment by jwood.@gmail.com on 8 Apr 2012 at 6:28. To peerblockproject at gmail: I don't understand how this is so fundamentally complicated.

OSX ultimately runs on a UNIX source base. How is this much more difficult than skinning pf/pfctl for OSX to look like PeerBlock in Cocoa? Stop trying to reinvent the wheel and just give the people what they want, ffs. Even if it doesn't work exactly like the Windows version, you have people who are willing to PAY you to develop this product.

Apple users seem to have an endless supply of money to spend on their apps and they love paying off developers of their favorite products. Mac firewalls are sorely needed and largely garbage, and pretty much the only option right now is Little Snitch. Fill the need, make it look like whatever, even if it's unique to the Mac, and practically overnight you'll have 10,000 users paying you $5 a pop to buy the 'better'/'more intuitive'/'touch-friendly' version of PeerBlock for OSX, thereby financing your project and redevelopment needs. Original comment by mcd.@gmail.com on 9 Apr 2012 at 5:11. Honestly, if you think it's all that hard, watch as I steal the project and thunder right out from underneath you and take that $50K+ for myself.

PeerBlock has all of, oh, I dunno, twenty options to accomodate for in the GUI? The rest is handled by the engine, which as I just mentioned can be done entirely via PF rules (as PF has an outstanding featureset and if it ain't broke don't fix it). Not trying to be rude; just stating the obvious. If you don't accomodate the needs of the market, be prepared for BeerPloq to show up in the App Store at the hands of some opportunistic developer like myself.

Original comment by mcd.@gmail.com on 9 Apr 2012 at 5:16. Hey, thanks for the informative reply. Just so you understand (if my tone didn't reflect this, let's clear that up RIGHT now!:)), I'm in awe of PeerBlock and that was a quick request for you guys to consider adding OSX support. It wasn't a screed to abandon your children (and/or perfectly good bottles of vodka/scotch/Absinthe staring at you from the shelf wondering why you've abandoned them). Just a gentle post saying, Hey, there's support for your making it available for Mac, when you get the time. Again, thanks so much!

It looks like the media cartels and our gov't are cheerfully marching in unison to lock down the internet here in the US, and projects like Peerblock go a far way to even the playing field. Thanks so much for everything!

Peerblock 1.2

Jefe On Sun, Apr 8, 2012 at 9:45 AM, wrote: Original comment by jefe.@gmail.com on 1 May 2012 at 4:02.

Security Threats It’s important to understand what types of threats are out there in order to effectively block them, so let’s take a look. Viruses and other forms of malware are the most basic of threats. The files you download are foreign and you should treat them as such; scan them promptly after downloading them. Most major anti-virus programs have the ability to add folders for auto-scanning, which is probably the ideal solution if you either don’t have time or don’t want to waste effort doing things manually.

Photo by On the more serious side, it shouldn’t be any surprise that your IP address is very easy to trace. While many people have never had problems, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t worry about things. In addition to people just eavesdropping on your connections, your downloads can also suffer.

There are increasing incidents of “bad traffic,” peers who send corrupt data in response to BitTorrent calls, forcing users to have to re-download those sections of their files. Users who transfer copyright-infringing material also have to worry about getting caught via these same methods. We at How-To Geek don’t condone piracy, of course, but we do support security, and the best way to stay secure is to stay informed. Encryption One way to help alleviate these problems is to enable encryption for your connections. This prevents the data sent between two peers from being understood by onlookers, although it doesn’t prevent them from seeing their IP addresses or certain details from the tracker, such as amount of data transferred. This is not a perfect solution, however. Encryption has to be supported by your peers as well, and they may not have their clients set to use it.

Some trackers don’t even allow encryption, but if yours does, it’s not a bad idea to enable preferring encrypted connections, but allowing unencrypted transfers if none are present. Enable Encryption in uTorrent Open, go to Options Preferences, and then click where it says BitTorrent on the left. Under where it says “Protocol Encryption,” choose Enabled and click on Allow incoming legacy connections. This will allow outbound encryption but still accept non-encrypted connections when there are no encrypted connections available.

Enable Encryption in Transmission Open and click on Edit Preferences (Linux) or Transmission Preferences (Mac OS). Then click on the Privacy tab (Linux) or the Peers tab (Mac OS). Under the “Encryption mode” dropdown box, select Prefer encryption. This will still accept unencrypted connections when there is a lack of encrypted connections available. IP Blockers Another thing you can do is use an IP blocker. These programs run alongside an existing firewall (you DO have a firewall, don’t you?) and your BitTorrent client and they filter out IP addresses based on blocklists. Blocklists compound ranges of IPs that contain known problems, such as monitoring and bad packet transfer.

How well they work is up for debate, and there is no consensus on whether they do anything at all. Websites and trackers that are fine sometimes get blocked, and you have to manually allow them. If you’re a cautious person, however, it’s not a bad idea to run an IP blocker just in case. The most well-known ones are for Windows and for Linux, and Transmission for both Mac and Linux has the ability to use a blocklist. PeerBlock, once installed, allows you to download and update blocklists and automatically starts to block IP addresses. Install and Configure PeerBlock on Windows Download. The beta is pretty stable and provides the most useful features, and is compatible with Windows XP, Vista, and 7 (all versions).

Installation is a breeze, and once it’s finished and you open up PeerBlock, it will start the configuration wizard. On this screen, you can choose which types of blocklists to subscribe to. You can see here that we chose P2P, and threw in Spyware for good measure as well. If you’re new to this sort of thing, it’s probably best to choose Always Allow HTTP as well, since it allows all traffic through that port. If you don’t choose this option, your browsing may be affected, and you’ll find yourself having to manually allow certain websites.

Click Next when you’re done.0 Next, you can choose to schedule what and how often to update. The default are perfectly fine here, so click Next. You’ll see a pop-up and your selected blocklists will automatically update.

Once they’ve finished, the Close button won’t be grayed out and you can click it. You’ll be greeted with the main PeerBlock screen, where you can view the history of blocked attempts to access your computer, manage your lists, check for updates manually, and so on. You can exit via the icon in your system tray. Blocking IPs on Linux and Mac OS Moblock is a little more powerful and complicated, and although there is a GUI by the name of Mobloquer available, it’s not a walk in the park to set up.

Furthermore, it only works on Linux, and there aren’t a wide variety of comparable tools available on Mac OS that work as well. Serendipitously for us, however, Transmission can download and utilize blocklists very easily! Open Transmission and click on Edit Preferences (Linux) or Transmission Preferences (Mac OS). Then click on the Privacy tab (Linux) or Peers tab (Mac OS) once again.

Click the checkmarks next to the Enable blocklist and Enable automatic updates boxes, and then click the Update button. Transmission will automatically download and utilize the P2P blocklist and will display the total number of rules being followed. Private Trackers Staying safe is important because you don’t know who (or what) is out there. But, what if you had a reliable source? Private trackers serve as an ideal long-term solution because of a few key reasons:. A closed, trusted community: The tracker requires registration and there is a screening process. Breaking rules can lead to being banned, and in many cases, if people you invite into the community do something to get banned, you also get banned.

While this may seem like a looming storm-cloud, as long as you’re careful you’ll be safe from most threats and so will everyone else. Strict connection rules: Only approved clients and methods are allowed. This cuts down on users faking ratios, leeching, etc. And simultaneously dictates how connections should be made to maximize speed and safety. Standards for torrents: Uploaded files have standards as to quality and format, as well as being virus and malware free. Most trackers require previews for disambiguation of similar torrents.

Ratios: Each user is required to maintain a certain ratio of uploads to downloads. This is often judged via total amount in MB, although add new torrents can give you a bonus, or there may be donation-based perks.

This ensures that files have a high availability and helps with speed, although this admittedly varies based on the individual torrents themselves. As you can see, this forms a pretty good long-term solution to a lot of issues you could potentially encounter while using BitTorrent. You get a lot of perks when you join a private tracker, and there are many out there. The main downside is that you have to wait for registration or else find someone who can send you an invite, which can take some time. If you’re the cautious type, it wouldn’t hurt to combine these strategies to mitigate security and privacy threats. With cybercrime a very real danger, it’s a good idea to take control of your computer’s security through tools like these, without compromising your internet activity too much.

The most important thing you can do, however, is make smart decisions, both in what you download and where you go, and stay informed of what’s out there. Doing your research is the best way to stay safe. Edit: The tab under Preferences for Transmission on Mac OS was fixed. It now correctly refers to the Peers tab.