I've noticed some people are getting letters from groups like the RIAA and MPAA; well there are simple steps you can take to protect yourself and continue to share.
1.
Some programs like Shareaza & Kazaa Lite allow others to see everything that your sharing but also allow you to turn it off (the directions for doing this will vary from program to program), turning this option off will stop p2p enemies from getting you on mutiable counts of copyright infringement, it may piss off some who see this as not sharing but it by far becoming more common and is the default option for programs like kazza lite (K+++)
2.
Blocking p2p enemies ips while this is not an exact art people who do this have reported a huge decrease in emails from p2p enemies and it's not that hard to do,
There are a couple of ways of doing this.
The first way of doing this is to install a program called peerguardian which you can get from http://www.peerguardian.net once installed, update the IP Address list and run while operating p2p programs.
This will block IP Address ranges of p2p enemies.
The second way and recommended way is to block the ip?s in p2p programs or firewalls, kazaa lite itself has a built in updater, others like Shareaza, Emule or firewalls like Kerio, Nortons and Zonealarm require you to import the list in there own formats, this is were http://www.bluetack.co.uk comes in, this site helps you to convert ip ranges to the required format,
The easiest way I find is to convert the peer guardian plain text list or the GUARDING.P2P file (open with notepad) which are from the peerguardian site,
Then using the Blue tack converter http://www.bluetack.co.uk/convert.html convert it to the required format, then by following the instructions for your program FAQ's at
http://www.bluetack.co.uk/forums/index.php?showforum=14 you should be able to block them from connecting to you, please note that using these lists in firewalls may block unintended websites and it's better to put the block lists in p2p programs only.
This site also supplies a shareaza security block list but this does not block p2p enemies like the RIAA.
3.
Using a payed VPN (Virtual private network) service http://www.anonx.com, This basically creates a VPN between you and Annox servers which means for basic users is the installation of a simple small program, claims made by them include, 1500k of bandwidth is allocated to each customer and that all sorts of protocols like p2p bittorent ect can be used , that nothing is logged and that p2p enemies cant contact them as the servers are located in countries friendly to the company e.g. don?t care about p2p file transfers;) also the ip's and companies are registered off shore of the US, at
$US 5.95(pay though pay pal) it seems cheap for peace of mind, reviews of this service by forum members can be found at http://klboard.ath.cx/index.php?showtopic=85740 and http://klboard.ath.cx/index.php?showtopic=86658
4.
The future now, while all the methods described are useful they are only temporary, the creation of third and forth generation p2p programs are the way to go, these operate in completely different ways from traditional p2p programs and provide near total privacy, don?t think these are far away either http://mute-net.sourceforge.net/ has already developed an alpha version and http://www.thebighack.org/ which is expected to release a version sometime next year, read about the concept at http://www.thebighack.org/modules.php?op=m...=viewtopic&t=10 ,
Even es5(earth station) is supposly releasing a proxy less protocol but this has been promised for so long and there history(spam, blatant hype and attacks on the p2p community) is not likely to garner trust but if it works good luck.
Please note I thought of including tunneling proxy programs but as this process is difficult; finding proxies, the slow speed of most, honey pots (set by the FBI ect) and lack security e.g. what the proxies logging ect
I thought best to leave it out...
