I attend a public university, and so my internet connection is through the school. Lots of people use the high-speed internet to download stuff (mainly music and movies), and most of them use i2hub to do so. As a precaution, I run PeerGuardian2 whenever I use any p2p program. All was well until recently, when the MPAA (or maybe it was the RIAA?) issued a warning that it will take legal action against students who download material illegally. Supposedly they have issued 50 or so subpoenas. It was just like in this afterdawn article: http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/6293.cfm
My question is, how safe is it for me to download while running PeerGuardian2? I keep all of the lists updated. I'm not asking whether it works or not; I know it works because when I try to go to the RIAA's website while running it, I am unable to.
Also, from what I understand, it is not the MPAA (or RIAA) that actually catches students downloading. Instead, students get caught by our ISP (which is through the school). Even though they do not monitor what we download, they are obligated by the MPAA to report any instances of copyright infringement.
Any opinions on how well will PeerGuardian2 protect me?
As far as PG goes it doesn't offer you complete protection since it operates on with known IP ranges. Still it can be safely said that you will be better off using PG than not using it. If you seriously want to increase your protection you will have to switch using some non-public p2p technology. The problem with public p2p technology is that everybody (yes even p2p enemies) will see what you are sharing so you want to limit the visibility of your "share" to only people who you trust meaning members of a private community. A bit of "elitistic" ? Yes, but who wants to start receiving "letters" ?
