p2pnet - rss feed: Trouble at PeerGuardian
p2p news / p2pnet:- A couple of days ago p2pnet heard there was trouble over at PeerGuardian. Our sources said they hoped it would be resolved, so we kept the news under our hat.
Unfortunately, however, things had gone too far.
Read on >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Methlabs.org and PeerGuardian developers in exile.
PeerGuardian media release
The majority of the Methlabs.org administration and development team have been forced out of their website following a series of threats and incidents. The member of the group that had been trusted to handle the finances and servers slowly managed to take over each individual part of the web site’s assets, eventually claiming control over the entire group and locking out the majority of staff.
The organisation’s founders, Tim Leonard and Ken McKelland, as well as the majority of the organisation’s staff and developers (including the main developer of the PeerGuardian2 application, Cory Nelson and the staff members responsible for auditing the PeerGuardian Blocklists) have all been forcibly removed from the servers that were funded from donations given to the organisation by happy users, and from text advertising placed on the websites forum and project pages.
The money, which was to have been used to help fund the development and hosting costs of the group is now unavailable, stolen by the one who was trusted to keep it.
Development of PeerGuardian will resume, and the website will temporarily move to http://peerguardian.sourceforge.net/ until a new domain is registered and a new server found. The intention of the group is to register a non-profit organisation to handle the development of Methlabs applications and to promote open source projects that aid both security, privacy and peer-to-peer technologies, in order to prevent a repeat of this incident.
The team wish all their users the best through this difficult time, but promise that development will continue. Please visit http://peerguardian.sf.net/ for news as we make progress. All other sites, including http://methlabs.org and http://blocklist.org, are under control of the rogue member and should not be trusted for safe updates to our applications or lists.
A new build of PeerGuardian will be released soon to reflect these changes. Until then we ask you to continue using Beta 6a but with caution as the update servers are no longer under our control.
All staff are available in irc.freenode.net, channel #methlabs if you wish to chat.
Thanks, The Methlabs Staff (looking for a new home) —–
Adam Hoier, Cory Nelson, Eric Mayuk, Fox Lowe, James Shanelec, Joseph Farthing, Ken McKelland, Steffen Tuzar, Tim Leonard
aka
braindancer, D3F, fox, FuRiOuS1, JFM, KuKIE, method, phrosty, r00ted
====================
Stay tuned
Something you think we should know? tips[at]p2pnet.net
September 16th, 2005 at 6:18 pm
Perhaps the **AAs have paid this character off to kill off PG2? Conspiracy theories will abound!!!
September 16th, 2005 at 8:58 pm
Where did I put my tinfoil hat?
September 16th, 2005 at 10:09 pm
Dear Methlabs and P2P Community,
Recently, we had several former staff members revolt against the entire P2P community as a whole. They tried to sabatoge Methlabs and attempted to wipe the Methlabs server of all its data.
Unfortunately, they gained access to site backups. In doing so, your passwords may have been compromised, although they are MD5 encrypted. We would like to you login to the Methlabs forums (http://methlabs.org/forums/) and change your password. We sincerely apologize for this issue.
As of right now, the Methlabs site is back online, although forum posts from the past month have been lost.
Since all the data was stolen by former staff members, YOU MAY RECIEVE FAKE EMAILS that look like they are from Methlabs. If they do not come from the Methlabs.org domain and from our email servers, DO NOT BELIEVE THEM.
We assure you that Methlabs development will continue, and ALL OFFICIAL PROGRAMS MUST be downloaded directly from Methlabs.org . Assume that all other sites contain spyware or malicious code which may not be directly trusted.
To update everyone on the current situation, there has been some news going around the Internet of a revolt which happened in Methlabs. This is hearsay. The current real news is that PeerGuardian development and Blocklist development is on schedule, and Blocklist should be out of Beta within the next week or so.
Please spread the word that Methlabs.org is ALIVE and DO NOT believe or TRUST any emails that do not come directly from Methlabs.org and our mail servers. These emails are from disgruntled staff members trying to hurt the P2P community as a whole.
We apoligize for the current situation. Please visit http://Methlabs.org for OFFICIAL updates.
- The Methlabs Team
Cerberius, eremini, Fox, Gambit 2011
September 16th, 2005 at 10:29 pm
OK, I’m for listening to Jon and his press release. But who is the Readers Write poster and where is his proof that everything is as should be?
Is this a less than subtle attempt to get users to log back into hijacked servers and enter their passwords for harvesting?
Should that reply be deleted or verified?
I’m puzzled and a little worried now since I rely on PG2 to keep prying eyes away from my various, nefarious, online shenanigans. I’m still running the software but turned off the updates…
I also noticed that one or two reputable AV related websites had been blocked by PG2 recently, could this be part of their cunning plan?
aaaaaargh, never mind the tinfoil hats folks, it’s too late for that now. Better go paint your windows white and squeeze your wife and kids into the microwave oven. Time to eat the dog and make sweet love to your next door neighbours erotically planted petunias
September 16th, 2005 at 10:31 pm
Bullshit, NOBODY BELIEVE THIS MESSAGE. THE REAL METHLABS.ORG STAFF WOULD NEVER, EVER WANT TO HURT THE P2P COMMUNITY.
AS YOU CAN SEE FROM THE MESSAGE, CERB IS THE HEAD OF BACKSTABBING!
September 16th, 2005 at 10:33 pm
It was eremini, so for not logging in properly. No details will be harvested, they’re truying to just scare you. No money was stolen. as simple as that
September 16th, 2005 at 10:38 pm
“The current real news is that PeerGuardian development and Blocklist development is on schedule”
Peerguardian is an open source project on sourceforge.net. If you don’t believe me search sourceforge.net for “peerguardian”. You’ll find yourself at http://sourceforge.net/projects/peerguardian
which, when going to “home page” goes to http://peerguardian.sourceforge.net/
methlabs.org’s DICKTATOR doesn’t know what he’s on about !
September 16th, 2005 at 10:45 pm
Well, I can say that 90% of that message (the grand-parent) is bullshit, but then I would say that. Looking on the whois history shows that the domain changed hands from Ken McKelland, one of our founders sometime in August, and became a mysterious “Methlabs Productions”, a company and address which don’t exist.
We *did* wipe the server, in an attempt to save the user data from the scammers, but of course this is easily spun in all directions - you could probably make this look like anything you wanted.
Perhaps you might want to trust the people who will give our real names, and then look up Tim Leonard in the Wired article that announced PeerGuardian a few years ago. http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,58734,00.html
Then look at the bottom of our release, the original PeerGuardian developer is NOT a fake. He is one of our founders (the website was named after his nick, “method”) and it is laughable to suggest that he is not the “important” part of Methlabs.
Check out this interview with the Methlabs staff as well, see who was in charge of what: http://filesharingplace.com/faqs/peerguardian.php
It should be clear exactly who is the “fake” methlabs.
A few of us have been in the p2p community for a long while, we personally know a few p2p site administrators, so you can ask them exactly who is real and who is not (or just watch the slant of all the articles that get posted on this topic).
Oh and malicious code??? On peerguardian.sourceforge.net? That is totally stupid, the downloads were ALWAYS available from that site, and it was the only place that the rogue server admin wasn’t able to get hold of. The source of those exe files is available, along with full CVS access as per sourceforge policy, so you can trust them.
Note that we are putting our real names on everything, we’re working for some level of professionalism and trust in all these problems.
Joseph Farthing (JFM)
…you can ask questions on the freenode channel, if you still have any.
September 16th, 2005 at 10:59 pm
eremini here. I do agree that u probably wont spread malicious code. But look at your own announcement “All other sites, including http://methlabs.org and http://blocklist.org, are under control of the rogue member and should not be trusted for safe updates to our applications or lists.” aint much better are u? You can COMPLETELY TRUST blocklist.org and methlabs.org
September 16th, 2005 at 11:02 pm
Not until the reason why the site was taken under control is clear than they can’t be trusted. Its that simple. Come on out cerb, tell us why you took the site over! COME ON! We don’t want to heere from your lacky anymore.
September 16th, 2005 at 11:07 pm
Folks, it looks a bit like the methlabs war has arrived in the form of a news splash.
I would like to say to the developers and hosts of the methlab site, I have the greatest respect for you and your work you do. In its early days I was a full fledged user of your software. I have nothing but the highest regards for your group.
Being on the sidelines and not in the know as many of our members here will be; I would suggest we all let the dust settle and it will become clear who wears the white hats and who doesn’t. None of us here know the inside scoop of what went down and who is playing who.
September 16th, 2005 at 11:11 pm
Also Jon, I took the liberity to link to your site for this artilce. Only the headline appears in the link and it is a direct to this article link. While I know you run under Creative Commons, it seems good netiquette to do it this way.
September 16th, 2005 at 11:13 pm
well you can definitely trust method
dont trust the other liar
if need be i will post with my name
peace
September 16th, 2005 at 11:58 pm
I’ve known Tim Leonard for a long time - from way back.
I’ve also known Joe Farthing for a while, although not for as long as Tim.
In my book, they’re both good guys.
And I’ve been aware of this ‘problem’ for a while and I can tell you Tim, Joe, Cory and Ken and everyone on the genuine Methlabs team did all they could to try to sort things out before they reached this pass.
Cheers!
September 17th, 2005 at 12:20 am
Same here Jon. Method has always = Methlabs and Peerguardian, and always will. He was always there to answer any questions, and even helped out a web site or 2 by reporting flaws in the site software privately to the site admins so it be be repaired before being exploited. He’s a super guy, and the p2p community owes him a lot. I hope this gets worked out.
September 17th, 2005 at 1:26 am
Thank you Jon for the news article and the rest of your News site.
I have one gripe though; you place your news articles under jeopardy when you start taking sides. From your “two cents” comment above I take it that any other articles about this subject will be heavily biased, with strong support towards your friends, the “good guys”, and thus lose any sort of credibility.
I can understand if your articles support P2P and target the RIAA/MPAA, its a P2P News site that directly supports P2P. But this news article in particular does not hold the same ground.
Please report the facts and support neutrality in your journalistic endeavors, or risk losing credibility. Let us, the readers, decide who is wrong, who is genuine, and who is a complete tard.
Thanks again.
September 17th, 2005 at 1:58 am
Hi:
Thanks for making your point in a careful and reasoned way. I appreciate that.
However, I’m trying to present information as well as news, and this post would fall into the former category.
It happens that I do indeed know and respect the individuals concerned. But even if that hadn’t been the case, because I was certain of the information’s authenticity, I would still have presented it.
To be really blunt, I very nearly did a post before PG officially made its press release available because I thought it was something people should have been made aware of. I held off only because I knew the release was imminent.
Cheers!
September 17th, 2005 at 2:12 am
I am posting this message to officially resign from any affiliation of Methlabs.org. It is true the forums were stolen from D3f, the rightful owner, and so with that said I am leaving to side with D3f. Any further use of the name Peerguardian2 under this site is fraud as the license belongs to Cory Nelson along with the name and original version created by Method. I am sorry to bear the facts negotiations are no longer possible after Cerberius has commandeered the domain METHLABS.ORG from D3f.
I can be found at irc://irc.freenode.net/methlabs
& http://peerguardian.sf.net/ along with the true founders and supporters of the Peerguardian project.
I am truly saddened that negotiations between D3f and Cerberius are no longer possible, as Cerberius has excommunicated him.
PS- My name as well as Fox’s were added to that official release of Methlabs.org without our consent. As obvious by the typo, I did not add my name to that site nor do i condone what Cereberius has done.
[i]Sincerly,
Gambit20011[/i]
September 17th, 2005 at 2:19 am
As title states above^^^
September 17th, 2005 at 2:24 am
The blocklist at blocklist.org updates every 1 hour. So it is recommended that you get your updates from http://bluetack.co.uk/config/sources.txt
The reason that blocklist.org cannot be trusted is cereberius has added some of the former staff ips to the blocklist.
September 17th, 2005 at 2:32 am
How would one compile the lists to be read in PG? I’m guessing open up a text editor and save them as .p2b?
September 17th, 2005 at 2:39 am
A PG user has generously provided a faq to add the lists.
http://list.tglounge.net/tutorial1.php
If you have further questions please feel free to visit our temporary irc home:
irc://irc.freenode.net/methlabs
September 17th, 2005 at 7:35 am
Hello BlueIce here, memeber of Methlabs. I find it very suspicous that I wasn’t able to access the site untill today. The day that this article goes up. I have been over to the forums. They are screwed up big time. The whole right side bar is missing where the donations meter once was. Lots of things are missing. Another thing I tried to view the board leaders. My access was denied. Hummmm…….wellt hat got me thinging. I decided to do a search on memebers i truted such as the mods MilesApart, r00ted. And also the Admins such as phrosty and D3F. The moderators were no longer in the memeber database and the Admins were now downgraded to normal memebers. Ok Let me think now who am I going to trust? The guy developing PG2, Corey Nelson, or cerberius. Well bottom line is I trust the Admins and the Moderators that have been downgraded and/or removed from methlabs.org’s message board. It’s truley a shame this happened. I have been a member of Methlabs for well over a year. And they had just got Blocklist.org up. I was proud to be a member of methlabs. Great community and everything. Now for a incident like this to happen. Loyal memebers will stick through this time. But I feel that this incident will have a devistaing effect on the once great community.
As for braindancer, D3F, fox, FuRiOuS1, JFM, KuKIE, method, phrosty, and r00ted. I am behind your efforts to restore the good name of Methlabs, and PeerGuardian. Good luck.
September 17th, 2005 at 8:01 am
ok ok ok. Now i definatly know for sure that Methlabs.org hass fallen into the wrong hands. I was leaving bascially my farwell message that i would probably be banned for because I was denounceing who currently has control of Methlabs.org forum. When I hit post i got this “Thank you for posting! You will now be taken to your post. If the administrator has selected to moderate all posts in this forum, you will be taken back to the forum and your post will be displayed presently. If you opted to post a poll, you will now be allowed to do so.” Guess what my post was not posted. So let me put it this way “forget you cerberius.”
September 17th, 2005 at 8:25 am
eremini here. I am gonna post exactly what happened, since there’s no need to hide it now.
As some of you know cerberius has always been the one that did technicall things on methlabs, set up the servers, updated server software, etc… So it only naturaly the servers were registered to him. Now about a week ago, Furi and Phrosty decided to kick cerb out, right now they are going around forums truying to say that they wanna be professional, but how do profesionals fire peope? They talk to them, explain the reasons, etc. Did they do that? No. Did they try to do that? No. Just one day all of a sudden, they changed the methlabs.org server root password, wiped all the data off it and hijacked a google adsence account, which was registered to cerb’s social security number. Now about the domain. Yes, cerb did transfer the domain to him, a couple of months before that (Miles might call this keep all your balls in one sack), but he did not hijack anything, he transfered it with complience to all ICANN rules, which state that the preveious owner gets send an email, to which he gets to reply 60 days (!) if you want to reject the transfer, that didn’t happen. So its transfered fair and square. Now about stealing money. What money? The google adsence money (which cerb got back with google being ready to press charges against hijackers for fraud) is still there, no money transfered. Same with paypal, the money, like always, will be used to pay hosting costs and other fees concerning methlabs. There thats the end of the store. Now you decide who to trust, but please don’t trust them, just because they put their real names in some attemp to “be profesional”
September 17th, 2005 at 10:13 am
thanks, it’s a good tutorial.
but why are the blocklist.org and microsoft urls unticked? they don’t get updated that way.
and i’m using beta6a, but it looks a bit different than the pictures.
September 17th, 2005 at 12:56 pm
Please go here, http://peerguardian.sourceforge.net/secure.html to learn how to change your blocklists and keep yourself secure.
September 17th, 2005 at 1:11 pm
Its me MilesApart
Glad to see your with use BlueIce. I was going to still be a moderator at methlabs.org so I could provide support for those who have no idea whats going on. But when they released there (cerbirius and eremini’s) than I took my leave pretty pissed off.
Oh, and yes I am banned. They didn’t like me putting peerguardian.sf.net in my signature. Which, by the way, I had to get around because you can’t put it in the normal way because its filtered. lol.
September 17th, 2005 at 1:15 pm
Eremini, pull up that old log that JFM took of cerb’s comments about gay people. Hmm, talk unproffesional. Oh, and don’t forget that cerb put JFM’s IP in the blocklist. No no no, can’t include those? Thats why his ass was tosed! For things like that!
“…but how do profesionals fire peope” Are you an idiot? Apparently you must not have a job, let me explain this to you. PEOPLE GET FIRED EVERY DAY!
September 18th, 2005 at 5:36 am
Sounds to me like you’re full of crap.
As for “real names” ……
When someone walks up to me wearing a ski mask, refuses to
take it off and say … “Trust me” .. well, to say i would be skeptical is the “nice” way to put it.
This ain’t the “Matrix”, and as long as you hide in anonymity,
you’ll have no credibility.
September 18th, 2005 at 12:36 pm
“This ain’t the “Matrix”, and as long as you hide in anonymity,
you’ll have no credibility.”
**********
hello neo. oh, it’s not neo. it’s another ANONYMOUS COWARD!
hello ANONYMOUS COWARD.
September 18th, 2005 at 7:18 pm
Sorry Catflap.
Sometimes I forget to put in my own nickname.
Not a deliberate gaff, just forgetful.
Dreddsnik
Boycott-riaa.com.
September 18th, 2005 at 7:35 pm
Besides,
I am not the one asking to be believed under REAL questionable circumstances … Eremini and Cerb are.
The rest of the PG team are not hiding under their aliases,
they are risking their REAL good names, trying to sort this out and get through it, while those two SEEM to be asking for trust behind the wall, on faith alone.
Eremini’s statement …
Still sounds like a load of crap to me.
Dreddsnik
Boycott-RIAA.com
September 18th, 2005 at 8:15 pm
that’s ok. at least we know who you are now.
i actually am not very interested in any of the behind-the-scenes backstabbing or whatever it is going on around this story, whether it’s messages being posted here or other places. it’s very confusing, but really sounds more like a lot of babies - on both sides - throwing virtual paper adtrs at each other.
if something illegal DID happen, then there are proper legal recourses. avail yourselves to them and work it out that way.
if something illegal DID NOT take place, well then, to all the people involved: get over yourselves.
as long as my PG2 works and i can get good working blocklists, that’s all i’m concerned with.
and if PG2 dies because of this BS, then another, better program will take its place.
September 18th, 2005 at 9:18 pm
PG2 won’t die b/c of this. phrosty has already planed for a new PG2 release over at the temp forum.
September 18th, 2005 at 11:54 pm
brain here. the blocklist.org urls are unticked because you should not
use them until further notice from peerguardian.sf.net
blocklist.org is not under our control, so we do not recommend using it.
of course its up to you, but better use the lists from:
http://peerguardian.sf.net/secure.html
September 19th, 2005 at 12:44 am
I’m sort of like Catflap here. I posted way earlier, though I rarely if ever use my login and nick. Either the words stand on their own or they don’t. Nicks’ don’t mean much in that aspect.
The fuss going on is an in-house problem. While I hate that you guys are going through this, it has happened. Not being on the inside nor knowing the full scoop I don’t feel I am in a position to either critize nor make recommendations on what has already went down.
It is a shame that the internet has been used to advertise the in-house problems. Yes, I understand that the users of Peerguardian should be made aware of the issue of blocklists and their security. However, till the last day or so it has been basically a mud slinging contest, with he said/ they said being rampant. In the last day it has sort of quieted down and that makes me feel that there may be legal issues now pending. The wrong time to go at each other is when tempers are flaring. Better for all involved to wait till things calm down to get the results needed by other means.
I do wish you folks the best in all this. I have no ill will towards the people of Methlabs, certainly not method (without who there would be no Peerguardian for the faithful to use). Nor do I have any sort of axe to grind in this. As I said I have no inside information on the deal and what sparked it, caused this to happen, nor what the end results will be.
September 19th, 2005 at 4:48 am
Btw i forgot to post this last time. if anyone is looking for that temp forum that method and phrosty, and the rest of the crew are at it is
http://peerguardian.sourceforge.net/forums/index.php
September 20th, 2005 at 4:16 am
Look eremini, get over it and dammit learn how to spell! I went over to your “completely trustworthy” sight today. I couldn’t login under my original login. I thought that just maybe I had forgotten to register so I registered again. I was not allowed to post on either occasion and was locked out. Perhaps you have my password now and I really don’t care.
Now, tell me who am I supposed to trust. The real site people at source forge let me register, login, and helped me with some problems I was having because your version of PG kept locking up my computer when I tried to delete the PG list and put in the bluetack list.
Given the circumstances, I, as an ordinary internet citizen, will trust those who give real names, and real advice, on a real forum.
Got it? Get it!!
September 21st, 2005 at 7:59 am
I’m not anonymous, I keep trying to log in and seem to be having problems once again. My name is Beverly aka u2btrfly.
I have to agree with this Dreddsnik. I’m not a real computer whiz, but I think I can see a line of @#?%$ when I see one. Besides, I’m also an English major and eremeni doesn’t seem to have had any lessons in school, let alone in real life.
Regards,
u2btrfly aka Bev H.
PS: In God we trust, all others we virus scan.
September 21st, 2005 at 8:01 am
Sorry about that, Bev. That should be resolved by now.
Cheers!
May 9th, 2007 at 4:27 pm