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MethLabs Shuts out PeerGuardian
Lost&Confused writes to tell us Slyck News is reporting that most of Methlabs.org administration and development staff have been forced out of their own website. For the time being PeerGuardian is being hosted on sourceforge. However, users are advised to stop using the Methlabs.org and Blocklist.org hosted blocklists in favor of the Bluetack list until they can sort things out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PeerGuardian
PeerGuardian and PeerGuardian 2 are free and open source software firewalls capable of blocking incoming and outgoing IP addresses. The application uses a blocklist of IP addresses to filter the computers of several organisations, including the RIAA and MPAA while using filesharing networks such as FastTrack and BitTorrent. The system is also capable of blocking advertising, spyware, government and educational ranges, depending upon user preferences.
http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=913
Methlabs Update
September 16th, 2005 by Administrator
"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, and help us spread the word!
- The Methlabs Team"
The last safe backup we have was taken on September 9th, pretty much right before all hell broke loose.
Bluetack may go a bit overkill on who they block on their lists, but they are generally trusted by the community. We'd rather users setup PeerGuardian to use our competitors lists than use possibly unsafe lists from a compromised server.
We setup instructions to switch to the Bluetack lists if anyone is interested.
Form an LLC (couple hundred dollars).
Give all assets that you want to protect to the LLC.
Distribute ownership of the LLC among ALL memebers, and require license changes/ownership changes/policy changes/domain changes, etc, either unanimous consent or a 2/3 (maybe 3/4) vote.
Fundamentally, the purpose of a business 'shell', in any small organization, is to put your assets in one place so that no one can legally mismanage them.
If, for example, methlabs.org had been the property of methlabs, LLC, and the administrator tried to boot you off, you could send an e-mail to your registrar from the 'director' of the LLC, indicating that the administrator was not acting in the interest of the LLC. You send them the *signed* (can be signed electronically, using the US gov't standard, which is a bit silly \ \ ) LLC articles of incorporation, showing either that the administrator member had no right to do that, OR that he wasn't a member of the LLC.
Then they hand you the 'keys' to the castle, so to speak.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell