From reading this forum I just found out that Tixati has built in functionality to utilise blocklists. Can someone please provide the following information:

1) Where to get blocklists that are suitable for use in Tixati? How do I find them?

2) What particular blocklists is it best to use (e.g. 'P2P', 'Educational', etc.)?

3) How do you get Tixati to use the blocklists? How do you set this up in Tixati?

4) How do you get the blocklists to automatically update in Tixati?

Also any other information that I might need but that I haven't asked due to inexperience in knowing what questions to ask.

Google "iblocklist" and you will find a site with some lists.

When you enter them into the Tixati IP filter, use the list source URL and not a local downloaded list.  In the Add dialog, you can also set an update interval, and every so often Tixati will automatically downloaded and refresh the list.

No muss, no fuss, works awesome.

Thanks very much for the response.

I found the "I-BlockList" website and saw what it was you were referring to.

However, you didn't mention which lists to actually use. So I did some quick research myself and would say the following tips are useful for anyone thinking of doing this:

1) At the I-BlockList site when you see the list of the available lists just <control>+click on any list name (e.g. "level1") and a new browser tab will open showing details of what that particular list blocks.

2) At the I-BlockList website there really are a very large number of lists to choose from. This is quite confusing (to a newbie like me). So which lists to actually choose at a mininmum? I visited the PeerBlock website and found out what lists they 'install' to be used by PeerBlock by default. The following were the default lists used:
a) level1
b) spyware
c) ads
d) edu

As I have been using PeerBlock in the past I would assume that replicating these lists in Tixati would be the minimum lists that users should use. (That said, I never used "edu" in PeerBlock so I would also assume it safe not to use it in Tixati.)

So I have one outstanding new question on this issue. Your response said:


Does this mean that in using the URL then Tixati doesn't download and store files on the system? What is it exactly that Tixati does if using these 'URL lists'? Are there any files that get stored on the system, and if so where (and does this differ between a fully installed Tixati and a portable Tixati)?

The lists are parsed into a binary form stored in RAM so Tixati has quick access for checking IPs (so it can handle thousands of checks per seconds).  When the program closes, this combined representation is backed up to a config file in the usual place, usually c:/users/myname/appdata/roaming/tixati/ipfilter2.dat (or something like that, and elsewhere in portable mode), and then reloaded from disk when the program starts.

The actual block lists are never stored in their original form, just read and parsed.

Again, many thanks for the response - things are getting a bit clearer now.

I'd like to provide more information, for others trying this and not sure how to go about it, and ask some further questions.

When you go to the "Lists" webpage of the I-BlockList website there are two drop-down boxes where you set what form the lists you want to use are to be in. The drop-downs are titled: "File Format" and "Archive Format". When I added the URL's to Tixati those drop-downs were shown as being "File Format: P2P" and "Archive Format: gz". These were the default settings when I arrived at the Lists webpage. I added the URL's to Tixati and things seemed to work fine (in as much as I can tell, still a newbie at this) - at least Tixati didn't throw out any kind of warning saying the blocklists couldn't be used. So it would seem those settings are fine. (The URL's do change if you choose a different "File Format" and "Archive Format".)

Okay, I hope the above information helps others.

My outstanding questions now are: Is it possible to get Tixati to actually display in real-time what blocks are being performed from the blocklists? I mean, if you use PeerBlock then it has a dialogue window that you can open and it shows information on what is being blocked. Is there some part of Tixati that allows this to be done? If that can't be done, then how can the user be sure that the blocklists are actually working?

My last questions are: Does Tixati keep a log of blocks performed? If so what is the log file name, and where is it stored, and how does the user view the content?

Like you, I just started using blocklists not to long ago.

To tell if it is working hit the IPfilter button at the top of the page. It will list the filters and their status(when updated), and will give the stats on how many blocks have been made for that list. It also tells you from where the IP was originating, IE DHT, incoming or outgoing. You will also see "ipfiltered" in the peer list in the transfers tab, although it goes quickly and is best seen at startup of that torrent.

The lists are endless and there is little help to figure out what you need. The lists are designed for different purposes so you need to think about them. I use 3 basic ones level 1 that catches the bulk, then I use bogon which is addresses that don't exist which means if you get a request from that IP it is a fake or someone hiding who they are. Last I use badpeer because that is based on trouble makers.

A lot of the other lists are for website/browsing use like spyware or ads. The nature of torrents and Tixati you will only save sometime using those lists not really any protection. Edu I would not use that because there are a ton of students torrenting from school computers, just a personal choice, but they maybe watching the torrent system but are not going to be sending settlement demands.

The people that will be harassing you for using torrents will likely be caught in the level 1 and bogon. There are tricks for presenting different identities that the bad guys use. Be aware that although you are blocking the IP they can still see yours and may use addresses from bogon to try and make contact. Continue to use smart safe things like regularly changing IP if you can and change your port. I also broke my seed list up into three and rotate that with my new IP, which I get every time I connect.

Update for 2020

The home page for I-Bloccklist is here - https://www.iblocklist.com/

This explains much about blocking based on known bad IPs

The lists are found here - https://www.iblocklist.com/lists

My suggestion is to include the following lists . . .

Free lists

* level1
* level2
* level3
* BadPeers
* Primary Threats

Subscription (which I don't use as I am frugal)

* Anti-Infringement



The purpose (for me at least) is to avoid having my computer talking to RIAA, MPAA and copyright troll services that will send me form latter through my ISP (Canadian law) if I happen to look at a torrent or magnet link that they have poisoned with their IP.

How to get these lists into Tixati ??
In Settings, IP filter - there is no options,
to include them.

What block list you use largely depends on what you are trying to achieve. If you are really concerned about privacy you use a VPN as notwithstanding what the block list promoters say they are never 100% up to date and reliable. My goal with a block list was to prevent connections with my definition of bad peers, that being people who for whatever reason have very poor upload speeds. What you have no doubt experienced and are likely guilty of is people who have a connection that can download at a rate many times what they upload and all to frequently that upload speed is laughable. Then there are the people who in all likelihood cannot setup a modem and just constantly attempt to connect before disconnecting in a minute or 2. The last big group you don't want to connect to are the people with the entire file but never upload who just fill up your slots preventing people who will upload from connecting. So I made my own block list of P2P scrubs who don't contribute, it's several hundred thousand lines long but does increase my download speed as quickly as possible.

All you do is add the IP address to a notepad files, 1 address per line and save it as a dat file extension. Then go to Settings and turn on  IP Filter then on the top row click on IP Filter then Add and direct it to where you saved the .dat file.

@shag00
Thanks, took me some time to figure it out.
Thought the list should be added into the IP Settings (On/Off),
but now see, I have a new icon in the Tixati Main Window,
with the name "New IP Filter". Super.... and thanks :-)

Open https://www.emule-security.org/news.php
Click on "Ip-filter" at the right side.
Tixati can use the guarding.p2p in the zip file (but not the zip file itself) for Drop Matches.
eMule's list has 1.3 million entries.

Stupid ?, but I was under the impression that as long as your using a VPN, you really don't need blocklists, is this true?

thanks.

Let me set this straight:
Almost all blocklists are targeted at web/email servers. They are useless for Bittorrent. There's nothing to spam or attack (more or less) on BT.

I assume you are asking about the trolls.
Theoretically this is the correct list for block all the surveilling monitoring/tracking nodes. However, how do you actually know how this list is compiled, whether it's up to date and correct? What if this list fails? How would that compare to be using a VPN 24/7?

My hint for starters: block cloud providers such as AWS and Linode (esp. US-West), no sane regular person would use them for high traffic applications ;)

Do you need a blocklist when you are using a VPN? My hint still applies, the web-targeted lists are useless (even bad advice, you could ban good nodes neighboring blocklist addresses), the anti-clown one: sure, you could. For the time being the masked clowns are not interested (for 95% of cases) in Bittorrent nodes operating from datacenter IP ranges and instead go for easy home targets. Your VPN provider is unlikely to be bothered.
Lastly, in the bad case, your VPN provider (unfortunately?) is accustomed to it, but may ask you to not use certain servers/regions. That's what you are paying them for. Just make sure they're actually reliable (and share the same values).