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Young File-Sharers Respond To Tough Laws By Buying A VPN

torrentfreak.com

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Re: Young File-Sharers Respond To Tough Laws By Buying A VPN

#11

Post by generateui »

excuse-me wrote: post #2

Queue banning of VPNs in 3....2....1..... There is evidence of links to terrorism. Well, VPN is 3 letters and so is IRA, ETA and RAF so thats a link. Better throw child pornography and drug smuggling in there as well

[Responses from the article]

> But then governments will replace VPNs

>> Then governments will be replaced

This is already becoming the true in Germany. ~10% vote Pirate Party in Berlin, more states have similar voting numbers. PPDE is now the third largest party in Germany by member count.

Re: Young File-Sharers Respond To Tough Laws By Buying A VPN

#12

Post by arethuza »

rlpb wrote: post #8

My fear is that use of an anonymising VPN will in itself become cause for the state to hassle you, and that this won't require any new laws to be passed.

If you are using an SSL-VPN is there any way, apart from the destination address, of someone detecting that the SSL traffic is a VPN and not a secure website?

Re: Young File-Sharers Respond To Tough Laws By Buying A VPN

#13

Post by losvedir »

I've been using my Linode as a VPN lately since I do a lot of work in coffee shops and it works great. More recently I've been using it here in Bahrain to access sites that are blocked by the government (innocent ones that come up on HN, dunno why they're blocked), and US-only sites like Pandora.

However, Linode is kind of expensive for this purpose only (I also host my small website on it, though), and have been looking into maybe an AWS micro instance which I can spin up when I need it, or possibly others.

Anyone have good recommendations here for VPNs that are fast, relatively inexpensive, reliable, and other criteria that might be useful?

Re: Young File-Sharers Respond To Tough Laws By Buying A VPN

#14

Post by rfugger »

jstalin wrote: post #6

Almost all my traffic goes over a VPN these days. I don't do any file sharing, but I just don't want my ISP keeping tabs on me. (Yes, yes, I know, a VPN ISP can keep track too) It's so easy (and cheap) to set up a VPN or SSH tunnel with your own server (or servers). My favorite site for finding a cheap provider is www.lowendbox.com or www.lowendstock.com. I have several VPN/SSH servers around the world for an average…

Even better, if you're worried about privacy, you can pay for your VPN with Bitcoin:

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade#Connectivity

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade#Dedicated.2FVirtual_Server_...

Re: Young File-Sharers Respond To Tough Laws By Buying A VPN

#15

Post by furyg3 »

I feel pretty double about VPN as a solution for masking my online activities. My reasons for using a VPN break down into these (related) categories:

1. Security. I don't trust this network at all, such as unsecured wifi in coffeeshop.

2. Access. This network has draconian restrictions I need to get around, such as corporate proxy servers or country firewalls.

3. Privacy. It's none of this network's business what I'm doing.

4. Legal. I don't want to get in trouble here. Especially when traveling where I don't know the laws, but increasingly in my own country. Hell, the courts in NL haven't figured out if TPB is legal, how should I know?

VPN can solve many of these problems most of the time... but always using a VPN means that I have a single point of failure for all four of these.

Re: Young File-Sharers Respond To Tough Laws By Buying A VPN

#16

Post by bmelton »

I suppose what's interesting about this to me is that the pirates are presumably paying for VPN service? Which means that I guess we've figured out the threshold where they are and aren't willing to pay for things -- to keep out of jail.

I should launch a Piracy as a Service app. Each month, you send me $100, and I will send you back copies of hot movies of varying quality, but all perfectly legal. You stay out of jail, I stay out of jail, and the pirates can rest assured that they never had to actually pay for the media they're consuming.

Re: Young File-Sharers Respond To Tough Laws By Buying A VPN

#18

Post by 3pt14159 »

arethuza wrote: post #12
rlpb wrote: post #8

My fear is that use of an anonymising VPN will in itself become cause for the state to hassle you, and that this won't require any new laws to be passed.

If you are using an SSL-VPN is there any way, apart from the destination address, of someone detecting that the SSL traffic is a VPN and not a secure website?

Essentially, yes. There are usage patterns and timing attacks. It would take someone with a hell of a view of the network though.

Re: Young File-Sharers Respond To Tough Laws By Buying A VPN

#19

Post by mforsberg »

rickmb wrote: post #17

VPNs aren't just used for file-sharing. One of the main reasons why people outside the US (including American expats) use VPN services is to get access to geo-tarded services.

As a swede I'd say most do it to hide their online activities, at least that is the case with most the people I know using a VPN-service.
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