VPN For Kazaa Users Launched

prostoalex writes "AnonX allows Kazaa users to connect to its own VPN, effectively obfuscating their original IP address that certain association has been using to subpoena the file-sharers. The company is created by a Texas ISP employee, but is registered in Vanuatu, and already has 7,000 users paying $6 a month."

Comments

Which is wonderful....

[Your_Mom]

...until the RIAA somehow finds a way to get access to their user records...

Re:Which is wonderful....

[pilot1]

If they're smart, they'll check for any attempts at cracking, and then send their logs straight to /dev/null.
Or is that illegal?

Re:Which is wonderful....

[red floyd]

Except that there's those inconvienent billing records. Of course, getting the FBI out to Vanuatu is another matter.

Speed problems?

[pilot1]

I just skimmed through their website, but it looks to me like their user's speeds would be limited by their bandwidth, just like any other proxy.
So what happens when 20% of those thousands of users get on Kazaa at once?

Disclaimers?

[CelticWhisper]

It's still nice to see that something's being done to help. Even if it is just another proxy service, that still makes it another proxy service that the RIAA has to expend time and effort to "manage."

I wonder, though, if they can implement some kind of disclaimer or warning (like those you see when logging into some FTP servers) that state that personnel from the RIAA or from record companies are not permitted to use the service. I may be mistaken, but that should provide some legal clout in the event they get h4xx0r3d (so to speak) and their users sued like so many others.

Re:Disclaimers?

[mumblestheclown]

I may be mistaken, but that should provide some legal clout in the event they get h4xx0r3d (so to speak) and their users sued like so many others.

I love those legal disclaimers that sites put such as "law enforcement people and RIAA members or affiliates are not permitted to enter this site." this attempt to hide from copyright infringement culpability is as laughable as it is juvenile.

for the record, they carry absolute zero clout, and doubly so in this era of DMCA. however, they probably make for good search terms.

Confusion

[mhesseltine]

So, let me get this straight; these users can't or won't pay to purchase music/videos/software/etc., but they will pay some company a monthly fee to protect them as they illegally download said music/videos/software/etc.

I actually hope that this company is a front for the RIAA, nailing those who are too stupid/greedy to figure it out.

Re:Confusion

[0x0d0a]

Sure. It's a lot cheaper. If the music has equivalent value to you as a CD, downloading a single album has just paid for at least two months of service.

Remember that anyone downloading music/movies is investing time, hard drive space/bandwidth, and potentially CDRs anyway.

I actually hope that this company is a front for the RIAA, nailing those who are too stupid/greedy to figure it out.

[shrug] I kind of wish that all speeders would get nailed for breaking the law, potentially with speed-detection devices hidden in all cars. With speeding, people's lives are actually at risk (as opposed to folks just infringing copyrights). However, most people don't like the idea, because they like breaking the law to some degree. I suspect that the same applies to your "I hope the company is an RIAA front" idea -- probably most other people, like me, find the idea of going after users in such a manner distasteful.

Re:Confusion

[dethlejd]

The reason that this argument falls apart is as follows:

If the "powers that be" can ticket you everytime you speed, people will stop speeding.

If they find a way to guarantee that a file that is shared across a network violates copyright, and prosecute (read: fine) the persons involved in the transmission of the file, people will stop trading copyrighted material.

I, for one believe, however, that a small percentage of users will always remain smarter than the folks trying to prevent promiscious copyright violations. They will create tools (like this) and will distribute/sell them to the rest of the not so smart folks.

The way to stop illegal copying of CR material is to:

A) Give the product worth (e.g. more than one decent track on a disc).

B) Make the product less expensive than copying it would be. I suspect that the TOTAL cost of producing ONE CD is considerably less than $15.

(Someone figure me this; take the cost of manufacturing, production, marketing, bribing disc jockeys, paying for hookers, beer and drugs for the band, advances and the like, take out the tour till, merchandising, and other income. Take that number and divide it by the number of CDs sold at Best Buy and Wall-Mart. Really, someone in the know, do the math... Is it really $15 dollars each for millions of copies sold?)

C) Stop being so goddamn greedy. Both of you, the industry turds AND the cheapass tightwads.

See, there could be levels of music; expensive music, like Britany and Eminem, that wealthy people could afford to buy, and then, like, middleclass music, that most of us could afford; beer drinking music, like Meatloaf and Lynyrd Skynard, and finally, inexpensive, generic music targeted at welfare families and the like. Creed, U2 and 4-Non Blondes. You could even hand out MusicStamps (tm, BTW) that would allow less affluent people to purchase state subsidized music, like Community College Barbershop Quartets or The Dixie Chicks. :-P

Anyway... I tire of this conversation...

- Jim

Re:geez

[0x0d0a]

1) why doesn't the RIAA just get an account, see who's swapping, and subpoena usernames?

The company just doesn't have to keep logs (at least of information like time-IP-username mappings). There is no requirement to log information, just to turn over any information that *has* been logged. They might want to store aggregate data usage with a username, but that should be more than sufficient.

Yawn....

[Neo Matrix Surfer]

I have been doing this for almost a year using an offshore service called the MetroPipe Tunneler and their SOCKS Proxy.

Just basic SSH Tunneling with an easy to use system that encrypts the traffic from your machine to MetroPipe, and from there you go out on the net via Proxies and others see MetroPipe and not your IP.

What is good about MetroPipe is that they are NOT located in the USA. And they do not keep logs to even give to anyone that even asks.
Let alone all the other Proxies they offer such as POP-FTP etc.

And about speed. Give me a break. Of course there will be a speed slowdown. That is the price to pay for an additional layer of privacy.

Boo Hoo. Additional hops mean slower download speed. Fine by me. The extra privacy and anonymity is well worth it. And with todays DSL speed I get, even with the additional HOP, I still have blazing speed especially if you try and price a raw T1.

I am happy with My 2 Cents. Peace.

Is This Article a Kazaa Ad?

[DynaSoar]

Because I don't see anything on the AnonX site that says anything specifically about Kazaa or any other file sharing system. It says it's for security for any online activity.

I think it's a damn shame that the first thing that comes to mind is file sharing, when far worse things like human rights violations are far more worth protecting. Yes, this proxy system is for that too.

Why don't use Freenet?

[DrMorris]

As it gets more and more insecure to use P2P filesharing services, the users should consider switching to a filesharing network which fully respects privacy and completely disables censorship (achieved by encryption)

For details see the Freenet Project homepage.

BTW there is another interesting (though by far not as widely used) filesharing network, called GNUnet.

Re:He'll be arrested real soon now....

[Mr. Slippery]

Let me get this right. A guy physically residing in the States is earning money from a service whose primary and almost sole intent is to facilitate the commission of a crime

No, you don't have it right. The intent of this service is to protect privacy.

Yes, the service could be used to anonymously perform illegal activities; it could also be used to anonymously send important information to law enforcement.

Three Words

[Hell O'World]

Digital Rights Management.
The experience of downloading music from Kazaa, even though it can't beat the old Napster, is still miles above the new legal downloading systems, because you can do whatever you want with the music when you get it, unencumbered by artifical limitations.
I want my MP3s.

anon.penet.fi redux

[HTH NE1]

He'll get shut down as soon as someone starts sharing secret Scientology documents over KaZaA through his service. After all, that's what brought down anon.penet.fi.

I actually used it...

[OverkillTASF]

It's not just for Kazaa. It's a VPN that any and all of your Internet software can use. Use it at work to get around nazis who block listening to Di.fm, use it at school to get around port blocking and throttling....

My interest in it was actually getting unfirewalled, as that cripples Internet performance. But my school blocks the protocols necessary for outbound VPN connections, so I only had it for a month.

It's nice because you don't need their proprietary software. You just download a VPN connection file and voila, there's your tunnel.

Just Ducky - A new argument for key escrow - curse

[MadHungarian1917]

Now the feds will have a new argument for _requiring_ key escrow "to protect IP" just wonderful. and the broadband providers will have a new excuse for blocking VPN connections on residential circuits. Which will make it really inconvenient and _expensive_ for those of us who need these tools for productive work. Ahh the tragedy of the commons writ large

I just wish for once people would think about the consequences for the rest of us before rolling out a commercial service.

The place to fight the DMCA is the courts and we do have some judges on our side. Does anyone remember the Cartervision case where Hollywood wanted to ban VCR's the judge in that case found while the VCR's could be used to infringe copyright they had substantial 'non-infringing' uses which is the same tack the judge in the p2p case is taking. Let's not give _big media_ any ammo for their view of the world.