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Pirate Party Launches Commercial Darknet
CrystalFalcon writes "The Swedish Pirate Party has launched a commercial, high-capacity darknet, on an unprecedented scale and bandwidth. This service lets anybody send and receive files anonymously without being tracked or traced. 'There are many legitimate reasons to want to be completely anonymous on the Internet,' says Rickard Falkvinge, chairman of the Pirate Party. 'If the government can check everything each citizen does, nobody can keep the government in check.'"
The nightmare of the *AA and my pipe dream. When's it coming to the states and where do I sign up?
Basically, this gives users the advantage of a Swedish IP address from anywhere in the world.
That's what I call massaging the numbers!
(Unfortunately,) I'll be here all week. Be sure to tip your waiter.If it is commercial, couldn't the company' records be subpoenaed (in a worst case scenario) by state/local/etc authorities? If so, I would think that would spell even worse trouble for a user.
I'm not fat, just big boned...
Tor has three intermediate hops between you and the destination; this only has one - so you get lower latency. Also, with Tor, your download speed is the minimum of the 4 intermediate connections' bandwidths. If one of those people happens to be a dial up user, you will be getting dial-up speeds.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
It's in Sweden. Net Neutrality doesn't directly affect it.
FTA: "We got Dugg pretty hard and expect Slashdot to come visiting at any time now."
I am very skeptical. My question is, how can they afford that much bandwidth? Given that their target market consists largely of P2P users, how can they tunnel all of a heavy bittorrent user's encrypted traffic for only $6.50 a month? It sounds to me like they should get into the ISP business or file hosting business instead...
This new political party is sure to cause a bit of panic all over the world, due to the extreme, overrated hype of piracy.
Not all piracy is a bad thing. I mean, software these days is seriously overpriced. You could teach yourself some very basic programming skills (Visual Basic, for instance), and create a program that'll do exactly what the $100+ equivilant does.
So of course people will pirate it. Why? Because it's rediculous to pay for something like that.
Then there's music. Just to let you know, piracy HARDLY hurts the musician. Considering that 90% of the sales go to the record company before the artist ever sees a penny, they're really not "losing" much at all.
Then again, sometimes piracy is a bad thing. Especially for the movie industry. Millions (if not billions) of dollars go into the making of a movie. While, yes, theater sales bring in tons of cash, DVD releases are also a huge factor in a movie's income. Downloading a movie hurts people a lot more than downloading music.
Piracy has become such an overrated "controversy" lately that it's unbarable. Look at the price of blank CDs. Did you know that you have to pay a "piracy tax" for these? Yep. All because some higher-ups think that an extra buck or two will help save a movie studio or a record company. It's batty. What if I just want to burn copies of pictures from my family vacation? Now I've gotta pay the MPAA and RIAA some extra cash for something that they don't deserve? Get real.
All these corporations think that they're helping people by attempting to foil piracy. Yes, they've got their hearts in the right places, but they're doing it all wrong. "Right track, wrong train" is a good saying for this. They really need to clean up their acts when suing people. I mean, they've gone so far as to sue old ladies who can barely turn their computer on, yet let huge pirates go unnoticed.
Why's this?
Because if they let big pirates continue doing their thing, then they get to keep on making more and more money with the "piracy taxes" and suing people left and right for WAY more than the material they've pirated is worth. They're letting people go to keep themselves in the game, which is horrible.
Also, just a little side note, to anybody who thinks the RIAA or MPAA might be knocking on your door. Go ahead and go to court, but bring up the fact that an IP address is not a person. Since your IP is the only log they have of the download (even if they have the MAC, that'll only ID a computer, not a single person), you'll win in court. And they'll lose out on a bunch of money for the court date, as well. Two-for-one, if you ask me. =D
As far as I understand the "lack of net neutrality" would only effect US* users of the aforementioned darknet. AFAIK for networks outside the US the net remains neutral**
*Yes yes I know or packets traversing across a US network segment.
**Neutral until the Telco's lobby the US administration to reign in them darn foreigners. After all its their divine right to extort money from those who have made a successful internet business.
After all these years of the US government exporting moralistic and lobby-built laws (soft drug prohibition, "ethernal" copyright, etc), it's nice to see somebody trying to export their society's (swedish) values of respect for freedom and privacy, even if their current crop of mainstream politicians seems to be in the pockets of the US admistration.
On the other hand, i expect that if the Relakks service becomes popular expect laws to be passed soon in other countries to curtail access to it.
I'm nervous when people are nervous about standing up for themselves and saying, "Go fuck yourself, I'll read whatever I damned well like."
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
I think the point is that it's (1) based in Sweeden, (2) encrypted end-to-end, (3) as anonymous as you want it to be based on the information you provide to them, and (4) fairly strongly protected legally in the jurisdiction it operates in.
1 and 4 being pretty big for USians who are using it...2 for people whose ISPs filter. 3, dubiously so, as at some point they have your credit card saying that you have an account although I suppose that, if they don't store your tunnel account with your CC number, they have no way of getting to you personally.
It doesn't matter if someone nefarious is on the same link-local segment sniffing all your traffic, if they can't identify through technological means who you are, and can't compel the provider through legal means either because they didn't keep that information or just won't give it over.
Thats not enough for some cheeky bastards, though. After people have gotten their latest crackz, I get a surge of search results from Google for things legitimate customers never search for (e.g. Name of the Program V 1.0 download). I lost $10 last time I got the hacker surge because I bid on my own program name as an AdWords keyword and the "its not stealing, its copyright infringement!!!1" crowd literally picked my pocket for a quarter a click.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
Short version: They keep only records who is customer, not about his traffic. https://www.relakks.com/faq/legal/
Legal
RELAKKS is a company incorporated in Sweden. The service is basically a Swedish broadband subscription offered over the Internet. This means that the legal framework mainly consists of the The Electronic Communications Act 2003 389. What will this mean if:
Swedish authorities or,
Other organization or individuals demands access to information protected by RELAKKS?
RELAKKS Safe Surf enjoys the strongest legal protection possible under Swedish Law because of the service type (pre-paid flat-rate service). This means that RELAKKS do not have to keep an ordinary customer database (to be able handle transactions etc.). This is of importance if forced to hand over information.
If Swedish authorities can prove beyond reasonable doubt that they have a case for demanding subscription information from RELAKKS (they have to be of the opinion that if convicted the user will be imprisoned - fined not enough). .
RELAKKS then have to hand over the subscription information entered by you (but that's all). RELAKKS do not store any subscribtion information about you except what you entered yourself when signing up for the RELAKKS Safe Surf service.
For Swedish authorities to force RELAKKS to hand over "traffic data" including your RELAKKS IP at a specific point in time, they will have to prove a case with the minimum sentence of two years imprisonment.
Regarding inquires from other parties than Swedish authorities RELAKKS will never turn over any kind of information.
The combination Swedish high-tech encryption and the strongest legal protection give you true access to Internet, safer and speedier then ever before.
For more information about Swedish Telecom Law: The Electronic Communications Act 2003:389
Although this is better for speed, isn't it bad for anonimity? Traffic that has been over four hosts is harder to trace back than traffic that has hopped over a single host.
I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: "O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous." And God granted it.
"There are many legitimate reasons to want to be completely anonymous on the Internet"
And copying a King Kong DVD rip is not one of them. Its sad when people take the legitmate point about anonymity that you might need for political organisations, journalists and whistle-blowers, and just use it as an excuse to facilitate warez and music copying.
And calling yourselves the 'pirate party' is just plain insane. Whats wrong with "the consumer rights' party? or do they realsie thats way too hypocritical.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
What country do you live in? I live in the USA where people voted in a facist administration that thinks the Constitution is a quaint document that is exactly where it belongs in a museum. If we could wrap copper around the founding fathers we wouldn't need foreign oil. Their spinning bodies could power the country for the next thousand years. If you mod this funny you aren't paying attention.
Freedom of Speech doesn't jump to mind? Especially in this day and age of NSA wiretapping? I have no idea what you've been smoking in order to lack the imagination to see that one.
rhY
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
I did due diligence before I opened my little business. First, the demand curve for software doesn't fit what you might think from a microecon 101 textbook. Price is a signal of quality, and $10 software is "crud" whereas $25 software which accomplishes what you are setting out to do is worth actually getting out ye olde credit card. The other wrinkle is that advertising costs money and its impossible to make money at the $10 price point if you advertise. For example, during my last week I made roughly half of my sales through Google AdWords, at the cost of roughly $10-15 per sale depending on the campaign. I then get $25 and split $1 with Paypal, leaving me with money in my pocket. Google will not decrease my CPC just because I charge less for my product.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
Whats wrong with "the consumer rights' party?
When I was a kid we had these things called "people." I miss them. Nice folk; and a good many of them were producers.
KFG
For example;
There's a zillion reasons really. But more importantly, you shouldn't need any reason at all. The simple fact is, there exist people who would prefer, atleast sometimes, being anonymous online.
There's very little in the actual document which isn't in the published article when it comes to cost.
Have you been living on Gilligan's Island?
5eu/month is, as pointed out in the FA, at the current exchange rate: $6.359.
Before Scotty Richter was castrated, he was bringing $2M into his office, yes, two million U$ monthly. And he wasn't the king of the mountain.
Can you explain how $6.359/month going to make a spammer think twice about using the service? Particularly when you consider the anonymity. No more looking for open proxies & relays.
They pay far, far, far more than that to set up shop in China, then send all of that crap back to the US. Most spam originates from the US as the 2003 U-CAN-SPAM law[1] basically gave them free reign, but the big boys still rely upon China.
Here are the top 200 spammers responsible for 80% of the crap which is dropped in your inbox.
Some of these guys (e.g. Ralsky) have substantial setups in their basements or an office (when they-he aren't|isn't getting caught running around in nothing but a black thong -- yes, there's a picture of it in an anti-spam archive.
But seriously. How do you think ~$6/month is going to stop a spammer. I'm not trying to present a loaded question here. I really do want to know your perspective on this because you may have insights no one else has considered.
The only way I can see this not becoming a spam haven is if there's a volume limit for that price and you have to pay $x/volume for each increment after that.
I'm all ears.
_______________________________
[1] Very effective, wouldn't you say? Has your volume of spam decreased (without human intervention to separate the wheat from the chaffe?)
Piracy is not what the party is about, it's a name they picked to be noticable.
The consumer rights party would be a stupid name, as it would infer some capitalist values and the party does not take a stance in questions like that.
Everyone please read! http://www2.piratpartiet.se/international/english
The party is here to counter the police state we are turning into with Bodström giving the lobbying organisations whatever they want, and to put a stop to the silliness of patents and eternal copyright.
So as long as the Swedish government can prove beforehand that you will be convicted, then they'll hand over the data, otherwise it's no-go. And as for non-Swedish authorities, Relakks say they won't give them anything.
One of the universal rules of happiness is always be wary of any helpful item that weighs less than its operating manual
If you're in that much trouble that they NEED to find you, believe Me, they will find you. Be it 1 hop, or 4 hops, it doesn't matter. Sure, I'd rather trust a Sweedish company for my sense of peace rather than Tor. At least you know where your hops are going with this. With Tor, it's a good idea, but what if the governemnt was running massive tor routers, sniffing packets from whatever comes across their electronic doorstep? You see, that is the weakness of Tor, besides it's speed. You need a trusted source to begin with. If you don't, it will auto-build the network as time goes on as it finds a node. But still, if one of those nodes are packet-sniffing everything, then all is for naught. Either way, if anything 'bad' happens to you, you'll still be just as screwed, but hey, at least you'll have more bandwith and less latentcy.
Reading FAQ on their site it appears they use PPTP tunnel. While it's quick and easy to setup for clients, looks like it has some security flaws, quoting Poptop page about PPTP security (http://poptop.sourceforge.net/dox/protocol-securi ty.phtml):
"PPTP is known to be a faulty protocol. The designers of the protocol, Microsoft, recommend not to use it due to the inherent risks. Lots of people use PPTP anyway due to ease of use, but that doesn't mean it is any less hazardous. The maintainers of PPTP Client and Poptop recommend using OpenVPN (SSL based) or IPSec instead."
The claim that this service provides anonymity and immunity to logging is only true in a very limited sense! This is basically a simple one level proxy which keeps access records which the authorities can get their hands on if they "suspect" a crime is being committed. Sweden is signator to various levels of intellegence sharing deals on international crime and terrorism so none of the Swedish laws on privacy have effect if some outside government presents "reasonable suspicion" of a crime being committed. And no, you don't have to be a terrorist or kiddy pron baron to be concerned here - tyrannical governments have been known throughout history to use any means to available to them suppress and oppress their citizens...
Tor on the otherhand can claim to provide a level of true anonymity because of the 'onion routing' concept. A potential adversary would have to infiltrate the network with enough fake nodes to get to both the input end (to get the ip) and the the exit node (to get the traffic) and then do some traffic analysis to match these two together in order to figure out who is doing what. This being very resource intensive, such capability would only be available to the highest levels of intellegence gathering and even then only for a limited set of survaillance targets.
www.tribalnetworks.org - helping tribal people around the world to own their own means of high-tech communications
Please see:
1. "The Watchmen"
2. Star Trek.
3. At least 6 million news stories about the CIA each year.
4. Bruce Schneier
5. About 6 hundred million blogs commenting about the news stories.
Oh, and
6. Decimus lunius luvenalis, better known as Juvenal.
Clear, Dark Skies
Authoritarian: Government based on manipulation of power where access to government information is limited and access to citizen information by government is unfettered.
Ask yourself which direction the US government is heading.
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
Snuff films are not real. And the problem with pedophilia isn't the transmission of images of the sexual abuse of children, it's when actual sexual abuse of children goes on.
Freedom has risks. If you have free elections, the "wrong" guys might win. If you have secure communications, "terrorists" might use them to make plans. If you have the right to keep and bear arms, "bad guys" may have guns.
But if you believe in freedom, you're very very wary of the state getting to define who the "wrong" guys, the "terrorists", the "bad guys", are. Consider that Martin Luther King Jr. was a target of COINTELPRO; consider Nixon's "enemies list"; consider the Fugitive Slave Act, the Dredd Scott decision, the Alien and Sedition acts, the Red Scares, the concentration camps for Japanese Americans...
And? "Anarchy" means no ruling hierarchy. Some people think that's a good idea, especially when it comes to communication. As Robert Anton Wilson put it, "A monopoly on the means of communication may define a ruling elite more precisely than the celebrated Marxian formula of `monopoly in the means of production.' Since man extends his nervous system though channels of communication like the written word, the telephone, radio, etc., he who controls these media controls part of the nervous system of every member of society. The contents of these media become part of the contents of every individual's brain."
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Not outside the US, no.
Inside the US, though, the customers of large US telecom companies may be firewalled off from the service by the very people they are paying for Net access. If not that, they may be slowdd to a trickle of traffic.
If I was paying for access to "The Internet", and my service provider wasn't giving me access to everything I could legally access, then I'd be getting ripped off, wouldn't I?
So for the rest of the world US net neutrality laws don't matter so much. For those of us in the US, they matter a great deal, even when the traffic starts overseas.