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Pirate Bay's Anonymity Service Enters Beta Testing
schliz writes "Developers of The Pirate Bay have launched their new Virtual Private Network (VPN) service to some 180,000 pre-registered beta testers. An e-mail to beta testers read. 'IPREDator does not store any personal details about its clients. IPREDator does not store any traffic habits you might have. IPREDator is the key to a free internet in the renaissance of censorship!' The new service was launched to protect file sharers in response to the Swedish Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive (IPRED) that went into effect in April."
This has been the main problem with the beta as no one has been able to login to the vpn.
I don't think anyone thought this thing through.
Black Servers won't go away, because they are impossible to find and stop.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Aren't those types of networks also referred to as "Darknets?" I recall hearing something about them a long time ago, but I haven't read much into them. Is it akin to using a botnet to host a server/communication system? Anyone with the sexy details?
"Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad." [Ecclesiastes 7:3]
... so many people being given assurance of "complete privacy", wonder how many will believe it almost blindly, indulge in piracy (or whatever the civilized world calls it), get caught and get into unnecessary trouble. And what are the bets that the demographics of these 180,000 people is among some of the better placed and prosperous human beings on this planet? About getting into trouble part, I do hope I am wrong though...
Capitalism is the Opium of the Masses; Customer is King is the slogan.
bool IsDoingSomethingIllegal(IpAddress dest) //make a law against using services like TPB's VPN
{
if (dest == TBP_ADDRESS){
return true;
}
else {
return false;
}
}
Or in other words, if the government isn't happy, they just make using TPB's VPN illegal (I'm sure they could come up with an anti-terrorism excuse).
Excuse for why is your room always messy?
Black server - server using encrypted comms that is not publicly know
Darknet - layer on top of internet that uses encryption, multiple hop routing and other techniques to disguise nodes activity from each other
That's my understanding of it anyhow. I2P and freenet are the only darknets I know about. I wouldn't go near 'em, personally.
Shoun't that be Virtual Pirate Network?
I don't understand your point. It doesn't need to store personal details, it only needs to confirm that your login and id are valid.
After that, as long as it doesn't record the IP addresses you're visiting, it's effectively anonymous and thus valid.
Yes, Pirate Bay could secretly store that information, but I somehow doubt they would.
It's entered Beta? Hardly news, I got my invite on the 1st of July, it contained a unique HTTPS URL which was the only way to access the login page. I signed up (and paid up), connected the VPN after following the simple steps to create a Windows VPN connection. My IP then geo-located to somewhere in Sweden. It's nice, cheap and easy solution, assuming it does indeed remain anonymous. Speeds are pretty much wirespeed on my 5MB ADSL in the UK.
that here in the USA, using a service like this (and subsequently being caught) can stiffen any penalties or jail time your may receive because you're actively obstructing justice.
Viva la Fra.... Oh, wait, wrong episode...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
RTFA, please. Who said it's free?
And what are the bets that the demographics of these 180,000 people is among some of the better placed and prosperous human beings on this planet?
Well, considering that they HAVE a computer, are most likely using it (at least during TPB activities) for leisure instead of survival, understand enough of broadband network technology to realize encryption is useful for their activity, understand VPNs, understand encryption, appreciate anonymity, and apply all of it to the indicated activity, I dare say that they're in all likelihood doing much better than the half of the world's population trying to get by on less than $2/day. ... is there a problem with that? Why do you call them out as "some of the better placed and prosperous human beings on this planet"?
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
I dunno what you're talking about -- there is no "pirate bay", no more "black servers" or "darknets"; now, everyone be quiet!
It'll have to be a paid service.
No shit? They said it was going to be a paid service when it was first announced. From the title of the original Slashdot article from March: Pirate Bay To Offer VPN For $7 a Month. From where did you get the idea that this was ever going to be a free service?
... have finally found a way to pay that 3.6 million dollar judgement from the trial, eh? Unlike TPB, this has a subscription fee to use it.
RTFA, guy. It's not free.
Also It's been done before and well. The code has been open for a long time now. I'm just surprised it hasn't happened sooner.
The code used to be archived by some of the industry cool kids for quite a while, but I'm not readily finding it in the allowed attention span of this comment.
Post your damn initials in your signature spot. God almighty it's so pretentious when people put their initials in their posts.
AC
I actually wrote my own at one point that tunneled itself steganographically using decent crypto disguised inside webcam sessions. Unfortunately, the throughput was abyssal, and of course--it was pretty difficult to get 'real' network behavior.
I wouldn't say the point of a darknet is to hide a node's activity from one another--so much as it is to conceal their presence from anything not in the darknet. Tor helps hide a nodes activity from another node (sort of), but isn't a darknet. Freenet--you can search for, but generally speaking you can't find other nodes in freenet trivially. I'd call it a greynet.
What's wrong with freenet?
It works beautifully for its intended purpose, even if there's a sad amount of...malcontent littered throughout it. Despite the nastyness that you store on your own hard drive (which you couldn't read anyway unless you want searching for it), it's not like you or anyone else could ever prove it was on your system--if they could, the very trial itself would necessitate proving a means to crack commonly used cryptographic protocols--keeping that secret (if it's possible) would be worth more to anyone than convicting you ever would be.
Amusing: Captcha = "crimes"
Read the rest of his post, guy. His point isn't that it's not free, but that any service that accepts money from you is gonna have to keep some kind of records of those payments; therefore it's not fully anonymous.
gonna have to keep some kind of records of those payments; therefore it's not fully anonymous.
Yes, the record that have to keep would amount to this: "x user paid his monthly fee". There is no need to retain any other information.
There are a number of illicit services which have to accept payment and don't keep records. Now, if there is a subscription then I would be suspect. However if its non-recurring payment, I could believe that they don't have any records. For instance, "seed banks" do the same thing for many entheogenic plants. You make a payment, they ship your product, and the records of the transaction are deleted and shredded. However, that would mean a *lot* of hands on work for a few people to perform since I doubt most seed banks will ever see 180,000 customers. I'm sure it could easily be automated though. But as I said, the whole idea of a subscription seems harder to believe, unless the subscription is tied solely to a username/password, and not to billing details. Even so, its not hard to skirt the potential identifiablity by using prepaid gift cards.
Post your damn initials in your signature spot. God almighty it's so pretentious when people put their initials in their posts.
AC
Is that any way to talk to RMS? Oh wait, sorry. It just says RS.
Reply to That ||
I dunno. If I were a Fed, I'd break Freenet like this:
Fed: "We have a bunch of nodes on the darknet that contain Bad Things."
Judge: "How do you know what your nodes contain?"
Fed: "We surfed for Bad Things on Fed1, wrote the offending keys of the Very Worst Things into a textfile, and then ran a script on Fed2 that downloaded a whole bunch of the Very Worst Things. Fed2 is running a modified client that doesn't save chunks that are being passed through it to other machines. Therefore, the only stuff in its datastore is stuff that got there from our own requests. Then we walked away from Fed2's keyboard and let it stew for a few hours."
Judge: "...so Fed2's datastore is basically read-only at this point."
Fed: "Right. When a request for a chunk comes in, and Fed2 doesn't have it, we just pass the request on to the next node. When a chunk comes through from some other node, our modified client passes it on without storing it locally."
Judge: "But when a request comes in for which Fed2 *does* have a chunk..."
Fed: "...we add the requestor's IP address to the list of IP addresses for which we have probable cause to believe are requesting - or facilitating - the transmission of Bad Things. By the way, here's the list."
Judge: "Signed. Go get 'em."
Keeping account information is far different that keeping activity logs. Completely anonymous, no. Where you have been and what you may have downloaded, yes. So unless they make having an account on the VPN illegal, it is "anonymous enough".
"But this one goes to 11!"
It works beautifully for its intended purpose, even if there's a sad amount of...malcontent littered throughout it. Despite the nastyness that you store on your own hard drive (which you couldn't read anyway unless you want searching for it), it's not like you or anyone else could ever prove it was on your system--if they could, the very trial itself would necessitate proving a means to crack commonly used cryptographic protocols--keeping that secret (if it's possible) would be worth more to anyone than convicting you ever would be.
Unfortunately, the MAFIAA doesn't need to prove anything to rack up massive legal costs against you, or threaten to sue you.
It's 5 euros per month: http://www.ipredator.se/
I never actually thought about what IPRED stands for. Now I see the acronym refers to words in english...
I all ready knew the swedish elite takes its directions regarding copyright law from the big ol' US of A, but jesus, couldn't you at least bother to translate the names of laws they've ordered into swedish !?!
Some of my favourite people are from th US; Vonnegut, Chomsky, Bill Hicks.
...will this service belong to the old or the new TPB owners?
A good education is a bit like a STD - it makes you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and gives you a desire to spread it.
Except their only payment portal doesn't accept payment using US credit cards. The portal told me themselves when they rejected 3 of my cards and a Paypal temporary credit card.
I dunno. If I were a Fed, I'd break Freenet like this:
Fed: "We have a bunch of nodes on the darknet that contain Bad Things."
Judge: "What's a node?"
Fed: "We surfed for Bad Things on Fed1, wrote the offending keys of the Very Worst Things into a textfile, and then ran a script on Fed2 that downloaded a whole bunch of the Very Worst Things. Fed2 is running a modified client that doesn't save chunks that are being passed through it to other machines. Therefore, the only stuff in its datastore is stuff that got there from our own requests. Then we walked away from Fed2's keyboard and let it stew for a few hours."
Judge: ......
Fed: "Right. When a request for a chunk comes in, and Fed2 doesn't have it, we just pass the request on to the next node. When a chunk comes through from some other node, our modified client passes it on without storing it locally."
Judge: *blank stare*
Fed: "...we add the requestor's IP address to the list of IP addresses for which we have probable cause to believe are requesting - or facilitating - the transmission of Bad Things. By the way, here's the list."
Judge: "Signed. Go get 'em."
I think the above changes might more accurately reflect reality.
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
In my neighborhood they even have a wireless version of this VPN. It's called "linksys" for some reason, but it allows anonymous access, and it's even free.
Turns out this is just a repainted version of Relakks... (see http://www.golem.de/0907/68539.html (german))
Yes, Pirate Bay could secretly store that information, but I somehow doubt they would.
..right?
Yeah, because no one would think that the soon to be new CEO, who happens to be good friends with the RIAA, would ever do such a thing as log traffic or identifiable information. Right?
Why are they mutually exclusive? Maybe I'm missing an epic troll here, but I'm thinking you don't understand the word anonymous, nor any of the concepts/methods involved in creating that status on the net. The service isn't really the VPN, it's the not keeping (or anonymizing -speel) transaction records for your VPN connection. Having a bill for a service doesn't mean the service provider keeps a log of my usage.
"Be prepared, son. That's my motto. Be prepared." --Joe Hallenbeck
These *are* pirates we are talking about ... of course they'll be using stolen credit card numbers ... duh
the thing about that is, that EVERY other node on freenet is also acting as a relay for those chunks, you actually don't have a reasonable expectation that the node you are getting requests from is the actual node that wanted it.
from TFA
"Developers of The Pirate Bay have launched their new Virtual Private Network (VPN) service to some 180,000 pre-registered beta testers"
The developers, not the current owners of the name.
"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore."
Right, I don't think the developers would log traffic or identifiable information. These are people who started a whole political party based around anonymity. Take the tin hat off. (And as the other poster said, you are confusing developers with the new owners of the domain.)
"Darknet" is the term for a general concept, coined by Microsoft researchers in 2002.
"And the meaning of words; when they cease to function; when will it start worrying you?"
Since when has this ever stopped a judge from issuing a warrant?
I'm sorry, but you are thinking logically. don't worry, it happens all the time to those of us with IT experience. You see, you are walking the steps from a-z and seeing that logically it would make no sense.
The problem is we are talking Child porn here, a subject where common sense and logical thinking will NOT save you from PMITA prison. Just see Little Rascals Daycare and mcMartin preschool for examples. In McMartin you had kids claiming Chuck Norris was doing ritual slaughter of Elephants in a dungeon. Logically you or I would go "WTF?" but in the McMartin case they actually bulldozed it to the ground looking for the dungeon! And last I heard there were still two being held in PMITA prison over Little Rascals, where the prosecution actually had the brass balls to tell the defense if they actually did their job and defended their clients that THEY would be arrested for aiding child molestation!
So you see, while logic and common sense would tell you that having a Freenet node, where you don't actually have the keys to what is on your HDD would protect you. Sadly in reality they would throw you in PMITA prison until you produced the keys (which you don't have) or send you to prison for aiding and abetting child abuse because you have IT experience that should have given you the ability to know what was in those encrypted files. Believe me, as somebody who has had dealing with the cops asking for help in IT matters, logic rarely comes into play. I even had a state trooper get pissy with me because I couldn't/wouldn't attempt to hack a federal server at the building where his wife worked so he could read his wife's emails and let him see if she was cheating.
Sadly most cops and many prosecutors believe that hacker crap that they see on TV, like we all have little magic black boxes that let us blow through crypto and hack into any database. See? Reality doesn't matter if all the people after you believe is what they saw on Hackers.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Oh god, this is slashdot isn't it? Where's the healthy paranoia? Of course they don't need to keep logs but they could. You're handing them your identity, committing a crime, and hoping that they don't keep laws. I guess you trust the name The Pirate Bay (from these other posts I gather you all are stupid enough for this in the first place) but keep in mind they were just bought by a mystery for-profit third party. When the media companies come knocking with a $15 million check asking to buy their company and then we can start keeping logs until people start realizing what's going on wink wink wink, do you think the new owners will go down with their sinking pirate ship or take the cash and retire to tropical islands?
Even without all the media paranoia.. you now torrent from behind an IP address and if someone gets a court order to release your identity, your ISP will notify you immediately. So do you want to torrent from behind all the impenetrable anonymous security and peace of mind of a bulletproof name/card#/exp/dob record?
Interesting how the poster refers to STEALING as censorship. I wonder if someone stole from the poster the thief could just accuse the victim of trying to censor him from having anything he wants for free.
The evidence you cite would not prove intent, and therefore fail to obtain a conviction. That is because requests made through the FN network make copies all along the request path. Making requests actually increase the likelihood that material will be found on the network, and will definitely copy the material to the node that returns the material to you. Sure, that node that served you will have the material. But you put it there, unless you can prove otherwise.
Even if you could isolate the node from the network and force it to fulfill requests, you would not know if that material was put there by the request of another node. You would have to know the history of the network to prove possession with intent to distribute. That would require an ability to watch the network transparently, a power probably only the NSA possesses. It is something outside the scope of law enforcement.
The genius' name is Peter O'Fyle, he likes to be called "Pete". Go ahead, say his name...
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing. Emo Philips
If you read the legal terms ( https://www.ipredator.se/faq/legal/ ), you will notice the mention below: "For Swedish authorities to force Ipredator to hand over âoetraffic dataâ including your Ipredator IP at a specific point in time, they will have to prove a case with the minimum sentence of two years imprisonment". It is clearly implied that logs are kept, as it states the conditions for handing them over.. Now, considering this text is a mere copy/paste of the Relakks ones (https://www.relakks.com/faq/legal/ ), it is hard to tell if they they left them as is voluntarily, or if they just forgot to remove them when cloning the Relakks site .-)
Well, to slightly correct you there, _one_ Freenet (0.7) is a darknet. And it sucks. The whole thing's still basically Alpha software, even though they made an 'official release' about two years ago. The devs screwed it up horribly.
There is, however, another Freenet network. Freenet 0.5. It's an opennet, and as a long time user I can say that it works very well.
I think the above changes might more accurately reflect reality.
The federal judge has decades of experience in asking the right questions and getting clear and meaningful answers.
Judge: "What's an Internet?"
I think the biggest flaw with your amendments is that you didn't also paint the FBI as clueless.
"What's wrong with freenet?"
Uh, it's full of child porn. I'm not handing over part of my hard drive to help propagate that stuff.
No. A darknet is a P2P network where individual nodes are trying to hide their existence. This means that, in order to connect to a node, you need an invitation from the owner of the node, and nodes don't advertize their existence. Some such networks might try to hide their traffic with steganography.
A darknet is targeted for environments where the very act of participating in an anonymizing network (which was what you described) is grounds for suspicion or outright illegal. Their problem is that they tend to grow very slowly, since in order to join, you must know at least one person who's already in the network; they also tend to have severe problems with network structure, since you need to have connections to at least three nodes in order to have a network (as opposed to a string with two, or a dead-end with one connection).
Freenet 0.7 is a good example of this: it was supposed to be a darknet, but the developers finally gave in before reality and allowed the open ("promiscuous") mode where the node advertizes its existence and accepts incoming connections, as well as tries to form new connections to other such nodes.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Actually, I don't think the FBI is clueless-more's the pity.
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
This is very interesting. Have they responded to that? If so, it goes against the entire purpose of the program.
No offense, but if you haven't used it, how can you be sure what's it's full of? This is the first I've heard of this stuff, so I am asking out of true ignorance, not to be snarky.
GNUnet is another one, personally I like it more because it does not store not requested chunks on your local hard-drive (if you configure it not to do that). This means you don't help with all that child pornography. But, you do route data packages to create anonymous traffic.. so in the end you are still helping.
I would like to see a network where you can democratically decide wether something is right or not, where you can say: I don't like this content and I will help in finding who is distributing it if any node asks for my help in doing that.