TorrentFreak

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15 Percent of US File-Sharers Hide Their IP-Address, More to Folllow

In response to increasing legal actions and surveillance of Internet traffic, more and more file-sharers are choosing to hide their identities online. New data gathered through telephone interviews with thousands of adults reveals that in the US 15 percent of all file-sharers take measures to hide their IP-address. Some VPN and proxy providers have doubled their customer base in 2011, and this upward trend is bound to continue in the coming year.

hideBitTorrent is by no means a private way to share files, as YouHaveDownloaded demonstrated during recent weeks. However, it also illustrated that BitTorrent use is quite common.

Last month, the American Assembly, a non-partisan public policy forum affiliated with Columbia University, released a paper titled “Copyright Infringement and Enforcement in the US” which came to the same conclusion. To define the local piracy culture researchers conducted 2,303 telephone interviews, and they found that roughly half of all adults can be branded a pirate.

Sharing files among friends and family is the most common form of copyright infringement, and just over 13 percent of all respondents admitted to using file-sharing software such as BitTorrent to download content. File-sharing seems to be most popular among the younger demographic as can be seen in the graph below.

copy

A section of the report that particularly piqued our interest concerns the use of tools to hide ones IP-address online. The original report shows that about 5 percent of the general population use these tools, but we expected this figure to be significantly higher among file-sharers.

The American Assembly was kind enough to share additional data with us which confirmed this suspicion. Among the people who use file-sharing software, little over 15 percent use tools to hide their IP-address online. In other words, one in 7 file-sharers in the US is anonymous.

Further analysis reveals that in particular younger adults hide their IP-addresses. A quarter of all file-sharers between the ages of 18 and 24 say they share files anonymously, while less than 5 percent of file-sharers older than 44 years hide their IP-address.

TorrentFreak talked to several VPN and proxy providers who all say they have witnessed substantial growth throughout the past year. The leading BitTorrent VPN and proxy service BTGuard even doubled its customer-base during the past 12 months.

“BTGuard has been consistently growing since we started. Compared to 2010, we increased by around 200% in 2011. The growth has really picked up lately which I contribute to SOPA and other censorship efforts,” BTGuard’s founder says.

“We grew 25% this month. If SOPA or something similar actually passes, the flood of Internet users seeking asylum from oppression would be staggering to say the least. Hopefully that doesn’t happen, the Internet is far more important to us then business.”

This uptick is not limited to the US either. All around the world BitTorrent users have become more aware of their privacy, as a survey among Pirate Bay users recently confirmed.

Although the data obtained through the American Assembly survey says nothing about people’s motivations to download anonymously, it is indeed safe to assume that the increased talk about anti-piracy laws, copyright alerts and file-sharing lawsuits are high up the list.

In the US alone over 250,000 BitTorrent users have been sued for alleged copyright infringements because their IP-address was captured by anti-piracy outfits. And in the coming year millions of sharers are expected to receive warnings through their Internet providers as part of a deal the major ISPs struck with copyright holders to educate and punish BitTorrent users.

A promising outlook for providers of VPN and proxy services, but whether these measures will have a significant effect on the prevalence of piracy remains to be seen.

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  • sh7dow

    Heh, better go into the VPN Business now to pick up on the profits

    • The other 85%

      “…expect us.”

    • Guest

      We’re being forced onto VPNs to keep the MAFIAA out of our business, but it’s great training for the increasingly police state approach of Western governments.

      Here in Australia, our spy agency ASIO can legally sniff our traffic and pass whatever they find onto local OR foreign agencies (everyone from the Tax Department to the NSA.)

      Online identity security is evolving into necessary knowledge for the 21st century.

    • Anonymous

      Stealing my neighbor’s wifi ftw!

      • Anonymous

        Haven’t you ever watched Live Free or Die Hard 4? xD

      • Guest

        You can’t steal it because the owner is not prived of internet access.

  • Pingback: 15 Percent of US File-Sharers Hide Their IP-Address, More to Folllow | Droid Universe

  • http://twitter.com/unthekno nthekno

    Hell yeah i hide my ip and i hide from half of the worlds ip addresses as well. cant trust no one or anything when it comes to your ip. nice read +1

  • ThaMessiah

    Finally everyone is hopping onto the anonymous bandwagon.

    • The other 85%

      About time.

  • Internet

    i dont know why pp dont use private torrent trackers and seedbox

    • BooBooKittyPhuck

      Related costs and ratios – not exactly “huge issues,” but they do deter some.

      • FinalApokylypse

        Many countries/ISP’s still do not commonly do unlimited internet deals meaning seeding ratios are not very appealing.. Course this does mean there’s also more leechers about..

  • raf

    What if these vpn websites are run by the same people who sue torrent users? They scare their victims into paying one way or another?

    • Guest

      That’s why you do proper background-checks on the companies.

    • Anonymous

      Read the ToS and be advised that if a VPN company leaks information it has agreed to keep hidden or keeps logs where it explicitly states it does not – then you take them to court.

      • MD3

        ToS will be worth nothing if they pass laws forcing VPN providers to keep logs. The will be no court to whine on.

        • Anonymous

          That would be tricky. Many VPN “providers” today are individual users. How you force an open-source program to keep a log is beyond me.

  • MC

    Good. Better VPN providers get some of this extra cash hollywood thinks weve all got lying around, than hollywood itself.

  • SYAVPN

    if anyone is wanting logless VPN access for 5 Euros a month contact me at SYAVPN@gmail.com

  • Ale

    My guess is, this will simply mean that VPN’s and foreign proxies will be outlawed.

    • Phil Landry

      First, It can hardly be done. VPN and proxies are used by most companies in the world for legit uses. Second, Outlawing something like that won’t work because it’s unenforceable.

      • http://www.facebook.com/people/Ender-Wiggin/100000885624281 Ender Wiggin

        so is the drug war, when has that ever stopped lawmakers legislating shit they don’t understand? Hell they already make crypto out to be a tool only used by kiddy fiddlers and terrorists.

        • Anonymous

          If they outlawed encryption, the whole e-commerce sector would pounce on the government like a pack of rabid wolves, I’m not joking either, they need the encryption for credit card info to go over the internet without some nosey admin copying it for his own nefarious purposes. I’d hate to be on the receiving end of a ginourmous class action brought on by the mega corps who can’t use e-commerce anymore, Yes such an action would cripple even that of a 1st world government, again no joke, if you think I’m joking you must be mentally retarded.

        • Guest

          @Anonymous, the problem is that they can ban all encryption except for “certified” companies. Yes, I do believe VPNs will be regulated soon or later and then people might stop running from injustice.

        • Anonymous

          @Guest I wouldn’t want to be ‘the ONE’ who’s job is to certify these websites, considering that it would have to consider international websites obviously. and failing that, there would just be other ways to encrypt without popping up on the radar.

    • Anonymous

      I’d dearly love to see how you’d manage to outlaw encryption and still maintain a 20th century market presence. :)

  • promo

    Great news for TorrentFreak’s side project, BTGuard.

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  • Galloman

    Superchargemytorrent is cheaper and faster. But I would not use a socks-based proxy for torrenting. The program may leak the real IP.

  • Galla

    Superchargemytorrent is cheaper and faster. But I would not use a socks-based proxy for torrenting. The program may leak the real IP.

  • Galla

    Sorry for the double post.

  • Alex

    Why a line graph? Fail. Go back to school. >.<

    • FinalApokylypse

      What would you use..? Its perfectly understandable unlike many graphs I’ve seen in the past.

    • histogram

      the graph implies some sort of trend in data, but really it just shows responses to four separate questions

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Ender-Wiggin/100000885624281 Ender Wiggin

    btguard is just awesome. I can put it on as many local machines as i want, it’s always up, and i’ve never noticed any speed issues. (with the proxy) if i could do the same with the vpn i’d upgrade in a second.

  • SethofheSEA

    Hi, can any one help me with VPN services? What decent VPN provider can provide me with a stable connection (I Have a 50Mb connection), does not blag on their customers and if possible different country access so I can view content in other countries? Oh and I am from the UK, cheers

  • http://www.facebook.com/eric.boehm Jack Murdock

    That this is a guaranteed, fool proof to protect you is a myth. My room mate used tor and ip blocking software and he still got caught by the school. Sure getting free stuff can be great, but the risks involved just aren’t worth it in my opinion.

    • Fredrika

      > “That this is a guaranteed, fool proof to protect you is a myth.”

      Actually, no, a properly set upp VPN makes your IP completely invisible to the outside world. Are you speaking out of ignorance?

      > “My room mate used tor and ip blocking software and he still got caught by the school.”

      First of all, getting caught by the school is something completely different than having the outside world being able to track you.

      Second, no one has ever claimed IP-blocking software does very much for anyone’s safety.

      Thirdly, TOR is again something different than a VPN, and the fact that you’re using TOR is something that is possible to detect from the inside of a network, such as a school, where they usually monitor if a user starts to use a unusual large amount of traffic on strange ports.

      And fourth, there’s a difference between catching a student that uses a large amount of traffic, and actually seeing what traffic he’s sending and receiving, which the school can’t do, if it’s set up properly, so your friends experiences has nothing to do with this article, or the fact that VPN’s indeed are working as intended.

      > “Sure getting free stuff can be great..”

      Actually, getting stuff for free is the norm society since 150 years back.

      > “..but the risks involved just aren’t worth it in my opinion.”

      Well, that risk assessment is obviously flawed by your huge ignorance on the subject, which you often disclose here in the comments. In reality the risk is smaller than being struck by lightning, and if your really worried, there are indeed methods of protecting yourself that will make you 100% invisible on the net. If you do that, there’s zero risk.

      But facts never was your strong side, no was it?

      • http://torrentfreak.com/ Rob8urcakes

        So well put, and done so YET AGAIN with such patience, truthfulness and accuracy despite the repetitive message we need to keep giving to thwart these persistent troll liars who try to corrupt us and our children with their false propaganda.

        Thanks Fredrika xx and all the best to you for 2012 my friend.

      • http://www.facebook.com/eric.boehm Jack Murdock

        “Actually, no, a properly set upp VPN makes your IP completely invisible to the outside world. Are you speaking out of ignorance?”

        I may not be a computer genius like you, but a VPN is a program like any other. It has loop holes. It has flaws. All it takes is for the authorities to find one such loop hole and they can get IPs for everyone.
        http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2010-06/18/huge-privacy-flaw-found-in-vpn-systems.

        Nothing on the internet is truly decentralized. All VPNs have a operating center somewhere, where the subscription records probably contain the IPs.

        But you seem to be convinced that your VPN is 100% perfect and that something designed by a dozen or so people can stop the FBI in their tracks, I guess now no one will ever get caught anymore.

        “First of all, getting caught by the school is something completely different than having the outside world being able to track you.”

        It was an example meant to show one thing. That pirates are overconfident in their ability to stay hidden. No security measure will ensure that you are invisible forever.

        You guys may think you are the l33test c0mputer wizards out there, but you are going up against the best of the best. The FBI has caught some of the most devious people out there. Virus writers, hackers, etc. Kevin mitnick probably thought he was invisible.

        “Actually, getting stuff for free is the norm society since 150 years back.”

        Uhhhm… I dont know what planet you live on, 150 years ago on earth, we had this thing called money which dates back to over 2000 years ago. Internet freeloading has only been around for around a decade. No one would just give you a free horse or a free wagon 150 years ago. That would be called stealing.

        These days you can use tiny programs to make copies of things and somehow this has convinced people that that taking what isn’t yours without paying is somehow not stealing anymore. New technology doesnn’t magically change the moral aspects of fair exchange.

        “Well, that risk assessment is obviously flawed by your huge ignorance on the subject, which you often disclose here in the comments. In reality the risk is smaller than being struck by lightning, and if your really worried, there are indeed methods of protecting yourself that will make you 100% invisible on the net. If you do that, there’s zero risk.”

        You wanna explain the mass lawsuits then with tens of thousands of IPs then, einstein. I doubt you’re the only one who knows about VPNs. If we want to talk about ignorance, how about belief, that VPNs are perfect. You seem like you’re a pretty tech savy kind of person. I would expect you to be familiar with the idea of a security vulnerability. All it takes is one hole in the service for fbi to to unmask your IP.

        But then again, reality was never on your side, was it?

        • Fredrika

          > “I may not be a computer genius like you, but a VPN is a program like any other. It has loop holes. It has flaws. All it takes is for the authorities to find one such loop hole and they can get IPs for everyone.”

          No. Again you are incorrect. The article references a incorrectly set up VPN. I talked about a properly set up VPN.

          > “All VPNs have a operating center somewhere, where the subscription records probably contain the IPs.”

          Serious VPN-services keep no such records. There are many well known such that doesn’t.

          > “It was an example meant to show one thing.”

          You referenced the confidence in VPN services. Your example of an improperly set up VPN at the users end had nothing to do with such.

          > “No security measure will ensure that you are invisible forever.”

          There are indeed such measures.

          > “150 years ago on earth, we had this thing called..”

          ..Libraries, where people can access intellectual works on a commercial scale for free, without any need for permission from the author.

          > “..somehow this has convinced people that that taking what isn’t yours without paying is somehow not stealing anymore.

          People filesharing are not taking anything, they manufacture copies with their own physical property. Obviously the act of manufacturing something with your own property is never stealing. You can verify this indisputable fact in the law, a dictionary, a physics book, or a book about logic.

          > “New technology doesnn’t magically change the moral aspects of fair exchange.”

          Which i never claimed, but there’s also the fact that other people might not share your personal subjective moral.

          > “You wanna explain the mass lawsuits then with tens of thousands of IPs then, einstein.”

          That some Internet subscription holders are contacted with extortion letters does not change the fact that the risk for any of the several hundreds of millions of people filesharing is indeed minimal, and zero if you protect your IP properly.

          > “If we want to talk about ignorance, how about belief, that VPNs are perfect.”

          Which i have not claimed to believe.

          > “I would expect you to be familiar with the idea of a security vulnerability. All it takes is one hole in the service for fbi to to unmask your IP.”

          With a properly set up VPN service that does not reside in North America, there’s no possibility for the FBI to unmask anything.

          > “But then again, reality was never on your side, was it?”

          It’s obviously cool to try to turn someone’s words against them, but for that to succeed you have to actually prove that persons claims incorrect, which you haven’t in this case. Every single one of my clams in the initial comment still stands exactly as they are written.

        • Guest

          >You wanna explain the mass lawsuits then with tens of thousands of IPs then, einstein.

          You mean the ones that sued Tanya Andersen, children, grandmas, homeless people, dead people, printers and iguanas?

        • Anonymous

          Not only are you not a computer genius – if we were to use your logic on, say, automobiles then you’d probably claim that square wheels would work well as a standard.

          A properly set up VPN has no loopholes. None. Hundreds of thousands of skilled hackers have tried to find bugs and exploits in the standardized protocols and have come up with nothing. If you ever find a loophole for a good VPN setup you’ll be raking in a six-figure salary working for the intelligence agency of your choice.

          That said there are ways you can improperly set up a security protocol. ipv6 DNS leakage being one of them. Choosing a five-character password easily revealed by a simple dictionary attack. And so on.

          However, in the usual run of things the only way of breaking a VPN is by compromising either end point. This requires either computer intrusion, physical control over one of the end points, or knowledge of the passwords used.

          This is why organized criminals, even with potential millions in payoffs, have never been able to compromise an entire ATM network. Without both the card and the pin code, you get nowhere.

          No, Jack, a genius you are not. “Gormless Idiot” comes to mind though.

      • Guest

        I want to bring one thing up; you say getting things for free has been the norm for 150 years, and from your past posts, I think you’re referring to libraries. If you’re not, then please disregard everything written here as a product of ignorance as to what you meant, but it seems that libraries are very different from filesharing. With libraries, you never got free stuff. You borrowed someone else’s stuff. It was never yours. With filesharing, you are actually getting it by making a new copy that does belong to you. That doesn’t seem to be following the norm that libraries established. It has the same end result of enriching culture, I can’t deny that, but the methods don’t seem to follow the norm at all.

        I’m not saying that this is morally wrong or anything; it’s not, and it shouldn’t be against the law either. It just seems that this doesn’t match the previous norm of society. All that means is that the norm will have to be changed to allow for filesharing, just as it was to allow for libraries.

        • Fredrika

          > “..but it seems that libraries are very different from filesharing.”

          To me it seems it’s very similar on all relevant points.

          > “With libraries, you never got free stuff. You borrowed someone else’s stuff. It was never yours.”

          Now you are forgetting who owned the libraries, although collectively. The people.

          > “With filesharing, you are actually getting it by making a new copy that does belong to you. That doesn’t seem to be following the norm that libraries established.”

          The norm i’m referring to wasn’t regarding who owned the necessary physical goods.

          > “It has the same end result of enriching culture, I can’t deny that, but the methods don’t seem to follow the norm at all.”

          The methods are irrelevant to the fact that the effect is similar. The technical methods are nothing more than the means to an end.

          Both libraries and filesharing gives people free access to culture on a commercial scale, in a way that makes it unnecessary for them to ever by a copy again.

          The authors permission is not needed for either libraries or filesharing. He has nothing to say about it.

          Authors and publishers claimed both then and now that the effect of such free access to culture will kill culture, but they could never back that claim up, and it proved to be wrong, definitely then, and now also, according to existing scientific studies.

          If no negative copyright related value can be proven, then obviously people shouldn’t be denied a huge positive value.

          The fact that libraries had to get their copies back, was as physical limitation, that today no longer exists with filesharing, but that improvement does not change the previous fact that free access to culture is the norm, and that the authors permission isn’t needed for such access, or that no evidence supports the thesis that either libraries or filesharing constitutes a problem that hinders the goal of copyright from occurring.

          Ownership of the necessary objects are irrelevant to those three similarities, which are the relevant ones, that people don’t have to pay for accessing culture on a commercial scale, and they do not need the authors permission for such commercial scale distribution and accessing of culture, and it doesn’t cause a problem for the goal of copyright.

    • Finally-That-Hurt

      which risks would you like to see exactly, Jack?

      I am curious. how far should we go if you were in charge?

      • http://www.facebook.com/eric.boehm Jack Murdock

        I was talking about my decision to not use torrents on the school network because of the chances you would be taking.

        • JackMurdockSucks

          And what chances would those be Jack? You are aware there are plenty of legal and legitimate uses for torrents right? And for using torrents on any network?

          Quickly and off the top of my head without having to think I can list the following:

          various Linux distros
          game updates and patches from video game developers
          movies and shows (from Vodo and others: Otherwords, Pioneer One, etc.)
          music (various bands release through torrents, and not just indie ones)
          software (there’s a plethora of companies who release their software either directly through their websites or hosted elsewhere in a torrent file)

          I know for a fact that my Starcraft game updates come through torrents. I believe I got the Windows 8 preview awhile back through a torrent (which I’m pretty sure came directly from Microsoft). Just this past week I got the Otherworlds short films from the Vodo website. And so on and so forth.

          Risks? Absolute none. (Unless of course you’re absolutely clueless about torrents and torrent use and what is available to be downloaded and/or are hugely biased and basically a troll.)

    • Anonymous

      Then he was being an idiot about it. Case closed. What is far more likely happened is that some asshat roomie of his decided to report him whereupon the school simply seized his computer.

      Given that you were said roomie I think it’d be a miracle if he didn’t get caught. Did you obtain a lot of brownie points or was it simply personal, Jack?

      • http://www.facebook.com/eric.boehm Jack Murdock

        Just fyi, you should atleast have all the facts before you go spouting off, you clueless retard.

        No one’s computer was siezed, you moron. The school has ways of tracking people on their network. Your entire post is just one ignorant assumption after another. Try thinking next time.

        • JackMurdockSucks

          “Just fyi, you should atleast have all the facts before you go spouting off, you clueless retard.”

          Wow. Coming from you, that’s pretty hypocritical. You’ve never once used any facts to back up any of your comments. Not a one.

          So before you go off calling out others, make sure your own comment history doesn’t end up being used against you. You basically shot yourself in the foot on that bright comment of yours.

          “Your entire post is just one ignorant assumption after another. Try thinking next time.

          See what I said above for my response on this one. As for “try thinking”, well, you are Jack Murdock. Thinking isn’t something you’re known for on this website. So I won’t bother saying to give it a try next time, it’d be a waste of time to do so. Perhaps “just stfu next time”. Yeah, let’s go with that.

        • Anonymous

          “The school has ways of tracking people on their network.”

          By god, your school has invented magic. No, seriously, they can accomplish what even National Security Agencies can not?

          First of all, dear clueless idiot, I know computers and networking. You do not. If your roomie was using a VPN then your “school” would not have been able to tell anything at all about what he was doing or not. They’d be able to notice he was using a lot of bandwidth full of unreadable data, going to one specific adress. They might guess that adress to be a proxy.

          This is obvious for anyone whose knowledge of computers goes past the way to use the spell-checker.

          So the one and only way they would know or have a clue about what he was actually downloading would be by one of the end points being compromised. Which means either the VPN kept tabs on his traffic (highly unlikely) or someone looking over his shoulder snitched on him.

          The only other caveat here would be if he was using a school computer with installed trojans to download with. Such a computer already being compromised to start with.

          Jack, I’m a system administrator. I know computers and what they are capable of. You obviously do not. That being the case, you standing there trying to tell me how a network can be monitored or not borders on the ridiculous.

          So, with all due respect; Get lost, asshat.

    • Guest

      LMAO. Stop discrediting VPNs and specially Tor. The only way to get caught using Tor is by sending personal information without encrypting the traffic, this way the Exit Node can sniff the information.

    • Anonymous

      According to the tor project website/documentation, using BitTorrent over tor isn’t a good idea https://blog.torproject.org/blog/bittorrent-over-tor-isnt-good-idea

  • Haha

    just remember kiddies
    ten years ago the fbi had 65 million honey pot ips for proxy users….
    gee wonder why there is such a shortage of ipv4 address space…..

    • FinalApokylypse

      Lol.. well I wonder when we will ACTUALLY adopt IPv6 properly.. its been in the pipeline for almost 10 years now? Course they have actually sold the last IPv4 block off, so I presume shortly. I’d laugh if they ran out of IPv6 addresses though. Meant to be billions of IP’s per every sq metre of the planet.

      • Haha

        and its even less secure LOL
        just like your wireless
        new tool released 6 months after i said that no wireless was secure

      • Anonymous

        Comcast has pilot deployment of IPv6 to regular customers since November. They have been working hard on it the last few years because they use a frickin lot of IPv4 addresses and they know they can only get more by buying existing ones from other people, which is expensive: http://www.comcast6.net/

  • Haha

    TOR is whats called btw a transparent proxy what users want to do is copy hackers and proxy chain elite known non logging proxies….OH YA they are very rare….

  • Lnlkwn

    Take note vpn users: HMA is something u should avoid

    • http://torrentfreak.com/ Rob8urcakes

      I’ll spell it out further for any readers -

      Anyone who uses HideMyAss MUST NOT rely on them for privacy as it’s well established they keep connection logs on you with timestamps of your activity and they’ve already handed over that data on their own PAYING customers who expected privacy and protection.

      NEVER use HideMyAss because they leak and will sell you out to such an extent they need to be re-named “WeSellYourAss”.

    • Guest
  • Khh

    when will gay murdock ever quit? hes been spamming here for almost 2 years already has he?

  • Anonymous

    I’m surprised TorrentFreak can even get a response from BTGuard. I’ve contacted them twice, email and their contact form and no response. Not going to waste my time with a company that doesn’t care about it’s customers.
    Also their speeds are slow but if 5mbps is enough and don’t need support go for them.

    • Test

      I can max out my 25mbps, u need to be smart enough to use their speed test or a private tracker torren….who needs support on entering a username and password and checking a box?

      • Guest

        sta1ns is paying for a service so he is entitled to support.

  • Anonymous

    I have been thinking the Internet should split into two.

    First would be RegulatedNet which is highly regulated with all people monitored and tracked so they do no wrong. There is no porn on RegulatedNet, each religion has its own section, bad words auto-filtered, and any troll-like behaviour is reported to your doctor. Encryption is banned, binary transfers banned, and on religious days only religious sites can be contacted. Healthy traditional sports and activities are encouraged.

    Then we have AnarchyNet where everyone is totally anonymous and simply cannot be tracked. All links are highly encrypted and there are no rules or regulations at all including no censorship of any content. Pornography of all forms can be found anywhere and freely posted to any site. File transfers are common. All laws are ignored and can be freely broken. Then any spam or trolling cannot be filtered out when all censorship is banned.

    Now what Internet would you join?

    I am sure most people would agree that the Internet we have is better than one extreme or the other.

    • Dfsdsass

      AnarchyNet is the best !

      • Anton

        By far!

    • http://torrentfreak.com/ Rob8urcakes

      But that’s gonna lead to confusion for law enforcement agencies V0.

      Priests, imams, and other religious fuckwits as well as two-faced politicians will likely decide they MUST subscribe to both services coz -

      1. they want AnarchNet for a decent dose of reality, fantasy, education and relaxation;
      but,
      2. they also need RegNet for being a decent, upstanding member of the public community to promote their holier than thou face.

      How then would privacy laws and the Courts (let alone the voters or congregation) deal with such dichotomy I wonder…. :o

      • Anonymous

        My point is that not all people can live happily on the Internet when some groups want more regulated control while others want their freedom and a life without control.

        Treat these networks like two different Universes. If anyone wants more regulated control you can tell them where to sod off to. Then if anyone feels crushed and wants more freedom then there you go.

        My point is though is not many people are extreme and they would prefer something in the middle. Lack of control without getting out of control. No censorship apart from censorship for what they don’t like.

        With RegulatedNet the problem is that every zealot wants their own control and to fine everyone who fails their rules,. Then on AnarchyNet the problem there is people posting videos all over the place like “watch 8yr girl get banged by pet dog” followed my 200 replies all about where to buy Viagra.

        Well there are at least two saving graces. First is that those in control don’t like putting idiots in control and any large changes usually would take ages simply because people can’t agree. Then second is people usually prefer their own groups and communities no matter their extreme plans where they want to be left alone and to leave others alone.

        The exceptions to these are the real problems.

    • Tr3nt62

      When is this AnarchyNet starting I want to sign up as soon as I can. I would say we would need to have Anarchy ISPs to host us.

  • Never too soon.

    The day Torrents become 100% anonymous will be the day the RIAA announce victory over file sharers. They never let reality get in the way of a good press release.

  • http://twitter.com/BestVPNForYou BestVPNForYou

    Don’t forget… some VPNs are more anonymous than others…

    • Haha

      if you can prove that your vpn isnt logging you then ya, but how you do that?
      OR that they aren’t handing out data…( the latter when someone gets popped i suppose but then that’s after thought stuff i’d rather avoid )

      ask yourself why this poster had info that even the russins did not know about proxies….and why i’ll be around a long time after the last pirate goes poof….

  • Janobi

    VPNs were discussed here not long before christmas, with a list of those that log and dont log IPs and traffic. I believe the Swedish VPN predator or something was the best available.

    Lets be honest here, those that get caught are stupid. They use edonkey/frostwire/kazaa/piratebay and other public sites, then wonder why they get fucked int he ass from mafiaa or riaa.

    Majority of the users here, are on private trackers behind VPNs and other sneaky things. I’ve downloaded shit loads over the years, nothing off my ISP or RIAA.

  • Pingback: Listening is better than talking sometimes « O-tech

  • Need some explaining

    Ok, so VPNs are supposed to make ourselves invisible and every bit and byte that is sent in our out remains encrypted? So if someone sees me downloading or uploading something, all they see is VPN provider’s server aadress and not my IP right?

    I’ve seen that many VPN providers offer full anonymity and that they don’t log anything, even your IP aadress. And there comes the point that first of all you’ve gotta find a way to pay anonymously. Ok, so if that problem is solved and you’ve found a perfect VPN provider, the fun starts.
    So if you have a VPN, that is supposed to make you anonymous, give you full privacy and does not log anything, that means that people could do anything behind VPNs?
    But yet we’ve seen so many tracker admins, hacktivists and scene/P2P group members (and so on) get caught. You want me to say that these people don’t use VPNs? These kind of people should know everything about online anonymity, but yet they get caught.
    But yet people who download torrents use VPNs much and much more than they used to. So VPNs only protect the ones who are downloading some stuff? Umm… I’m confused…

    Or is it like this, with these VPN providers who don’t log anything. I’ll give you two scenarios:

    (well I guess they don’t call them, but lets imagine)
    …phone rings…
    Investigator: Hello.
    VPN provider: Hello.
    Investigator: This is Jon Black from the police (or whoever is investigating these kind of things, I really don’t know). We have evidence that your company’s client who is behind your VPN has made DDoS attacks (whatever…) against a website and we need to identify who he exactly is.
    VPN provider: Well, you know, as you can see from our privacy policy, that we do not log anything, so it is impossible to track someone. But… for cases like this, we have a secret backdoor. So yeah, no problem.
    Investigator: Thank you for your cooperation.
    VPN provider: Sure.

    …phone rings…
    Investigator: Hello.
    VPN provider: Hello.
    Investigator: This is Jon Black from the police. We have evidence that your company’s client who is behind your VPN has been caught downloading copyrighted material and we have recieved a request that we need to identify who he/she is.
    VPN provider: Well, you know, our privacy policy says that we don’t log anything, even an IP aadress, so it is impossible to track someone. So yeah, that’s our policy and we really can’t help you, even if we’d wanted to.
    Investigator: Guess that we have to use other measures then.
    VPN provider: Yeah, sorry we can’t help you.
    Investigator: Ok, I think we’ll get back to you later.
    VPN provider: Bye.

    –
    Don’t get me wrong, I just want answers. Though I’m from Eastern Europe and we haven’t had many cases about file-sharing, but as ACTA comes closer and closer, I think some pre-research is necessary. I’m sure there are many tech-savvy people who are happy to explain these questions I’ve stated above, to a newbie who isn’t really familiar with these VPNs.

    Thank you and happy holidays my fellow file-sharers :)

    • MD3

      I don’t trust VPN have no logs.

      Following on your exemple a bit further: Imagine if some guy does a really really bad thing using the service. Do you think the VPN provider will risk ending up in court as an ACCOMPLICE for what teh customer did? Because it seems that can happen if they don’t provide the logs.

      As much as I would like to trust a VPN provider, it’s difficult to think they don’t keep secret logs, which could be taken in a raid.

      People should stop trying to hide their asses and fight against the damn stupid laws that are being put in place. If they don’t, VPNs will be history in no time.

  • guest

    For future could TorrentFreak please replace the term “admitted” with “acknowledged” when referring to file sharers, and reserve the use of “admitted” only for confirmed instances of wrongdoing?

  • SYAVPN

    if anyone is wanting logless VPN access for 5 Dollars a month contact me at SYAVPN@gmail.com

  • bupkisruptkis

    What happens if you download incomplete copies of files on torrent.
    Like get half from one IP and half from another, neither can be held accountable.

    • MD3

      Maybe both could be held accountable. ;)

  • Guest

    Our experiments have proven that TorrentFreak has been infiltrated by the fed.

    Do not visit this site unless you IP is faked or hidden somehow like ours.

    We are done.

  • Alpharomeo11

    Americans need to clear the filth in their political system.

  • Cujo

    the usa wanted to block and blacklist ,, the only thing I see so far is it’s the usa getting blacklisted lol

    https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/12/moveyourdomain-protest-internet-blacklist-bills

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_PWP6FWEBTHHV5IY644H7WDBYHQ Stacey

    @long ………my roomate’s mother makes $70/hour on the computer. She has been fired from work for 5 months but last month her pay was $7232 just working on the computer for a few hours. Read more on this site http://nutshellurl.com/22i5

  • Truetoxicklown

    scardy cats hiding… And you call yourselves PIRATES ? Did u hide behind your mother’s skirt when someone picked on you at school as well ? Grow some balls because the more scared you are the more they win.. dumbasses I have been one of the most RESPECTED uploaders for 10 years, NEVER using any kind of hide ip progs or vpn and have NEVER gotten a letter or threatened to have my net shut off.. Reason people like you without seedboxes ect get caught is because you download 10 – 15 things at a time so of course your isp is gonna wonder why there is so much traffic going through your connection… The net isn’t going anywhere so no need for all that download at once… but u keep hiding hahahaha I will be in plain sight with no worries… dumbasses

  • Pingback: 70% of Users Are Using a VPN or a Proxy Service (or are Planning to Do So)

  • http://www.vpn4all.com/ VPN User

    Got to go with VPN4ALL (http://www.vpn4all.com). They’ve been the best and most reliable.

  • e-ncognito.com

    Hi,

    If you are looking for a paid high anonymous proxy access have a look on our site at http://www.e-ncognito.com we provide HTTP & SOCKS proxy access with guaranteed speeds, unlimited traffic and no restrictions at all.

  • Roy

    We need Utorrent devs to get I2P working!!!

    We need to demand it! We need to band together, if we all use I2P the service will get faster.

  • DTSLeech.com

    This is why you need a seedbox, easy anonymity and fast speeds lol. Gotta hide these days, not worth the fines/jail for a cam :)
    ______________________________________________
    http:www.dtsleech.com

  • The_grape

    I would never dream of surfing today without my vpn account enabled ( noirvpn.com) when I use my PC. I don’t trust any of these government types.
    Perhaps slower, but I feel safe and with todays faster internets speeds, no big deal

  • J P

     Be very careful who you do business with VPN provider wise

    I got a year subscription with this VPN provider  https://torrentprivacy.com/ and the VPN has went down for days now and I have months left on my subscription

    Countless attempts with emails to “customer service” and no reply

    Their forum is full of this even though research online shows great reviews for them

    I have ruled out ISP blocking and isn’t not my firewall /router

    The company is very happy to take your money and then never have anything to do with you again

    Do be careful before subscribing to service provider like this and I HIGHLY do NOT recommend  https://torrentprivacy.com/

  • http://profile.yahoo.com/2CS6R567NJUTHRJPQFMZVNDLKA Jelena

    VPN is a virtual
    private network that establishes an encrypted tunnel between your home PC and a
    remote server. You can be surfing
    on the internet in the United States but the VPN will show that you are
    somewhere else like Italy. Since your IP Address will show up as a different
    location, you will finally be able to enjoy the websites that have restrictions
    to other countries. You should be able to switch your locations with ease. This
    data transfer is also highly encrypted so that you are secure too. Security is
    maintained because people to whom you are communicating will not be able to
    trace your original location but that of server location that your VPN is
    using.http://www.superbvpn.com/iphone-vpn-service

  • BTGuard - BitTorrent Anonymously

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