Anonymize BitTorrent Transfers with BTGuard
Written by Ernesto on March 09, 2008BTGuard is an easy to use proxy service that adds an extra layer of privacy to your BitTorrent transfers. The service is designed for BitTorrent users who don’t want their ISPs or any third party to log or throttle their IPs or traffic.
BTGuard reroutes all your BitTorrent traffic through their servers in Canada. This means that anyone who connects to you via BitTorrent, even the MPAA or RIAA, will see BTGuard’s IP, and not yours.
BTGuard does not have any bandwidth or volume restrictions, and while we briefly tested the service (from Europe), the speeds were almost equal to an unsecured connection. Setting it up is fairly easy, the only thing you need to do is enter the username and password provided by BTGuard, and you’re ready to go. Please note that this is only a proxy service, so the traffic between the user and the server is not encrypted, which means that ISPs can (potentially) still monitor it.
TorrentFreak asked one of the founders of the project why they launched the service, he told us: “More and more, people find their privacy being invaded on the Internet and we find it to be a very disturbing, unethical trend. There are some countries that still actively protect privacy, one of which is Canada.”
The BTGuard team decided to setup in Canada not only for privacy protection, but also its close network proximity to the US. “The US is experiencing a privacy invasion epidemic more so than most. ISPs are issuing disconnection notices with little regard for privacy or the accuracy of those who notified them.”
“Companies like MediaSentry collect IP addresses on P2P protocols like BitTorrent; right holders then send the IPs to your ISP. However, MediaSentry systems and techniques have no governments’ authority and are certified by no one and many institutions have received false claims. Companies like this should not be allowed to go around and make or break your Internet connection. These days, some people’s lives depend on it. This is where BTGuard comes in. The only IP companies such as MediaSentry will see is ours.”
BTGuard works differently then some other similar services like VPNOut or Smarthide. Most notably it does not VPN your entire Internet connection. You simply configure your BitTorrent client to route through their servers, so it will only effect your BitTorrent downloads. BTGuard says it has received reports that it effectively bypasses throttling but at this point they cannot confirm that it works in all cases (please let us know in the comments if it does).
BtGuard offers a free trial, and they welcome people to try it, so you can see if it’s works for you. After the trial it costs 4.75 Euro per month which is cheaper than most other services, and a small price to pay for privacy.
Previously: Stage6: The Beginning of the End for Streaming Video
Next: The BitTorrent Legend Returns: I Am aXXo
117 Responses (Add yours or TrackBack)
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Excellent idea for throttled hosts…
Sounds good :)
I might try it out.
I hope the uptime is better than Relakks - which is:
“Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesnt, LIVE WITH IT”.
they can fuck right off with their 5 bucks a month……could join a private tracker, or use PG(i know i know…..)
how about merely ‘hiding ‘ in the anonymity of millions of peers.
they better start building more jails.
america is on a red alert today.
the ‘death clock is 5 to midnight!!!
go back to bed you fuckin sheeple.
its miller time
We are in a time in witch we pay for our freedom literally. Soon we’ll pay for the air we breathe.
Bittorrent is free, and so I refuse to pay.
This came at the right time ! aXXo is back :)
@4, you think you are safe on private trackers?
+ this is a great service for those with ISPs which throttle bt-trafic, think before you speak dumb fuck.
#8, you’re a *lot* safer on a private tracker. They usually only bother with public trackers (so far). In fact, I haven’t heard about someone being busted on a private tracker. Prove me wrong on that (hopefully, you can’t, though).
If you use this… coudl there be anby problem on personal bt client passwords?
Mr paranoind
sorry for typos :¬(
THIS IS GOOD STUFFZ
Site says $7 a month. Canadian dollars, i’d guess, actual real money unlike this American toilet paper today (watch the US dollar plummet, yo!) As for the service…well, I couldn’t get it working on either Azureus or uTorrent….
Is this working on Private Ratio Torrent Sites ?
The costs are oki for a highspeed service but i dont think they can offer up to 2 megabyte per second downstream.
And you have to agree to not use it for any illegal activities whatever they will include.
So they log ? otherwise they wouldnt
put it in their agreement.
This is good, I’m getting 600K/s which is faster then I normally get…
I have serious doubts on the doability of this. Won’t traffic just heap up and end up costing way too much, just like stage6?
Traffic costs money, rerouting it is pure gold you spend.
lol no, you’re not safe on private trackers, peerguardian detects the same amount of crap if it’s a popular enough torrent…
So its basically a proxy…
As others have said, bit torrent is free, so paying to use this, kind of defeats the point.
hmmmm…
I just activated the trial and set the settings as the site described.
Still the same throttle activity via Sandvine/Comcast.
No difference.
[quote comment="307569"]So its basically a proxy…
As others have said, bit torrent is free, so paying to use this, kind of defeats the point.[/quote]
The point is if your being threatened by your ISP and you still want to continue using BT. There is nothing available legitimate or illegitimate that can match it. That’s basically like saying you won’t pay for any media distribution system no matter how great.
Little more information about Relakks:
Jonas Birgersson, the founder of Relakks, is intervjued by Thomas Crampton. Birgersson talks about Relakks and why he thinks it is needed. It’s a good and interesting interview!
Link to the clip: http://light.vpod.tv/?s=0.0.201364
[quote comment="307571"]hmmmm…
I just activated the trial and set the settings as the site described.
Still the same throttle activity via Sandvine/Comcast.
No difference.[/quote]
I heard that form others as well. It seems to work for some, but not all throttling ISPs.
Its a service for the minority thats for sure. If your ISP is not one of thoes that give you a bit of protection against the shitty legal threats then a proxy may be a good idea. But then again if your ISP is prone to falling over at the first sign of a legal letter than perhaps you should consider moving ISP’s if your a heavy download user rather than having to resort to proxy’s.
Based in Canada, where Demonoid got shut down. Should be safe then!
It sounds like a good idea, but what happens when service providers realise that people are using BTGuard to hide their torrent traffic? Won’t they just throttle all of the traffic thats been routed through BTGuard? Doesn’t sound like a long term solution.
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