Pirate Bay users also have a great interest in anonymity. A survey among the site’s users previously revealed that nearly 70% already had a VPN or proxy or were interested in signing up with one.

For this last group The Pirate Bay has an interesting promotion running. For the past few days the site has replaced its iconic logo with an ad for FrootVPN, a new startup that offers free VPN accounts.

The promo has has been seen by millions of people, many of whom very interested in the costless offer.

Since VPNs are certainly not free to run, many people are wondering if there’s a catch behind this rather generous offer. Previously TPB advertised an adware ridden client so this suspicion is understandable.

TorrentFreak contact the Pirate Bay team for more information, and they informed us that the FrootVPN promotion is not a paid ad. It’s merely a friendly plug for a startup run by some guys they know.

While that’s assuring, it doesn’t explain how they can offer their service for free. We contacted the FrootVPN operators to find out more, and they told us that they started the free VPN to counter the commercialization of the VPN business.

“The whole idea behind FrootVPN was to provide a free simple VPN service without any bandwidth limitations. Of course the maintenance isn’t free but we had some resources over from our other projects from which we were able to launch FrootVPN.”

“We are a bunch of guys who support freedom of speech and don’t like the idea that VPN providers charge so much money for just a simple proxy, especially since the bandwidth costs nowadays is so cheap,” FrootVPN tells us.

While a free VPN sounded like a good idea, the VPN service has become a victim of its own success. They gained 100,000 users in less than a week and admit that it’s not sustainable to keep the service free forever.

“The word has spread rapidly and we thank all our promoters including TPB for supporting us. We got 100,000 users within a week, which we never expected. However, this does indicate that we will be forced to charge something for the service in order to maintain it,” FrootVPN says.

FrootVPN’s VPN servers are currently hosted at Portlane, who have been very helpful in accommodating the growth. During the weeks to come they hope to increase their capacity and FrootVPN has already bought several new servers to keep the quality of the service on par.

“We have 20x servers running currently with 2x10Gbps total capacity. We have now additionally bought 40x more servers and 4x10Gbps bandwidth from Portlane which will be ready within a week or two. We hope that after this upgrade the quality of our service will be much better,” they say.

While they may have to charge a few dollars in the future, one of the main motivations of the FrootVPN team remains in line with The Pirate Bay’s original philosophy. That is, to provide tools that help to bypass censorship and promote freedom of speech.

“FrootVPN supports freedom of speech and want the Internetz to be an uncensored place,” they say.

Although free VPNs are often not the fastest, especially not when they are growing with tens of thousands of users per day, FrootVPN says it will try to keep up. In any case, “free” is an offer that’s hard to refuse for those who are on a tight budget.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Сейчас большинство пользователей Интернета принимают во внимание тот факт, что почти за каждым их действием в Сети следят и сохраняют в истории.

Для того, чтобы их IP-адрес не был виден другим пользователям, миллионы абонентов используют VPN. Это позволяет работать в Сети анонимно и избежать наблюдения.

К сожалению не все подобные сервисы настолько хороши, как они говорят.

После случая, который выявил, что не все “анонимные” сервисы приватны, TorrentFreak решил задавать VPN провайдерам неудобные вопросы.

Поскольку тема популярна мы представляем Вам третий обзор VPN сервисов. Кроме вопросов о логах, мы спрашиваем провайдеров об их отношении к трафику файлообмена, и каков по их мнению наиболее безопасный VPN.

Информация от 13 сентября 2014 года.

Список вопросов, которые получают провайдеры:

1. Вы храните КАКИЕ-ЛИБО логи, которые позволяют связать IP-адрес, его время использования и абонента Вашего сервиса? Если да, то какая информация храниться и какое время?

2. Под какой юрисдикцией работает Ваша компания и при каких условиях Вы предоставляете доступ к данным третьим лицам?

3. Какие инструменты используются для мониторингом сервиса и предотвращения злонамеренного использования Вашего сервиса?

4. В случае, если Вы получите DMCA запрос или подобное требование, что Вы будете делать?

5. Какие шаги предпринимаются в случае получения законного судебного запроса на обнародование данных Вашего пользователя?

6. Пропускает ли Ваш сервис трафик BitTorrent и других файлообменных сетей? Если нет, то почему?

7. Какие платежные системы использует Ваш сервис и как они связаны с аккаунтом пользователя?

8. Какое наиболее защищенное VPN соединение и какой алгоритм шифрования Вы порекомендуете Вашим пользователям?

Далее мы приводим точные цитаты ответов от представителей сервисов. Провайдеры, которые не ответили на вопросы или провалили тест, поскольку логируют все исключены из результатов. Обратите внимание, что некоторые из компаний, описанных ниже, все же имеют определенные логи. Порядок списка произвольный.

Private Internet Access

1. Мы абсолютно не ведем логом трафика и каких-либо данных о сеансах. Для получения такого результата мы затратили много сил, чтобы тщательно разветвить все службы, которые мы используем. Можно с уверенностью сказать, что это нелегкая задача, и мы гордимся своими разработчиками, которые сделали этот функционал доступным для пользователей Private Internet Access.

2. Мы работаем в США, это одна из немногих стран, которая не имеет закона об обязательном хранении данных. Наша команда юристов рассматривала и другие варианты, но США все еще идеальна для приватных VPN сервисов.

Мы чрезвычайно тщательно исследуем законность любого и каждого запроса на информацию от властей. Однако, поскольку мы не храним данных о трафике и данных сессии, мы не в силах предоставить какую-либо информацию третьим лицам. Наша обязанность сохранить конфиденциальность является высшим приоритетом

3. Мы не следим за трафиком. Мы блокируем IP и/или порты, когда получаем обоснованное предупреждение о нарушении, чтобы предотвратить злонамеренное использование сервиса.

4. Мы не размещаем контент и поэтому не можем его удалить. Кроме того, наша миссия сохранить анонимность Интернета и общества. А значит, мы не следим ни за чем, мы не можем раскрыть наших абонентов.

5. Опять же, мы не храним данные о трафике и сессии. Дополнительно, в отличие от ЕС и многих других стран, наши пользователи защищены законом. По этой причине, мы не можем раскрыть наших абонентов. В конце концов, в США существует закон о защите потребителя, в отличие от многих других стран. Мы должны соответствовать уровню конфиденциальности, заявленному в нашей рекламе.

6. Мы не относимся предвзято к какому-либо типу трафика или протоколу на любом из наших сервисов. Мы верим в открытый, свободный Интернет без цензуры.

7. Мы принимаем Bitcoin, Ripple, PayPal, Google Play (Mobile), OKPay, CashU, Amazon и все основные подарочные кредитные карты. Так же есть множество анонимных способов оплаты. По этой причине, абоненты из группы риска могут при регистрации на нашем сервисе пользоваться Bitcoin, Ripple или подарочными кредитными картами с анонимным e-mail.

8. На данный момент мы единственная фирма, которая предлагает множество методов шифрования. Мы рекомендуем использовать главным образом AES 128, SHA1 и RSA2048.

Сайт Private Internet Access

TorGuard

1. TorGuard ни на секунду не сохраняет данных об IP адресах и времени сессий на любом VPN или прокси сервере. Более того, мы не сохраняем логов и временных штампов на серверах аутентификации пользователей, подключенных к VPN. Посему абсолютно невозможно связать временной штамп внешней системы с пользователем, который был подключен в данное время. Поскольку VPN использует систему shared IP, поэтому с одного IP могут работать одновременно сотни пользователей, что дополнительно затрудняет возможность выделить одного из абонентов.

2. TorGuard – частная компания с родительской организацией в федерации Сент-Китс и Невис. Наша штаб-квартира сейчас расположена в США. Наш юридический представитель сейчас доволен структурой компании, тем не менее мы готовы работать по всему миру, если у нас есть земля под ногами. Сейчас мы предлагаем свой сервис в более чем 23 странах по всему свету и поддерживаем все сервера счетов клиентов вне США.

Мы можем быть вынуждены общаться с третьими лицами только если наш юридический отдел получит повестку из суда на такое действие. Такого еще не случалось, но если что мы готовы рассказать подробно обо всей распределенной структуре TorGuard. У нас нет логов и значит нет информации для обнародования или расследования.

3. Наша команда, отвечающая за сеть, использует коммерческое ПО для мониторинга со специальными скриптами, позволяющими приглядывать за индивидуальной нагрузкой на сервер, статусом и аптаймом сервиса, так что мы можем быстро выявить проблему. Если информация о злонамеренном использовании получена от магистрального провайдера мы блокируем такие действия на различных уровнях начиная от фильтрации заканчивая глобальными правилами для межсетевого экрана для крупных кластеров. Вместо исследования злоупотребления по логам, наша команда следит за ситуацией в реальном времени. Мы обязаны предоставлять быстрый, безопасный VPN сервис для наших клиентов и улучшаем свои методы все время.

4. В случае получения DMCA запроса, он незамедлительно рассматривается нашей командой, борющейся со злоупотреблениями. Поскольку мы не можем определить какой из пользователей отвечает за нарушение, мы на время блокируем сервер, где произошло нарушение и применяем глобальные правила в зависимости от природы нарушения и сервера, его совершившего. Система, которую мы используем для фильтрации определенного контента идентична блокированию по словам, но намного более точна. Это гарантирует, что спорный контент больше никогда не пройдет через наш сервер и будет соответствовать требованиям магистрального провайдера.

5. Из-за принципа работы распределенных VPN сервисов и того, как сконфигурирован наш сервис технически невозможно идентифицировать или выделить одного активного пользователя какого-то IP-адреса. Если наши юристы получать законное требование от суда, мы бы начали с полной открытости. Наша команда готова защищать право клиента на личную тайну в полном объеме законов.

6. BitTorrent разрешен только на определённых серверах. TorGuard сейчас предлагает множество протоколов, таких как http/socks прокси, OpenVPN, SSH Tunnels, SSTP VPN и Stealth VPN (DPI Bypass), каждый сервис служит для своих специфических целей. Так как BitTorrent сильно загружает канал, мы не поощряем его использования. Конечные точки, где сервера оптимизированы под торрент-трафик, расположены в Канаде, Нидерландах, Исландии, Швеции, Румынии, России и некоторые сервера в Гонконге. Это достаточно большой список точек, которые работают эффективно вне зависимости от того с какого континента вы качаете торрент.

7. На данный момент мы принимаем платежи любыми типами пластиковых карт, PayPal, OKPAY и Bitcoin. В ходе проверки мы можем попросить пользователя подтвердить платеж по телефону или адрес платежа, но это защита от мошенничества с картами, спаммеров, и сохранить сеть, работающую быстро и надежно. После факта платежа все становится более конфиденциальным. Никакой случай использования VPN или прокси не может быть соотнесен с учетной записью из-за того, что мы не храним абсолютно никаких логов любого из наших серверов и даже временные отметки!

8. Для лучшей безопасности мы советуем клиентам выбирать только соединения OpenVPN, и если нужно более надежное шифрование, то рекомендуем AES256. Эта опция доступна на многих точках входа и предлагает превосходную безопасность, не ухудшая производительность. Для тех, которые хочет противодействовать системе DPI, которая работает в таких странах, как Китай или Иран, TorGuard предлагает соединения “Stealth” VPN в Нидерландах, Великобритании и Канаде. “Stealth” VPN это система, запутывающая следы технологии OpenVPN, которая заставляет трафик VPN представляться обычным трафиком, что дает доступ к VPN даже позади самых ограниченных корпоративных сетях Wi-Fi или через провайдеров, регулируемых правительством.

Сайт TorGuard

IPVanish

1. Политика IPVanish – без логов. Мы не сохраняем логов трафика.

2. IPVanish размещен и работает в соответствии с законодательством США.

3. У IPVanish нет никакого контроля. Для уточнения, IPVanish никогда не просматривает и не контролирует трафик и действия пользователя.

4. IPVanish не хранит логов и ответит соответственно.

5. IPVanish, как любая компания, должен работать по закону, чтобы остаться в бизнесе. Но учитывается только закон США.

6. P2P разрешен. IPVanish вообще не блокирует и не ограничивает порты, протоколы, серверы или любой тип трафика вообще.

7. PayPal и все главные кредитные карты. Платежи и использование сервиса никоим образом не соотносятся. Пользовательская аутентификация и платежная информация – справка на абсолютно различных и независимых платформах.

8. OpenVPN обычно обеспечивает самый надежный алгоритм шифрования, так что мы рекомендуем его. IPVanish также позволяет выбрать между TCP и UDP, именно UDP рекомендуется для лучшей скорости.

Сайт IPVanish

BTGuard

1. Мы не храним логов вообще.

2. Наша юрисдикция – Канада. Так как у нас нет файлов логов, у нас нет никакой информации, чтобы разглашать. Мы не работаем ни с какими третьими лицами. Единственное событие, которое заставит нас общаться с третьими лицами, это постановление суда. Мы были бы тогда вынуждены уведомить их, что у нас нет никакой информации. Такого еще не происходило.

3. Если о серьезном злоупотреблении сообщают, мы включаем tcpdump для подтверждения злоупотребления и выяснения пользователя. Эти дампы сразу удаляются. Если пользователь злоупотребит нашим сервисом, то он будет отключен навсегда, но мы никогда не делились информацией о пользователе с третьими лицами.

4. У нас нет никаких открытых входящих портов, таким образом, у нас нет возможности “демонтажа” какого-либо широковещательного контента.

5. Мы сделаем все возможное в пределах закона, чтобы бороться с таким требованием.

6. Весь трафик разрешен.

7. Мы принимаем PayPal и Bitcoin. Все платежи соединены с пользовательскими учетными записями, для возможности оспаривания и возврата.

8. 256-разрядный AES является самым безопасным. Однако 128-разрядный шифр вполне хорош. Если Вы обеспокоены возможностью наблюдения, например, со стороны АНБ, то их возможности это тайна покрытая мраком, и мы не в силах утверждать, что защитим Вас, но предполагаем, что защищаем. Что касается гражданской дешифровки обоих способов шифрования, и которые я упоминал, то они более чем надежны.

BTGuard site

Privacy.io

1. Мы не регистрируем информации о наших серверах VPN. Единственное исключение – решение технических проблем, в таком случае мы сначала запрашиваем разрешение у пользователя, логи хранятся только на время отладки, затем удаляются.

2. В настоящее время мы находимся в процессе перевода юрисдикции из Австралии, поскольку мы не уверены, что наше текущее правительство планирует сделать по поводу нашей конфиденциальности. Мы еще не решили куда.

3. Только SMTP на 25 порту фильтруется, чтобы удалить спам, но мы работаем над некоторыми инструментами, чтобы облегчить пользователям отправку почту.

4. Любой запрос DMCA будет проигнорирован, поскольку у нас нет никаких логов.

5. Аналогично с предыдущим пунктом, поскольку мы не регистрируем активность, таким образом, мы неспособны предоставить какую-либо информацию. Если закон будет заставлять нас хранить логи, то мы перенесем наш бизнес в страну, где это не может быть, и если это больше не будет работать, то мы закроем фирму прежде, чем мы обнародуем информацию.

6. Все протоколы разрешены, с единственным исключением, 25 порт SMTP в настоящий момент фильтруется.

7. В настоящее время мы принимаем только PayPal и кредитки (через PayPal), но мы изучаем альтернативные сервисы платежей. Мы стараемся изо всех сил, чтобы убедиться, что транзакции PayPal не соотносятся с пользователями, мы генерируем уникальный ключ на транзакцию, чтобы проверить, что оплата за учетную запись сделана, и затем уничтожьте этот уникальный ключ. В планах ввод Bitcoin и Litecoin.

8. В настоящее время мы предлагаем шифрование 128-бит для PPTP и 256-бит для OpenVPN.Мы планируем предложить более надежное шифрование в случае, если клиент считает это необходимым для безопасности.

Веб-сайт Privacy.io

VikingVPN

1. Нет. Мы предоставляем сеть с нулевым контролем и не можем связать пользователя с IP-адресом.

2. Соединенные Штаты, у них нет законов о хранении данных, несмотря на их безжалостные программы наблюдения. Единственной информацией, которой мы делимся с кем-либо, является информация о платежах для нашего платежного шлюза. Платеж можно анонимизировать при использовании предоплаченной анонимной карты. В случае запроса данных о наших пользователях и их привычках, у нас нет возможности ответить, потому что у нас нет логов.

3. Это – конфиденциальная информация. Однако, мы можем уверить наших пользователей, что не используем логов, для этих целей.

4. В случае запроса DMCA, мы отсылаем условия DMCA, опубликованные на нашем веб-сайте. Мы еще не получали ДОПУСТИМЫХ DMCA-запросов.

5. Мы используем все юридические инструменты, чтобы защитить наших пользователей. Если у нас не получилось защиты, мы предоставим все наши логи, которых не существует. В случае запроса на перехват пользователя от национальной безопасности, у нас есть пассивная система свидетельства канарейки. Мы также, вероятно, предпочтем закрыть фирму и открыть ее в другой стране.

6. Да. Все порты открыты, у нас нет никаких ограничения на передаваемые данные.

7. В настоящий момент принимаем только кредитные карты. Наш платежный сервис имеет много больше ограничений, чем мы могли предположить. Мы все еще пытаемся изменить платежные сервисы. К счастью, при использовании предоплаченной кредитной карты, Вы все еще можете быть полностью анонимным на нашем сервисе.

8. Надежное квитирование (или RSA-4096 + или нестандартная эллиптическая кривая, поскольку стандартные кривые NIST подозрительны). Надежный шифр, такой как AES-256-CBC или AES-256-GCM (не EDE режим). По крайней мере, SHA1 для проверок целостности данных. SHA2 и недавно принятая SHA3 (Skein) хеш-функции также прекрасны, но медленные и не обеспечивают реальных дополнительных гарантий целостности данных, и не обеспечивают большей безопасности, чем SHA1. OpenVPN HMAC брандмауэр, чтобы защитить протокол против Man-in-the-Middle и Man-on-the-Side атак.

Сайт VikingVPN

IVPN

1. Высший приоритет IVPN – конфиденциальность своих клиентов, и для этого мы не храним логов, которые могут использоваться, чтобы связать событие с клиентом.

2. IVPN расположен на Мальте. Мы проигнорировали бы любой запрос, на обнародование данных, если он не подан органом власти с юрисдикцией на Мальте. После мы сообщим им, что у нас нет данных для раскрытия. Если бы мы были обязаны судом логировать трафик, то мы нашли бы способ сообщить нашим клиентам и переехать в другую страну.

3. Мы используем инструмент под названием PSAD, чтобы предотвратить атаки от клиентов на нашей сети. Мы также используем ограничение скорости в iptables, чтобы убрать спам.

4. Мы гарантируем, что наши провайдеры каналов сети понимают суть нашего бизнеса и что мы не размещаем контента. Как условие безопасной работы они обязаны сообщать нам о каждом нарушении, которое включает дату, заголовок контента и IP-адрес шлюза, через который данные были загружены. Мы просто отвечаем на каждое уведомление, подтверждая, что мы не размещаем рассматриваемый контент.

5. На постановление суда на предоставление данных пользователя, основанное на метке времени и IP, наш юридический отдел ответил бы, что у нас нет никаких данных пользователя, по закону мы просто обязаны ответить на запрос.

6. Мы ‘позволяем’ BitTorrent на всех серверах кроме шлюзов, базируемых в США. Наши провайдеры сети в США обязаны сообщать нам о каждом нарушении авторского права и обязаны обрабатывать наш ответ, что очень загрузит ресурсы поддержки (сотни обращений в день). По этой причине провайдеры просто не будут обслуживать наши серверы в США, если мы не примем меры, чтобы ограничить P2P.

7. В настоящий момент мы принимаем Bitcoin, наличные и PayPal. Никакая информация, касающаяся платежей потребителя, не хранится за исключением автоматизированных подписок PayPal, где мы обязаны хранить ID подписки, чтобы присвоить его счету (только в течение времени подписки, после которой данные удаляются). Конечно, PayPal будет всегда записывать, что Вы отправили платеж IVPN, но это – все, что у них есть. Если Вам необходима анонимность перед IVPN или Вы не хотите быть идентифицированными как наш клиент тогда, мы рекомендуем использовать Bitcoin или наличные деньги.

8. Мы рекомендуем и предлагаем OpenVPN, используем самый надежный AES 256 шифр. Для обмена ключами и аутентификации используются 4096-разрядные ключи RSA.

Сайт IVPN

PrivatVPN

1. Мы не сохраняем логов, которые позволяют нам или третьим лицам соотнести IP-адрес и отметку времени к пользователю нашего сервиса. Единственной вещью, которую мы храним, являются электронные адреса и имена пользователей, но невозможно связать действия в Интернете с пользователем.

2. Мы работаем в Швеции. Так как мы не сохраняем логов IP-адресов, у нас нет информации для раскрытия. Обстоятельства не имеют значения в данном случае, у нас нет никакой информации относительно IP-адресов наших клиентов и их действий в Интернете. Таким образом у нас нет никакой информации для передачи третьим лицам.

3. Если есть злоупотребление, мы, во-первых, советуем подателю жалобы блокировать наш IP, и во-вторых, мы можем блокировать трафик к службе, которая стала причиной.

4. Это зависит от страны, в которой мы получаем запрос DMCA. Например, мы получили запрос DMCA в Великобритании и Финляндии, и нашим ответом стало отключения трафик P2P в этих странах.

5. Если мы получаем постановление суда на контроль определенного IP тогда, мы обязаны сделать это, и так здесь (в Швеции) делает каждый VPN сервис.

6. Да, мы разрешаем торрент-трафик.

7. PayPal, Payson и Plimus. У каждого платежа есть порядковый номер, который привязан к пользователю. Иначе мы не знали бы, кто сделал оплату. Чтобы внести ясность, Вы не сможете сопоставить факт оплаты и IP-адрес, который Вы получаете от нас.

8. OpenVPN TUN с AES 256. Лучший – 2048-разрядный ключ DH.

Сайт PrivatVPN

PRQ

1. Нет. Мы ничего не регистрируем, и требуем только, чтобы у клиента был рабочий адрес электронной почты.

2. Шведская. Мы не делимся информацией с кем бы то не было.

3. Не раскрывается.

4. В мусорную корзину, где ему и полагается быть!

5. Никаких, так как у нас нет никакой информации о клиенте и никаких логов.

6. Мы разрешаем все, кроме спама и детского порно.

7. Visa/Mastercard, Bitcoin, PayPal. Нет корреляции между платежными данными и данными клиентов.

8. Мы предоставляем услуги OpenVPN (наряду с выделенными серверами и другими услугами хостинга).

Сайт PRQ

tigerVPN

1. Абсолютно никаких! Мы создавали tigerVPN, чтобы удалять все данные, как только передача пакета IP успешно завершена. Невозможно, отследить любого клиента. Вдобавок к этому мы решили использовать shared IP, чтобы еще больше перемешивать и скрывать своих клиентов. Сочетание отсутствия логов и нескольких клиентов на одном IP, стирает следы наших клиентов.

2. Мы – компания с ограниченной ответственностью в Словакии. Словакия не имеет никаких законов о хранении данных и кроме того поощряет провайдеров защищать конфиденциальность их клиентов в сети. Мы не обязаны делиться любой информацией с третьими лицами, следовательно, это недопустимо благодаря закону тайны телекоммуникации.

3. Так как мы не храним логов, мы не можем контролировать злонамеренное использование, что является ценой за создание безопасная среды для клиента!

4. Мы не можем подчиниться, поскольку не можем идентифицировать пользователей, поэтому бессмысленно отвечать на любые запросы. У нас есть специальная папка для этих электронных писем ;-)

5. Аналогично. Мы абсолютно серьезно не можем сказать, какой клиент что, где и когда сделал.

6. Это позволено на всех серверах, хотя мы вежливо просим, чтобы наши клиенты использовали или Румынию или Нидерланды. Некоторые поставщики магистральных услуг против файлообмена, у нас была ситуация, когда нас попросили переместить наши серверы из-за файлообмена. Мы нашли надежных партнеров в Румынии и Нидерландах, которые терпят p2p, таким образом, мы любезно просим, чтобы наши клиенты использовали эти серверные парки.

7. Клиенты могут заплатить кредитной или дебетовой Visa, Mastercard. Вдобавок к этому мы также используем PayPal. Мы используем хеш-ключи и токены, чтобы идентифицировать платеж, но это не регистрируется и не относится к клиенту. Мы вынуждены делать это так или иначе поэтому, мы – ТСП сертифицированное PCI по Level 1. Поэтому нам нельзя сохранить данные о карте или платежные данные в аккаунтах наших клиентов. Эти ключи бессмысленны для посторонних, таким образом, нет никакого шанса найти связь.

8. Мы предлагаем PPTP, L2TP и OpenVPN, в то время как по природе OpenVPN имеет самое лучшее шифрование и алгоритм. L2TP и OpenVPN – зашифрован SSL256, в то время как PPTP имеет шифрование 128 бит. Хотя наши клиенты индивидуальны и имеют свое мнение, что использовать, мы рекомендуем L2TP как основательный протокол. Это – меньше запутанный и более безопасный, чем PPTP, но наши клиенты может выбрать любой из вариантов на каждом из 47 сетевых узлов по всему миру.

Сайт tigerVP

Mullvad

1. Нет. Это сделало бы и нас и наших пользователей более уязвимыми, поэтому мы так не делаем. Чтобы затруднить внешнее наблюдение за действиями IP-адрес, у нас каждый адрес используется многими пользователями, и для IPv4 и для нашей предстоящей поддержки IPv6.

2. Шведская. Ни при каких обстоятельствах мы не делимся информацией с третьими лицами. Мы стараемся изо всех сил не иметь информации, которая могла представлять интерес для третьих лиц. В конце концов нет никакого реального способа для шведского правительства, чтобы получить у нас информацию о наших пользователях.

3. Мы не контролируем наших пользователей. В редких случаях такого вопиющего сетевого злоупотребления, которое мы не можем не заметить (такие как атаки DoS) мы останавливаем атаку используя основные сетевые инструменты.

4. Нет такого шведского закона, который в данном случае применим.

5. Мы удостоверяемся, что не сохранили приватную информацию, которая может быть связана с публично доступной информацией, поэтому у нас нет ничего, чтобы обнародовать. Мы полагаем, что не возможно в рамках шведских законов создать постановление суда, которое заставило бы нас фактически выдать информацию пользователя. Мы не дали бы так или иначе. Мы запустили свой сервис по политическим причинам и скорее прекратим работу, чем согласимся идти против своих целей.

6. Да.

7. Bitcoin (мы были первым сервисом, который начал её принимать), наличные (через почту), банковские переводы, и кредитные карты через PayPal . Платежи привязаны к учетным записям, но учетные записи – только случайные числа без персональных данных, пользователи могут создать запись по желанию. С анонимными платежами, возможными при приеме наличных денег и Bitcoin, сервис может быть анонимно полностью.

8. Мы используем OpenVPN. Мы также обеспечиваем PPTP, потому что некоторые клиенты хотят, но мы всеми силами их отговариваем. Алгоритмы шифрования и длины ключа важны, но часто привлекают слишком большое внимание отвлекая от более важного, но менее ощутимого, например, утечек и компьютерной безопасности.

Mullvad website

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The software amassed millions of users by offering BitTorrent-powered streaming in an easy-to-use Netflix-style interface.

When the original version shut down various forks continued the project, each releasing their own features. One of the most-used Popcorn Time versions comes from time4popcorn.eu, who remain very active on the development side.

After previously rolling out an Android version and Chromecast and Apple TV support, today the fork released the first Popcorn Time app for iOS. The first release requires a jailbreak and can be accessed through the Cydia platform.

TorrentFreak spoke with the developers who say they are working on a solution for non-jailbroken devices as well, but that will take some more time to complete. Nonetheless, they are happy with the progress they’ve made thus far.

“After only 5.5 months, Popcorn Time is available on all major platforms! And this is only the beginning. Our future plans are huge,” the time4popcorn.eu team notes.

The iOS app is currently missing some features that are available in the desktop version. Chromecast and Apple TV support are still works in progress, likewise the built-in VPN.

The standard functionality appears to work just fine, provided that there’s enough bandwidth available to stream the video files via BitTorrent.

The developers have released the iOS source code under a GPL V3 license, which allows others to extend and improve it. The team itself will also continue to work on improving the code, and they promise to release more “exiting details” on the application’s future in a week or two.

Popcorn Time’s appeal to pirates hasn’t gone unnoticed by Hollywood. Two months ago the MPAA pushed back and managed to get two popular forks removed from Github claiming that the apps are hurting the major movie studios.

While this was a setback, it doesn’t seem to have hindered development much. Both Popcorn Time forks are still around and show no sign of throwing the towel voluntarily anytime soon.

Update: Time4Popcorn lost its domain name and switched to Popcorn-time.se

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Last month, however, dozens of these went offline when the operator of Immunicity and other related proxy services was arrested by City of London Police’s Intellectual Property Crime Unit. He now faces several charges including breaches of the Serious Crime Act 2007, Possession of Articles for Use in Fraud, Making or Supplying Articles for use in Frauds and money laundering.

While it’s generally accepted that running a site like The Pirate Bay is likely to attract police attention, merely unblocking a domain was not thought to carry any such risk. After all, visitors to torrent sites are just that, it’s only later on that they make a decision to infringe or not.

In our earlier article we discussed some of the possible reasons why the police might view “pirate” proxies to be illegal. However, there are very good arguments that general purpose proxies, even ones that are expressly setup to bypass filtering (and are able to unblock sites such as Pirate Bay), remain on a decent legal footing.

One such site is being operated by Gareth, a developer and networking guru who grew so tired of creeping Internet censorship he began lobbying UK MPs on the topic, later moving on to assist with the creation of the Open Rights Group’s Blocked.org.uk.

After campaigning and documenting Internet censorship issues for some time, Gareth first heard of last month’s proxy arrest during a visit to the United States.

“I was at DefCon in Las Vegas when the news of the Immunicity arrest reached me and I realized that for all my volunteer work, my open source applications, operation of Tor relays, donations and letters to MPs to highlight/combat the issues with Internet censorship, it was not enough,” the developer told TorrentFreak.

“I felt that this issue has moved from a political / technical issue to one about personal liberty and Internet freedom. e.g. first they came for the ‘pirate proxies’, then the Tor operators, then the ISPs that don’t censor their customers. The slippery slope is becoming a scary precipice.”

Since his return to the UK, Gareth has been busy creating his own independent anti-censorship tool. He’s researched in detail what happened to Immunicity, taken legal advice, and is now offering what he hopes is an entirely legal solution to website filtering and subsequent over-blocking (1)(2).

“Unlike Immunicity et al I’m not specifically building a ‘Pirate Proxy’. Granted people might use this proxy to navigate to torrent websites but were I to sell a laptop on eBay that same person may use it for the same reasons so I see no difference,” he explains.

“In fact Section 44, subsection 2 of the Serious Crimes Act 2007 even states [that an individual] is not to be taken to have intended to encourage or assist the commission of an offense merely because such encouragement or assistance was a foreseeable consequence of his act.”

The result of Gareth’s labor is the anti-censorship service Routing Packets is Not a Crime (RPINAC). People who used Immunicity in the past should feel at home, since RPINAC also utilizes the ability of popular browsers to use Proxy Auto-Config (PAC) files.

In the space of a couple of minutes and with no specialist knowledge, users can easily create their own PAC files covering any blocked site they like. Once configured, their browser will silently unblock them.

Furthermore, each PAC file has its own dedicated URL on RPINAC’s servers which users can revisit in order to add additional URLs for unblocking. PAC ‘unblock’ files can also be shared among like-minded people.

“When someone creates a PAC file they are redirected to a /view/ endpoint e.g. https://routingpacketsisnotacrime.uk/view/b718ce9b276bc2f10af90fe1d5b33c0d. This URL is not ephemeral, you can email it, tweet it (there is a tweet button on the left hand side of the site) etc and it will provide the recipient with the exact same view.

“It’ll show which URLs are specified to be proxied, which have been detected as blocked (using the https://blocked.org.uk database) and if the author passed along the password (assuming the PAC was password protected) they can add or remove URLs too,” Gareth explains.

“Each view page also has a comments section, this could allow for a small collection of individuals to co-ordinate with a smaller subset of password possessing moderators to create a crowd sourced PAC file in an autonomous fashion. There is also a ‘Clone’ button allowing anybody to create their own copy of the PAC file with their own name, description and password if the PAC file they’ve received isn’t quite what they need.”

This user-generated element of the process is important. While dedicated ‘pirate’ proxy sites specifically unblock sites already deemed illegal by the UK courts (and can be deemed to be facilitating their ‘crimes’), RPINAC leaves the decision of which sites to unblock completely down to the user. And since no High Court injunction forbids any user from accessing a blocked domain, both service and user remain on the right side of the law.

In terms of use, RPINAC is unobtrusive, has no popups, promotions or advertising, and will not ask for payment or donations, a further important legal point.

“To avoid any accusations of fraud and to avoid any tax implications RPINAC will never ask for donations,” the dev explains. “The current platform is pre-paid for at least a year, the domain for 10. At a bare minimum PAC file serving and education for creating local proxies will continue indefinitely.”

Finally, Gareth notes that without free and open source software his anti-censorship platform wouldn’t have been possible. So, in return, he has plans to release the source code for the project under the GPL 3.0 license.

RoutingPacketsIsNotACrime can be found here and is compatible with Firefox, Chrome, Safari and IE. Additional information can be sourced here.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Distributor Lionsgate was quick to react. Just days after the leak the entertainment company sued several file-sharing sites, which eventually resulted in the closure of file-hosting site Hulkfile. But more action was yet to come.

Doubling up on their efforts, Lionsgate also targeted hosting providers, domain registrars and seedboxes while at the same time sending thousands of DMCA takedown notices to have content and links to content removed.

However, a big question remained unanswered. Would the makers of The Expendables 3 start tracking down alleged file-sharers to force them into cash settlements as happened with previous iterations of the movie? It’s taken a few weeks but confirmation is now in.

Millennium Films, the production company behind The Expendables 3, is now shaking down individual Internet users they believe to have downloaded and shared the leaked movie without permission. What do they want? Hard cash, of course.

Interestingly, and at least for now, the company isn’t going through the courts filing subpoenas against ISPs to obtain downloaders’ personal details. In a switch of tactics the company is sending DMCA takedown notices to ISPs via CEG TEK International and requesting that the notices are forwarded to the customers in question instead. In addition to the usual cease and desist terminology, Millennium tag on cash settlements demands too.

As can be seen in the image above, the production company is giving notice recipients until October 5, 2014 to come up with the money – or else.

“If within the prescribed time period described above you fail to (i) respond or settle, or (ii) provide by email to support@cegtek.com written evidence of your having consent or permission from Millennium Films to use the Work in connection with Peer-to-Peer networks (note that fraudulent submissions may give rise to additional liabilities), the above matter may be referred to attorneys representing the Work’s owner for legal action,” the settlement offer reads.

Of course, whether people fill in CEG TEK’s settlement form or write to them with their personal details, the end result will be the same. The company will now have the person’s identity, something they didn’t previously have since at this stage ISPs have only forwarded the notices.

While the notices are real (CEG TEK have confirmed the action) little is known about how much money Millenium/CEG TEK are demanding to make a supposed lawsuit go away. However, TorrentFreak has learned that CEG TEK are simultaneously sending out settlement demands to alleged downloaders of The Expendables 2. A copy of the settlement page demand – $300 – is shown below.

While some people will no doubt be worrying about how to deal with these demands and whether Millenium will follow through on its implied threat to sue, at least some of these notices will be falling on deaf ears. LiquidVPN, an anonymity company listed in our 2014 report, received one such notice but as a no-log provider, could not forward it to its customer.

Compare that to the despair of a user posting on KickassTorrents who got caught after relying on IP address blocking software (typos etc corrected).

“I woke up to this alongside four other notices from my ISP. I stopped downloading six days ago, but I’m receiving old notices about movies that were downloaded a month ago and I basically can’t do nothing about it since its old. I use PeerBlock and it’s a bunch of bullshit. What should I do with this October 5 deadline on a settlement? Please help!” he wrote.

Finally, and as Lionsgate, Millennium Films and CEG TEK shake down sites, hosting services, domain registrars, seedbox providers and now end users, the big mystery surrounding the most important questions remain unanswered.

Who – at Lionsgate, Millennium or one of its partners – had full access to a clean DVD copy of the movie? Who then put that copy in a position of being placed online? The FBI, who can crack the most complex of terrorist crimes, are reportedly involved and must’ve asked these questions. Yet the culprit still hasn’t been found……

Could it be that studios become less cooperative when blame falls too close to home?

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

At the same time, however, these legal options invite people from other countries where the legal services are more limited. This is also the case in Australia where up to 200,000 people are estimated to use the U.S. version of Netflix.

Although Netflix has geographical restrictions in place, these are easy to bypass with a relatively cheap VPN subscription. To keep these foreigners out, entertainment industry companies are now lobbying for a global ban on VPN users.

Simon Bush, CEO of AHEDA, an industry group that represents Twentieth Century Fox, Warner Bros., Universal, Sony Pictures and other major players said that some members are actively lobbying for such a ban.

Bush didn’t name any of the companies involved, but he confirmed to Cnet that “discussions” to block Australian access to the US version of Netflix “are happening now”.

If implemented, this would mean that all VPN users worldwide will no longer be able to access Netflix. That includes the millions of Americans who are paying for a legitimate account. They can still access Netflix, but would not be allowed to do so securely via a VPN.

According to Bush the discussions to keep VPN users out are not tied to Netflix’s arrival in Australia. The distributors and other rightsholders argue that they are already being deprived of licensing fees, because some Aussies ignore local services such as Quickflix.

“I know the discussions are being had…by the distributors in the United States with Netflix about Australians using VPNs to access content that they’re not licensed to access in Australia,” Bush said.

“They’re requesting for it to be blocked now, not just when it comes to Australia,” he adds.

While blocking VPNs would solve the problem for distributors, it creates a new one for VPN users in the United States.

The same happened with Hulu a few months ago, when Hulu started to block visitors who access the site through a VPN service. This blockade also applies to hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens.

Hulu’s blocklist was implemented a few months ago and currently covers the IP-ranges of all major VPN services. People who try to access the site through one of these IPs are not allowed to view any content on the site, and receive the following notice instead:

“Based on your IP-address, we noticed that you are trying to access Hulu through an anonymous proxy tool. Hulu is not currently available outside the U.S. If you’re in the U.S. you’ll need to disable your anonymizer to access videos on Hulu.”

It seems that VPNs are increasingly attracting the attention of copyright holders. Just a week ago BBC Worldwide argued that ISPs should monitor VPN users for excessive bandwidth use, assuming they would then be pirates.

Considering the above we can expect the calls for VPN bans to increase in the near future.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

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The Australian Government recently called for submissions into its plans to introduce a range of measures that are the long-standing dreams of the copyright lobby: ISP liability, website blocking for alleged pirate sites and graduated response.

The Government’s discussion paper specifically asked respondents to ignore other Government inquiries into copyright. This meant ignoring an inquiry by the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) into copyright in the digital economy and an IT pricing inquiry. These reviews both covered important aspects of sharing culture in the 21^st century, yet they were completely ignored by the Government’s paper and respondents were instructed to ignore issues covered in them.

The ALRC review examined issues around the emerging remix culture, the ways the Australian copyright regime limits options for companies to take advantage of the digital environment and issues around fair dealing and fair use. It recommended a raft of changes to update Australian copyright law to modernize it for the digital age. Whilst the recommendations were modest, they were a step in the right direction, but this step has been ignored by the Australian Parliament.

The IT pricing inquiry held last year, looked into why Australians pay exorbitant prices for digital content, a practice that has been dubbed the Australia Tax. Entertainment and Tech companies were dragged in front of the inquiry to explain why Australians pay much more for products than residents of other countries. The review found that, compared to other countries, Australians pay up to 84% more for games, 52% more for music and 50% more for professional software than comparable countries. The result of this review was to look at ways to end geographic segmentation and to continue to turn a blind eye to people using Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to circumvent the higher prices in Australia.

Between the Australia Tax and the substantially delayed release dates for TV shows and movies, Australians don’t feel too bad about accessing content by other means. According to some estimates, over 200,000 people have Netflix accounts by accessing the service through VPNs.

Pirate Party Australia (PPAU) responded to the latest review with a comprehensive paper, outlining the need to consider all of the evidence and what that evidence says about file-sharing.

To say the Government’s discussion paper was biased understates the single-mindedness of the approach being taken by the Government. A co-author of the Pirate Party submission, Mozart Olbrycht-Palmer summed it up:

The discussion paper stands out as the worst I have ever read. The Government has proposed both a graduated response scheme and website blockades without offering any evidence that either of these work. Unsurprisingly the only study the discussion paper references was commissioned by the copyright lobby and claims Australia has a high level of online copyright infringement. This calls into question the validity of the consultation process. The Government could not have arrived at these proposals if independent studies and reports had been consulted.

The entire review was aimed at protecting old media empires from the Internet. This is due in part, to the massive support given to the Liberal (Conservatives) and National Party coalition in the lead-up to the 2013 federal election which saw Murdoch owned News Ltd media, comprising most major print-news outlets in Australia, actively campaign for the in-coming Government. There is also a long history of media companies donating heavily to buy influence. Village Roadshow, one of Australia’s largest media conglomerates, has donated close to four million dollars to both major parties since 1998: in the lead up to the 2013 election alone, they donated over $300,000 to the LNP.

The sort of influence being wielded by the old media is a big part of what Pirate parties worldwide were formed to counter. The Internet gives everyone a platform that can reach millions, if the content is good enough. The money required to distribute culture is rapidly approaching zero and those who built media empires on mechanical distribution models (you know, physical copies of media, DVDs, cassettes etc) want to turn the clock back, because they are losing their power to influence society.

Much of the Pirate Party response centred on the need to allow non-commercial file-sharing and dealing with the wrong, bordering on fraudulent assumptions, the paper was based on. From the paper:

Digital communications provide challenges and opportunities. Normal interactions, such as sharing culture via the Internet, should not be threatened. Creators should seize the new opportunities provided and embrace new forms of exposure and distribution. The Pirate Party believes the law should account for the realities of this continually emerging paradigm by reducing copyright duration, promoting the remixing and reuse of existing content, and legalising all forms of non-commercial use and distribution of copyrighted materials.

The discussion paper asked, ‘What could constitute ‘reasonable steps’ for ISPs to prevent or avoid copyright infringement?’ This was of particular concern because it is aimed at legally overturning the iiNet case, which set a legal precedent that ISPs couldn’t be sued for the behavior of their users. This section was a not-so-subtle attempt to push for a graduated response (‘three strikes’) system which has been heavily criticized in a number of countries.

The agenda laid out in this discussion paper was very clear, as demonstrated by Question 6: “What matters should the Court consider when determining whether to grant an injunction to block access to a particular website?”

The Pirate Party obviously disagrees with the implication that website blocking was a foregone conclusion. Censorship is not the answer to file-sharing or any other perceived problem on the Internet. Government control of the flow of information is not consistent with an open democracy. The Pirate Party submission attacked website blocking on free speech grounds and explained how measures to block websites or implement a graduated response regime would be trivial to avoid through the use of VPNs.

On Tuesday September 9, a public forum was held into the proposed changes. The panel was stacked with industry lobbyists, no evidence was presented while the same tired arguments were trotted out to try to convince attendees that there was need to crack down on file-sharing. It wasn’t all bad though, with the host of the meeting, Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull, flagging a Government re-think on how to tackle piracy after the scathing responses to the review from the public.

Despite signalling a re-think, the Australian Government is still intent on implementing draconian copyright laws. Consumers may have won this round, but the fight will continue.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Instead they decided to target ISPs, companies that are responsive to legal threats in most corners of the world. In time, court orders rendered The Pirate Bay and similar sites blocked, but not for long. Proxy sites enabling access to the world’s largest torrent indexes soon began to thrive, but their time would also come.

The biggest proxy battle anywhere on the planet is taking place in the UK, a country where it’s become almost a formality to have sites blocked at the ISP level. Today we can report that yet another silent round of blockades are being put in place.

One of the main targets is PirateProxy, an extremely popular proxy service that’s particularly well known in the UK. The site was previously accessible at PirateProxy.net but moved to a new domain earlier in the year after its domain was blocked.

The site switched to PirateProxy.in during April and successfully maintained its traffic. As can be seen from the Alexa chart below, PirateProxy is the 125th most popular domain in the entire country, an impressive feat for a site that offers nothing but a Pirate Bay block workaround.

Notable too is the site’s placing in Ireland, where The Pirate Bay is also blocked by ISPs. As of this morning PirateProxy was the country’s 131st most-popular domain.

However, visitors to the site through the major UK ISPs are now beginning to see the familiar “domain blocked” message. The example from Virgin Media, which confirms the existence of a court order, is shown below.

Also under attack are the various proxy services available through Come.in, a portal which facilitates access to a wide range of torrent and other similar sites blocked by numerous European ISPs.

In addition to sundry others, at the moment the site’s PirateBay, KickassTorrents, ExtraTorrent, YTS/YIFY, TorrentReactor, BitSnoop and 1337x proxies are being subjected to UK blockades.

This is the second time this year that multiple Come.in proxies have been targeted by rightsholders. Back in June its EZTV and YTS proxies were blocked in the UK but were re-established by the site’s operators who vowed to keep putting up new services to maintain service.

While blocking proxies continues to be a key weapon of choice, proxies with UK-based operators have greater concerns. As reported in August, City of London police’s PIPCU unit arrested the operator of Immunicity and several other proxies.

According to a police response to a Freedom of Information request obtained by TorrentFreak, he now stands accused of a wide range of crimes including breaches of the Serious Crime Act 2007, Possession of Articles for Use in Fraud, Making or Supplying Articles for use in Frauds and money laundering.

While plenty of proxies still exist (including several which rotate at the bottom of The Pirate Bay homepage under ‘proxy’), others aren’t doing so well.

Visitors to sites including TorrentProxies, Torrenticity, FenopyReverse, FirstRowProxy, GetPirate, H33tUnblock, KatProxy, LivePirate, Metricity, ProxyCentral, KickassUnblock and YifyProxy are greeted with a message from PIPCU that the domains are under police investigation.

Finally, and despite efforts by the BBC to have all VPN users labeled as pirates, use of such services to evade blockades and enable geo-unblocking continues.

The BPI, PirateProxy and Come.in were not immediately available for comments but we’ll update this report when they arrive.

Update: The operator of PirateProxy informs us that a new domain is up and operational at PirateProxy.bz

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

To prevent their IP-addresses from being visible to the rest of the Internet, millions of people have signed up to a VPN service. Using a VPN allows users to use the Internet anonymously and prevent snooping.

Unfortunately, not all VPN services are as anonymous as they claim.

Following a high-profile case of an individual using an ‘anonymous’ VPN service that turned out to be not so private, TorrentFreak decided to ask a selection of VPN services some tough questions.

By popular demand we now present the third iteration of our VPN services “logging” review. In addition to questions about logging policies we also asked VPN providers about their stance towards file-sharing traffic, and what they believe the most secure VPN is.

Last update: October 7, 2014 (added partial Russian translation)

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1. Do you keep ANY logs which would allow you to match an IP-address and a time stamp to a user of your service? If so, exactly what information do you hold and for how long?

2. Under what jurisdictions does your company operate and under what exact circumstances will you share the information you hold with a 3rd party?

3. What tools are used to monitor and mitigate abuse of your service?

4. In the event you receive a DMCA takedown notice or European equivalent, how are these handled?

5. What steps are taken when a valid court order requires your company to identify an active user of your service?

6. Is BitTorrent and other file-sharing traffic allowed on all servers? If not, why?

7. Which payment systems do you use and how are these linked to individual user accounts?

8. What is the most secure VPN connection and encryption algorithm you would recommend to your users?

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What follows is the list of responses from the VPN services, in their own words. Providers who didn’t answer our questions directly or failed by logging everything were excluded. Please note, however, that several VPN companies listed here do log to some extent. The order of the lists holds no value.

Private Internet Access

1. We absolutely do not log any traffic nor session data of any kind, period. We have worked hard to meticulously fork all daemons that we utilize in order to achieve this functionality. It is definitely not an easy task, and we are very proud of our development team for helping Private Internet Access to achieve this unique ability.

2. We operate out of the US which is one of the few, if only, countries without a mandatory data retention law. We explored several other jurisdictions with the help of our professional legal team, and the US is still ideal for privacy-based VPN services.

We severely scrutinize the validity of any and all legal information requests. That being said, since we do not hold any traffic nor session data, we are unable to provide any information to any third-party. Our commitment and mission to preserve privacy is second to none.

3. We do not monitor any traffic, period. We block IPs/ports as needed to mitigate abuse when we receive a valid abuse notification.

4. We do not host any content and are therefore unable to remove any of said content. Additionally, our mission is to preserve and restore privacy on the Internet and society. As such, since we do not log or monitor anything, we’re unable to identify any users of our service.

5. Once again, we do not log any traffic or session data. Additionally, unlike the EU and many other countries, our users are protected by legal definition. For this reason, we’re unable to identify any user of our service. Lastly, consumer protection laws exist in the US, unlike many other countries. We must abide by our advertised privacy policy.

6. We do not discriminate against any kind of traffic/protocol on any of our servers, period. We believe in a free, open, and uncensored internet.

7. Bitcoin, Ripple, PayPal, Google Play (Mobile), OKPay, CashU, Amazon and any major Gift Card. We support plenty of anonymous payment methods. For this reason, the highest risk users should definitely use Bitcoin, Ripple or a major gift card with an anonymous e-mail account when subscribing to our privacy service.

8. We’re the only provider to date that provides a plethora of encryption cipher options. We recommend, mostly, using AES-128, SHA1 and RSA2048.

Private Internet Access website

TorGuard

1. TorGuard does not store any IP address or time stamps on any VPN and proxy servers, not even for a second. Further, we do not store any logs or time stamps on user authentication servers connected to the VPN. In this way it is not even possible to match an external time stamp to a user that was simultaneously logged in. Because the VPN servers utilize a shared IP configuration, there can be hundreds of users sharing the same IP at any given moment further obfuscating the ability to single out any specific user on the network.

2. TorGuard is a privately owned company with parent ownership based in Nevis and our headquarters currently located in the US. Our legal representation at the moment is comfortable with the current corporate structuring however we wouldn’t hesitate to move all operations internationally should the ground shift beneath our feet. We now offer VPN access in 23+ countries worldwide and maintain all customer billing servers well outside US borders.

We would only be forced to communicate with a third-party in the event that our legal team received a court ordered subpoena to do so. This has yet to happen, however if it did we would proceed with complete transparency and further explain the nature of TorGuard’s shared VPN configuration. We have no logs to investigate, and thus no information to share.

3. Our network team uses commercial monitoring software with custom scripts to keep an eye on individual server load and service status/uptime so we can identify problems as fast as possible. If abuse reports are received from an upstream provider, we block it by employing various levels of filtering and global firewall rules to large clusters of servers. Instead of back tracing abuse by logging, our team mitigates things in real-time. We have a responsibility to provide fast, abuse-free VPN services for our clients and have perfected these methods over time.

4. In the event of receiving a DMCA notice, the request is immediately processed by our abuse team. Because it is impossible for us to locate which user on the server is actually responsible for the violation, we temporarily block the infringing server and apply global rules depending on the nature of the content and the server responsible. The system we use for filtering certain content is similar to keyword blocking but with much more accuracy. This ensures the content in question to no longer pass through the server and satisfies requirements from our bandwidth providers.

5. Due to the nature of shared VPN services and how our network is configured, it is not technically possible to effectively identity or single out one active user from a single IP address. If our legal department received a valid subpoena, we would proceed with complete transparency from day one. Our team is prepared to defend our client’s right to privacy to the fullest extent of the law.

6. BitTorrent is only allowed on select server locations. TorGuard now offers a variety of protocols like http/socks proxies, OpenVPN, SSH Tunnels, SSTP VPN and Stealth VPN (DPI Bypass), with each connection method serving a very specific purpose for usage. Since BitTorrent is largely bandwidth intensive, we do not encourage torrent usage on all servers. Locations that are optimized for torrent traffic include endpoints in: Canada, Netherlands, Iceland, Sweden, Romania, Russia and select servers in Hong Kong. This is a wide range of locations that works efficiently regardless of the continent you are trying to torrent from.

7. We currently accept payments through all forms of credit or debit card, PayPal, OKPAY, and Bitcoin. During checkout we may ask the user to verify a billing phone and address but this is simply to prevent credit card fraud, spammers, and keep the network running fast and clean. After payment it is possible to change this to something generic that offers more privacy. No VPN or Proxy usage can be linked back to a billing account due to the fact we hold absolutely no levels of logging on any one of our servers, not even timestamps!

8. For best security we advise clients to choose OpenVPN connections only, and if higher encryption is called for use AES256 bit. This option is available on many locations and offers excellent security without degrading performance. For those that are looking to defeat Deep Packet Inspection firewalls (DPI) like what is encountered in countries such as China or Iran, TorGuard offers “Stealth” VPN connections in the Netherlands, UK and Canada. Stealth connections feature OpenVPN obfuscation technology that causes VPN traffic to appear as regular connections, allowing VPN access even behind the most strict corporate wifi networks or government regulated ISPs.

TorGuard website

IPVanish

1. IPVanish has a no-log policy. We keep no traffic logs.

2. IPVanish is headquartered in the US and thus operates under US law.

3. IPVanish has no monitoring in place. To elaborate, IPVanish does not sniff or monitor any user’s traffic or activity for any reason.

4. IPVanish keeps no logs of any user’s activity and responds accordingly.

5. IPVanish, like every other company, has to follow the law in order to remain in business. Only US law applies.

6. P2P is permitted. IPVanish in fact does not block or throttle any ports, protocols, servers or any type of traffic whatsoever.

7. PayPal and all major credit cards are accepted. Payments and product use are in no way linked. User authentication and billing info are help on completely different and independent platforms.

8. OpenVPN generally provides the strongest encryption algorithm, so that is the recommended encryption protocol. IPVanish also allows a choice between TCP and UDP, and UDP is generally recommended for better speed.

IPVanish website

BTGuard

1. We do not keep any logs whatsoever.

2. The jurisdiction is Canada. Since we do not have log files, we have no information to share. We do not communicate with any third parties. The only event in which we would even communicate with a third-party is if we received a court order. We would then be forced to notify them we have no information. This has not happened yet.

3. If serious abuse is reported we enable tcpdump to confirm the abuse and locate the user. These dumps are immediately removed. If the user is abusing our service they will be terminated permanently but we have never shared user information with a 3rd party.

4. We do not have any open incoming ports, so it’s not possible for us to “takedown” any broadcasting content.

5. We take every step within the law to fight such an order.

6. Yes, all types of traffic our allowed with our services.

7. We accept PayPal and Bitcoin. All payments are linked to users accounts because they have to be for disputes and refunds.

8. 256-bit AES is the most secure. However 128-bit blowfish is plenty good. If you’re concerned about surveillance agencies such as the NSA, their capabilities are shrouded in secrecy and claiming to be able to protect you is offering you nothing but speculation. As far as what’s publicly available for deciphering encryption, both of the encryptions I mentioned are more than sufficient.

BTGuard website

Privacy.io

1. We do not log any information on our VPN servers. The only scenario is if a technical issue arises, but we request permission from the user first, and we only do it for the duration of the job, and then it is removed.

2. We are in the process of moving jurisdictions away from Australia at present as we are unsure what our current government plans to do in regards to our privacy. We have not decided where yet.

3. Only SMTP port 25 is filtered to mitigate spam, but we are working on some tools to make it easier for users to send mail.

4. Any DMCA request is ignored, as we have no logs to do anything about them.

5. Same as above, as we do not log, so we are unable to provide any information. If the law attempts to make us do such things, we will move our business to a location where that cannot occur, and if that fails we will close up shop before we provide any information.

6. All protocols are allowed with our service, with the only exception of SMTP port 25 currently being filtered.

7. At present we only accept PayPal and CC (processed by PayPal), but we are looking into alternative types of payments. We go out of our way to make sure that PayPal transactions are not linked to the users, we generate a unique key per transaction to verify payment for the account is made, and then nuke that unique key. Bitcoin and Litecoin are also on the agenda.

8. At present we offer 128 bit for PPTP and 256 bit for OpenVPN, We plan to offer stronger encryption for the security conscious.

Privacy.io website

VikingVPN

1. No. We run a zero knowledge network and are unable to tie a user to an IP address.

2. United States, they don’t have data retention laws, despite their draconian surveillance programs. The only information we share with anyone is billing information to our payment gateway. This can be anonymized by using a pre-paid anonymous card. If asked to share specific data about our users and their habits, we would be unable to do so, because we don’t have any logs of that data.

3. That is mostly confidential information. However, we can assure our users that we do not use logging to achieve this goal.

4. In the event of a DMCA notice, we send out the DMCA policy published on our website. We haven’t yet received a VALID DMCA notice.

5. We exhaust all legal options to protect our users. Failing that, we would provide all of our logs, which do not actually exist. If required to wiretap a user under a National Security Letter, we have a passively triggered Warrant Canary. We would also likely choose to shut down our service and put it up elsewhere.

6. Yes. Those ports are all open, and we have no data caps.

7. We currently only take credit cards. Our payment provider is far more restrictive than we ever imagined they would be. We’re still trying to change payment providers. Fortunately, by using a pre-paid credit card, you can still have totally anonymous service from us.

8. A strong handshake (either RSA-4096+ or a non-standard elliptic curve as the NIST curves are suspect). A strong cipher such as AES-256-CBC or AES-256-GCM encryption (NOT EDE MODE). At least SHA1 for data integrity checks. SHA2 and the newly adopted SHA3 (Skein) hash functions are also fine, but slower and provide no real extra assurances of data integrity, and provide no further security beyond SHA1. The OpenVPN HMAC firewall option to harden the protocol against Man-in-the-Middle and Man-on-the-Side attacks.

VikingVPN website

IVPN

1. IVPN’s top priority is the privacy of its customers and therefor we do not store any connection logs or any other log that could be used to associate a connection to a customer.

2. IVPN is incorporated in Malta. We would ignore any request to share data unless it was served by a legal authority with jurisdiction in Malta in which case we would inform them that we don’t have the data to share. If we were served a subpoena which compelled us to log traffic we would find a way to inform our customers and relocate to a new jurisdiction.

3. We use a tool called PSAD to mitigate attacks originating from customers on our network. We also use rate-limiting in iptables to mitigate SPAM.

4. We ensure that our network providers understand the nature of our business and that we do not host any content. As a condition of the safe harbor provisions they are required to inform us of each infringement which includes the date, title of the content and the IP address of the gateway through which it was downloaded. We simply respond to each notice confirming that we do not host the content in question.

5. Assuming the court order is requesting an identity based on a timestamp and IP, our legal department would respond that we don’t have any record of the user’s identity nor are we legally compelled to do so.

6. We ‘allow’ BitTorrent on all servers except gateways based in the USA. Our USA network providers are required to inform us of each copyright infringement and are required to process our response putting undue strain on their support resources (hundreds per day). For this reason providers won’t host our servers in the USA unless we take measures to mitigate P2P activity.

7. We currently accept Bitcoin, Cash and PayPal. No information relating to a customers payment account is stored with the exception of automated PayPal subscriptions where we are required to store the subscription ID in order to assign it to an invoice (only for the duration of the subscription after which it is deleted). Of course PayPal will always maintain a record that you have sent funds to IVPN but that is all they have. If you need to be anonymous to IVPN and don’t wish to be identified as a customer then we recommend using Bitcoin or cash.

8. We recommend and offer OpenVPN using the strongest AES-256 cipher. For key exchange and authentication 4096-bit RSA keys are used.

IVPN website

PrivatVPN

1. We don’t keep ANY logs that allow us or a 3rd party to match an IP address and a time stamp to a user our service. The only thing we log are e-mails and user names but it’s not possible to bind an activity on the Internet to a user.

2. We operate in Swedish jurisdiction. Since we do not log any IP addresses we have nothing to disclose. Circumstances doesn’t matter in this case, we have no information regarding our customers’ IP addresses and activity on the Internet. Therefore we have no information to share with any 3rd party.

3. If there’s abuse, we advise that service to block our IP in the first instance, and second, we can block traffic to the abused service.

4. This depends on the country in which we’re receiving a DMCA takedown. For example, we’ve received a DMCA takedown for UK and Finland and our response was to close P2P traffic in those countries.

5. If we get a court order to monitor a specific IP then we need to do it, and this applies to every VPN company out there.

6. Yes, we allow Torrent traffic.

7. PayPal, Payson and Plimus. Every payment has an order number, which is linked to a user. Otherwise we wouldn’t know who has made a payment. To be clear, you can’t link a payment to an IP address you get from us.

8. OpenVPN TUN with AES-256. On top is a 2048-bit DH key.

PrivatVPN website

PRQ

1. No. Wo do not log anything and we only require a working e-mail address to be a customer.

2. Swedish. We do not share information with anyone.

3. Not disclosed.

4. Put it in the trash where it belongs!

5. None, since we do not have any customer information and no logs.

6. We host anything as long as it’s not SPAM related or child porn.

7. Visa/Mastercard, Bitcoin, PayPal. No correlation between payment data and customer data.

8. We provide OpenVPN services (along with dedicated servers and other hosting services).

PRQ website

tigerVPN

1. Absolutely not! We built tigerVPN to purge all data once the transmission of a IP package was completed successfully. Its impossible to trace back any customer. On top of that we decided to use shared IPs in order to further randomize and anonymize our customers. The combination of having absolutely no logs at all and multiple customers per IP, wipes our customers digital footprint

2. We are a limited liability company in Slovakia. Slovakia does not have any data retention programs and furthermore encourage ISP’s to protect their customers privacy on the net. We are not required to share any information with 3rd party hence it would be illegal thanks to the law of telecom secrecy.

3. Since we don’t keep logs, we can’t monitor abusive behavior, which is the price for building a customer secure environment!

4. We can’t comply since we can’t identify customers, therefore it’s pointless to follow any requests. We have a specific folder for these eMails ;-)

5. Same as above. We seriously can’t tell which customer did what, when, where, at any given time.

6. It’s allowed on all servers although we gently ask our customers to use either Romania or Netherlands. Some infrastructure service providers do not want file sharing so it happened to us that we were asked to move our servers due to file sharing. We found some reliable partners in Romania and Netherlands which tolerate p2p so we kindly ask our customers to use these server parks.

7. Customers can pay with Visa, Mastercard and Debit. On top of that we also use PayPal. We use hash keys and tokens to identify a payment but it’s not logged or linked to the customer. We had to do this anyway hence we are a PCI Level 1 compliant merchant. Therefore we are not allowed to store any card or payment data with the records of our customers. These keys are pointless for anyone else so there is no chance to build a connection.

8. We offer PPTP, L2TP and OpenVPN, while out of nature OpenVPN comes with the highest encryption and algorithm. L2TP and OpenVPN are 256bit SSL encrypted while PPTP comes with a solid 128bit. Although our customers are individual and have their own sense of why and what to use, we recommend L2TP as solid protocol. It’s less geeky and more secure than PPTP, but our customers can pick any of them in all the 47 network nodes around the globe.

tigerVPN website

Mullvad

1. No. This would make both us and our users more vulnerable so we
certainly don’t. To make it harder to watch the activities of an IP address from the outside we also have many users share each address, both for IPv4 and our upcoming IPv6 support.

2. Swedish jurisdiction. Under no circumstance we will share information with a third-party. First of all we take pains to not actually possess information that could be of interest to third parties, to the extent possible. In the end there is no practical way for the Swedish government to get information about our users from us.

3. We don’t monitor our users. In the rare cases of such egregious network abuse that we can’t help but notice (such as DoS attacks) we stop it using basic network tools.

4. There is no such Swedish law that is applicable to us.

5. We make sure not to store sensitive information that can be tied to publicly available information, so that we have nothing to give out. We believe it is not possible in Swedish law to construct a court order that would compel us to actually give out information about our
users. Not that we would anyway. We started this service for political reasons and would rather discontinue it than having it work against its purpose.

6. Yes.

7. Bitcoin (we were the first service to accept it), cash (in the mail), bank transfers, and PayPal / credit cards. Payments are tied to accounts but accounts are just random numbers with no personal information attached that users can create at will. With the anonymous payments possible with cash and Bitcoin it can be anonymous all the way.

8. We use OpenVPN. We also provide PPTP because some people want it but we strongly recommend against it. Encryption algorithms and key lengths are important but often get way too much attention at the expense of other important but harder to measure things such as leaks and computer security.

Mullvad website

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

As a result the BBC is now getting involved in the copyright debates of other countries, notably Australia, where it operates four subscription channels. Following submissions from Hollywood interests and local ISPs, BBC Worldwide has now presented its own to the Federal Government. Its text shows that the corporation wants new anti-piracy measures to go further than ever before.

The BBC begins by indicating a preference for a co-operative scheme, one in which content owners and ISPs share responsibility to “reduce and eliminate” online copyright infringement. Educating consumers on both the impact of piracy and where content can be obtained legally online would be supported by improved availability of official offerings.

After providing general piracy statistics, the BBC turn to the recent leaking of the new series of Doctor Who to file-sharing networks which acted “as a spoiler” to the official global TV premiere.

“Despite the BBC dedicating considerable resources to taking down and blocking access to these Doctor Who materials, there were almost 13,000 download attempts of these materials from Australian IP addresses in the period between their unauthorized access and the expiration of the usual catch-up windows,” the BBC write.

So what can be done?

In common with all rightsholder submissions so far, the BBC wants to put pressure on ISPs to deal with their errant subscribers via a graduated response scheme of educational messages backed up by punitive measures for the most persistent of infringers.

“ISPs should warn any alleged copyright infringers through a graduated notification system that what they are doing is illegal and, at the same time, educate them about the law, the importance of copyright to funding content and services they enjoy and where they can access the material they want legally. However. if the consumers do not abide by the notifications then more serious action may need to be taken,” the BBC note.

Those sanctions could lead to a throttling of a users’ Internet connection but should not normally lead to a complete disconnection. However, the BBC doesn’t rule that out, adding that such measures could be employed “in the most serious and egregious circumstances, as is the case in the United States.”

While little in the foregoing presents much of a surprise, the BBC goes further than any other rightsholder submission thus far in suggesting that ISPs should not only forward notices, but also spy on their customers’ Internet usage habits.

VPNs are pirate tools

“Since the evolution of peer-to-peer software protocols to incorporate decentralized architectures, which has allowed users to download content from numerous host computers, the detection and prosecution of copyright violations has become a complex task. This situation is further amplified by the adoption of virtual private networks (VPNs) and proxy servers by some users, allowing them to circumvent geo-blocking technologies and further evade detection,” the BBC explain.

“It is reasonable for ISPs to be placed under an obligation to identify user behavior that is ‘suspicious’ and indicative of a user engaging in conduct that infringes copyright. Such behavior may include the illegitimate use by Internet users of IP obfuscation tools in combination with high download volumes.”

While the BBC goes on to state that “false positives” would need to be avoided in order to “safeguard the fundamental rights of consumers”, none of this will sit well with Internet service providers or the public. Throwing around accusations of illegal activity based on the existence of an encrypted tunnel and high bandwidth consumption is several steps beyond anything suggested before.

Site blocking

The BBC says it supports the blocking of overseas infringing sites at the ISP level after obtaining a court injunction. Of interest is a proposal to use a system which allows for injunctions to be modified after being issued in order to deal with sites finding ways to circumvent bans.

“It is important to have the ability to get existing injunctions varied by the court when defendants reappear in different guises, a useful tool in the United Kingdom,” the BBC writes.

Who foots the bill?

Who pays for all of the above has been the major sticking point in all Australian negotiations thus far. The ISPs largely believe they shouldn’t have to pay for anything, but most rightsholders – the BBC included – think that the costs need to be shared.

“In light of the fact that a large inducement for internet users to become customers of ISPs is to gain access to content (whether legally or illegally), it is paramount that ISPs are required to take an active role in preventing and fighting online copyright infringement by establishing and contributing meaningfully to the cost of administering some form of graduated response scheme,” the BBC concludes.

Earlier submissions from Hollywood, ISPs and tech companies can be found here (1), (2), (3)

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.