TorrentFreak

From being a niche product used by the few, in the past few years VPN services have hit the big time. These days more and more Internet users see running a privacy enhancing service as a requirement rather than just a luxury. Today we take a look at a few tips and tricks that can enhance the security of any VPN.

Most people know that BitTorrent is far from anonymous, but seeing all your recent downloads listed on a public website is still quite a revelation. This is exactly what Youhavedownloaded.com does. The developers of the site want to make people aware of the public nature of BitTorrent, and are currently working on a more anonymous version of the leading file-sharing technology.

Last month it became apparent that not all VPN providers live up to their marketing after an alleged member of Lulzsec was tracked down after using a supposedly anonymous service from HideMyAss. We wanted to know which VPN providers take privacy extremely seriously so we asked many of the leading providers two very straightforward questions. Their responses will be of interest to anyone concerned with anonymity issues.

Developed at the University of Washington, OneSwarm is a BitTorrent client that allows users to share files “anonymously” or with a specific group of friends. These features give users more control over their privacy, while maintaining a decent download speed. The client operates from within an Internet browser and is available for Mac, Windows and Linux.

uTorrent parent company BitTorrent Inc. has revealed that it’s working on putting together an overview of ISP performances worldwide. Data collected from millions of users will be used to rank Internet providers based on the speed of their network, and will possibly expose those that throttle. Valuable data that’s for sure, but also a situation that triggers worries among paranoid BitTorrent users.

The current events in Egypt leave me very uncomfortable. Not the pro-democracy demonstrations — I support that in soul, mind and action — but the fact that the repressive regime is using surveillance technology developed by Western companies, mandated by Western authorities.

A few days ago the uTorrent team updated the 3.0 release with several privacy features. Due to some unfortunate wording, the new feature caused confusion among users. One of the new options, “do not share your IP with peers”, led some to believe that uTorrent had implemented a new feature that makes BitTorrent transfers anonymous.