The results of the survey clearly showed that avid file-sharers would rather hide their identities than stop downloading. And indeed, more and more BitTorrent users are seeking ways to protect their privacy online, rendering all the newly proposed anti-piracy laws useless.

TorrentPrivacy and BTGuard are just two examples of services launched in the past year, targeted at concerned BitTorrent users. The goal of these and other anonymity applications is clear; hide the IP-address of the file-sharer so he can’t be tracked down while swapping files.

Currently in beta, The Pirate Bay’s Ipredator uses the same tech platform as the VPN service Relakks. For a few dollars a month it routes all your traffic through its servers, hiding your IP address. Ipredator is currently limited to 3000 users but according to the Pirate Bay team there are another 180,000 users on the waiting list, eager to join.

Running a VPN network for hundreds of thousands of hungry BitTorrent users will prove to be quite a challenge. The infrastructure and bandwidth required by a service targeted at file-sharers is significant, not to mention costly. This undoubtedly leads to problems.

The aforementioned Relakks saw its subscriptions double in just a month when the controversial Ipred law came into effect in Sweden this April. This surge in subscriptions led to to major problems with support and updates according to Relakks’s chairman Jan Erik Fiske.

Unlike more traditional VPN services, BitBlinder recently introduced a free solution. Instead of routing the traffic through a central server BitBlinder passes it on through multiple peers. Each peer in the chain only knows the IP address of the next person in the chain, not the original requester/sender.

A few days after its launch BitBlinder had signed up more than 30,000 new users. Right now registrations are temporarily closed to make sure everything runs smoothly for those already using the service, and while they iron out bugs. “We want to make sure it works, and is secure for everyone,” Josh Albrecht, one of the creators of BitBlinder told TorrentFreak.

Because of the increasing interest in anonymity, the Swedish ISP Alltele decided to offer a free service to conceal the IP-addresses of its customers. According to Alltele’s CEO Ola Norberg thousands of users have downloaded the application, which nearly killed the server it was running on.

These examples clearly show that the scare tactics of the entertainment industry are not going to work. There is no doubt that with every new anti-piracy initiative introduced, more and more users will find their way to one of the many anonymizing services out there.

Instead of stopping the pirates in their tracks the entertainment industry has simply inspired a new ‘industry’ worth millions of dollars.

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

Update: Limited free trial available now.

It pretty much works straight out of the box. First you have to chose a connection point – at the moment they have servers in Europe, USA, Canada. The closer the connection point is to your true location, the faster the speeds you will get from the service. Then, after you’ve chosen a connection point, just click connect and the program will connect to the server. The connection is made through the SSH protocol with 128bit encryption, which prevents traffic shaping and keeps your traffic ambiguous to prying eyes.

TorrentFreak briefly tested the application and it worked surprisingly well. People who are used to uTorrent wouldn’t notice any difference. The download speeds we got were great as well.

Alex, who runs Torrentreactor.net and TorrentPrivacy, told TorrentFreak: “We started the TorrentPrivacy project at the end of 2007. The idea was to give torrent users an anonymous BitTorrent service from a party they can trust. TorrentReactor has been online for approximately 4 years, and we believe that when people see that TorrentPrivacy uses ns1/ns2.torrentreactor.net as DNS servers, they won’t have any questions about a possible government setup of torrentprivacy.com.”

When we asked Alex about his motivation to start the project, he said that he wanted to make it as easy as possible for BitTorrent users to be anonymous, and get the RIAA and MPAA off their backs. “We don’t like the situation where two organizations from the USA believe they can rule the world. The Pirate Bay showed them that other countries have other laws and American laws don’t work outside of USA. We want to be the pain in their asses, and allow users to download what they want without fear of a sudden door knock.”

Sounds great, right? Yes it does, but unfortunately the service is not free. TorrentPrivacy currently has three payment options. $2.95 per week, $9.95 per month and $99.95 per year. I guess it’s up to you whether you think it’s worth it or not.

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