TorrentFreedom Offers 100% Anonymous and Unrestricted BitTorrent
With a militant style more associated with the crew of The Pirate Bay, TorrentFreedom promises to put the user back in control, by offering a new BitTorrent-optimized, zero-logging, 100% anonymous VPN service, guaranteed to punch a hole through throttling ISPs. Be quick for a free account!
Born out of the VPNTunnel Project, the TorrentFreedom ‘manifesto’ is an interesting document, particularly if you’ve ever worried about being tracked, traffic shaped, blocked or censored on the Internet. With a suitably clandestine feel, the manifesto states:
“Today, there is a nexus of Schumpeterian creative destruction to be found at the asymptotic fringe of intellectual property law and networking technology. Everyone says there is an ‘arms race’ between the unwashed filesharing masses and the forces of Big Brother - we like to think of ourselves as the suitcase nuke for the little guys.”
TorrentFreak got in touch with ‘Faust’ of TorrentFreedom to find out what on earth they’re talking about.
TF: Tell us about this ‘creative destruction’ and what inspired you to create TorrentFreedom.
Faust: It’s all but trite to point out nowadays that we’ve undergone a revolution in how human knowledge is created, stored, and shared. And, much as Schumpeter himself had predicted, the creativity unleashed has more than made up for the detritus of old forms of information transmission that now scatter the landscape like broken, forgotten toys. This is as it should be. The backlash from the praxis of stasis threatens to drown the organic reinvigoration that innovation technology has always brought forth - there would be no 95 theses without Gutenburg, remember.
So our inspiration comes from a deeper, historical appreciation for the transformative role of new technologies in human social organization. Nobody knows where creativity, academia, and knowledge creation will evolve as our tools allow for more and deeper interconnection between physically disparate peoples - but we do know that hampering that process isn’t part of making a better world for all beings. We’d like to see people keep sharing, keep learning, keep exploring. . . and they can’t do that if there’s roadblocks and threats of censorship every step of the way. Make it easy and make it work, that’s our approach - then the creative destruction can continue apace.
TF: There are number of evils you appear to tackle head on with this service, such as traffic shaping, packet raping, blocking, censorship etc. I expect lots of Comcast customers will be interested as you specifically mention the ‘Sandvining’ technique they employ. How does your system work and how will it benefit each type of problem?
Faust: Metaphorically, the system is quite simple: think of the difference between sending postcards in the postal mail, versus sending sealed envelopes. A postcard can easily be read by anyone along the way, and if they don’t like what it says (or who it is addressed to), they could just throw it out - oops! A sealed letter isn’t vulnerable like that - the contents aren’t readable whilst in transit. Even more than that, our system protects the address (sender and receiver) on the envelope as well - so nobody can block the message just because they don’t like where it’s headed (or where it’s come from).
At a deeper level, our server farm is based in the Netherlands. Everything passes in and out of these machines, and all IP addresses are associated with them. The activities of our customers - once their sessions decrypt and leave our server farm - are fully and unambiguously decoupled from their RL info (including local/physical IP address). Big Brother isn’t going to show up at their doorstep with a fishing-expedition summons or subpoena. We took it a step further, however - we’ve broken the link between RL info and public IP for our customers inside our systems as well - once an account is set up, it is methodologically impossible for anyone to back-connect a given external TF IP address to a customers’ specific account, ever.
TF: You’re called TorrentFreedom so it’s fairly clear which crowd you’re aiming your product act. What sort of dedicated optimizations can BitTorrent users look forward to when using your service?
Faust: We’ve tested the service extensively with just about every BT client out there. They all work seamlessly. We also don’t penalize our customers for running lots of network traffic over TorrentFreedom - there are no monthly caps, and no drama if someone uses a lot of gigs with us. That’s cool - it’s why we built the system!
OpenVPN, in its rawest form, will work with BT traffic - but getting it to do so consistently and smoothly is nontrivial. We’ve done all that work, so our customers don’t need to become experts in subnet addressing, MTU window sizing, and the 100 other little tweaks one needs to do to really make BT over a VPN sing. We also hand out real, public IP addresses - so no port forwarding garbage, just fast connectivity.
TF: Please give us a brief rundown on how your system works.
Faust: On a technical level, it’s an implementation of the TLS-based OpenVPN project’s codebase (which itself implements various OpenSSL crypto algorithms). Starting from there, we’ve created a Java-based client that handles all the encryption and coordinates OpenVPN’s handshake tasks, to ensure that every packet coming and going from our customers’ PCs is tightly encrypted (including DNS queries, unlike pptp). The really cool stuff comes in the firewall-busting tricks that our client has up its sleeve - there’s very few local network configurations that we can’t tunnel through. . . with no customer tweaking of the software needed. We’ve also implemented a rather clever port 443 wrapper so that, unlike many VPN instantiations, the TorrentFreedom service can’t be blocked unless the entire HTTPS capacity is also shut down - unlikely.
We’ve built most everything with open code, and we’re pushing further in that direction (with perhaps full distribution of the source for our client extensions in the works). “Just trust us” crypto isn’t worth anything - if it’s not open, it’s not reliable. We run 2048 keylength RSA algorithms so, to the local ISP or anyone else “listening in” to our customers’ packets, the data all looks like a stream of secure web traffic, back and forth. This is true for ALL IP traffic coming off a machine, all protocols and all applications. So there’s no need to tweak individual applications to get them to “work” with TorrentFreedom - just set up the client, connect, and everything is encrypted all the time.
TF: There are other well known VPN services that say they are strong on anonymity and hide your IP address, yet all of them will give up your personal details at some point. How is TorrentFreedom going to live up to the claim in the manifesto that BitTorrent users using your service will be “just about as traceable as dusty footprints in a windswept street. You can’t subpoena what doesn’t exist” ?
Faust: Ok this is where the rubber really meets the road. An “anonymizing” service that keeps detailed records of their customers’ activities is just a problem waiting to happen. There’s no point in hiding an IP address only to keep records that connect that IP address to the one that’s used to cover for it! And, reality is that there is no place in the world that isn’t subject to some form of legal jurisdiction - just saying “we won’t turn over records” is silly. When the authorities show up - with court orders or guns - and people start talking about jail time and contempt, those records are going to get coughed up, period. Despite our respect for the company overall, Hushmail’s admission that it provides “secure” email information to certain government authorities demonstrates all too well that even a good team will fold if the pressure gets too high - and if they have information to provide in the first place!
We built the system from day one so that there’s no correlation between an IP+timestamp and a username - this means we can’t hand over logs of “who was on what IP at what time”, and therefore the user can’t be tracked back from their online activity. Our payment system is fully abstracted from the operational environment - billing events are passed to the VPN engine via temporary “tokens” that are one-way-factors - there’s no link between the VPN account and the details of the billing transaction, ever.
We keep a little bit of data on file to make sure we can monitor the performance of the system overall, but we don’t have “server logs” like everyone else does. They don’t exist. So, we can be forced to turn over those logs - but they don’t link back to anything. Not to mention all of our operational VMs run in fully-encrypted partitions, etc. Someone seizing any of our servers has nothing but an expensive doorjam for their troubles. Even someone with full access to every machine we have cannot link people to their past network traffic through TorrentFreedom. It’s structural anonymity, at the most fundamental level.
Now, there’s lots of other VPN services out there and some of them are sorta ok. Most, let’s be honest, are based on pptp - it’s really insecure with several known weaknesses. Plus, it’s closed-source/proprietary, so who knows if it has backdoors or not? The reason people use it is because it’s easy to set up - Windows machines come with it pre-installed. Well, we did the hard work of getting a real VPN implementation (OpenVPN) to work just as easily as pptp - but without the security problems.
Some of the stuff we did is a little complex, behind the scenes, but the end result is a service that’s really easy to set up and use. We’ve got clients for Windows, Macs, and Linux. We don’t limit bandwidth, and we’ve got some very fast servers backing it all up. It’s all done right.
TF: Any final thoughts?
Faust: Using TorrentFreedom for online security is like bringing a machine-gun to a knife fight. . . it might not be ‘fair,’ but the outcome isn’t going to be in question either.
TF: lol ;)
Update: the free invites are gone.
Alternatives: (not free)
Previously: Free The Pirate Bay, Wear Yellow for Sharing
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217 Responses (Add yours or TrackBack)
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Until they can match/beat the ~$8US I pay a month for Relakks, I’m not going to bite. Besides, Relakks has been significantly more reliable within the last 2 weeks than it has ever been. TorrentFreak should run a story/interview with them on how they’ve improved their service. I used to get disconnects all the time, but I’ve been logged in for the past week+ without trouble. Hopefully some Relakks users switch to this to take the load off their servers!
Can anybody who got a free account to to like speedtest.net and give me the speeds (or just link me to the speedtest image)? Relakks comes nowhere near to maxing out my 8 MBPS/0.5 MBPS connection, I’d grab an account if this could.
I managed to get 500-600KB/s downloading last night on a torrent with around 799 seeders and 41 peers. That’s nowhere near maxing out my 15mbit download but it’s the average I get being so far away.
One thing though - you CANNOT seed using the VPN. 3KB/s upload was the max I could get.
Firstly, fuck off with this shitty advertising for your ‘friend’.
The point of using bit-torrent is that its free, relativly quick and easy to use. Unless your planning on uploading a crazy amount of data (and lets face it folks, the average bit-torrent user is a hit and runner unless your on a private tracker) then the added security is pretty much going to be useless, specially as there are alternatives out there.
Good luck with it, but I can see it going down the pan faster than the shit I took moments ago.
[quote comment="284957"][quote comment="284924"]obviously this company don’t understand the point of peer to peer.[/quote]
obviously this poster don’t understand the point of VPN.[/quote]
p2p = free, this service = not, comprende?
[quote comment="285039"][quote comment="284957"][quote comment="284924"]obviously this company don’t understand the point of peer to peer.[/quote]
obviously this poster don’t understand the point of VPN.[/quote]
p2p = free, this service = not, comprende?[/quote]
It’s VPN and gigabit ports costs money. Comprende? Fucking imbecile.
BTW, YOU CAN SEED WITH VPN YOU FUCKING MORONS!
And this VPN totally owns that piece of shit Relakks.
[quote comment="285057"][quote comment="285039"][quote comment="284957"][quote comment="284924"]obviously this company don’t understand the point of peer to peer.[/quote]
obviously this poster don’t understand the point of VPN.[/quote]
p2p = free, this service = not, comprende?[/quote]
It’s VPN and gigabit ports costs money. Comprende? Fucking imbecile.
BTW, YOU CAN SEED WITH VPN YOU FUCKING MORONS!
And this VPN totally owns that piece of shit Relakks.[/quote]
Looks like someone’s being paid to promote a service…
[quote comment="285057"][quote comment="285039"][quote comment="284957"][quote comment="284924"]obviously this company don’t understand the point of peer to peer.[/quote]
obviously this poster don’t understand the point of VPN.[/quote]
p2p = free, this service = not, comprende?[/quote]
It’s VPN and gigabit ports costs money. Comprende? Fucking imbecile.
BTW, YOU CAN SEED WITH VPN YOU FUCKING MORONS!
And this VPN totally owns that piece of shit Relakks.[/quote]
Looks like someone’s in bed with torrentfreedom…
THE INTERNET ISO = 45,792,698,635 YB
kB (kilobyte) 1000 to the power 1
MB (megabyte) 1000 to the power 2
GB (gigabyte) 1000 to the power 3
TB (terabyte) 1000 to the power 4
PB (petabyte) 1000 to the power 5
EB (exabyte) 1000 to the power 6
ZB (zettabyte) 1000 to the power 7
YB (yottabyte) 1000 to the power 8
PRESS >>HERE<< TO START DOWNLOADING
TorrentFreedom = scam
You know, I’ve been wanting to do something similar to this. Many of you know about TOR-Privoxy, but they discourage its use for P2P traffic due to the limited number of exit nodes. Why doesn’t someone make a hybrid BT-TOR P2P client, where all clients are forced to act as exit nodes? Just its existence would be able to make it impossible to prove who did what. It’d be interesting to see how that went the first time it ends up in court.
for what they charge a month you might as well just by an account from a usenet isp. same price (some are cheaper), amazing content and speeds that will go as fast as yor connection can handle. oh yeah and they don’t store logs and you don’t even have to mess with this type of service.
[quote comment="284978"]Until they can match/beat the ~$8US I pay a month for Relakks, I’m not going to bite. Besides, Relakks has been significantly more reliable within the last 2 weeks than it has ever been. TorrentFreak should run a story/interview with them on how they’ve improved their service. I used to get disconnects all the time, but I’ve been logged in for the past week+ without trouble. Hopefully some Relakks users switch to this to take the load off their servers![/quote]
Anyone using Relakks should realize they’re going to have fewer connections as all of Relakks’ IP’s are blocklisted on PG and other IP blockers.
I wish I could just get the facts on this rather than this ridiculous flame war going on here. To me, it seems like this service is really just a VPN that does not keep logs. So, you send traffic through the VPN, which is encrypted; the only place/site that has your IP is torrentfreedom. But because they do not keep logs, the only time they have your IP is when you are currently downloading on/connected to the VPN. Now, with the way bittorrent works, Now lets take a for instance; if the RIAA/Mediadefender etc are collecting IPs that try to use trackers, they will just get the IP of torrentfreedom (the VPN). Thus you would be “safe” from an IP tracking standpoint and from any logs of your IP or internet activities… making you 99% safe to use bittorrent. Is this correct?
[quote comment="285134"]I wish I could just get the facts on this rather than this ridiculous flame war going on here. To me, it seems like this service is really just a VPN that does not keep logs. So, you send traffic through the VPN, which is encrypted; the only place/site that has your IP is torrentfreedom. But because they do not keep logs, the only time they have your IP is when you are currently downloading on/connected to the VPN. Now, with the way bittorrent works, Now lets take a for instance; if the RIAA/Mediadefender etc are collecting IPs that try to use trackers, they will just get the IP of torrentfreedom (the VPN). Thus you would be “safe” from an IP tracking standpoint and from any logs of your IP or internet activities… making you 99% safe to use bittorrent. Is this correct?[/quote]
they claim they don’t keep logs…this whole thing seems suspisous.
http://www.slyck.com/story1376_BitTorrent_vs_Usenet
Privacy - Decisive Usenet Advantage
A major concern for many file-sharers is security. With the IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry) promising to conduct 1,000 copyright enforcement actions per month, and the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) having already sued almost 20,000 individuals, retaining one’s privacy is an understandable concern.
To understand how people become a copyright enforcement statistic is to understand why Usenet has the undisputed advantage over BitTorrent - or any other P2P network. Virtually every instance an individual has been sued has been the result of sharing material online - otherwise known as uploading. BitTorrent depends on uploading for its very survival, Usenet does not.
Unlike P2P networking, Usenet does not encourage or otherwise recommend that its userbase upload any material. There are established responsibilities within the Usenet hierarchy – those who provide and those who download. This is the way Usenet has functioned since for it’s nearly 30 year history, and shows no signs of deterioration. For now, as no one has been sued for merely downloading material, Usenet is far and away the most secure way to obtain information online.
It should also be noted that most Usenet clients and servers support end-to-end encryption, which adds an additional layer of security.
“‘Today, there is a nexus of Schumpeterian creative destruction to be found at the asymptotic fringe of intellectual property law and networking technology. Everyone says there is an `arms race` between the unwashed file-sharing masses and the forces of Big Brother - we like to think of ourselves as the suitcase nuke for the little guys.”" … VPN proxy tunneling services may be the last recourse for people trapped in regions where a single ISP such as Comcast has a monopoly and is your only available choice for broadband internet access … this country was founded on the idea of `we the people` — but now, its become `we the corporate` … and `we the people` need to get our political representatives to restore our country before we become another former lost democracy turned fascist state.
88 Feb 09, 2008 at 01:00 by AnonymousQuote This might be alright as long as they have good hardware and connectivity behind them- but given that the site looks like it was written by high school kids, it’s probably going to be useless.
QFT, i’ll watch in obeyance and see what happens. Just gut feeling something aint quite right here.
The owner and operator of this site is better known as “Fausty”, or Douglas Spink. He is an animal molester, his name appears on sites such as “Beastforum” and “Elitezoo”. He was also caught trying to smuggle several hundred kilos of cocaine into Canada in early 2005.
He is dangerous. Stay far, far away!
TorrentFreak has been invaded by anti-pirate trolls…
I don’t know what all the fuss is here(as well as on digg).
I bet if all these “skeptic” complainers were given a free signup most of them would try it.
I was lucky enough to be one of the early ones, and I will try it out, seems good for now.
so does there service hand out ip’s when you connect to it or is one assigned to your account?
I was just stating that the name compared to the service was quite ironic
this is a VPN service, not a torrent service. torrents ARE free! fuckwits
SubQ : they are not charging you for torrents, they are chraging you for setting up and running VPN-servers
with a big fat pipe . And relakks isn’t free .
You don’t have a fucking clue, do you ?
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