While it may not come as a complete surprise that nearly all communications on the Internet are being monitored and stored, the revelations have brought discussion about Internet privacy to the mainstream.

As a result, privacy-centered Internet services such as the search engine DuckDuckGo and email provider Hushmail have seen a surge in traffic. New data shows that the same is also true for VPN service providers.

Earlier this month IVPN ran a survey among 1,054 new customers, quizzing them on their motivations to sign up. The results below show that the PRISM scandal was the most mentioned reason with 28%, followed by several anti-piracy initiatives with 22% in total and the Patriot Act (11%).

Reasons to buy a VPN subscription

The mention of the anti-piracy initiatives SOPA, CISPA and ACTA is noteworthy. They all failed to pass more than a year ago, but are still widely mentioned as reasons to buy a VPN. For many, they are probably seen as a synonym for anti-piracy laws in general.

In addition to leading the survey results, IVPN says that the PRISM controversy also resulted in a new subscriber surge. The VPN provider reveals that they enjoyed a 56% increase in sign-ups during June and July. While this is a pretty significant bump, they’re not the only ones to have noticed a boom in business.

Ipredator informs TorrentFreak that they have seen a few spikes in their signups, and Private Internet Access reports a clear increase in demand that may be attributed to NSA spying.

“The PRISM reports are bringing to light the horrendous privacy issues that have existed on the internet. It is clearly the time for cypherpunks to take action,” Andrew Lee of Private Internet Access says.

Privacy.io‘s Derek Spranger tells TorrentFreak that they have noticed an increase in interest, but that a VPN certainly isn’t the holy grail when it comes to NSA-type surveillance.

“Based on emails we have received, a lot more people have been referencing the NSA, but a VPN isn’t the solution to get away from PRISM. The issue isn’t data coming from you, but where it lands.”

“I know I should be plugging the company, but in relation to this it’s not correct,” Spranger adds.

IVPN also notes that while a VPN will hide your browsing and download habits, it’s not going to prevent the NSA from reading your email messages or listening in on your Skype conversations.

“Obviously using a VPN or TOR is not going to stop the NSA from reading your Gmail inbox, so in a technical sense, using a VPN specifically to counter PRISM isn’t going to work.”

“At least the mass media coverage of PRISM appears to be pushing the idea of online surveillance into the public consciousness on a much larger scale than previous controversies,” IVPN adds.

The best solution for privacy concerned citizens who want to escape mass-monitoring is not to use the Internet at all, and throw out the phone too. However, for most people that’s not really an option anymore.

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

The EFF is representing 19 diverse groups including Free Press, the Free Software Foundation, Greenpeace, the Callguns Foundation and the First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles.

The lawsuit accuses the authorities of violating the First, Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights of the groups and its members by gaining access to their phone records.

“The First Amendment protects the freedom to associate and express political views as a group, but the NSA’s mass, untargeted collection of Americans’ phone records violates that right by giving the government a dramatically detailed picture into our associational ties,” EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn says.

“Who we call, how often we call them, and how long we speak shows the government what groups we belong to or associate with, which political issues concern us, and our religious affiliation,” Cohn adds

“Exposing this information – especially in a massive, untargeted way over a long period of time – violates the Constitution and the basic First Amendment tests that have been in place for over 50 years.”

The EFF seeks confirmation that the NSA surveillance programs violate the constitution and demands that they are stopped.

The complaint

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

While it may not come as a complete surprise that nearly all communication on the Internet is monitored and stored, the revelations have brought talks about encrypted communication to the mainstream.

One new startup that hopes to lead the way in the next generation of encrypted communication tools comes from Pirate Bay founder Peter Sunde. The former Pirate Bay spokesman is no newcomer when it comes to encrypting traffic as he is also connected to the privacy-focused VPN service iPredator. However, with his latest project he hopes to take things to the next level.

Sunde and two friends are currently working hard on Heml.is (“secret” in Swedish), a spy-proof messaging App for both iOS and Android. Aside from its pretty looks, all messages will be encrypted so no one except the sender and recipient will be able to read their contents.

TorrentFreak caught up with Sunde who told us that a secure and private messaging system is needed for people to talk freely.

“People act differently if they think someone is listening in to their conversation. That’s what Stasi taught us for instance. It’s one of many reasons why privacy is so vital,” Sunde says.

While encrypted messaging is not a new phenomenon, Heml.is hopes to beat the competition by building apps that look pretty, but perhaps more importantly are completely open about the people running them.

“The big difference with heml.is compared to other solutions is that we’re not just focusing on tech. So many people talk about open source, floss and so on, but that’s only a small part. There are more important questions,” Sunde tells us.

“Who runs the infrastructure? How do you know the intentions of those people? Which jurisdiction has which rules? “We know these things just as well as the technology. Today’s internet is more and more politicized so it needs to be dealt with that way as well.”

Helm.is is currently working on messenger apps for the iOS and Android platforms and is raising money to complete the development. In the future the startup is looking to expand to other platforms as well as other forms of communication.

“In today’s day and age we can’t do without encryption. We need to have it for all sorts of communication, something we from The Pirate Bay have said for almost a decade now,” Sunde tells us.

“But it’s not just encryption, it’s everything surrounding it. The cloud services are the big problem. Doesn’t matter if you communicate encrypted, if the end result is stored with a master-key or otherwise accessible by an unwanted party,” he adds.

Sunde is best known for his role as Pirate Bay founder, and notes that aside from messaging Heml.is may also add file-sharing capabilities in the future.

“We’re of course looking at possibilities of doing any type of communication private,” Sunde says.

People who are interested can help out by funding the project in return for unlock codes. No release date has yet been promised – Sunde says that they’re not going to release anything until they’re completely happy with it.

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

The revelations of former CIA technical assistant Edward Snowden, which come on the back of his four-year stint with contractors working with the National Security Agency, have seen him labeled a hero by the masses and a traitor by top U.S. officials.

For netizens it now seems that any dream of basic privacy is a thing of the past, especially for those using the services of Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo, PalTalk, YouTube and Skype. Understandably the masses are outraged, with sentiments only being inflamed by carefully worded statements by those involved that seek to divert and do nothing to allay citizens’ fears.

As a result a coalition of 80 organizations and companies including EFF, Free Software Foundation, Mozilla, Demand Progress and Reddit have joined AccessNow to call on U.S. Congress to end the NSA’s spying.

Also getting in on the action are the makers of the open source torrent client Vuze, who have pledged their support to a campaign operated by the American Civil Liberties Union.

“The recent revelations about the National Security Agency’s surveillance apparatus, including using data from non-governmental business entities, if true, expose stunning abuses and violations of our basic Constitutional rights,” Vuze say.

The company states that it’s a supporter of civil liberties and the right to anonymity and privacy, and is against censorship, hate, oppression, punishment, reprisal and retaliation.

“Vuze supports the uses of tools to protect and safeguard those rights and uses, and against evil, from printed pamphlets to encryption to avoiding storing private data and communications on central servers,” they add.

In common with other torrent clients Vuze operates via a peer-to-peer infrastructure so naturally avoids most of the downfalls of central server operations such as those operated by the companies embroiled in the scandal. It also has features which enables users of VPNs to bind their connection to their encrypted tunnel in order to avoid privacy-threatening anonymity leaks.

“To be very clear, and we are very serious and don’t say this with a wink or a knowing nod, we are publicly coming out in support of these rights and tools for legitimate uses now because of these recent shocking (maybe not so shocking) revelations,” Vuze add.

Vuze conclude by noting that the company only supports the use of encryption tools for legitimate uses, which now appears to include the avoidance of government spying.

With Vuze support for encryption tools on the table, it’s perhaps no surprise that others have been expressing renewed interest in the technology following this week’s controversy. TorrentFreak spoke with a major VPN provider yesterday who confirmed that since news of the scandal broke, the number of users taking out subscriptions has increased.

In the current environment it may not be long before anonymous VPN services are considered a necessary tool for even the most ordinary Internet users.

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

The revelations turned online privacy into a worldwide mainstream discussion. Privacy activists shouted “we told you so,” Orwell quotes were rife, Kim Dotcom warmed up the public for his PRISM-proof email serviceand these was even some discussion over the stolen PRISM logo

Following the leaks the NSA and the US Government have been heavily criticized for their disregard of people’s privacy, and perhaps not totally unexpectedly this weekend the first legal action was filed.

TorrentFreak just obtained a copy of a complaint submitted at a federal court in Columbia, targeting President Obama, the NSA, Eric Holder and Verizon who all played a role in the mass surveillance scheme.

The class action lawsuit was filed by Larry Klayman, a former US prosecutor under the Reagan administration, together with the parents of the killed Navy SEAL Team VI member Michael Strange.

The plaintiffs accuse the PRISM participants of violating their constitutional rights, reasonable expectation of privacy, free speech and association, right to be free of unreasonable searches and seizures, among other illegal and criminal acts. Both Klayman and the Navy Seal parents demand compensation for the damage they suffered.

“This case challenges the legality of Defendants’ participation and conduct in a secret and illegal government scheme to intercept and analyze vast quantities of domestic telephonic communications,” the complaint reads.

While there are plenty of angles to pick, the class action centers around the classified order from the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court ordering Verizon to hand over all call details and metadata between the United States and abroad, without any oversight.

“This would give the NSA over one hundred millions phone records on a daily basis. The information would also include a list of all the people that Verizon customers call and who called them; how long they spoke; and perhaps, where they were on a given day.”

“Further, there is nothing in the order requiring the government to destroy the records after a certain amount of time nor is there any provisions limiting who can see and hear the data,” the complaint states.

The complaint goes on to state that those responsible for the PRISM scandal have done very little to explain what it entails. Instead, there are now calls to go after the whistleblower, Edward Snowden, to stop further leaks.

“To date, Defendants have not issued substantive and meaningful explanations to the American people describing what has occurred. To the contrary, criminal charges are reportedly being pursued by Defendants Obama, Holder, the DOJ, and the NSA against the leakers of this plot against American citizens in a further effort suppress, obstruct justice, and to keep Defendants’ illegal actions as secret as possible.”

Former US prosecutor Larry Klayman is a known critic of the Obama administration and believes that his private communications were tapped under the PRISM program. Charles and Mary Ann Strange, the parents of the killed Navy Seal Team VI member Michael Strange, allege the same as they have also challenged the Obama administration.

“[...] particularly since these Plaintiffs have been vocal about their criticism of President Obama as commander-in-chief, his administration, and the U.S. military regarding the circumstances surrounding the shoot down of their son’s helicopter in Afghanistan, which resulted in the death of their son and other Navy Seal Team VI members and special operation forces.”

The complaint demands relief for violations of the defendants’ rights under the First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. In addition it lists violations of privacy, including intrusion upon seclusion, freedom of expression and association, due process, and other illegal acts.

Thus far, authorities and the technology companies involved in the surveillance scandal have refuted most accusations, claiming that they are operating within the boundaries of the law. Time will tell whether the present lawsuit will arrive at another conclusion.

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