Pirate Bay's Anonymity Service Enters Beta Testing 137
schliz writes "Developers of The Pirate Bay have launched their new Virtual Private Network (VPN) service to some 180,000 pre-registered beta testers. An e-mail to beta testers read. 'IPREDator does not store any personal details about its clients. IPREDator does not store any traffic habits you might have. IPREDator is the key to a free internet in the renaissance of censorship!' The new service was launched to protect file sharers in response to the Swedish Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive (IPRED) that went into effect in April."
This is scary... (Score:4, Insightful)
Well duh (Score:5, Insightful)
And what are the bets that the demographics of these 180,000 people is among some of the better placed and prosperous human beings on this planet?
Well, considering that they HAVE a computer, are most likely using it (at least during TPB activities) for leisure instead of survival, understand enough of broadband network technology to realize encryption is useful for their activity, understand VPNs, understand encryption, appreciate anonymity, and apply all of it to the indicated activity, I dare say that they're in all likelihood doing much better than the half of the world's population trying to get by on less than $2/day. ... is there a problem with that? Why do you call them out as "some of the better placed and prosperous human beings on this planet"?
Re:Keep in mind... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Keep in mind... (Score:5, Insightful)
I fear you're probably right. But it is messed up that "taking steps to avoid sharing your personal information with your ISP" can be construed as "actively obstructing justice."
A person who does nothing illegal might want to use this service simply because they value privacy.
Re:Keep in mind... (Score:3, Insightful)
Is the penalty really stiffer if you kill someone using a gun instead of a knife? Or you rip out their heart with your bare hands?
Re:Keep in mind... (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, in theory you can use a gun for target practice, but if you have a gun at all you must be a crazy would-be mass murderer. Hence all guns (except those protecting Important People) are confiscated and guns are never used to commit crimes ever again.
Re:Keep in mind... (Score:3, Insightful)
That's because using a gun endangers lives. This would be more akin to drawing the blinds while making illegal copies of Hollywood movies in your basement.
The real scary bit is when they decide that anyone with drawn blinds is acting suspiciously and needs to be searched. Just wait, I guarantee you someone will propose that anyone using this anonymity service should be investigated.
Re:Meh - black servers have been around for years. (Score:3, Insightful)
I dunno. If I were a Fed, I'd break Freenet like this:
Fed: "We have a bunch of nodes on the darknet that contain Bad Things."
Judge: "How do you know what your nodes contain?"
Fed: "We surfed for Bad Things on Fed1, wrote the offending keys of the Very Worst Things into a textfile, and then ran a script on Fed2 that downloaded a whole bunch of the Very Worst Things. Fed2 is running a modified client that doesn't save chunks that are being passed through it to other machines. Therefore, the only stuff in its datastore is stuff that got there from our own requests. Then we walked away from Fed2's keyboard and let it stew for a few hours."
Judge: "...so Fed2's datastore is basically read-only at this point."
Fed: "Right. When a request for a chunk comes in, and Fed2 doesn't have it, we just pass the request on to the next node. When a chunk comes through from some other node, our modified client passes it on without storing it locally."
Judge: "But when a request comes in for which Fed2 *does* have a chunk..."
Fed: "...we add the requestor's IP address to the list of IP addresses for which we have probable cause to believe are requesting - or facilitating - the transmission of Bad Things. By the way, here's the list."
Judge: "Signed. Go get 'em."
Re:Meh - black servers have been around for years. (Score:5, Insightful)
I dunno. If I were a Fed, I'd break Freenet like this:
Fed: "We have a bunch of nodes on the darknet that contain Bad Things."
Judge: "What's a node?"
Fed: "We surfed for Bad Things on Fed1, wrote the offending keys of the Very Worst Things into a textfile, and then ran a script on Fed2 that downloaded a whole bunch of the Very Worst Things. Fed2 is running a modified client that doesn't save chunks that are being passed through it to other machines. Therefore, the only stuff in its datastore is stuff that got there from our own requests. Then we walked away from Fed2's keyboard and let it stew for a few hours."
Judge: ......
Fed: "Right. When a request for a chunk comes in, and Fed2 doesn't have it, we just pass the request on to the next node. When a chunk comes through from some other node, our modified client passes it on without storing it locally."
Judge: *blank stare*
Fed: "...we add the requestor's IP address to the list of IP addresses for which we have probable cause to believe are requesting - or facilitating - the transmission of Bad Things. By the way, here's the list."
Judge: "Signed. Go get 'em."
I think the above changes might more accurately reflect reality.
Re:A little pseudocode is in order... (Score:3, Insightful)
That's unnecessary code, but it serves it's purpose by increasing readability over:
It doesn't serve any purpose. If you can't understand the statement:
if (isTrue)
Then you're worse than an amateur coder.
Re:Does not store any personal details about clien (Score:2, Insightful)
from TFA
"Developers of The Pirate Bay have launched their new Virtual Private Network (VPN) service to some 180,000 pre-registered beta testers"
The developers, not the current owners of the name.
Re:Does not store any personal details about clien (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Meh - black servers have been around for years. (Score:3, Insightful)
Since when has this ever stopped a judge from issuing a warrant?
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Free? (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh god, this is slashdot isn't it? Where's the healthy paranoia? Of course they don't need to keep logs but they could. You're handing them your identity, committing a crime, and hoping that they don't keep laws. I guess you trust the name The Pirate Bay (from these other posts I gather you all are stupid enough for this in the first place) but keep in mind they were just bought by a mystery for-profit third party. When the media companies come knocking with a $15 million check asking to buy their company and then we can start keeping logs until people start realizing what's going on wink wink wink, do you think the new owners will go down with their sinking pirate ship or take the cash and retire to tropical islands?
Even without all the media paranoia.. you now torrent from behind an IP address and if someone gets a court order to release your identity, your ISP will notify you immediately. So do you want to torrent from behind all the impenetrable anonymous security and peace of mind of a bulletproof name/card#/exp/dob record?