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."
Does not store any personal details about clients (Score:5, Funny)
This has been the main problem with the beta as no one has been able to login to the vpn.
I don't think anyone thought this thing through.
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After that, as long as it doesn't record the IP addresses you're visiting, it's effectively anonymous and thus valid.
Yes, Pirate Bay could secretly store that information, but I somehow doubt they would.
Re:Does not store any personal details about clien (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, because no one would think that the soon to be new CEO, who happens to be good friends with the RIAA [cnet.com], would ever do such a thing as log traffic or identifiable information. Right?
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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.
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Meh - black servers have been around for years. (Score:5, Informative)
Black Servers won't go away, because they are impossible to find and stop.
RS
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Re:Meh - black servers have been around for years. (Score:5, Informative)
Black server - server using encrypted comms that is not publicly know
Darknet - layer on top of internet that uses encryption, multiple hop routing and other techniques to disguise nodes activity from each other
That's my understanding of it anyhow. I2P and freenet are the only darknets I know about. I wouldn't go near 'em, personally.
Re:Meh - black servers have been around for years. (Score:5, Interesting)
I actually wrote my own at one point that tunneled itself steganographically using decent crypto disguised inside webcam sessions. Unfortunately, the throughput was abyssal, and of course--it was pretty difficult to get 'real' network behavior.
I wouldn't say the point of a darknet is to hide a node's activity from one another--so much as it is to conceal their presence from anything not in the darknet. Tor helps hide a nodes activity from another node (sort of), but isn't a darknet. Freenet--you can search for, but generally speaking you can't find other nodes in freenet trivially. I'd call it a greynet.
What's wrong with freenet?
It works beautifully for its intended purpose, even if there's a sad amount of...malcontent littered throughout it. Despite the nastyness that you store on your own hard drive (which you couldn't read anyway unless you want searching for it), it's not like you or anyone else could ever prove it was on your system--if they could, the very trial itself would necessitate proving a means to crack commonly used cryptographic protocols--keeping that secret (if it's possible) would be worth more to anyone than convicting you ever would be.
Amusing: Captcha = "crimes"
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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 F
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.
Don't be such a fool (Score:2)
I think the above changes might more accurately reflect reality.
The federal judge has decades of experience in asking the right questions and getting clear and meaningful answers.
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Judge: "What's an Internet?"
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I think the biggest flaw with your amendments is that you didn't also paint the FBI as clueless.
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Actually, I don't think the FBI is clueless-more's the pity.
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Since when has this ever stopped a judge from issuing a warrant?
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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The evidence you cite would not prove intent, and therefore fail to obtain a conviction. That is because requests made through the FN network make copies all along the request path. Making requests actually increase the likelihood that material will be found on the network, and will definitely copy the material to the node that returns the material to you. Sure, that node that served you will have the material. But you put it there, unless you can prove otherwise.
Even if you could isolate the node from
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It works beautifully for its intended purpose, even if there's a sad amount of...malcontent littered throughout it. Despite the nastyness that you store on your own hard drive (which you couldn't read anyway unless you want searching for it), it's not like you or anyone else could ever prove it was on your system--if they could, the very trial itself would necessitate proving a means to crack commonly used cryptographic protocols--keeping that secret (if it's possible) would be worth more to anyone than convicting you ever would be.
Unfortunately, the MAFIAA doesn't need to prove anything to rack up massive legal costs against you, or threaten to sue you.
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Well, to slightly correct you there, _one_ Freenet (0.7) is a darknet. And it sucks. The whole thing's still basically Alpha software, even though they made an 'official release' about two years ago. The devs screwed it up horribly.
There is, however, another Freenet network. Freenet 0.5. It's an opennet, and as a long time user I can say that it works very well.
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"What's wrong with freenet?"
Uh, it's full of child porn. I'm not handing over part of my hard drive to help propagate that stuff.
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No. A darknet is a P2P network where individual nodes are trying to hide their existence. This means that, in order to connect to a node, you need an invitation from the owner of the node, and nodes don't advertize their existence. Some such networks might try to hide their traffic with steganography.
A darknet is targeted for environments where the very act of partici
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GNUnet [gnunet.org] is another one, personally I like it more because it does not store not requested chunks on your local hard-drive (if you configure it not to do that). This means you don't help with all that child pornography. But, you do route data packages to create anonymous traffic.. so in the end you are still helping.
I would like to see a network where you can democratically decide wether something is right or not, where you can say: I don't like this content and I will help in finding who is distributing it i
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Darknet is a catch-all term used to describe covert networks.
More recently, it's begun to be used to describe friend-to-friend and small-world theory based distributed networks. In these networks the users connect only to their closest friends by sharing encryption keys with each other, but as those friends then connect to their own friends you eventually get a vast encompassing network that is untraceable, anonymous and yet globally searchable and reachable.
Quite similar to cell based covert organizations
Re:Meh - black servers have been around for years. (Score:5, Funny)
Post your damn initials in your signature spot. God almighty it's so pretentious when people put their initials in their posts.
AC
Initials (Score:2)
Post your damn initials in your signature spot. God almighty it's so pretentious when people put their initials in their posts.
AC
Is that any way to talk to RMS? Oh wait, sorry. It just says RS.
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The genius' name is Peter O'Fyle, he likes to be called "Pete". Go ahead, say his name...
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"?
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I think that the GP was trying to point out that when the authorities do make major busts, there is almost always someone who is powerful and influential involved. Mayors, governors, chiefs of police, members of parliament, congressmen, etc.
He may or may not be aware that possession of a personally owned computer puts him into the wealthiest 10% of the world's population, by definition.
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Agreed. There are a number of applications designed to anoynymize your traffic before and/or as it leaves your own machine. I trust that a lot more than I trust anyone to protect my anonymity. The lackwitted "h4x0r" who broke into Palin's email trusted the "anonymous proxy" that he went through, and THAT bastard cooperated with the Feds. WTF was he keeping logs for, anyway? Without logs, the Feds couldn't have got a thing!! Stealthnet, Freenet, TOR, I2P and the rest of the darkweb apps may be slow, bu
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And your point is?
A little pseudocode is in order... (Score:1)
{
if (dest == TBP_ADDRESS){
return true;
}
else {
return false;
}
}
Or in other words, if the government isn't happy, they just make using TPB's VPN illegal (I'm sure they could come up with an anti-terrorism excuse).
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Because he's one of those morons who when checking a bool do something stupid like this:
bool isTrue = false;
if (bool == true)
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Oops that was meant to be:
if (isTrue == true)
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Asking
if( someObject )
will return true if someObject is defined, regardless of whether someObject = true/false, so you have to compare it to a value.
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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.
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Nah, If you plan on providing criticism on the syntax of pseudo code (which is absurd), I can only reply to the sheer ridiculousness by pointing out how your own code is unsafe.
See, I write a lot of code in languages you probably have a glib and witty remark about, like Lua. In Lua, the command
if (isTrue)
would return true if isTrue was equal to 7, or 0, or 1, or a table, or anything at all other than explicitly false. So all your check does is see if isTrue is defined, not if its value is tru
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I don't use Twitter. Could you send the torrents encrypted as image files over Twitter or is Twitter changing those images before it sends them? http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/07/15/1314253/New-Service-Converts-Torrents-Into-PNG-Images [slashdot.org]
I assume PNG probably isn't a valid format for Twitter images anyways.
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VPNs have been in use forever, at least in computer terms. Every remote user in the business work uses a VPN. Likely on a daily basis. To make the claim that someone using one is doing something illegal is nonsensical.
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> (I'm sure they could come up with an anti-terrorism excuse).
TPB is not in America, fool.
Neither is Iraq. Didn't seem to stop us from fucking them up on a diaphanous terrorism-link, now did it?
Virtual Pirate Network (Score:5, Funny)
Shoun't that be Virtual Pirate Network?
Free? (Score:1)
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RTFA, please. Who said it's free?
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It'll have to be a paid service.
No shit? They said it was going to be a paid service when it was first announced. From the title of the original Slashdot article from March: Pirate Bay To Offer VPN For $7 a Month [slashdot.org]. From where did you get the idea that this was ever going to be a free service?
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RTFA, guy. It's not free.
Also It's been done [slashdot.org] before and well [wikipedia.org]. The code has been open for a long time now. I'm just surprised it hasn't happened sooner.
The code used to be archived by some of the industry cool kids for quite a while, but I'm not readily finding it in the allowed attention span of this comment.
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Re:Free? (Score:4, Interesting)
gonna have to keep some kind of records of those payments; therefore it's not fully anonymous.
Yes, the record that have to keep would amount to this: "x user paid his monthly fee". There is no need to retain any other information.
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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
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These *are* pirates we are talking about ... of course they'll be using stolen credit card numbers ... duh
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It's 5 euros per month: http://www.ipredator.se/ [ipredator.se]
Old News (Score:5, Informative)
It's entered Beta? Hardly news, I got my invite on the 1st of July, it contained a unique HTTPS URL which was the only way to access the login page. I signed up (and paid up), connected the VPN after following the simple steps to create a Windows VPN connection. My IP then geo-located to somewhere in Sweden. It's nice, cheap and easy solution, assuming it does indeed remain anonymous. Speeds are pretty much wirespeed on my 5MB ADSL in the UK.
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Damnit, now Sweden is gonna be a haven of terrorism.
Good job, TPB!
Keep in mind... (Score:5, Informative)
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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.
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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?
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The downside is, you have to eat a human heart.
Re:Keep in mind... (Score:5, Funny)
You say downside, I say Tuesday.
-Mola Ram
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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.
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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.
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If you have nothing to hide, then there's no need to close your blinds.
Sound familiar ?
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You can also use a gun for target practice, but if you use one during the comission of a crime, the penalties are stiffer.
You heard it from slashdot: downloading pirated content with a VPN is the same as shooting someone.
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Well... We have the right to ask what does the ISP need with our personal information? All they need is a place to send the bill and the IP Address of the source and destination in packets you send on the network.
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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."
Not quite. There's no way that using this while going about legal activities is a crime.
The only way this could possibly be "actively obstructing justice" would be if you used it during the commission of a crime.
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Is this codified law somewhere? Since the future of all electronic communications is going to be encrypted I would think this presents a pretty serious problem (or from a law standpoint a powerful club).
Using encrypted wireless communications on your router is not by nature going to increase your penalties, why should encrypting the rest of your communications do so?
Lay rezeestaunse? (Score:1)
Viva la Fra.... Oh, wait, wrong episode...
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The worst upcoming nightmare is transatlantic and it is called ACTA [wikipedia.org].
What Pirate Bay? (Score:2, Funny)
I dunno what you're talking about -- there is no "pirate bay", no more "black servers" or "darknets"; now, everyone be quiet!
The Pirate Bay captains... (Score:2)
... have finally found a way to pay that 3.6 million dollar judgement from the trial, eh? Unlike TPB, this has a subscription fee to use it.
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wait did the sale actually go through? last I heard the buyers may be backing out.
IPRED, the acronym. (Score:2)
I never actually thought about what IPRED stands for. Now I see the acronym refers to words in english...
I all ready knew the swedish elite takes its directions regarding copyright law from the big ol' US of A, but jesus, couldn't you at least bother to translate the names of laws they've ordered into swedish !?!
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Ok. Here's me looking foolish. IPRED is an eu directive, hence the name not being in swedish.
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No it's not, it's a result of an EU directive. The IPRED name is still distinct to Sweden I believe. Certainly here in the UK we have no IPRED, but we do have similar laws or attempts at such laws.
The EU directive just states what must be done in the local country, IPRED is the local name for their local implementation of the directive (and then some more above and beyond the directive i believe).
Out of interest... (Score:2)
US credit card? Forget it (Score:2, Informative)
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Wht in the world would you want to use your credit card for a service like this?
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Wireless version in my neighborhood (Score:5, Funny)
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Hm, there's a similar service in my neighboorhood named "belkin54g". I'll bet they're the same service but using a different name for double plus anonymity! Brilliant!
Yet another dissapointment from the TPB guys... (Score:1)
Interesting (Score:1)