Pirate Bay's VPN goes public: Ipredator

As governments around the world consider proposals to hand surveillance powers to the entertainment industry and twitchy cops, the Pirate Bay is striking back. Its new €5/month IPRedator service is an encrypted VPN that you can use to hide your traffic (whatever it may contain) from prying eyes. The name comes from Sweden's adoption of IPRED (the "IP Rights Enforcement Directive," a punishing piece of anti-Internet legislation). I've been looking for a reliable VPN to use on public hotspots -- this might just be it.

Ipredator is currently using the same platform as several other VPN franchises including Relakks, which means it's not really anything we haven't seen before. The servers are maintained and provided by Pirate Bay affiliates though, which may be more trustworthy to the average BitTorrent user than a random VPN provider.

That aside, we were told by former Pirate Bay spokesman Peter Sunde that contrary to what the legal page states, no logs of any kind are kept by Ipredator. The text that is in there is a left over from the standard template they got from the provider of the VPN platform.

And, according to Sunde, there will soon be even more advantages and added security to Ipredator.

In fact, I just signed up. I'll let you know how it works out.

Ipredator

Pirate Bay's Ipredator VPN Opens To The Public (TorrentFreak) (via Memex 1.1)

• [Anonymous]

  Don’t forget the Swedish FRA law that authorizes the state to warrantlessly wiretap all telephone and Internet traffic that crosses Sweden’s borders.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FRA_law

• [Anonymous]

  @17: I’m pretty sure it’s _everything_. And all your traffic will exit in Sweden, with a Swedish IP address.

• [coffeemoon]

  Cory,

  I’ve been using Jondo/JAP for years now, which ships with a Firefox profile so crammed full of security Addons that it could be comfortably called secure.
  You can pipe whatever service you want through Jondo/JAP – it’s free, been developed for years now by buffs at TU Dresden. If you want higher speeds you can pay for extra bandwidth (not much) and even support bloggers around the world by enabling the “anti-censorship” feature.
  Jondo/Jap is cross platform.
  Highly recommended.

• [Anonymous]

  It seems that everyone wants to villify the media copyright owners and government copyright laws for the crack down on file sharing. What everyone seems to be missing is that it is not only “Intellectual Property” that is being protected by these people. The media companies want to profit from thier investment in content, even to the exclusion of the content creatators (I don’t know how this didn’t make it in to somones copyright laws), and the governement’s desire to tax the heck of the media company’s income. One of the biggest exports for the United States is entertainment (read that as media and content). Maddona used to make millions of dollars a year in Europe with her music.

  What these international copyright laws are trying to do is protect the tax collection for this income and the profits for the media companies. Since entertainment is such a high earner throughout the world, and the US’s share of it’s popularity, it’s natural that governements would collude with media companies, and not artisits, to protect revenue. There is not US constitutional right to be protected FROM copyright laws so, like credit card companies, they add scads of fine print to the law to jack up the terms and conditions of copyright. Since the governments are colluding with private enterprise to acquire this income stream, they make natural bed partners but it’s the consumers who eventually have the non-consentual sex. My guess is that it will only get worse when the US government classifies filesharing content to be a form of unearned income and the IRS becomes involved in collecting the tax on it.

• [adrian]

  #9 Totally agree. I get the IPRED reference, but I cant help reading it as “iPredator” which sounds like a theonion.com lampoon on a new Apple product aimed at internet predators.

  Would using this service give me an american IP so that I could get access to online content (hulu.com etc) that is otherwise IP blocked outside north-america? Anyone know?

• [Anaks]

  Experts predict that the VPN service will continue to grown in popularity as businesses to save money on remote network access for employees. There is many reasons that predict great future for VPNs:
  • Works for PC on Windows /Linux/Mac OS
  • Works for mobile on Android/Windows/Mobile/iPhone/Blackberry/Symbian
  • High level of SSL encryption
  • Work over any type of Internet connections (Cable, DSL, dial up, Satellite, Wi-Fi, etc)
  • Eliminating the need for expensive long-distance leased lines
  • Reducing long-distance telephone charges
  • Offloading support costs
  • Minimum hardware requirements
  • Can provide you with dedicated IP address with which people protect their privacy and surf anonymous without provider logs

• [Anonymous]

  @adrian: using this service will give you a swedish ip. The image on the bottom of ipredator.se explains it pretty well :)

• [flosofl]

  @adrian

  Well, during the beta testing, I got IP addresses that were in Sweden. And from reading the FAQ, it looks like that is still the case.

  The IP addresses used will depend on where the end point(s) is(are) located. Right now, that’s only Sweden.

• [Anonymous]

  I’m confused- is IPRED good for anonomizing all traffic coming from your computer or just some?

  If it’s everything (and it works) then that is a pretty sweet deal. If I hear a couple more positive reviews i might just have to give it a try…

• [Anonymous]

  Hello,
  how is it working with the ipredator?

• [Anonymous]

  You have verbal assurances of “no logs” but legal pages
  that say otherwise?

  We’ve seen this sort of disconnect before: man-years of
  work on the software, but they can’t spend an hour going
  over their legal document to rip out stuff that does not
  apply to the product.

  The inconsistency does not lead to increased trust.

• [gouedard]

  Hi,

  If you are looking for VPN, you can find a VPN Providers List on
  http://www.start-vpn.com/

• [Anonymous]

  @29: I believe it will work in the exact same way, but I imagine the speed will drop for everyone if people do nothing but torrent over the VPN connection.

• [urbanspaceman]

  I think that downloading cruddy MP3 versions of commercially-released music is a waste of time and bandwidth. I don’t download any nefarious types of porn. And I couldn’t care less about “hacking”. I am however concerned about how my web surfing habits are being tracked and recorded by government and private spooks. Just because you’re not doing anything outrightly illegal doesn’t mean they’re not gathering seemingly trivial facts about you, which can eventually be used to set very elaborate traps later on if you become a suspected liberal! I’m for anything that makes random surveillance difficult for Big Brother.

  As for Microsoft, their crapola is only one more reason to switch to Mac or Linux!

• [chip]

  The main problem with secure, off-shore VPNs is usually speed. If this service can provide a VPN at reliable speeds, I would absolutely sign up. Please keep us posted, Corey.

• [simonbarsinister]

  Boy, if I was a top secret three letter organization for any number of governments I would certainly be buying up some ISP connections to the end of that VPN. Do some data gathering, some hacking. I bet there will be a lot of interesting data going through that pipe.

  I’m sure some 4 letter xxAA organizations would be interested as well, but their hackers aren’t as good.

• [InsertFingerHere]

  Do you think we’ll ever get to a point where we can be held liable if we DON’T have certain types of software running on our PC’s ?

  Say the next Mac OS and Windows has an RIAA-approved data filter, so that the system is DRM’s up the wazoo. And if you don’t have this app, the Internets can detect this, and fine you based on how long your system remains vulnerable ?

  Just musing.

  • [Anonymous]

    We are already on a way where additional app’ is not needed. Vista and W7 are designed with DRM embedded in OS and used whether you deal with copyrighted content or not. Crucial point of people refusing to buy such product didn’t happen. Adding similar Internet DRM into the core of the OS, particularly in MS products is almost inevitable and could visit you on your very next OS update.

  • [Anonymous]

    InsertFingerHere

    Did you mean this: http://blogs.intel.com/technology/2011/01/intel_insider_-_what_is_it_no.php

    Intel made a processor that will make sure you can not copy. That is what it is going to come down to. Start teaching yourself how linux works and you might have a chance.

  • [Anonymous]

    See: China.

    They already require the installation of “ClientBased Filtering” on all installations of operating systems.

• [Anonymous]

  Anon #32 how do you think the ISP would know what kind of data are you sending or getting though if all they see is a connection to a VPN service?
  Am I missing something?

• [rebdav]

  
  Who is to say that piratebay is even safe anymore, especially with the scrutiny they face. Will this become a case of the satellite TV companies suing everyone who ever purchased a smartcard writer?
  
  The problem with security is how do you find people you can trust, I suppose you need to know a guy who you went to fifth grade with a good data center and you can feel safe.

  Just remember Admiral Ackbar
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dddAi8FF3F4

  • [Anonymous]

    “We need more time!”

• [eric]

  checkout this VPN service GoVPNGo.com
  http://www.govpngo.com

  might be a good option.

• [Tiago]

  @chip I’ve been using this for several months already, since the beta came out, and I can say the speed is very good! I would recommend.

• [pinup57]

  Unfortunately they’re only supporting PPTP. If they supported OpenVPN, I would sign up and use my router’s OpenVPN support. PPTP is too individual, each computer connected to the hotspot must have their connection to this service configured (including those who “borrow” you connectivity). Living in France, I do not have illegal activities on the Internet at all, but am very concerned about privacy issues, as well as the new fear to be falsely accused of file-sharing. The last point is not solved using a VPN on a PPTP basis, only if the whole LAN uses VPN to acces the Internet.

  But the day will come where using a VPN without a governement licence will become criminal. Everything is about controlling information. The whole copyright issue is fake IMHO, it doesn’t make sense at all, governments don’t give a s***t about someone cpying Britney Spears. They just grabbed the opportunity to to try to recover control over the main communications channel of our time. It’s a old as the world: master the communications if you want the power.

  Incredible issue, btw. The biggest fear we have nowadays, is being annoyed by the authorities who are elected to protect us.

  • [Anonymous]

    I am using an OpenVPN solution from TUVPN.COM. Its working well. Costs 5 euros for the first month. worth a try. Speed is good. They have servers in UK, US, Switzerland, and Romania. Informative info in their blog and FAQs.
    http://www.tuvpn.com/

• [nomad13]

  I signed up a few hours ago on a whim, and my speeds seem completely unaffected. If it’s as secure as they say it is, I’m impressed.

• [arikol]

  please report on how iPredator works, been thinking of getting that (live in sweden) but want to know whether it is relatively trouble free

• [druse]

  This looks interesting. Thanks Cory! Keep us posted on privacy and usage plz

• [Luke1972]

  I was one of the beta testers for this wayback in July 2009 and wrote up a how-to for connecting using Ubuntu as their documentation was non-existent for it.

  http://rot13.baywords.com/2009/06/16/setting-up-ipredator-vpn-on-ubuntu/

• [Anonymous]

  Ipredator allows only one computer at a time to connect, that’s a great bummer. While useful for most people this leaves out a lot of us who have a small home lan. Imagine a small pocketable embedded box configured as a VPN router that automatically connects with their server and encrypts everything coming from any machine connected to it. This is actually possible with Tor, but Tor is too slow for any other uses than web/chat/email.

  • [Anonymous]

    You need to learn how to use ssh and port forwarding.

• [Anonymous]

  I intend to sign up AS SOON AS THEY AMEND THEIR TEXT TO ACCURATELY REFLECT THE FACT THEY DON’T KEEP LOGS.

  Otherwise, I can promise you will look like an idiot in any court of law when logs are produced. Just sayin’.

• [Anonymous]

  Ive recently started to research & learn about VPN’s myself due to privacy concerns.

  Some people do, simply want to retain their online privacy & not have their personal info thrown out there for anyone inclined enough & knowledgeable enough to intercept it. Others who might use P2P programs or Bit-Torrent files want to ensure that in case “the wrong person” is monitoring the particular P2P file or torrent they are downloading or the file is otherwise “tagged” that their IP address cannot be traced back to them at least.

  If anyone reading this falls into the 2nd category, be warned; from what Ive learned so far you are still vulnerable from most major VPN’s. Due to their privacy & file logging policy of their users. For those that fall into the 2nd category the whole purpose of having a VPN is to protect one self from having their true IP logged & a complaint lodged to your ISP which in turn comes back to you, in the case that you were found to be downloading a file you shouldnt have. And from my understanding all these VPN’s do hide your true IP & give you an “anonymous IP generated from their end & in theory this is great except again those darned privacy & file logging policies of theirs.

  ANY VPN that keeps any personal logs tracing back to you is pointless. If any legal authority has issues with any of the VPN’s users internet activity the VPN can be forced to release your personal info & what that means for you is that you might as well never had used the VPN service to begin with. Sure your IP was “anonymous” at the time but now your personal info is still handed over & youre screwed, you just delayed the process a little.

  I too agree with one of the earlier posts & I think its perhaps one of the most relevant points made regarding the topic at hand. I have come to respect & trust TPB & their efforts & at 1st seriously considered using their VPN…but when I hear a so-to-speak verbal statement saying we keep absolutely no logs of our users (which sounds perfect) but then I review their “written legal policies” & it differs from what they say in other unofficial channels…that deeply bothers me & sends up HUGE red flag for me & should as well for anyone else using only a shred of common sense.

  As was previously said, its nothing at all to revise their legal page to accurately reflect their claims. So one has to wonder why they havent & why were getting contradicting info between what it states on their legal page & what is being said elsewhere. I can only guess one of two things. Either for their own legal reasons they have to leave the info as printed the way it is & their claims of complete privacy & no user logging of any sorts is still actually true & legit…or they are not being completely upfront or honest with us about just how secure & safe their users really are.

  My personal experiences & beliefs tell me the prior is the case & its just as they say it is but Im by far not a legal expert on such matters so I just dont know what to think for sure. Im not sure anyone should truly feel safe using their VPN service until they amend the verbage used in their legal page to accurately reflect the claims made about no file logging of their users & other important details.

• [Anonymous]

  for me ipredator works very well. Speeds are very good, fast ping and i get swedish ads :)
  I also turned off ipv6 support as advised.

  Thumbs up !

• [waldoweatherbee]

  I got scammed by the ipredator site. I was wondering if anyone else experienced this. I signed up, paid, got confirmation, used the password I always use, and tried logging in. The website said my username or password was incorrect. I was not able to login even once. I e-mailed customer support several times, no response. I’m now trying to get my money back.

• [oasisob1]

  The name “Ipredator” seems quite unfortunate.

• [Anonymous]

  How does this work with ratios, e.g. when using private torrent sites? Or is it only good for public sites?

• [alex7xl]

  I think that too much attention to this service can comprehend the exact same fate as the Pirate Bay
  I work with another vpn service for personal purposes and thought that confidentiality does not require a lot of popularity…

• [Anonymous]

  Our service https://ConnectionVPN.com uses OpenVPN (SSL 2048 bits, much more secure than ipredator’s PPTP).

  We are a Greek company with gateways in Luxembourg and the US (with more countries on the way).

  Recommanded by CNET and the NY Times : http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/16/technology/internet/16vpn.html?pagewanted=all