This past March The Pirate Bay announced it was getting ready to launch a VPN service of sorts called IPREDator that would enable file-sharers to download content without leaving a data trail. The service was scheduled to go live back in April, but apparently suffered some setbacks – not the least of which are the millions of dollars in fines and possibly a year in prison for each of the site’s operators. Regardless, plans are indeed moving forward, with the service now available to 3,000 testers and another 180,000 in the queue.

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As much as i think sharing is very, very useful... There's no way this won't help the spread of some Child Abuse Material. Which i am very against... So i'm somewhat sitting on the fence with my opinion of IPREDator.

Maybe they should name it CHILDPREDator.

While the legality of file sharing is a mixed bag, I wonder if keeping zero records of the activity on a publicly available VPN could actually be illegal in itself?

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/05/eu-sues-sweden-demands-law-requiring-isps-to-retain-data.ars

IPRED itself actually requires that traffic data be retained for a certain amount of time, which is ironic considering that's one of things IPREDATOR will specifically NOT be doing. Of course, I don't consider a public VPN an ISP, but could the IPRED language be broad enough to encompass public VPNs as well?

This is all going one of two ways I think:

1) ISPs and media companies come up with a subscription model that is so fair, value for money and tempting that it gets folks to stop downloading pirated stuff ( http://www.techspot.com/news/35088-virgin-media-developing-unlimited-drmless-music-service.html) , or

2) Someone invents a protocol for file sharing, possible using freenet ( http://freenetproject.org/ ) that is completely secure and decentralised.

I miss the days of FTP and xdcc. ;<

ISPs need to respect a consumer's rights to privacy and stand strong on their values, even when pressured by the government. That's what needs to happen. Thankfully, Verizon's been doing a pretty good job of that. COX & Comcast, however... and several other cable companies have been tainted by government, MPAA and RIAA watchdogs.

Lets stop selling DVD/BD Writers as pedophiles might be using them to record pictures and movies and give those away by hand or post them....oh, lets ban Post Office, so they cannot send them either.....

The way to fight piracy already exists... a site where you can buy music with quality and good price... If the record companies stops to buy sh*t from the groups and force us to buy whole CD's at 12.00 when they do not have many of the costs when selling online they would lower piracy to almost zero... imagine how much music 120.00 - that someone spend in a VPN service to be relatively safe while downloading - would buy in music for 0.25 a song....

By the way, there is something like that already,,, try mp3sparks.com or alltunes.com They are eating what would be recording labels money... I just can't imagine that those guys will be so dumb that they will let their business go down the drain instead of adapt to the wave....

An example of it, here in Brazil, one very good movie was pirated called "Tropa de Elite"... after seeing their movie on the net the producers asked for the ones who saw the movie pirated AND LIKED it to send the amount they would pay on a theater and to their surprise they estimate that 68% of the viewers paid for it AFTERWARDS.

General people is not dumb... if they feel the value was there they will pay for it. And if you make it affordable many more will pay for it. I would easily pay 25cents to have a legal and well recorded song... many more would... and it would broaden the base of buyers compensating for those who will, still, pirate music.

Just my two cents here.

Cheers all

I'm against pedophiles for sure...but if we go on that direction why not get rid of the priests, pastors, and other religious guys who are abusing children everywhere... or better, when someone caughts a bacterial infection, kill them right away to avoid spreading it...

Generalization is dumb... it is not the net, it is the person... we need to better monitor and treat them. Before the net this was happening all over...we were not aware only...

^, I think he was being sarcastic.

@#7, I agree. As long movie ticket prices, music prices and game prices are not low enough to be appealing, or the products in question are not good enough to warrant the high price , if I was a pirate, I would continue downloading stuff. The studios are the ones losing here due to their stupid business model, not the consumer. The consumer just finds ways around high prices.

I think that VPNs are going to grow since it's the best way to stay anonymous and secure on the interwebs - especially with all these lawsuits from the RIAA and MPAA and censorship in countries like Germany, Australia & China.

I got a free VPN account with blackVPN.com - they are beta testing too and giving out free invite codes on their twitter @blackVPN.

Governments and rich media companies are getting way too powerful for their own good - I don't trust any of them. I'm going to keep my traffic private with a VPN - even if it means trusting some VPN provider - it's better than the alternatives.

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/04/cybersecurity-act any anonymous activity will be more difficult after this gets through

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