Internet users take privacy into their own hands

The (UK) police and intelligence services are calling on the Government to drop plans to disconnect persistent internet pirates because they fear that this would make it harder to track criminals online
Source: The Times via ORG

If evidence from Sweden is anything to go by it could soon be the case that that horse has bolted. Torrent Freak report on an article ths week in Dagens Nyheter (in swedsh) on the rapid growth of 'anonymising' services - mostly the use of  'virtual private networks' (VPNs) to hide a user's IP address.  A survey of 15-25 year olds found that an estimated 130 000 users in this age group are already using privacy services to surf online.  The survey authors estimated that as much a 6 or 7% of the populaton at large could be doing the same - and the survey also showed that up to 55% surveyed intend to use this type of service if  laws against filesharing are strengthened.

There are many reasons for wanting privacy in your communications - and users don't need to justify why they want privacy - it is a right.  Equally clearly, when users see that government is not protectig their rights they will take the ball into their own court at take steps to protect it themselves.

So if you are not doing it already...  what's it all about?
Using a VPN provides an encrypted secure connection from your PC to a server on the net - at which point the IP address you got from your internet service provider is changed for another anonymous one.  Which means.

• Your ISP can't see where you surf - or what type of traffic they are carrying for you -surfing, VOIP, filetransfers - all look the same - encrypted...
• Unless you register on sites you are anonymous when you surf. (Most sites collect the IP addresses of people using the site).
• You get safer surfing from WiFi hotspots and on your home wireless LAN. Encryption means your traffic can't be read 'off air' - to e.g to snoop or hack passwords.
• VPNs can usually be used from within firewalls - letting you surf to sites that might otherwise be blocked.
• If you choose a supplier from another country you will appear to be surfng from that country.... useful if you regularly use sites that restrict content depending on where you are.  (Some suppliers give the option to switch)
• and it only costs around £5/50kr a month..

Finding a supplier is easy.  Searching for Anonymous surf VPN gives lots of hits.  Here is a very small selection... (but you need to find one that suites you)
UK                  UKiVPN
Sweden          VPNtunnel.se      Relakks
or for a bit of everything....  Hide My Ass

You might want to check

• what encryption do they use?
• where are they based?
• is my account or payment traceable back to me?
• underwhat circumstances can they be obliged to release data to authorities?
• what data do they store that they could be asked to hand over?

Privacy is your right

Piratpartiet and The Pirate Party -  Putting privacy first.

Shooting the messenger

The legal dance around The Pirate Bay took a new turn yesterday. The newspaper headlines were that they were shut down after their ISP was was defeatecd in court and threatened with fines as an accessory to copyright enfringement.

As I understand it it took about 3 hours for TPB to reappear. In the meantiime the judgement and consequences have raised solme eyebrows. Firstly, the TPB trial is up for appeal... So whether or not the Pirate Bay itself can be held responsible for abetting copyright enfringemenr is still not a matter of judicial certainty - and prosecuting someone for aiding and abetting aiding and abetting starts to sound somewhat tenuous...

But there are at least two other key issues that this judgement ignores. The first is that TPB is a channel of distribution for independant software and music providers. Closing TPB down has a direct impact on these players who are in no way involved in the copyright litigation. It seems deeply unjust and heavy handed to serve one groups commercial interests over those of other users of the site.

Perhaps more critical though is the issue raised by the Piratpartiet in their press release. This judgement sets a very dangerous precedent in making carriers responsible for the content of what is carried. It's constitutionally unsound, and ulimately leads to a complete loss of privacy of communication - a basic human right.

The courts perhaps made the 'correct' judgement based on the law, and 'Black Internet' responded in the best way to protect their commercial interest - but fundamentally this is a poor result for us the public. Applying copyright law to justify a breach of fundamentall rights and safeguards iis simply a travesty.

Thumbs down.....

Net Neutrality hearings in Canada - what's that all about?

In Canada they have just completed hearings on Net Neutrality - hearing evidence from operators, ISPs, consumer groups and media groups on whether and how the network should discriminate between different types of traffic. The Internet is a busy place, and at times lines get full to capacity - either on the link down to your house, in the network itself or in the links to the web servers you are accessing.

Operators commonly use a 'shaping' or 'throttling' to cut down the amount of traffic - basically putting caps on the rate at which data can be sent or received by users (or wholesalers). There are different ways to do this - you can limit everyone a bit, limit the highest users a lot, or limit certain types of traffic. Often it is the latter that is done. Operators use a technique called 'Deep Packet Inspection' - looking inside the data being carried - to find out what type of traffic t is and then selectively restrict what they see as bandwidth eaters - which usually means peer to peer traffic.

The problem for them is that a few users generate a high volume of traffic and that means less capacity to share amongst the rest - but for the consumer it means both that you don't always get the high speed connection you think you are paying for - and someone is looking inside your traffic to see what sort of things you are doing. Usually they don't keep records of who does what - but the potential exists....

You may think it is reasonable for the operators to cut back heavy users to ensure all their customers get a reasonable service even in busy times... (even thogh they thought they paid for a full rate service) but the evidence presented shows that some are throttling peer to peer traffic all the time, or between certain times of day, regardless how busy the network actually is. In other words the operators are deliberately degrading service to customers even when they don't need to.

It costs money to build network capacity - which is a cost that we consumers share. The thing is though that that capacity can also be used to provide fee paying services like IP-TV linked to the operator or ISP. These are often time critical services that need to have bandwidth available to deliver glitch free performance... and the service providers expect the operator to provide them with enough capacity for there to be no problems.

The public internet can also provide similar services downloaded from independent suppliers out on the web. They also want good access to bandwidth to get their service over - but there's no revenue in it for the operator - apart from the fact that you've already paid for your internet access.

So the point is... is your traffic being throttled to free up capacity for someone else's service? Are operators prioritising their opportunities to make money over providing an impartial service? The hearing make interesting reading on what the different players say they are up to.

You can find reporting on the seven day hearing on Michael Geist's blog... and more on net neutrality here.