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Anti-Piracy Outfit Hires VPN Expert to Help Track Down The Pirate Bay * TorrentFreak:
From the beginning, OVPN has insisted that it is a no-logs provider, meaning that it should be impossible for anyone to identify who was using its service to either surf the Internet or, in The Pirate Bay's case, use the platform as an anonymous exit point to hide its true location.
The battle is playing out in court in Sweden, with OVPN insisting that it has no useful data to hand over and Rights Alliance insisting that it has. Thus far the court seems to have leaned towards OVPN's claims, that it carries no logs and as such cannot hand over any information. However, the anti-piracy veterans at Rights Alliance, who have years of experience under their belts, are refusing to let the matter drop.
The most recent move, playing out this week, is that Rights Alliance has provided testimony from an expert witness, one that has masses of experience in the VPN field.
[...] "Although [OVPN] strive to store as little data as possible, there must be data connecting users and identities to make the VPN service work. In this case, a user has paid for a VPN account with the ability to connect a public static address to OVPN which the user has then chosen to link to the file sharing site 'the piratebay', i.e the user has configured his VPN account to point to the given domain."
As previously reported, the alleged use of OVPN by The Pirate Bay differed from that of a regular user. Instead of anonymizing a home connection, the site reportedly used the provider's Public IPv4 add-on. While that tool is covered by exactly the same no-logging policy, in this case a static IP address was connected to the service by a specific customer. The word 'static' is crucial here and also a recurring theme.
[...] Finally, it's worth repeating once again that the complications in this case, at least in respect of VPN security, is that The Pirate Bay's alleged use of OVPN required the allocation of a static IP address. When regular users of decent no-logging VPNs are allocated a dynamic IP address or one that's shared by countless other users, these issues should not raise their head.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Sunday August 23 2020, @02:45AM (2 children)
It just seems less risky than commercial VPNs
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Zinnia Zirconium on Sunday August 23 2020, @03:07AM (1 child)
If you like risk a really great idea would be to run your own personal VPN server on a static IP that reverse resolves to your own vanity domain where the Whois data has your full name and home address so everybody knows exactly where to serve the subpoena.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Monday August 24 2020, @02:17PM
The best kind of risks are those in service to an ideal, for a better way of life. And these sorts are, I believe, just such a risk. Copyright must ultimately bow to reality. These industry shills and their masters have stuffed themselves full of propaganda about them being huge victims of piracy, in spite of the fact that the business is doing fine. Makes them dangerous. In spasms of "end justifies the means" thinking, they are entirely too eager to trample upon privacy in order to identify the people they alleged to be committing piracy
I am not personally interested in running a VPN service. There are many other things that can be done. I helped shut down one of the "experts" that the MAFIAA once used to provide testimony against the accused. In court, he was using the university's name to bolster his credentials. I complained to the university about the conduct of their professor. As I suspected, the university administrators had no idea their hot shot professor, who had just made the cover of their alumni magazine as their professor of the year, was dragging their good name into court, and when they learned of it from me, they didn't like it.
And do commit a bit of piracy. If that's too scary, then you can at least make more use of your local public library, or the Internet Archive.