Copyright Alert System

[Zaelath]

So it's been two weeks now.. Those who are using VPN services how are they holding up?

Peachy. Have my HMA vpn up 24x7. I've done several speed tests and find no speed difference between having it off or on. The IP binding feature of the HMA client works nicely. Anytime I disconnect the VPN tunnel, my selected apps immediately lose Internet connectivity. (e.g. Torrent client - so I never have to worry about it being unprotected since it won't work unless on the VPN)

If Astrill VPN is on....it's on...if the VPN is down it doesn't somehow switch unprotected mode. No concerns about it somehow switching off without me knowing...can't believe that's even a concern with HMA!

So how do you split tunnel?

[Siji]

So it's been two weeks now.. Those who are using VPN services how are they holding up?

Peachy. Have my HMA vpn up 24x7. I've done several speed tests and find no speed difference between having it off or on. The IP binding feature of the HMA client works nicely. Anytime I disconnect the VPN tunnel, my selected apps immediately lose Internet connectivity. (e.g. Torrent client - so I never have to worry about it being unprotected since it won't work unless on the VPN)

If Astrill VPN is on....it's on...if the VPN is down it doesn't somehow switch unprotected mode. No concerns about it somehow switching off without me knowing...can't believe that's even a concern with HMA!

Not sure why simple English is so hard for you to grasp. By unprotected I was referring to my torrent client and my identity. If for some reason I ever want to turn off the VPN tunnel, I don't have to worry about turning off my torrents or my real IP address being revealed as the HMA client & IP binding prevents it from connecting to the Internet while the VPN is down. The moment I re-enable my VPN it starts back up again automatically and my identity is still safe. No idea how you read that to be a problem with HMA; personally I consider it a useful feature. My VPN has never gone down unintentionally. Is that clear enough for you?

[Winnow]

To see if VPN is working, just go here:

https://www.astrill.com/myip.php

Another nice option on Astrill is to use the "bypass my country" option so only international addresses filter through VPN.

Maybe some settings images will help. These are all done through the convenient little Astrill app:







you can add apps that aren't filtered by VPN or click reverse and add apps that always go through VPN.

Since people primarily seem concerned with torrents, here's the simple guide to use port forwarding for uTorrent: (you could also use this with DC++, etc)

https://www.astrill.com/blog/index.php/ ... t-example/


-----

VPN is cool. I don't find myself using it that much because I really don't torrent that often and Newsleecher already has SSL built in. It's nice to have Astrill's little app up on your desktop so you can see the up/down bandwidth live as it happens so always know it's working. Bandwidth is good. Surfing the next, I never know if it's on or off typically (with Astrill, can't vouch for other VPN services).

I suppose if I go on a sketchy porn hunt or something with lots of .ru web addresses, etc I'd used it but otherwise, It's there for game betas in other countries and the occasional torrent.

The biggest thing for me is Astrill is brain dead easy to setup and it's extremely easy to toggle on/off when needed. That's what you want from services like these.

[Canelek]

Just purchased Astrill for 3 months. It was a tossup with HMA.

[Xatrei]

I use the VPN service that comes free with my service tier at giganews (vyprvpn is free with diamond service). I haven't had any issues with it, but I only use it on the box that I download from, not for general internet usage. I have a linux box that that's my primary media library (my htpcs sync with it automatically), and i can pass .nzb info to it and it downloads and extracts whatever. It is permanently connected to the vpn. My laptop and desktop have the client set up, but until now i only use the vpn when connecting to the internet away from home. Changes like this, and the new "record everything user_x does" push from congress will prompt me to use the VPN service more. Vyprvpn doesn't have the nifty tools or the international capabilities of the others mentioned above, but it's fine for what I do (for now). If I find that the service I have isn't up to the task then, I'll switch to something else.

[Winnow]

Just purchased Astrill for 3 months. It was a tossup with HMA.

Be honest. It was the "Hide My Ass" stupid name that finalized your decision to go with Astrill wasn't it? (besides the super slick taskbar app and more countries with servers!)

[Canelek]

Just purchased Astrill for 3 months. It was a tossup with HMA.

Be honest. It was the "Hide My Ass" stupid name that finalized your decision to go with Astrill wasn't it? (besides the super slick taskbar app and more countries with servers!)

Correct.

With Astrill, do I need to configue uTorrent or will I be hidden automatically via VPN client?

[Winnow]

Just purchased Astrill for 3 months. It was a tossup with HMA.

Be honest. It was the "Hide My Ass" stupid name that finalized your decision to go with Astrill wasn't it? (besides the super slick taskbar app and more countries with servers!)

Correct.

With Astrill, do I need to configue uTorrent or will I be hidden automatically via VPN client?

your choice. If VPN is on, it's on for everything. If you want to configure it just for uTorrent, follow this guide:

https://www.astrill.com/blog/index.php/ ... t-example/

remember to choose one of the servers with an * if you are using torrents.

[Canelek]

Gotcha. I'll just do both!

I did notice, however, the OpenWeb toggle seemed to show true stats via tracert, where OpenVpn toggle seemed to mask the shit out of it.

I am no WAN expert, so should OpenVPN always be used over OpenWeb features on Asstrill?

[Winnow]

Just purchased Astrill for 3 months. It was a tossup with HMA.

Be honest. It was the "Hide My Ass" stupid name that finalized your decision to go with Astrill wasn't it? (besides the super slick taskbar app and more countries with servers!)

Correct.

Smart move.

September 2011 will be a month that VPN provider HideMyAss will want to forget. Dozens of news outlets retold the story that an alleged Lulzsec member, allegedly partly responsible for attacks on Sony, the UK’s Serious Organised Crime Agency, AT&T, Viacom, Disney, EMI, NBC Universal, AOL and NATO, not to mention the newspapers The Sun & The Times, had used their services to remain anonymous.

But his plan failed in the biggest way imaginable. HideMyAss (HMA) keep logs and as a UK company when given a court order to cough up information, they do so. After matching timestamps to IP addresses, in the blink of an eye Luzlsec member ‘Recursion’ became 23-year-old Cody Kretsinger from Phoenix. The FBI had their man.

While the outrage from the public has been well reported – many pro-privacy activists accused HideMyAss of becoming SellMyAss – what has not yet been documented is how elements of the VPN industry have reacted to the news.

I'd like to repeat that "Hide My Ass" is a stupid name for a VPN.

Astrill has been working great. I renew my account every six months. I use it to stream every live NFL game in HD quality (Using NFL Game Pass) on Sundays from a UK IP. I get full 50Mpbs from my US West Coast Astill IPs and close to, if not max Mbps from the UK. It varies if using Asian, Russian, etc IPs.


In other news:

Rumor: Six-Strikes Anti-Piracy Plan Rolling Out Next Month

For over a year now, there have been rumors floating around about major ISPs' plans to institute a "six-strikes" plan to curb piracy. According to some leaked AT&T training documents drudged up by TorrentFreak, it's finally rolling out for real on November 28th.

The six-strikes plan, a set of private agreements between major ISPs and major rightsholders, has been rumored to include such measures as throttling the bandwidth of repeat offenders, but specifics have been scarce because everyone has been pretty tight-lipped. The leaked AT&T documents have shed some light on the system. For example, AT&T has agreed to restrict access of repeat offenders, blocking "frequently visited websites" until the user completes a "online education tutorial on copyright." There's also the mention of a November 28th roll-out date.

The agreements between the ISPs (Comcast, Verizon, AT&T, Cablevision, and Time Warner Cable) have some flexibility to them, so AT&Ts approach might not be identical to that of other ISPs. It's probably safe to assume that the big five will roll out the new system simultaneously, however. There's also room in the agreements for ISPs to turn over your information to rightsholders for prosecution, but no promise of it. Either way, it's pretty easy to see how this would head in that direction. Mark your calenders.

Probably not a bad idea to get a VPN service soon. I'd recommend one other than "Hide My Ass". Located in the U.K.

Astrill is located...sec let me get out the Wikipedia:

Victoria (sometimes called Port Victoria) is the capital city of the Seychelles and is situated on the north-eastern side of Mahé island, the archipelago's main island. The city was first established as the seat of the British colonial government. In 2009, the population of Greater Victoria (including the suburbs) was 25,000 out of the country's total population of 87,972. Victoria is served by Seychelles International Airport, completed in 1971.

Seychelles (Listeni/seɪˈʃɛlz/ say-SHELZ; French: [sɛʃɛl]), officially the Republic of Seychelles (French: République des Seychelles; Creole: Repiblik Sesel), is an island country spanning an archipelago of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean, some 1,500 kilometres (932 mi) east of mainland Africa, northeast of the island of Madagascar.

Other nearby island countries and territories include Zanzibar to the west, Mauritius, Rodrigues, Agalega and Réunion to the south, and Comoros and Mayotte to the southwest. Seychelles, with an estimated population of 86,525, has the smallest population of any African state.[3] It also has the highest Human Development Index in Africa.

Ahhhhh! Much better! Actually the company is under Australian law. Probably not much safer from the FBI than HMA, but at least it doesn't have the stupid name and hasn't sold anyone out yet.

https://www.astrill.com/

Remember: use the OpenVPN option, not OpenWeb so all IP traffic is routed via VPN, not just your web traffic.

[Funkmasterr]

Yeah the six strikes thing is definitely more than a rumor. I get emails from Demand Progress regularly, they've been one of the big groups fighting against all the Internet shit going on in the last few years, and I've got several emails from them about this in the last few weeks, with a bit more detail, I'll dig it up. They will probably be instrumental in shutting this down, though, like they have been with SOPA, etc. never hurts to be safe though.

[Aslanna]

Doesn't sound like Demand Progress is demanding enough progress. Looks like all systems are goooo! I don't do torrents really so I don't see this having much of an affect on me. Regardless, I'll probably start doing some investigation on VPNs in the next month or two.

(CNN) -- It is about to get a bit more difficult to illegally download TV shows, movies or music online.

A new alert system, rolling out over the next two months, will repeatedly warn and possibly punish people violating digital copyrights. The Copyright Alert System was announced last July and has been four years in the making.

If you use AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner, or Verizon as your Internet service provider, you could receive the first of one of these notes starting in the next two months.

The Internet provider is delivering the message, but the legwork is being done by the copyright owners, which will monitor peer-to-peer networks such as BitTorrent.

They use a service called MarkMonitor, which uses a combination of people and automated systems to spot illegal downloading. It will collect the IP addresses of offenders, but no personal information. The IP addresses are turned over to the Internet providers, which will match up the address with the right customer and send the notification.

The warning system is described as a graduated response. First the Internet provider will let the customer know that their Internet connection is being used do download content illegally. The note will include information to steer them away from their life of crime, including tips on how they can download content legally.

There will also be tips on securing Internet connections, just in case you were unaware that your neighbor was downloading season three of "Dexter" using your unprotected wireless network.

"The progressive series of alerts is designed to make consumers aware of activity that has occurred using their Internet accounts, educate them on how they can prevent such activity from happening again," the CCI said in its announcement today.

After the educational phase, the customers will be asked to acknowledge that they received the warning. If they continue to download content illegally, the alerts will threaten mild punishments, such as forcing the copyright violator to read "educational materials," or throttling their Internet connection so that it is slow, making it harder to download large files.

Today's announcement claims that terminating the Internet service is not one of the options.

If a customer feels they are being wrongly accused, they can ask for a review, which will cost them $35 according to the Verge.

The entire system will be overseen by an organization called the Center for Copyright Information, which includes content owners, such as the Motion Picture Association of America and Recording Industry Association of America, as well as individual members including Disney, Sony Pictures, Fox, EMI and Universal.

Each ISP will have a slightly different version of the system.

I like how it costs people $35 to prove their innocence. The ISPs don't lose on that deal.

[Canelek]

VPN yo!

[Funkmasterr]

Yeah the last email I got from them about this was on the 17th. It stated 59k people have signed their petition and contacted ISPs/lawmakers. I don't use one of the media companies listed, but I'll have to look into getting a VPN soon to be safe.

[Winnow]

If they somehow manage to "outlaw" vpns in the future, then we're kinda screwed. That hasn't even been brought up though so hopefully it's not being considered.

Newsgroups are still the safest place to grab questionable stuff.

[Canelek]

I have used Astrill VPN for over a year and have had good success. Simple to set up and simple to switch between locations. I think it is around 8.95/mo. Pretty good price for keeping the ISPs sniffing at your crotch.

[Fairweather Pure]

I tried a VPN trial a couple of times and the speed was awful. They both promised better speeds with a payment but it was so slow it turned me right off.

Are you VPN users seeing deops in your normal speeds?

I used hidemyip and some other one I can't think of right now. Both sucked equally, dropping my 20-25mps to under 2mps. It was just too much to take.

[Canelek]

I don't have any performance issues. Astrill keeps their servers updated and on the rare occasion where there is some lag, I just switch to a different one via drop-down menu. I think Winnow uses Astrill as well.

[Winnow]

I get full 50Mbps using US Servers on Astrill and some Euro IPs, some asian locations may not give full speed but you only need to use those occasionally, if ever.

I sign up for six month chunks of time at around $36.00 so if you try for a month and are satisfied, it's pretty cheap if you go 6 or 12 months at at time.

When you sign up for Astrill you can test every one of their servers (speed and ping) so see which are best for your area. The top 4 or 5 servers that you use frequently stay at the top of your selection list to make it easy to find them.

I've mentioned before, shit is faster over VPN sometimes, not slower. I stream youtube much faster over a Los Angeles VPN than without using VPN. I also manage to stream HD NFL football games using a UK IP every Sunday.

Another small benefit is some of the file sharing servers (Depositfiles, etc) are based out of Europe (well a lot of them are) and streaming shit from there using a eruro server IP is max fast as opposed to the few KB/sec streams you get with a US IP.

Lots of benefits to VPN besides just anonymity, Plus Astrills little on screen UI kicks ass and works well. Very easy to switch on and off. (again use OpenVPN not OpenWeb to filter all traffic) I think just the Aussies are stuck having to use OpenWeb.

https://www.astrill.com/servers.php

[Winnow]

Another benefit to VPN is that Netflix offers different programming depending on what country you're in.

I was wondering why I saw the UK Mistfits series as playable on Netflix the other day and then it vanished. I was using a UK IP up at the time.

Also, I just saw Modern Family on Netflix available to UK viewers but wasn't there when I switched back to a US IP. Walking Dead was avail in US but not UK...so, just another reason VPN's might be useful.

I checked my recent viewing list and Walking Dead wasn't even on it (as part of my history) when I use UK, but it pops right back on when when using US IP.

Just a tip for rook VPN users. Some websites take a minute to refresh (especially if country specific content)if you switch countries while actively logged onto the site so it's your fault, not the VPN if that happens (just wanted to say that before anyone whines thinking there's an issue...think about it, you also can't just switch IPs during a download either or you get booted off the download stream, or while streaming a video, use common sense)

[pyrella]

I use astrill as well on a 100mb connect and still download at 12-13MB/sec from newsgroups or other fast sites.

[masteen]

I use astrill as well on a 100mb connect and still download at 12-13MB/sec from newsgroups or other fast sites.

Fucking hell, I live in the back woods of the goddamn interweb. I've never even seen speed over 10MB EVER.

[Winnow]

For anyone still not yet using Atrill, it's been updated with some new features:

In Astrill 2.8 (build 1922)


New: StealthVPN v2 protocol supports both UDP and TCP and brings 2 layers of encryption for increased security. A specially designed protocol is hard to detect or filter by firewalls. This new VPN will be offered free of charge to all customers during test phase. Customers who have purchased Astrill between 23rd December and 1st of Jan. will receive 6 months of StealthVPN as a gift from Astrill.

New: OpenWeb connection sharing with mobile devices (iOS and Android supported)

New: Two Hop VPN - tunnel data through two of our servers for best privacy protection. We will soon setup servers supporting this new feature and offer it free of charge during testing phase.

New: Users with dedicated/private IP addresses can set any connection port for OpenVPN/StealthVPN. This is now supported on a few servers listed under StealthVPN which are running our new software. We will update all our servers soon.

New: Windows 8 compatibility

Updated: New LSP version on Windows

Updated: Kernel extension for Macintosh

- Hundreds of other enhancements and bug fixes

I'm trying out stealth mode to see how the speed holds up. I don't see the two hop VPN servers yet. I don't know how critical extra encryption or going through two VPN servers is but it's nice to have to options to do so. The OpenWeb via OS is nice. Giganews' Dumptruck service also just released their iOS app. Hurray!

I still use Astrill more than half the time I access the web and buy it in six month chunks for cheap. Giganews still pumps out fastest with a non VPN connection and it's already SSL encrypted.

Things I've used it for:

-get faster speeds using some west coast servers watching You Tube and various other popular sites than I do with my naked Cox Connection. (avoids ISP selective throttling for various services)
-used it to watch all NFL games on Sunday streamed live via NFL Game Pass using an UK IP Address (screw you DirecTV!)
-beta test asian MMOs that are country IP restricted
-downloading torrents or using file sharing sites (like rapidshare, depositfiles, etc...also get hella faster downloads switching VPNs depending on the country the files are housed, usually in Europe or some ex Soviet state)
-Watching Netflix TV shows and movies restricted to the UK by using a UK VPN, same goes for the BBC, etc.
-and, of course, just maintaining general anonymity on the net as it's nobody's business where you go