[Infowarrior] - Pirate Bay Launches VPN Service

[Richard Forno]

Threat Level Privacy, Crime and Security Online
Pirate Bay Launches VPN Service

     * By David Kravets Email Author
     * June 15, 2009  |
     * 6:21 pm  |

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/06/ipredator/

The operators of The Pirate Bay launched a long-awaited VPN service  
Monday, promising to make file sharers and other internet users more  
anonymous online.

The IPREDATOR Global Anonymity Service, at about $7 monthly, is named  
for Sweden’s IPRED law that went into force in April. That law  
empowers copyright owners to acquire data from ISPs identifying people  
linked to file sharing.

The four operators of the Pirate Bay are staring down a year in prison  
each, and millions of dollars in fines, after being convicted in a  
Swedish court for facilitating copyright infringement. They run the  
world’s most notorious BitTorrent search engine. Their fines and  
imprisonment are pending appeal.

On Monday, The Pirate Bay announced that 180,000 people have signed up  
for the service. Invitations to the first 3,000 who signed up in April  
went out Monday.

“There’s been some small issues but it’s being resolved right now,”  
the Bay announced Monday on its blog. “Then we’ll invite more people  
in… We’re hoping that all will have their invite within a month’s  
period.”

TorrentFreak notes that the IPREDATOR service, announced in April,  
likely would be more secure than rank-and-file virtual private  
networks, which encrypt a user’s traffic stream, making it  
theoretcially invulnerable to interception by a local ISP, or  
intermediate carriers.

“The weak link in any VPN/anonymity service is always their  
willingness (or otherwise) to hand over your customer data when  
pressured under the law. However, with IPREDATOR this should not be an  
issue since the service is promising to keep no logs of user activity  
whatsoever,” TorrentFreak said.

Pirate Bay administrators Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg and  
Peter Sunde were found guilty in April, along with Carl Lundström, who  
was accused of funding the five-year-old operation.

In addition to jail time, the defendants were ordered to pay damages  
of 30 million kronor ($3.6 million) to a handful of entertainment  
companies, including Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Bros, EMI and  
Columbia Pictures, for the infringement of 33 specific movie and music  
properties tracked by industry investigators.

The April verdicts are on appeal amid allegations the judge who  
presided over the case was biased because he was a member of pro- 
copyright groups.