Your ISP is going to spy on you starting July 12. Tips to protect your privacy. | Hacker News Reader

Your ISP is going to spy on you starting July 12. Tips to protect your privacy.

privateinternetaccess.com

22 pointsrasengan20 comments

Dear HN Administration,

This was on the frontpage twice, and twice was removed. I was wondering if I could receive an explanation as to why in order to help promote a better knowledge/discussion base on HN.

If the post broke some rules that may not have been clearly documented, please let me know and thou shall not sin again. :)

Thank you in advance and happy belated B-Day to YC, rasengan

Let's see. The headline is wrong and alarmist. This is already being discussed in other threads. And the advice in this article may or may not work. Oh, and I just realized this article is a thinly-disguised ad, most likely for your employer.

I'm pretty sure there's no spying here. http://www.copyrightinformation.org/sites/default/files/Momo... (sections 4.A and 4.C.)

And some proxies have a habit of not totally obscuring your torrenting, so I'm not sure the advice in this article will work.

What exactly do you mean that it won't obscure your torrenting? I was under the impression that ssh SOCKS5 proxies are quite safe with SSL. Basically, SOCKS5/SOCKS4a will both route DNS through as well. However, you are definitely right if it is SOCKS4 as that will not put DNS requests through the proxy. But, in ssh's proxy supports SOCKS5 and is the default in the method described on the post.

Let me know if you have some detail on something I do not.

Thanks in advance!

I'm afraid that anonymous VPN services will receive national security letters, will be monitored by the government, and operators will get gag orders.

Tip: don't use a VPN with a .com TLD or with US (as of now, UK, Swedish nor Dutch)-hosted servers.

Exactly. Isn't the VPN provider sort of like the ISP? What if VPNs have the same privacy policies as the ISPs?

Isn't this what the Tor Project is all about? https://www.torproject.org/

Tor is a pretty slow way to pirate stuff.

Where's the proof that this is really happening and isn't just some random blog that's fear mongering for pageviews?

Why are so many people up in arms about this and believe this isn't true? Does no one actually remember the 6 strike "voluntary" deal they had last year? It's just coming into effect now.

From last summer:

http://arstechnica.com/telecom/news/2011/07/why-did-telcos-f...

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Messaging-and-Collaboration/ISPs-Ag...

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-57397452-261/riaa-chief-is...

http://rt.com/usa/news/internet-providers-year-sherman-661/

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/03/15/american-isps-to-launc...

While the post summarizes this, it also includes additional tips.

Hope this helps.

Cary Sherman, the CEO of the RIAA, may indeed be lying; however, if you believe him, this is indeed going to start July 12. You might note that this "random blog" links to a CNET article about this at the beginning of the second paragraph.

can someone please explain to me exactly how running your traffic through a local proxy serves to protect it? I'm very confused.

the phrasing is vague, but all it is describing is tunneling http/etc through ssh. Ostensibly, you have some remote server whose internet connection is more "secure" than your home connection.

I for one do not own any servers in Switzerland...

hi romnempire,

This is not exactly a pure local proxy as per one might imagine, but rather, a local proxy that tunnels through your ssh connection.

In other words, an "ssh tunnel"

i don't understand how that makes things secure. You are connecting to your own endsystem using ssh, and then your endsystem, on the server side, must send out an http/bittorrent/whatever packet to the content distributor over the same insecure channel your original application would have had to, right?

What do the ISPs gain from a deal like this?

Some of the big ISPs are also in the business of producing and/or delivering copyrighted content. For example, Time Warner, which provides internet service over their cable TV network, owns many media assets, including HBO. Verizon provides cable TV over their FIOS (fiber optic) network, so they'd much rather have you pay to subscribe to programming over their network than download movies via BitTorrent.

More details on Time Warner's businesses: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Warner

They can get rid of high bandwidth users

Cheaper access to content?

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