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If you list that as the primary reason, why not just use a VPN?
by Erlich_Bachman 6y ago
If you list that as the primary reason, why not just use a VPN?
- beagle3 6y agoWhy do you just trust a VPN provider, any VPN provider?
- TuringTest 6y agoWhat is the alternative?
- dewey 6y agoBecause for this use case of avoiding the extortion lawyers this is good enough. Nobody is going to bother with trying to go after some VPN provider when there's millions of people on normal ISPs where they just have to give them a call. As usual, it's all about knowing your threat model.
- Bnshsysjab 6y agoYou don’t think providers would be willing to sell that information for cheap? They’d just saw off country sized chunks and sell bit by bit
- dewey 6y agoThe business model of these lawyers is to join a few swarms of big popular titles, then send automated letters to the ISP, then send automated letters to the address they got from the ISP and collect money (At least here in Germany). They are only going after the low hanging fruits, it's not about catching everyone or doing deals with VPN providers located in some hard to reach country.
- Bnshsysjab 6y agoThat’s an extremely definitive point of view. What if the lawyers agree to give the VPN provider 10% of the proceeds?
- pinusc 6y agoThat VPN provider would likely be out of business extremely fast. If you offer a service that's supposed to increase privacy, and it doesn't... who's gonna pay for that service? Of course exceptions apply with law enforcement, but then again your threat model is very different there (and the VPN provider in question will not be able to say no). That being said, there are VPN providers who guarantee that no logs are kept (I believe ProtonVPN does this) and are extremely privacy-oriented. I am inclined to believe these companies, if all I'm doing is pirating a few movies.
- Bnshsysjab 6y agoVPN\seedbox providers probably don’t make the wisest business choices. They may not care bout the longevity of their business even if they do. Hosting providers that sell bandwidth to VPN services could easily log traffic. There have been numerous cases where ‘No logs’ VPN providers have been caught logging details. See the recently exposed logstash breach.
- aasasd 6y agoWhy couldn't lawyers almost as easily send bulk IP requests to VPN providers as they send notifications to ISPs?
- boring_twenties 6y agoThe VPN can credibly claim not to hold on to that information.
- aasasd 6y agoWhat does the VPN provider claim when they receive a court summons for copyright infringement?
- trevyn 6y agoThey don't receive a summons, because the courts in their jurisdiction don't issue summons for that.
- boring_twenties 6y agoIn the US at least, they are neither liable for the actions of their users nor under any sort of obligation to retain IP address logs. So, as far as I can tell, they're free to respond with "sorry, can't help you." IANAL, though. The EU on the other hand has mandatory data retention, but it seems that this has been challenged be several countries, according to https://www.eff.org/issues/mandatory-data-retention https://www.eff.org/issues/mandatory-data-retention
- fomine3 6y agoPIA (before acquisition) said in lawsuit that they can't provide IP address because they don't save.
- e12e 6y agoWhy wouldn't lawyers run a vpn service in order to collect IPs?
- Eremotherium 6y agoJust a tangent, but you can send Mullvad an envelope with cash and your account number as a form of payment. That's not a proof of trust but it's a statement IMO
- monadic2 6y agoIt's not so much about trust as it is about defense in depth. Many states won't cooperate with american litigation.
- 0-_-0 6y agoBecause trust is what they sell, unlike an ISP.
- waihtis 6y agoI was a very passive torrenter anyway, just found it easier to source stuff in alternative ways