gHacks technology news » relakks

Anonymous VPN Announced By Pirate Bay

Martin — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 17:55:14 +0000

The guys operating the popular Bittorrent tracker called The Pirate Bay have announced a new anonymous VPN (virtual private network) service named ipredator mocking the new Swedish anti-piracy legislation Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive (ipred). Users from all over the world can use the virtual private network to stay anonymous while connected to the Internet. The service itself is currently in beta and invite only. It is expected to be released to the public before April 1st.

Only a handful of additional information are known about the service at this time. It is expected to cost about $5 per month which is a more than acceptable price considering the bandwidth requirements to run such a networking service. They state that they do not log traffic data of any kind which would make it impossible to identify the connections made by a user of the service in case of a server seizure.

It is very likely that the new service will come under heavy traffic the minute it becomes public. Similar services such as Relakks were not able to cope with the massive signups after they have gone public.

Interested users can enter their email address to be informed when the anonymous virtual private networking service goes public.

Tags: anonymous, anonymous internet, anonymous vpn, ipredator, network, relakks, the pirate bay, virtual network, virtual private network, vpn

What can I do if Bittorrent gets throttled or blocked

Martin — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 14:54:32 +0000

It is important to know what to do if your Internet Service Provider decides to throttle or block certain ports that are used by applications that use the Bittorrent protocol. Comcast recently started using an application called Sandvine which uses a new way to throttle or block traffic. Sandvine uses something that is called session management which basically limits the number of open connections on your computer without caring about ports and protocols for instance.

This means that the old ‘If they block port 6881 I simply use another one” game does not work anymore and even encrypting your bittorrent traffic will not have a positive effect on the amount of connections allowed. This means that your only choice in this matter is to reduce the number of open connections at any given time to a value that lies below Sandvine’s limit.

I think we all agree that this is not the most user friendly behavior considering that it effects all Bittorrent users not only those that download the latest movies, music and games.

There are however a few possibilities that I would like to outline to avoid Sandvine and use Bittorrent as usual.

1. Switch to another ISP

This is not easy. I hate switching Internet Service Providers because it could mean that I would have to be without Internet for some time. It could also mean that I would have to pay more or get less for the same amount of money. I would for instance only go back to ISDN if I would have no other choice.

You should definitely search for the ISP name plus a set of keywords such as Bittorrent, traffic shaping, port blocking to make sure that the new ISP is not using Sandvine or similar applications as well.

2. Use Relakks

VPN or SSH connections should work but do cost a few dollars a month. The good thing about those services is that you are not only able to avoid traffic shaping like that of Sandvine or other applications but remain completely anonymous in most cases.

I can only speak forRelakks which is a Swedish VPN solution that costs about 5 Euro (6 Dollars) a month. Your IP is not visible to the connected computers, only the IP of Relakks is shown to them which is great if you want to remain anonymous (to them).

This is probably the better way than to switch to another ISP immediately. I would suggest to try it out for a month and see if the speed that you get is sufficient and that it is indeed working as intended against Sandvine and other traffic shapers.

Tags: anonymous, bittorrent, comcast, P2p, relakks

Anonymous on the Internet with Relakks

Martin — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 12:32:12 +0000

Relakks offers an easy and anonymous way to be on the Internet by tunneling all traffic through their service which is based in Sweden. This effectively means that your home IP is not revealed to websites, p2p clients and servers and all other computers and servers that you are connecting to.

The traffic is encrypted as well which makes it unlikely that someone is able to spy on it including your ISP. I have been writing about Relakks before and they had some serious troubles with their service at the beginning which turned off many users who tried the service initially.

This has changed to the better. I was able to connect and use the service whenever I wanted in the last weeks and had no troubles whatsoever with slow speeds or unreachable hosts. The connection is stable and fast enough for everyones needs. I was able to surf, use emule to try the p2p capabilities, listen to Internet radio and download from the Usenet at the same time without problems.

The maximum speeds are a little bit lower than what I used to get without Relakks. Everyone has to make the decision for himself if the extra bit of security and privacy is worth the slower speed. Slow meant for instance that my Usenet downloads were capped at about 8-10 Mbit instead of the usual 16 Mbit.

Not a big problem for me though. It has to be noted that Relakks is not a free service. It is possible to either purchase a monthly account for 5 Euro or a yearly for 50 Euro. I’m currently trying the monthly account and will switch to the yearly one once it expires.

Tags: anonymous internet, hide ip, how to hide my ip, relakks

Relakks makes a comeback

Martin — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 06:14:06 +0000

Relakks encrypts all traffic from your computer to the Internet by using a VPN connection which means that your real IP is not revealed on the Internet at all. The service had serious troubles in the beginning; users were unable to connect to Relakks at all, had slow connections and email support was terrible. Well, they apparently are making a comeback by emailing past users inviting them to freely test Relakks once again for seven days without charges.

I decided to try it out once again and was able to sign up again with their service. You have to configure a new VPN connection in your operating system which is explained in the faq section of their website. Details are provided for Microsoft Windows XP, Vista and Mac OS X. Even beginners should be able to create a VPN connection this way. You can now choose to automatically use Relakks whenever you connect to the Internet or manually activate the service, I decided to use it manually but it does not make a difference as long as the service is running.

I suggest to check your IP if you are really connected through the VPN before you do any other activity on the Internet. Let us talk about speeds. Web surfing does not seem to be limited at all by Relakks, everything works fine and fast as usual. I was able to retrieve emails using Thunderbird as well, Winamp streams are working and streaming video on sites like Youtube looks usual.

I decided that it was now time to stress test the connection and see how fast I could go with it. What can I say: Speeds vary a lot. I was not able to maximize my 16 Mbit connection which is no problem usually, the most I got from Relakks was 11 Mbit which is fine but not great. I was able to connect to Giganews and Bittorrent without problems.

It remains to be seen if the service will continue to function this way or if the servers will again go down if to many users sign up for the service. I will keep an eye on it for the next seven days and let you know if I was able to see any changes.

I would sign up with them if that is of interest to any of you. Let me know.

Tags: hide ip, relakks, relakks vpn, Security, virtual private network, vpn

Relakks Revisited

Martin — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 21:07:16 +0000

Relakks
had a few problems shortly after their start due to the amount of users that registered the service right after it was introduced. Connections have been really slow and I had no chance to further test the service and write about my experience with it. I’am currently writing this article while being connected to Relakks and everything is working fine so far. I’m able to open websites and surf the internet without problems. I’am able to check my email and download files using Relakks.

Looking up the IP reveals 83.233.243.50 which is not a IP that my provider is assigning to me normally. A Whois Lookup revealed a Swedish IP address owned by Labs2, the company that is hosting the website and providing the backbone of the Relakks network. This means that no one is currently able to identify me through my real IP because it is not revealed when I’am connecting to their service.

My download speed is almost maxing out like usual. You might remember that I had really lousy download and upload speeds. Those are almost my normal speeds that my connection is capable of: I normally have 1.8 MBps and with Relakks enabled I average 1.4 MBps. So normal download speed is great, what about P2P connections like torrent downloads ?

The connection seemed normal. It is rather problematic to tell for sure but the speeds looked good after a while which is the usual behavior with p2p downloads. All legal of course, hehe.

I can only say that this is becoming a great service, suggest you give it a shot.

Tags: anonymous, bittorrent, relakks

How to access Meebo if it is blocked

Martin — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 12:04:35 +0000

Meebo is a web instant messenger that currently supports AIM & ICQ, Yahoo Messenger, Jabber & GTalk and MSN. Instead of installing the instant messenger itself you simply login using the Meebo website which offers the same functionality as the standalone messenger.

Many schools and universities already banned the Meebo website from their networks and it was almost impossible to access Meebo from within the network. The Meebo team created a application called Meebo repeater which acts as a proxy and makes it possible again to use Meebo from within the network. The only catch is that it has to be running on a computer all the time, they suggest you run it from your computer at home which would mean you should pay a flat fee for the internet, otherwise this would not be practical.

All you have to do is download the Meebo repeater from the Meebo website, unpack it and run it. The Meebo repeater will automatically configure the service and tell you the internet address that you will have to use to connect to Meebo. You might have to configure your firewall to allow Meebo repeater access to the net.

Meebo repeater is open source and able to use SSL and standard connections to the Meebo network. If you can’t live without Meebo use th Meebo repeater, works great.

Tags: anonymous, meebo, relakks

My first experience with Relakks

Martin — Tue, 15 Aug 2006 16:07:41 +0000

I signed up with Relakks
yesterday and was satisfied with this clean and easy process. I had to provide only some information like name, email, password and username and was able to log on to their system. My status was inactive at that time because I did not make a purchase yet. I decided to try the service for one month and had to provide my credit card details in order to do so. One month would cost 6$ which is a good price if they live up to their promises which are a) anonymous internet experience and b) maximum speed.

Setting up the service was pretty easy as well on my windows xp system. I only had to create a new VPN connection entering the details they provided on their website and was free to connect to their system with the username and password I entered when I registered my account with them. My first try was to check on the IP address that I was surfing with and it differed from the usual ones I was using. A quick ip look up revealed that the IP belonged to Arabic Computer System Co. which seems kinda strange to me.

I had no means to investigate this further because the service is currently really slow. They announced at their website that more users than expected signed up for the service and that everything is slower than expected. They are trying to fix the matter. Will keep you updated on this.

Talking about anonymity. Someone pointed out that the service does not mean true anonymity and I can only agree to that. Relakks does know what you are doing which means every law enforcement agency with a search warrant will still be able to retrieve your ip and actions and trace it back to you. I don´t think that this is a big problem at the moment unless you are the kind of person who is committing heavy crimes on the internet.

Tags: anonymous, bittorrent, emule, internet, relakks

Relakks the first commercial darknet

Martin — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 19:33:19 +0000

The Pirate Party is a swedish party that has three main goals: Protected Privacy, Free Knowledge and Shared Culture. They are making a bid for the Swedish parliament in the upcoming election and just introduced the worlds first commercial darknet called Relakks. Let us take a look at the definition of Relakks when on the Internet from the website:

“Relakks provides services to help individuals to assure the security and integrity of their information. Relakks’ responsibility stems from the strong Swedish tradition of protecting the integrity of private life and all forms of communication between individuals. “

Basically Relakks is a service that lets you surf the web anonymously using everything that you use normally including web surfing, p2p networks, usenet, ftp downloads, irc and everything else that you can think of. How is this achieved ?

“The Service consists of an encrypted VPN tunnel between your computer and RELAKKS. The IP-number you receive from your existing ISP is only used to connect your computer to RELAKKS, from there on RELAKKS substitute your existing IP-number with a new IP-number from RELAKKS. This gives you a number of advantages::

• Your existing ISP will not be able to intercept and track your applications or communication
• Your existing ISP can not limit what you can do nor limit what information you can access
• Other organizations or individuals can’t intercept or track your applications or communication.�?

The creators guarantee the same speeds that your connections allows without slowdowns. You might want to take a look at the following topics that are answered on the Relakks website: Security, Question & Answers, Legal.

The service is not free but costs 5$ a month which is not a huge sum compared to the advantages and security that you gain by using the service. A yearly subscription costs 50$.

If I get enough response I might give the service a try and write about it later on. Let me know.
Tags: anonymous, relakks, sweden

Related posts

What can I do if Bittorrent gets throttled or blocked (5)

Relakks Revisited (15)

My first experience with Relakks (5)

How to access Meebo if it is blocked (24)

Anonymous VPN Announced By Pirate Bay (7)