One of the best ways of accessing these services from outside the supported countries is to use a VPN, a virtual private network. This is helpful for citizens on holidays who want to access the services abroad but also – obviously – for users from other countries who want to access the services.

UltraVPN was discovered by Nakodari from Addictive Tips and we have to say that it is one of the easiest solutions right now. It works great currently and gives access to Hulu, Pandora and all the other US-only websites and services out there. The streaming quality is excellent unlike that of other free competitors (like Hotspot Shield). Our guess however is that it is only a matter of time – thanks to popularity – before the performance of UltraVPN will get a dent or two as well.

Installation is a breeze. All the user needs is to create an account at the UltraVPN website (only username and password required). The VPN setup is available for Windows and Mac OS. The username and password have to be supplied on startup. The vpn service will notify the user that the computer has been connected to it. What’s left is to access the websites and services to test the speed and quality of the service.

Head over to the Ultra VPN website to download the client, create an account and access additional information about the virtual private network. The vpn service has been successfully tested with Hulu, ABC and Pandora.

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Privacy advocates have already expressed great concern as proxy servers are not only in use by individuals who want to protect their privacy but also by companies and even Internet Service Providers, sometimes without the knowledge of the end user. VPN (Virtual Private Network) would for example be classified as proxy servers under the new legislation. As is the popular Tor client that has been created specifically to counter censorship in the world. Several web browsers like Opera Mini or Opera 10 are also making use of proxy servers to compress data to decrease the time it takes to load websites.

The United States Sentencing Commission will vote on the new legislation on April 15. It is set to take effect on November 1 if is is passing the voting process. You can read up on the EFFs stance here

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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.

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Restrictions on the other hand are usually implemented by an Internet service to prevent access to the service from users that do not live in the target area. Some prominent examples are the Internet Radio Pandora and the streaming video services Hulu and ABC.

Gpass is a free software that provides an encrypted connection to bypass Internet censorship and restrictions. It makes use of encrypted socks tunnels to launch applications and can use Skype and Tor as backup tunnels.

Every application that connects to the Internet can be used with Gpass. Most run out of the box without having to enter details into the application. Some require that the proxy server (localhost:8000) is set in the application itself.

Gpass provides links to a few applications like Firefox, Internet Explorer and the default email client in it’s program interface. The user can drag and drop additional applications in the interface so that they can be launched to bypass restrictions as well.

Gpass works with Hulu, ABC and Pandora but the connection is rather slow and the viewing experience therefor limited. The main use of Gpass is therefor to access information on the Internet without difficulties and reprisals.

Users can check if Gpass is running properly by looking in the title frame of the application that they started. It should state [via Gpass] which is the indicator that the service is working. The IPs of the service are located in the United States.

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Each client creates a unique ID and password and the user who wants to give access to his computer has to send that data to the other user who enters it in his computer. The presentation mode for example displays the full computer screen of the client’s computer giving the other user the option to follow each and every action of the client in real time. There is virtually no delay and the quality of the picture is really good. Even small fonts are readable.

The other options, remote support, file transfers and virtual private networks work the same way. Everything is streamlined for ease of use. Transfers and connections work behind firewalls as well which works nicely in combination with the portable version of Teamviewer.

Teamviewer is free for commercial usage. A few additional versions are available at the developers homepage that suite specific needs. A support version is available for customers which is a basic version of Teamviewer that can only be used to connect to the client’s computer.

You also find a server version and a manager version at the download page. This is an excellent solution for anyone who has to remotely connect to clients computers regularly, who wants to do presentations over the Internet or use a virtual private network. It is free only for non-commercial usage.

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While three Gigabytes is a lot of bytes when surfing the Internet it’s not enough if you regularly watch movies or hear radio which have much higher bandwidth demands than normal websites. Hotspot Shield does not require user accounts which means that they must have different means to track user bandwidth. Two possibilities are the IP address of the user and / or the MAC address of his network adapter.

Raymond already conducted some research on his own and he discovered that the Mac address is being used by Hotspot Shield to keep track of the bandwidth usage. The only thing left to do would be to change the MAC address to another one which would basically mean that the counter would be reset to 0 again and that the user could use another 3 Gigabytes with Hotspot Shield.

The easiest way to do that is a software called Mac MakeUP. Just install the software, select your network card, click on the Generate Random button, select completely random mac and click on the Change button. Et voila the MAC address has been changed. Reconnect to Hotspot Shield and you should be able to connect normally and use the service as usual.

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I was no exception to this when I decided to fool around a bit with my AVM Fritz!Box (Broadband Router quite common in Germany and Austria that runs with Linux) and installed – among other amusing things – the dropbear SSH Server on it. I was then able to connect to my home network from all around the world using just my dyndns-account and PuTTy, or better his cousin PuTTyPortable, which runs from thumb drives without leaving traces behind on the host system. Oh the joy!

After going through the massive troubles of installing and configuring dropbear via FTP and VM, I first started to think about the use I could get out of this.

note: I didn’t intend to give instructions of how to use PuTTy or to set up those functions I mention, more to give some inspiration. Google helps all, but if someone is interested in a particular HowTo, just ask, I’m here ;).

First of all, I found out that I could use my encrypted Connection to eliminate some holes in my firewall, VNC always being a big thorn in my side. If I use the standard ports, it’s insecure, and if I use custom ports, I’m bound to fail to remember them when needed. With the SSH Connection, I only have to remember one custom port (in fact, PuTTy does remember it), and I can spare the additional effort and cpu time for encrypting VNC sessions, as well as I could stuff all commonly used holes in my firewall.

Incredibly simple, but at the same time incredibly effective. If you want something like this, the tunneling function (also port forwarding) is for you. It also allowed me – with some tweaking on the router as well – to view the html-based configuration side from outside over the secure line, taking a look at the list of calls received in absence.

The next useful function I could think of was to use my secure Connection to obscure my internet traffic. Not to circumvent IP-Checks, but to prevent the casual network analyzer of having anything to work with besides my current IP at home. No destination, no protocol, no data. Setting it up was even easier than setting up the port tunnels, which, from time to time, tend to be a real pain in the ass, so to speak. For every open SSH Connection and without further configuration, PuTTy procures a full-fledged SOCKS proxy server for you. Ain’t that nice? And with plugins like QuickProxy for Firefox you are free to switch it on or off as you like. Which, of course, is also available as a portable version. But you all knew that already.

The third function I use pretty often was a nasty one to get by, but it was definitely worth the trouble, since it fits my setting nigh perfectly. I’m quite fond of VPNs, but I have yet to encounter a VPN-software that really satisfies me and my personal needs and/or beliefs. So, among the other amusing programs I set up on my router (as mentioned above), was a VPN-server, to allow me to connect to my network-enabled hard drives at home. To cut it short, it worked, I felt secure and all, but it was impossible to take the solution with me, since all VPN-Implementations (OpenVPN, that is) required installation and the creation (and configuration) of a virtual network adapter. So I tried to bring up a feasible solution involving PuTTy.

The easy one was to use a protocol that allows you to transfer files, (s)FTP, SCP, or even HTTP, but all require a special server component to be run on the target, which is not possible for me without leaving one of my computers on, which is entirely out of the question. The NAS is even able to manage FTP, but it would require me to rely on FTP and FTP alone. No Samba and FTP at the same time for the same files. So I had to discard that as well.

The next thought was to just forward port 139 (used by windows filesharing services) to my target network. It would’ve worked, but it would’ve rendered me incapable of using the filesharing service for local shares. I’m using this solution at work, so it’s either home or work. It would work, I could only start up the connection of needed, and so on, but I wasn’t just happy with it, so I digged further.

If I had found a software for windows, that used not the windows filesharing service but an own implementation of it, I could just tell it to use another port and forward that one, but unfortunately, I found no such program.
The best I could come up with was to create a network adapter as VPN does, but without configuring anything on it except for a meaningless IP, and then forward all traffic on 10.0.0.1:139 to my network at home. Works like a charm, but if anyone ever happens to find a program like mentioned above, I would be more than happy to give it a try. Portable Applications preferred ;)

Another function available, though I did not use it very often, was the forwarding of the X11-protocol used by common Linux-desktops, which gives you the power of controlling the remote computer similar to VNC but without the need for additional software.

The last one I want to mention is not one of PuTTy, but one that uses its opened shell to go through with it. A little program called etherwake can be run on common Linux-powered systems which enables you to start your computer without actually sitting in front of it via the magic of WOL (pun intended). A pre-set shell-script that’s run with a short command, a VNC server installed as a service, and you’re good to go. Connect the Router, wake up the computer, connect using VNC and take a look at the all-important document you left at home.

So, if you happen to own a Fritz!Box or one of them shiny, new, world-wide-available OpenSource-Routers, or just an old crappy computer that could deliver a reasonable SSH server for an equally reasonable amount of watts spent, maybe those ideas incorporated one for you.

Also, please notice that PuTTyTray works from Thumb Drives as well without leaving any Data behind (if you use the “session from file”-option), but has the advantage that it can be minimized to the system tray.

If you’re planning on keeping the connection up for quite some time, also remember to activate the “Keep Alive”-function ;)

Edit: After getting rebuked for not doing it from the beginning, I’d like to incorporate some useful links that might get you started.
Complete Installation Guide for Telnet, FTP, SSH, WOL & VPN on a Fritz!Box, German.
You can also get this functions creating a nice and easy pseudo-firmware-image here, but I guess one could lack the insight needed to fill in all the right information if he never did it manually before. So, feel free to screw around using the above link and once you figured it all out, use this one. Also German, but with very little text ;)
Another tutorial, this time for the Linksys WRT54G, including SSH and Tunneling.

Thx again to Ace_NoOne, who could’ve used Google instead ;)

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Lob was pointing out in my article on accessing Hulu from outside the United States that there was another possibility to watch Hulu movies even if you would be living (currently or permanently) outside of the United States. His suggestion was to download and install a software called Hotspot Shield which is a free VPN solution located in the United States.

Download and installation worked fine and I did not have to configure anything by myself to get the VPN service up and running. A quick test at Hulustuff (I do not have an invite yet for Hulu, if anyone has one left feel free to pass it on to me, that would be really nice) revealed that most videos were working while some told me this: “Sorry, this video is currently unavailable. We apologize for any inconvenience.”

This did not seem to be a problem with the VPN but a internal problem., maybe the video was not available anymore at all or Hulu had difficulties streaming the content.

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“Unfortunately this video is currently not available in your country or region. We apologize for the inconvenience”. That means that if you live in the United States but are currently abroad you can’t watch the videos at Hulu. Unless, you have found a way to use a service that hides your IP and displays one from the United States.

The following method is unfortunately not free but works perfectly to watch all videos at Hulu. Secure-Tunnel offers a software that tunnels your connection through their service which is located in the United States. This means that you can use their software to watch videos at Hulu plus use any other service that is geotargeted to the United States. This includes Pandora for instance.

Secure-Tunnel offers several packages and all work beginning with the Gold package which costs roughly $8 per month. What I really like about this solution is that the software that you install is recognizing software that is connecting to the Internet and is asking you if you want to tunnel that software.

Besides the obvious effect that you can watch Hulu videos and listen to Pandora Radio streams you also hide your own IP and use an encrypted connection. This increases the security level of your connection as well as your own privacy.

As you can see it is possible to access Hulu from outside the United States and watch all shows without interruption.

Sample Video:

Read More:

Secure Tunnel (aff)

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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.

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