Anonymous P2P - P2P-Zone

wwasicek · 08-12-03, 12:33 PM

Hi,

I am new to your forum. I have read some of the articles on security and privacy.

1. Even with a firewall you have to share files through some available port. If the ISP is port scanning they will find the open port and hence find you? Most ISP just looks at the traffic by large bandwidth users. It just a money thing. If you have 2% of your customers sucking up 90% of the bandwidth then you want to get ride of them right?

2. If you use an anonymous web proxy service like www.anonx.com, what are the downsides? I found out about them on the www.shareaza.com and klboard.ath.cx . The shareaza board thinks that the idea is great, but only a few them have tried the service. The klboard loves it and they give a good description of the service and all that AnonX can do. I am using a trail offer from their tech support (techsupport@anonx.com). Everything seems to be great it hides my ip address, the packets are encrypted, and it does all ports and all protocals. I can surf, p2p, irc, ....... This almost seems to good to be true. Any thought? If any of you tried the service, let me know what you think?

TankGirl · 08-12-03, 01:30 PM

Hi wwasicek, and welcome aboard.

If you have an ISP limiting your bandwidth usage with any sort of caps or quotas, proxying does not help with that problem, as you will be using the same bandwidth whether your traffic goes directly peer-to-peer or indirectly peer-to-proxy-to-peer. Your ISP always knows how much bandwidth you use as every data packet you send and receive goes through them.

A firewall is a sort of doorman watching the traffic between your computer and Internet. Its main purpose is to detect and block malicious connection attempts coming from Internet. Personal firewalls often also watch your outgoing traffic which may help you to detect the activity of malicious software (trojan horses, 'call-home' spyware) running in your computer. Depending on how your firewall is configured and what p2p software you are using, a firewall may provide some protection against things like port probing but in itself a firewall cannot provide any serious privacy protection for a p2p user.

Some ISPs throttle the traffic to the standard ports used by popular p2p programs. Luckily many programs (like eMule and WASTE) allow you to choose the ports you use and thus circumvent port-specific throttling.

If you want more security in your filesharing, you need to use software like WASTE that encrypts all traffic from outsiders, including your ISP. WASTE works fine for sharing with a small trusted group of friends. Your ISP will still know how much bandwidth you use but they (nor anybody else outside the trusted group) have no way of telling what you are uploading and downloading.

I don't know www.anonx.com so I can't comment on that. I would be quite surprised though if they would be able to provide an all-protocol proxy service with full broadband speeds for 5.95 USD/month.

- tg

wwasicek · 08-12-03, 01:48 PM

TankGirl,

Thanks for the info. I have the AnonX trail offer working right now. Add the speed is great. I have a cable modem. My bandwidth fluxs around 2Mbs down and 786Kbs up. When I run AnonX I get the same. I have download 1-2GB per day for the last 3 days with AnonX. I run many p2p apps, but am using Shareaza and Kazaa-Lite the most. AnonX allows works for the IRCs
I use the eMule/eDonkey, bittorent, Gneutella2, and a few other networks without a problem. The $5.95 is not free, but it worth it if they do not keep RIAA of my butt.

I used use PeerGaurdian Relgiously, but I got a letter from my ISP informing me that I need to stop sharing Sony Copyrighted material. That when I started looking for some assistance in hiding my identity in the p2p world.

If anonymous proxy services are not the anwser, then can you offer me another alternative.

Thanks

TankGirl · 08-12-03, 02:12 PM

As far as they can provide that good speeds for 6 dollars per month it sounds good to me - of course assuming they are trustworthy as guardians of your privacy. It remains to be seen what happens with the speeds when the service gets more popular. P2P is very bandwidth-hungry and they will need to keep buying more line capacity as their clientele grows. If you continue to use the service, please report back to us later on how it evolves.

Commercial anonymoys proxies supporting p2p protocols are a technically viable solution to the privacy problem up to their bandwidth capacity. Like any centralized services they are however vulnerable to blocking by your ISP and to legal attacks by the copyright nazis.

For small group privacy protection WASTE is a good free decentralized solution. I expect to see scalable anonymizing decentralized networks to appear in near future (say 1-2 years). Freenet of course is a scalable privacy-protecting network but I seriously doubt its possibilities as a filesharing platform.

- tg

wwasicek · 08-12-03, 02:56 PM

Thanks again TankGirl

I shot AnonX Tech Support your concern about bandwidth limits as they grow. Here what there response was.

------------------------
WW,

Let me easy your concern. We have 40+ servers world wide each with a GB of bandwith. We can afford to allocate 1.5 Mbs per customer. The level of service that you are experincing now will continue as we grow beyond the 22K current users.

---Thanks AnonX Tech Support

----------------------------

Your right about one thing can we trust them? I guess we don't know until RIAA tries to SUE them.

AweShucks · 08-12-03, 04:33 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by wwasicek
I used use PeerGaurdian Relgiously, but I got a letter from my ISP informing me that I need to stop sharing Sony Copyrighted material. That when I started looking for some assistance in hiding my identity in the p2p world.

Thanks

Was there any software you needed to install with the AnonX service?? Essentially the anonx service will work fine to hide you from the RIAA etc.
But if your ISP is now monitoring your traffic and looking at the packets the service will do little good. Unless there is some type of encryption on your end which it doesn't sound as if there is?
But your ISP is the most likely not the one to worry the most about anyway

wwasicek · 08-12-03, 05:06 PM

There was a AnonX.pbk file that I put onto my desktop. It is "VPN dialing phone book". Download it, Click it, put in your user name and password, and your going.

The connectin show that I have 128-Bit Encryption.

JackSpratts · 08-12-03, 10:25 PM

so they're grossing $3996/mo per server if each server is filled to capacity while maintaining their stated 1.5MB individual bandwith margins (a GB divided by 1.5MB=666[users]X$6/mo). i don't know where they're buying those speeds for that money but one way would be to piggyback off some unused spectrum. at that rate they'll need 150 servers for each 100,000 users (soulseek's limit). they’ll need 7500 servers if they want to play in fasttrack's park.

can it be done? no doubt. you can throw enough resources at the problem and it goes away for a while. but it's an awfully centralized way to get around a legal predicament, and the law is very good at going after the center - it's easy to find. i'm more comfortable with decentralized solutions, they've proved the most effective so far. besides, i'd like to see any monies going to content providers directly and by that i mean the people who actually create the stuff. that 30 million dollars a month in subscription revenues (7500 serversx666usersx$6/mo) could buy a lot of guitar picks and go a long way generally if it went to the artists instead of yet another 3rd party parasite. p2p has been raining cash on straight laced corporate isp’s for four years running and they return the favor by rolling over to the riaa and whining on about "bandwidth hogs". personally i prefer free but if i’m going to pay i want my check cashed by a real musician with stringy hair and a habit. be kinda cool to see david crosby's name scrawled across the back.

- js.

wwasicek · 09-12-03, 02:12 AM

Your math makes sense. I would still pay for peace of mind if it going to work this will in the future.

Gutrguy · 09-12-03, 04:35 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by JackSpratts
personally i prefer free but if i’m going to pay i want my check cashed by a real musician with stringy hair and a habit.
- js.

www.semiblind.com

check please......

wwasicek · 11-12-03, 01:21 PM

AnonX is based in Vanuatu but at least one of the ip address of there webpage is 38.112.161.130 which is here in the US.

Does this point of presence in the US make them obligated to turn over records to RIAA if they have any records?

AnonX claims that the billing corp is separate from the proxy service and that RIAA can not get anything usefull from that info.

Plus the proxy service keep NO records of logs or web traffic. Their stance is we can not turn over material that we don't have.

Does this sound realistic to you?

08-12-03, 12:33 PM	#1
wwasicek Registered User Join Date: Dec 2003 Posts: 27	Anonymous P2P Hi, I am new to your forum. I have read some of the articles on security and privacy. 1. Even with a firewall you have to share files through some available port. If the ISP is port scanning they will find the open port and hence find you? Most ISP just looks at the traffic by large bandwidth users. It just a money thing. If you have 2% of your customers sucking up 90% of the bandwidth then you want to get ride of them right? 2. If you use an anonymous web proxy service like www.anonx.com, what are the downsides? I found out about them on the www.shareaza.com and klboard.ath.cx . The shareaza board thinks that the idea is great, but only a few them have tried the service. The klboard loves it and they give a good description of the service and all that AnonX can do. I am using a trail offer from their tech support (techsupport@anonx.com). Everything seems to be great it hides my ip address, the packets are encrypted, and it does all ports and all protocals. I can surf, p2p, irc, ....... This almost seems to good to be true. Any thought? If any of you tried the service, let me know what you think?

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08-12-03, 01:30 PM	#2
TankGirl Madame Comrade Join Date: May 2000 Location: Area 25 Posts: 5,587	Hi wwasicek, and welcome aboard. If you have an ISP limiting your bandwidth usage with any sort of caps or quotas, proxying does not help with that problem, as you will be using the same bandwidth whether your traffic goes directly peer-to-peer or indirectly peer-to-proxy-to-peer. Your ISP always knows how much bandwidth you use as every data packet you send and receive goes through them. A firewall is a sort of doorman watching the traffic between your computer and Internet. Its main purpose is to detect and block malicious connection attempts coming from Internet. Personal firewalls often also watch your outgoing traffic which may help you to detect the activity of malicious software (trojan horses, 'call-home' spyware) running in your computer. Depending on how your firewall is configured and what p2p software you are using, a firewall may provide some protection against things like port probing but in itself a firewall cannot provide any serious privacy protection for a p2p user. Some ISPs throttle the traffic to the standard ports used by popular p2p programs. Luckily many programs (like eMule and WASTE) allow you to choose the ports you use and thus circumvent port-specific throttling. If you want more security in your filesharing, you need to use software like WASTE that encrypts all traffic from outsiders, including your ISP. WASTE works fine for sharing with a small trusted group of friends. Your ISP will still know how much bandwidth you use but they (nor anybody else outside the trusted group) have no way of telling what you are uploading and downloading. I don't know www.anonx.com so I can't comment on that. I would be quite surprised though if they would be able to provide an all-protocol proxy service with full broadband speeds for 5.95 USD/month. - tg

08-12-03, 01:48 PM	#3
wwasicek Registered User Join Date: Dec 2003 Posts: 27	TankGirl, Thanks for the info. I have the AnonX trail offer working right now. Add the speed is great. I have a cable modem. My bandwidth fluxs around 2Mbs down and 786Kbs up. When I run AnonX I get the same. I have download 1-2GB per day for the last 3 days with AnonX. I run many p2p apps, but am using Shareaza and Kazaa-Lite the most. AnonX allows works for the IRCs I use the eMule/eDonkey, bittorent, Gneutella2, and a few other networks without a problem. The $5.95 is not free, but it worth it if they do not keep RIAA of my butt. I used use PeerGaurdian Relgiously, but I got a letter from my ISP informing me that I need to stop sharing Sony Copyrighted material. That when I started looking for some assistance in hiding my identity in the p2p world. If anonymous proxy services are not the anwser, then can you offer me another alternative. Thanks

08-12-03, 02:12 PM	#4
TankGirl Madame Comrade Join Date: May 2000 Location: Area 25 Posts: 5,587	As far as they can provide that good speeds for 6 dollars per month it sounds good to me - of course assuming they are trustworthy as guardians of your privacy. It remains to be seen what happens with the speeds when the service gets more popular. P2P is very bandwidth-hungry and they will need to keep buying more line capacity as their clientele grows. If you continue to use the service, please report back to us later on how it evolves. Commercial anonymoys proxies supporting p2p protocols are a technically viable solution to the privacy problem up to their bandwidth capacity. Like any centralized services they are however vulnerable to blocking by your ISP and to legal attacks by the copyright nazis. For small group privacy protection WASTE is a good free decentralized solution. I expect to see scalable anonymizing decentralized networks to appear in near future (say 1-2 years). Freenet of course is a scalable privacy-protecting network but I seriously doubt its possibilities as a filesharing platform. - tg

08-12-03, 02:56 PM	#5
wwasicek Registered User Join Date: Dec 2003 Posts: 27	Thanks again TankGirl I shot AnonX Tech Support your concern about bandwidth limits as they grow. Here what there response was. ------------------------ WW, Let me easy your concern. We have 40+ servers world wide each with a GB of bandwith. We can afford to allocate 1.5 Mbs per customer. The level of service that you are experincing now will continue as we grow beyond the 22K current users. ---Thanks AnonX Tech Support ---------------------------- Your right about one thing can we trust them? I guess we don't know until RIAA tries to SUE them.

08-12-03, 05:06 PM	#7
wwasicek Registered User Join Date: Dec 2003 Posts: 27	There was a AnonX.pbk file that I put onto my desktop. It is "VPN dialing phone book". Download it, Click it, put in your user name and password, and your going. The connectin show that I have 128-Bit Encryption.

08-12-03, 10:25 PM	#8
JackSpratts Join Date: May 2001 Location: New England Posts: 10,016	so they're grossing $3996/mo per server if each server is filled to capacity while maintaining their stated 1.5MB individual bandwith margins (a GB divided by 1.5MB=666[users]X$6/mo). i don't know where they're buying those speeds for that money but one way would be to piggyback off some unused spectrum. at that rate they'll need 150 servers for each 100,000 users (soulseek's limit). they’ll need 7500 servers if they want to play in fasttrack's park. can it be done? no doubt. you can throw enough resources at the problem and it goes away for a while. but it's an awfully centralized way to get around a legal predicament, and the law is very good at going after the center - it's easy to find. i'm more comfortable with decentralized solutions, they've proved the most effective so far. besides, i'd like to see any monies going to content providers directly and by that i mean the people who actually create the stuff. that 30 million dollars a month in subscription revenues (7500 serversx666usersx$6/mo) could buy a lot of guitar picks and go a long way generally if it went to the artists instead of yet another 3rd party parasite. p2p has been raining cash on straight laced corporate isp’s for four years running and they return the favor by rolling over to the riaa and whining on about "bandwidth hogs". personally i prefer free but if i’m going to pay i want my check cashed by a real musician with stringy hair and a habit. be kinda cool to see david crosby's name scrawled across the back. - js.

09-12-03, 02:12 AM	#9
wwasicek Registered User Join Date: Dec 2003 Posts: 27	Your math makes sense. I would still pay for peace of mind if it going to work this will in the future.

11-12-03, 01:21 PM	#11
wwasicek Registered User Join Date: Dec 2003 Posts: 27	AnonX is based in Vanuatu but at least one of the ip address of there webpage is 38.112.161.130 which is here in the US. Does this point of presence in the US make them obligated to turn over records to RIAA if they have any records? AnonX claims that the billing corp is separate from the proxy service and that RIAA can not get anything usefull from that info. Plus the proxy service keep NO records of logs or web traffic. Their stance is we can not turn over material that we don't have. Does this sound realistic to you?