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John2086
join:2012-03-09

John2086 to swe3tdave

Member

to swe3tdave

Re: Bite Me Copyright Trolls. I'll Upload More!

quote:
be a good kid and follow the rules, direct your anger at something constructive...
There are people who have followed the rules and still have been falsely accused of copyright infringement by Voltage. So apparently following the rules won't make a difference either -- you can still be threatened with a lawsuit (not to mention someone could have potentially spoofed your IP address).

Now perhaps I'm missing something, but from the VPN services I have researched, a lot of them claim it is impossible to corroborate your IP address with the one they assign you. For one, they keep no logs, secondly, some of them use dynamic IP addresses, and lastly, the organization of their data around the world makes it extremely difficult to legally obtain the requested information.

So for those who are cynical of VPNs, are these services lying? Other than logs, is there a way to corroborate your online activities through their services?

Dr Facts
@gc.ca

Dr Facts

Anon

Yes and no.

Whatever you do online you leave a trail now sometimes that trail is like Godzilla stomping across Tokyo; anyone fool can follow it and sometimes that trail is just a slight shift in the dirt that only a Mohican tracker could spot but regardless the trail is there.

Now, a VPN is like the latter, it makes the "trail" convoluted and difficult to follow, not impossible. So if you use your VPN to download Voltage movies because you hate good movies or something odds are the trolls are not going to make the effort to track you down. Remember they're not in it for their copyright, they're in it to make money and a VPN makes it to expensive.

BUT if you used your VPN to say make a threat against the President or hacked into the Apple servers to steal the blueprints for the next iPad? It's Liam Nelson time; they don't know who you are but they will find you and they will sue you / throw you into Gitmo.

TL;DR VPN will protect you from Trolls but will not make you invisible online.
Ree
join:2007-04-29
h0h0h0

Ree to John2086

Member

to John2086
said by John2086:

There are people who have followed the rules and still have been falsely accused of copyright infringement by Voltage.

It's a pretty small chance that someone will be falsely accused (unless the accuser is picking IPs at random and lying about having any evidence). Yes the user could have been hacked and be acting as a proxy, but not too likely.
said by John2086:

So for those who are cynical of VPNs, are these services lying?

If someone is concerned about the small chance of false accusations, I don't see why they shouldn't also be concerned about the small chance of the VPN provider lying.
John2086
join:2012-03-09

John2086 to Dr Facts

Member

to Dr Facts
quote:
So if you use your VPN to download Voltage movies because you hate good movies...
Ha!