VPN 4 Life: More Anonymity Snake Oil? VPN company promises lifetime service for $29 The promise of Internet anonymity has always been a refuge for snake oil salesmen looking to profit from the RIAA's scorched earth legal campaign. There have been countless operations over the years that have offered everything from specialized VPN software and supposedly anonymous DSL to proxy servers or encryption in order to supposedly protect users from the ever watchful eye of the entertainment industry. With the RIAA now supposedly ditching the "sue 'em all" campaign in exchange for making ISPs Internet babysitters, the market is apparently hot once again for anonymity products, particualy ones capable of dodging looming ISP filters. Torrent Freak directs our attention to a new outfit named VPN4Life, which is promising a lifetime of unlimited, anonymous VPN-based BitTorrent access for $50 ($29.00 introductory). From the site: VPN 4 Life offers the most secure, most dependable, and fastest VPN on the net. Stop paying $20/month or more for a throttled, slow connexion...The entrepreneurs behind VPN 4 Life strive to free the world from ISP monitoring, government restrictions, and capitalism's growing influence on the internet one account at a time Like most promises of Internet anonymity this is likely not a high quality operation, especially considering the fact that traditional VPN services offering unlimited data transfers cost in the neighborhood of $10-$20 per month. This is either a fly-by-night operation or a scam, so like most promises of anonymity on the cheap, your best bet is to stay far, far away.
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  n2jtx
join:2001-01-13
Glen Head, NY
 ·Optimum Online
| Anonymous Until... The FBI comes knocking on their door with a warrant in order to find out who hacked a mailbox for a government official. In the words of Bart Simpson, they will fold faster than Superman on Laundry Day.
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I support the right to keep and arm bears. | |
|  |  maartenaElmoPremium
join:2002-05-10
Orange, CA
kudos:1
 ·AT&T U-Verse
 ·DIRECTV
| Re: Anonymous Until... said by n2jtx:The FBI comes knocking on their door with a warrant in order to find out who hacked a mailbox for a government official. In the words of Bart Simpson, they will fold faster than Superman on Laundry Day. The FBI won't be knocking on any door if the VPN service is in another country, prefably one with decent bandwidth and no extradition treaty with the US.
Russia, where all those cheap MP3 places host their stuff, comes to mind. | |
| | |  CabalPremium
join:2007-01-21
Austin, TX
·Suddenlink
| Re: Anonymous Until... said by maartena:said by n2jtx:The FBI comes knocking on their door with a warrant in order to find out who hacked a mailbox for a government official. In the words of Bart Simpson, they will fold faster than Superman on Laundry Day. The FBI won't be knocking on any door if the VPN service is in another country, prefably one with decent bandwidth and no extradition treaty with the US. Russia, where all those cheap MP3 places host their stuff, comes to mind. And as a bonus, unusable latency. 
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Interested in open source engine management for your Subaru? | |
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| |  dvd536as Mr. Pink as they comePremium
join:2001-04-27
Phoenix, AZ
kudos:4 | Re: TOR TOR . . .
is dog slow
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When I gez aju zavateh na nalechoo more new yonooz tonigh molinigh - Ken Lee | |
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| | vpn traditional VPN services offering unlimited data transfers cost in the neighborhood of $10-$20 per month.
what are some of these traditional vpn providers. | |
| | | | Re: vpn That's what I'm wondering. | |
| | | | Heres what you do (its what I do but not for the anonymity, more to get around FIOS's filtering of incoming ports)
pay for a basic VPS (virtual private server) service, preferably linux or *bsd based. They can be had for as little as $10 a month for 5g disk (maybe more or less) and a couple hundred gig of bandwidth. I pay $25 a month for 200G monthly bandwidth allotment, which I have never even come close to and 10 gig's of disk.
Setup the VPS host as a vpn server using openvpn. Connect to it from your home network, or laptops, or whatever and that removes the ISP from snooping your traffic. The added bonus is that you can setup all your traffic to use the VPN as its default gateway which allows port forwarding, or like me, since there is no need for Warhammer or other online gaming data to route that way and waste bandwidth, use a reverse proxy and point to your internal vpn'd hosts (has to be reverse proxy as the routes are asynch and gateways generally do not like that...)
Since you control the vpn server, you can delete the logs as you see fit. Most VPS and Webhosting services to not keep traffic logs, but some might..
Its just another option. | |
| | | | | Re: vpn said by jvanbrecht:Heres what you do (its what I do but not for the anonymity, more to get around FIOS's filtering of incoming ports) pay for a basic VPS (virtual private server) service, preferably linux or *bsd based. They can be had for as little as $10 a month for 5g disk (maybe more or less) and a couple hundred gig of bandwidth. I pay $25 a month for 200G monthly bandwidth allotment, which I have never even come close to and 10 gig's of disk. Setup the VPS host as a vpn server using openvpn. Connect to it from your home network, or laptops, or whatever and that removes the ISP from snooping your traffic. The added bonus is that you can setup all your traffic to use the VPN as its default gateway which allows port forwarding, or like me, since there is no need for Warhammer or other online gaming data to route that way and waste bandwidth, use a reverse proxy and point to your internal vpn'd hosts (has to be reverse proxy as the routes are asynch and gateways generally do not like that...) Since you control the vpn server, you can delete the logs as you see fit. Most VPS and Webhosting services to not keep traffic logs, but some might.. Its just another option. And when someone shows up at the hosting site with a warrant, they'll gladly tell them who has that IP address. | |
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| | | MoodyPremium
join:2005-07-17
Dog House | said by xteddyx :
traditional VPN services offering unlimited data transfers cost in the neighborhood of $10-$20 per month.
what are some of these traditional vpn providers.
Here are the two I have used.
»www.comodo.com/trustconnect/
And the best, imho!
»www.cotse.net/
--
Gary
"When freedom is outlawed, only outlaws will be free!" | |
|
 SYNACKJust Firewall ItPremium,Mod
join:2001-03-05
Venice, CA | Lifetime "Lifetime" is for the life of the company, which will be a few weeks.  | |
| |  ChiyoSave Me Konata-ChanPremium
join:2003-02-20
Charlotte, NC
kudos:1 | Re: Lifetime are you sure you didn't find these guys in the webhost forum? | |
|
 scotsAre we there yet??Premium
join:1999-12-06
Raleigh, NC
kudos:1 | First 100... Must not be very many people signing up for it. It says "First 100 customers get special promotion price of just $29!" When I first looked at their web site about an hour ago it said "52 Left!!" and it still says "52 Left!!" | |
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2 edits | Where is atlanta? :) I'm sure the feds will never find them in Atlanta, Georgia.
$ host www.vpn4life.com
www.vpn4life.com is an alias for vpn4life.com.
vpn4life.com has address 65.254.49.210
vpn4life.com mail is handled by 0 vpn4life.com.
$ whois 65.254.49.210
OrgName: Global Net Access, LLC
OrgID: GNAL-2
Address: 1100 White St SW
City: Atlanta
StateProv: GA
PostalCode: 30310
Country: US
$ telnet vpn4life.com 25
Trying 65.254.49.210...
Connected to vpn4life.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
220-server9.namecheaphosting.com ESMTP Exim 4.69 #0 Fri, 02 Jan 2009 16:34:21 -0500
220-We do not authorize the use of this system to transport unsolicited,
220 and/or bulk e-mail.
500 unrecognized command
^]
telnet> close
Atlanta, Georgia. Yeah. My connections should be secure there.
Not. | |
| |  TCubPremium
join:2008-09-03
Olmsted Falls, OH
kudos:4 | Re: Where is atlanta? :) LOL. Thats not gonna last long... | |
|
 IgnitePremium,VIP
join:2004-03-18
UK
1 edit | Shared Server Always a sign of a quality provider when their website is hosted on a shared server:
Tracing route to vpn4life.com [65.254.49.210]
14 103 ms 102 ms 122 ms server9.namecheaphosting.com [65.254.49.210]
Which is in the US, there's a ton of protection.
»www.namecheap.com/
Still 59 cheap subscriptions left!
Avoid. Just avoid. No doubt their VPN connects to a shared server as well. | |
| | | | Re: Shared Server Could be a front. NameCheap could be the server where the advertising site is, movable in case things get shut down. The real server? Probably something overseas.
I may take one for the team and get one, if they aren't sold out by other suckaz. | |
| | | | Umm...52 left now....odd...I'm curious | |
| | | iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Golden, CO
kudos:2 Reviews:
·Comcast
 ·Verizon Online DSL
| Re: Shared Server Still reads 52...after I bought one (lets see what happens).
Interesting, 10 GBit connection...in the US. Sounds fishy. But possible. Would have to be Cogent. Or HE. Probably Cogent. Or snake oil.
I'll report back soon enough. It'll be on my blog, so people can "support my sponsors" and subsidize my rash experiment.
Then again, this is what PayPal buyer protection is for, right? | |
| | | | iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Golden, CO
kudos:2 Reviews:
·Comcast
·Verizon Online DSL
| Re: Shared Server Addendum: 99.7% reliability promised, though the fine print says otherwise. Then again, 99.7 shouldn't be too hard to reach on a tight budget like they doubtless have
0.3% of a month: 2:09:48 h:mm:ss. Enough time to make big server upgrades by taking the whole system offline. Or whatever...
We'll see in 24 hours. | |
|
 james
join:2001-02-26
CWCville USA | Could this be a setup? Wouldnt an obvious way to catch people who are pirating be for the RIAA to offer a service like this? | |
|  Doctor FourMy other vehicle is a TARDISPremium
join:2000-09-05
Dallas, TX | If it sounds too good to be true It probably is too good to be true.
Read some of the TorrentFreak comments on this. It could very well be a scam. Initially there was no privacy policy or contact/support information on the site. Also, when other VPN services charge that much per month, there's something fishy about this.
It appears to be an affiliate scheme to sell software that does this.
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"The trouble with computers, of course, is that they are very sophisticated idiots." - Doctor Who (from Robot)
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| | | scam This is a scam. They sent me AnchorFree software, which is a free ad-supported VPN service. Strangely, I asked for a paypal refund and I got it. | |
| | iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Golden, CO
kudos:2 Reviews:
·Comcast
·Verizon Online DSL
| Re: scam I can confirm that. I had known about, and used, AnchorFree before. They probably do have a 10GE trunk (to a lowish-end provider, XO) but the software is absolutely free and ad-supported.
VPN4Life, however, was likewise very quick to refund my $29, so no harm done. Just made me remember how good AnchorFree's VPN is, though I don't like ads built into my web surfing. | |
| | | | same here. stupid for me to not realize this was too good to be true. | |
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