Skip first parts if you don't want to learn about details of the VPN, skip to next blue to learn about how to configure securely
What is VPN
You can get detailed info about Virtual Private Networks from wiki page
Basically its something that hides your IP by using a surrogate IP.
Why do you need VPN?
To understand why you need VPN you need to know how does Internet works, Internet works with IP addresses. IP address are like home addresses, every computer have a unique IP address. To transfer data(mp3,gifs,jpegs,texts,anything) from a computer to another, both computers have to know each others unique IP numbers.
It basically works like this(postal analogy);
When computer A sends an mp3 to computer B.
1 - A sends an letter to B's unique IP address and tell that he wants send something.
2 - B confirms this transfer by a reply
3 - A starts sending the packages to B.
4 - B sends confirmations of received packages
5 - If which no confirmation returns from B, A re-sends that package again.
As you can see both of them need to know each other's IP for transfer to work. When you send a mp3 your computer sends it piece by piece, usually hundreds of pieces. If you ship hundreds of small packages at least few of them will be lost on the way.
That is why the computer B needs to know IP of A. B sends confirmations for incoming packages so that A knows which packages arrived and resends the missing packages.
Bittorent work alike, but you initially don't know which persons want to receive from you and which persons can send to you. The torrent trackers are like a dating service for seeders and leechers. Trackers knows the IP numbers of everybody who downloading or uploading that torrent.
At uTorrent as , at beginning there nobody a peers page. You don't know anybody's address, so you can't send or receive anything.
than uTorrent connects the tracker, tracker starts to giving IP numbers of other users downloading or seeding this torrents. Now utorrent knows addresses and requests them to send files to. You can notice download started at speed of 0.3 kB/s
After few seconds uTorrent got IP numbers of more people who have this torrent active in their own client. Now speed is 12kB/s because utorrent knows more IP addresses and asked them to send the parts of this file. Many of them are sending the file to me. In time more of them start to send to me and speed will increase.
uTorrent builds its own small temporary address book which keep updating itself
uTorrent also have some tricks of his own, like DHT or Peer Exchange, which is like giving your own address book info to a fellow downloader and getting his address book info in return.
You might wonder what is wrong with this.
As you can see any client knows IP addresses of almost everybody who have this torrent active, so anti-piracy also can know about them.
But the trackers also have few tricks of their own, which protects their users, some trackers adds fake IP addresses to swarm, there are some traps on the Internet which adds people to trackers without even informing them.(bit like rickrolls or finding yourself friending some guy you never knew) You can watch a video and get your IP added to a swarm of tracker. This is not a very bad thing for victim, its a good thing for users of the tracker.
Because some of the people in the list didn't actually downloading or uploading the torrent, its way too hard to make a lawsuit.
a.k.a. "Plausible deniability"
Some of you might received threat letters[more info on threat letters] from copyright gangs. They basically collect the IP addresses make a list from them and they prepare a letter. Than they make a request to your ISP(the company you pay for the Internet connection) with this list and Internet Service Provider redirects this letters to everyone in this list. Usually this gangs don't even know your real mail address when they send a threat, so its usually safe to ignore their threats. If they had enough hard proof they would already made a real lawsuit. You are "Innocent Unless Proven Guilty". They are more like spammers, trying scam you.There are actually companies build to cash in the pirate
But there are people who knows your IP address and what you downloaded, with a court order they can find your home address and real name. Who knows maybe one of the new laws will allow this people to build a real lawsuit.
You might also don't like that other people can see what you are downloading (like downloading sick porns or worse)
Also there are also some ISP's are blocking, throttling BT users connection(slowing your speeds).
VPN solves all of these problems
How Does VPN works/solves this problems?
The trick of VPN is to use a surrogate.
When Computer A from UK using ipredator VPN sends something to Computer B, it happens like this;
1 - Comp A encrypts its message and send something to Comp ipredator(VPN server).(Its called something because nobody can really know what it is, other than the sender. Its encrypted. Not even ISP can see what is this thing, not even the government.)
2- When this something reaches to "Comp ipredator"(a computer in Sweden in this case), your something gets decrypted and becomes something meaningful
3 - Than "Comp ipredator" redirects your message to computer B.
4 - Computer B responds, but computer B doesn't know the IP of computer A.The message came from Comp ipredator, somewhere in Sweden. So Comp B responds the Comp ipredator.
5 - Comp ipredator encrypts the response and sends it back to Comp A.
6 - Comp A decrypts that something. Now computer A knows the respond of B. Now A can start sending files to B over VPN.
http://www.vpnuser.com/gfx/vpn.gif
It is basically like a sending a letter in a closed box, You type address of Comp B on the letter, you type the address of Comp ipredator to the box. Only thing Comp ipredator does, is open the box and send the letter, than send the responses to the this letter in another box back to you. Of course in VPN that box is a 128bit encryption capsule. Which not uncrackable but it takes too long to crack.
Same thing for bittorrent, you can seed or leech by your surrogate, but the moment you close your VPN, nobody can connect you anymore. Like burning the bridge
Also your ratio wont increase or decrease on VPN unless you login your tracker using your VPN every time.
Also another good trick of VPN, when you reached your rapidshare free user limit, just click reconnect of your VPN. Now you can download files again. Rapid does not know you were the guy who just downloaded another file few second ago.
If you are heavy on rapidshare and etc, you can make a one click reconnect button by opening a new .txt file, and typing
into your file. Than change file extension from .txt to .bat and click it when you want a new IP.rasdial [your VPN connection name here] /disconnect
rasphone -d [your VPN connection name here]
USENET and Proxy?
Using "usenet" instead of torrents, will fix most of the privacy problems. Its less under attack than torrent trackers, it hard to track when you got a good provider which offers strong SSL. But keep in mind, providers keep logs and records.
Proxy works exactly like VPN. Unlike proxy, when you setup a VPN, every bit of your internet connection will be encrypted and will be going through the VPN tunnel. Proxy is more software based, for example when you set proxy for firefox, msn and utorrent won't be effected. It offers versatility and flexibility, but VPN is usually easier to manage and no extra software is needed for VPN. Not every software support proxy.
How to build a secure VPN configuration
First have a VPN working, in case of ipredator try this guide. All vpn providers have their guides like this
When you got you VPN working, it automatically hides your IP in everything, including firefox,uTorrent,e-donkey,MSN. You might notice when you login your facebook, its asks for you birthday. Other sites might ask stuff like this. This because they think they you are now in another country.Follow these simple steps to install Ipredator on your computer using the PPTP protocol.
(This instruction apples to the operative system Microsoft Windows XP).
1. Click Start menu, Settings, Control Panel.
2. Choose Network and Internet Connections.
3. Click on "Create a connection to the network at your workplace".
4. Select Virtual Private Network connection (VPN). Click Next.
5. Enter a name for your VPN [this is the name you should insert to the rapidshare reconnect button] . Click Next.
6. Enter "vpn.ipredator.se" as "Host name or IP address". Click Next.
7. Select "My use only" if you want this connection to apply only to your user on the computer. Select "Anyone's use" if you want this connection to apply to all users. Click Next.
8. Check "Add a shortcut to this connection to my desktop" if you want easy access to your Ipredator-service.
9. Click Finish.
10. You should now disable "File and Printer Sharing" as it can pose as a security issue.[THIS IS TOO IMPORTANT, SOME VPN PROVIDERS FORGETS TO MENTION THIS IN THEIR GUIDES]
11. Right click on the newly created Ipredator connection and choose "Properties"
12. Click on the "Network" tab and uncheck the "File and Printer Sharing for Microsoft Networks".
13. Click OK.
14. To use double click the connection.
The problem is every VPN, even the best, disconnects sometimes. When disconnected uTorrent will keep working and LEAK your real IP to other people.
So you need to stop uTorrent from working without VPN, there are few ways to do this
VPNetMon
http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/tim/200...53_257x193.jpg
This is not a very known trick, but its effective and easy. But it is not very good for your torrents. It dominates your uTorrent with an iron fist.
To use this freeware download it VPNetMon from CNET and add uTorrent to the software, also don't forgot to check "(re)start application .....".
It will kill the application the moment VPN disconnects, it doesn't closes the app, it really kills it instantly. uTorrent might need recheck the files after this.
NOT: does not supports win7, which was not on the market when this guide was written.
COMODO
http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:B...20Firewall.jpg
Comodo is a one hell of a software to keep your computer secure. It's the a software that can even satisfy the needs of most paranoid people. It also can allow, deny connections. Basically go to Firewall->Advanced->Network Security Policy and add few rules under uTorrent to block all connections except the one with your VPN. Remember? You data goes to VPN first, than the target. So tell comodo to block anything does not goes to the VPN.
Using the uTorrent advanced configs(hard way)
Keeping in mind this is a tutorial for n00bs I'm not going to explain how this is done.
try; http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?pid=467308
but chances are likely you are gonna screw your uTorrent, so backup, backup and backup!
Using the IP tables
>>Test your configuration
http://checkmytorrentip.com/ is a very good service that does the checking for you.
You just download a unique torrent from them, and they try to track you. Add their torrent to your uTorrent, make sure to Force Start it, leave your computer and uTorrent open for a day. You can download stuff while waiting. After a day go to the website and click "check my IP" you will a see a list like thisChecking your ip address with a web browser may not help you in the long run for many reasons. For example, you can't check your IP continuously and your torrent software may use a different connection (proxy, firewall, routes, etc.) On private trackers, your IP address is an important identifier. If you're accessing the tracker from too many IP addresses, or if your IP address has been previously used by a cheater/spammer, you may face repercussions.
The following steps explain how to check your torrent IP address using http://checkmytorrentip.com.
1. Generate a tracking torrent at http://checkmytorrentip.com. The torrent created will have a private passkey attached.
2. Load it into your torrent client and start downloading it. There will be no seeders or peers so you won't download anything else.
3. Your current IP will show up in the status window of your bittorrent tool:
http://checkmytorrentip.com/images/sampleIPclient.png
4. Your torrent client will update its IP every minute and you can visit the site again to see your IP history. It'll look like the following:
http://checkmytorrentip.com/images/sampleReport.png
The IP history above will be the same for all the trackers active in your torrent client so you can use this to ensure the correct IP is being used.
of course after a whole day, your list will be longer. Even if you can see the name of your real country even once in that list, your IP is leaking. If your IP isn't leaking you will just the name of country you bought the IP. If you bough from ipredator you will just see Sweden IP's.
Don't forgot to check their FAQ pages, you can also find lots of info in this website about securing your IP.
You can also find few other ways to stop leakage.
How important is the provider
Way too Important!, when using VPN your government or ISP cannot see what you are doing but your VPN provider can see. You need somebody you can trust. This is actually why I choose ipredator a service of piratebay. The thing about piratebay.org if they wanted to track us, they could have done it.
If you want to test VPN for free, try itshidden, but free users get disconnected every 20min. Which also can be ultimate leak test for your config
Original Post 04-14-10
Revised ; 15/01/11
Revised ; 15/12/11
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Originally Posted by whatcdfan
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