With the resurgence of pirating, do you think there will be a “response” from the powers that be?
In general, what would that look like?
Specifically, do you think VPN companies based in the US or friendly countries will start to feel legal or corporate pressure to stop letting people use their services to download copyrighted material?
I just feel like these things always ebb and flow.
No company, especially VPN companies, will encourage you to break the law or violate copyright.
We have to support companies like Mullvad who operate on the premis that privacy is a human right, if it’s just a business equation then they will fold when it’s inconvenient
Yes they will, and anyone confident in saying no doesn’t understand that laws will be changed if they need to. If VPN usage is significant enough of a factor in piracy or any other illegal activity laws will be changed to find providers responsible. They could mandate data be logged. There’s so many other more nefarious things that these VPNs could be sheltering more important that governments would like to be able to have information on that I just can’t see them shrugging their shoulders and ignoring it. That time will come.
Go for it. I have a Digital Ocean droplet in Amsterdam. Took an evening to spin up, and I can do it again. $6/mo.
You are aware that there are 1,000 uses for a VPN other than pirating? I work for a software dev, we’re dependent on half a dozen for secure access. Hell, even the accounting guy needs a VPN to upload to the bank.
The powers that be depend on VPNs to do business. Mandate logging? OK. We’ll roll our own. This is old, proven and simple tech.
Digital Ocean collects this data already. Some of these Vpn providers claim to collect nothing, sometimes not even payment information. If you’re doing something illegal on that Digital Ocean droplet and law enforcement tracks it down to that IP, Digital Ocean will comply with any lawful order for the data they have on you.
You could theoretically set up a logless VPN server where everything resides in RAM… Unless DO can export RAM at an exact moment in time or catch you in the act and take a snapshot of the RAM at that moment.
They could theoretically sniff your outgoing connections though, but that’s difficult to trace with DNS-over-HTTPS.
They know which IP address belongs to which customer at the time and anybody can download a torrent of some copyrighted content and see which IP addresses are down or uploading it at any given moment. No need to inspect RAM, no need for DO to monitor traffic. They (the copyright holders) will send a cease and desist through DO already, and could change to send a lawsuit instead.
For torrents, that is correct. For everything else, it’s less concerning.
I’ve gotten letters from my ISP before about it lol
This is about VPN proxies, not VPN technology itself.
that server is directly tied to you. this won’t make a difference at all.
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None of the big VPN companies officially endorse use if their services for piracy or any illegal activities for that matter.
But to crack down on it they would have to keep logs on your activity and with that most of their legitimate use cases wouldn’t be valid anymore either.
No person can make a locked door 100% secure. It either is a locked door waiting to be unlocked, or its a welded shut wall which defeats the whole point of a door.
Privacy is a tradeoff with illegal activity. While unfortunate, a person cannot have full privacy ona VPN without giving criminals that same privacy. Some may consider this assisting criminals, some may not. But you can’t have full privacy and be able to catch criminals too, you have to pick one or the other.
I’ve been sailing the high seas for years and never used a VPN.
Where do you live ? certainly not in Germany/Switzerland
Not who you were talking to, but I’m in Canada and don’t use one.
Unless if you’re in much, much deeper than simple downloading movies/albums/tv shows, we have a max financial payout for copyright infringement lawsuits which is $5,000 CAD. Makes it not worth it for companies to care as they’ll pay more in legal fees and lawyers than they will actually win. ISP’s still have to legally pass on the notices of infringement but they just go right in ye ol’ spam folder for eventual deletion as they have for the last 20 some odd years.
Perks of living in a third world country
I think it’s very likely this happens more in the future, but likewise VPN providers sell you anonymity. So if they can’t operate without disclosing, they will lose their customers. I’m positive no matter what, VPN companies will find a way to avoid these situations such as operating from countries with less regulations etc.
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I mean I’m still out here rawdogging usenet without a vpn. I keep waiting for the great crackdown on usenet but it never comes… Surely that comes before any VPN crackdown.
Some might but if they do, others will take their place.
