Best current anonymous improvement

[johndough123]

First let me apologize for making such a long post. I decided to share the information that I've found over the past weeks and months concerning what I feel is the best (free atm) way to stay anonymous with bittorrent. It has taken me awhile to find some working options and I thought it would be nice to have the information in one spot. I am unsure if these forums will filter out all the links I provide. Mods: If this is in the wrong section, feel free to move or delete, thank you.

>The dummies guide to bittorrent through a VPN<

Here are the steps involved:

1) Sign up for a VPN account with Relakks. https://www.relakks.com/?cid=gb

Why Relakks and not a different VPN, you ask? Relakks is free (for 30 days) right now, they are based in Sweden (which has much stronger privacy laws then many other countries), the VPN connection is unlimited, and they seem to have a good attitude about your privacy (based upon this interview - http://light.vpod.tv/?s=0.0.201364).

2) Setup the VPN on your computer by following the information in the FAQ section of Relakk's web page.

3) Next, navigate your browser to: http://forum.piratpartiet.se/Topic75482-164-1.aspx

This is a batch file (a script) that will automatically check and reconnect your VPN connection, if it should hang or drop (which happens frequently to my computer). To use this, you must first highlight all the text then copy it into notepad. You will have to alter the top part of the script with your vpnname, username, and password. Now, save the file to the location the author specifies, this will ensure that it automatically starts when you reboot your computer (it can also be double clicked). Be sure that you save the file with a .bat extension (stayrelakksed.bat), saving it as a .txt file will not work. Credit for finding this script goes to the user who posted it on these forums a few months back.

- Another option, if you don't like how this script functions, is to use a program called Tunnelrat - http://www.tunnelrat.net/

Tunnelrat does the exact same thing as the script, but with more options. I have had better results maintaining the VPN with the simple batch file than with Tunnelrat. You, however, may have different results.

4) At this point you are almost done. You have a secure VPN running, as well as a way to keep it that way. Now, what happens if the VPN is unreachable for a long time? Your torrent client will then start using your unencrypted internet connection and all your perceived security will be lost!!! There are several solutions to this dilemma, I will mention two.

a) My preferred method is using another small program called VPNetMon - http://www.download.com/VPNetMon/3000-2162_4-10688111.html This is a small utility will also monitor the VPN and if it disconnects, it will shutdown your torrent client. It's very simple to use, just follow the directions included in the help file.

My second choice would be a firewall to block all internet traffic to and from your torrent client, should your VPN get disconnected. I have used Sygate for this purpose, with mixed results. I will not provide a download link to this software, as it is copyrighted. Using Sygate, go to advanced rules/options and instruct the firewall to block all traffic though your unencrypted channel, for the torrent client ONLY.

Additional notes:

I am sure that I have missed some valuable information, but this is the best I've found to date. Keep in mind that using a VPN does NOT make you 100% anonymous, nothing does. It does, however, put you a step ahead of your totally unprotected peers. In the rat race between file sharers and copyright holders, I'd rather be the mouse hiding in a different room instead of walking around directly in front of the cat.

[frankslack]

For the whole of this year this system worked for me. However about a month back the stayrelakksed.bat started giving this message when doing the initial ping:

Reply from %PINGBOUNDARY%: File or folder could not be found.

This technically i guess counts as a reply, as the program goes on as usual, but never seems to connect, though normal connect through network connections works.

Note: i do tracert and check that i have the active IP set and saved in the bat file.

Any clues?