vpn
Do you know that BitTorrent and anonymity are not the same things? If you use BitTorrent, you absolutely need to hide your identity and data. If you really want to keep your activity and downloads private, your best way involves routing your BitTorrent connection through secure internet connection.
The best way to provide you with secure and encrypted connection which hides your traffic from your ISP and government agencies is a VPN or Virtual Private Network service.
ExtraTorrent is happy to recommend Trust.Zone VPN service to create the best tool to protect your torrenting.
Trust.Zone VPN is a special tool to make you invisible while using BitTorrent or downloading any files. It hides your IP address, protects your identity and data. You will stay 100% anonymous with Trust.Zone
How Trust.Zone VPN works?
- It creates a secure tunnel between you and website (for example, torrent tracker)
- The tunnel is secure and 100% encrypted.
- Your IP address is hidden while you are browsing over the web. Your IP address is replaced by Trust.Zone VPN server ip address
- You are able to surf the web anonymously.
- Nobody can track you traffic. Download torrents, stream video and music, watch TV shows without getting caught
- ISP cannot track your activity
- Access geo-restricted content – watch country restricted YouTube video, watch BBC iPlayer, Hulu, Netflix and etc.
- Use VOIP Applications like Skype and Viber with no restrictions
- Unlimited speed and unlimited bandwidth.
- No logging
- Many VPN servers over the world.
- Available on all platforms - Windows, iOS, Android and more
- The full support of p2p, file sharing and BitTorrent
- You can use 3 VPN connections at the same time – from laptop, from home and from your office
- BitCoin accepted
ExtraTorrent reached an agreement with Trust.Zone VPN – every member of ExtraTorrent can use Trust.Zone totally for free for next 3 days. Enjoy!
ExtraTorrent warns: Protect yourself while Torrenting – Use Trust.Zone VPN
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news
Google, Microsoft and Apple have all defended corporate structures that provided for shifting most of the taxable revenue to offshore jurisdictions. News Corp Australia asked senators to impose a goods and services tax on its competitor Netflix. In response, the largest tech firms in the world had to defend themselves and their tax schemes. Google’s branch in Australia and New Zealand refused to disclose its Australian revenues, but revealed that in 2013 the company had paid $7.1m in tax on $46m in profits. However, most of its local revenue was taxed in Singapore, as the Australian branch of the company provides sales and marketing services to Singapore branch.
Microsoft revealed that last year the company had also shifted about $2bn to Singapore in revenue from Australia, declaring only $100m in the country, over the same reason – the company explained that products and services are sold to Australia by Microsoft’s Singapore group, with sales staff being located in Singapore, and Microsoft’s clients being billed by the Singapore branch as well.
Finally, Apple confirmed it had paid about $80m in income tax in Australia – from revenue of more than $6bn. However, Apple doesn’t agree that this amounts to aggressive tax planning.
The tax office is auditing the three companies at the moment, and this is no surprise – they couldn’t expect Australia to like being not paid taxes, could they? In the meantime, the local authorities suggested a so-called “Google tax” in the budget to require multinationals to pay a higher rate. In response, Google suggested that Australian tax breaks for research and development should be spent in smaller start-ups instead of such giants as Google and its fellows.
news
Human rights groups are ready to file a federal lawsuit over the mass collection of US phone records – this time, against the Drug Enforcement Agency. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles federal court demanding to stop the DEA from collecting records of people’s international calls without a warrant.
Data collecting program lasted for 20 years and became a template for the NSA’s mass surveillance of US phone data after 9/11. Despite the fact that the US officials claimed that the DEA was not collecting information anymore, the news that the agency collected phone records in the so-called “war on drugs” inspired new questions.
EFF alleged that the mass surveillance puts the work of privacy outfits in jeopardy. For instance, Human Rights Watch works with people who can be in life-or-death situations and speaking out can make them a target. This is why the lawsuit claims that the US government is secretly stretching its surveillance authorities to the breaking point.
It turned out that a number of US presidents secretly allowed the Drug Enforcement Agency to monitor and store phone data that included almost all telephone calls from the United States linked to drug trafficking. Since 1992, the so-called “USTO” program ran without judicial approval, although this was required by the US constitution.
By the way, it seems that the warrantless mass phone records collection has failed to stop the growth of domestic drugs consumption. For example, in 2012, 9.2 % of Americans had consumed narcotics in the past month, up from 8.3% in 2002 – this is despite the efforts of the US, which spends billions on drug eradication abroad –more than $9bn was spent in Colombia and $7.5bn in Afghanistan.
news
A local court is going to assess how the copyright owners deal with people pirating Dallas Buyers Club due to fears that they were trolling alleged pirates to extort settlements.
In the case launched by Voltage Pictures, the court delivered a landmark ruling a few days ago, according to which a number of Australia’s largest ISPs were forced to reveal personal details of over 4,700 users suspected of sharing the Oscar-winning movie online via BitTorrent and other services.
But this is not an unconditional victory: an Australian justice will decide how much money the movie studio can demand from the suspects. The court required the plaintiffs to submit a draft of a letter they are going to send to identified file-sharers. Another stipulation of the court decision was that the identities of the Internet subscriber remain confidential.
A few months ago, the largest broadband providers in the country refused to hand over personal details, calling previous requests of Voltage Pictures “speculative invoicing” ahead of the lawsuit. The ISPs claimed that the copyright owners were using discovery letters to threaten Internet users into making settlements.
In the meantime, Voltage Pictures is known as a smaller, independent movie company, with its recent releases including Don Jon, Killer Joe and Thanks for Sharing. The company has also aggressively pursued copyright infringement cases in the United States and Denmark.
In the United States, with the help of the US Internet service providers, the company obtained names and IP addresses of people who had illegally downloaded the movie and filed suit against them threatening with a fine of up to $150,000. Suspected pirates have usually settled out of court for around $5,000.
Entertainment industry has responded forcefully to the increase in digital piracy, but many copyright owners simply ask the broadband providers to forward their users a written warning. However, some adult content distributors including the Io Group have aggressively pursued the lawsuit strategy with great success – they even provided convenient PayPal and credit card options in those threatening “notification” letters.
In other countries – for example, Canada, – ISPs have chosen to throttle P2P traffic – in other words, they slowed down the Internet connections of people using the Internet to access potentially illegal files via P2P services.
youtube
YouTube Kids App Accused of Unfair Practices
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) received a complaint where privacy watchdogs accused Google of using unfair and deceptive marketing practices in its YouTube Kids app. It turned out that the app’s video selection contained material that parents could believe their kids would not access.
The complaint argues that Google blurs the line between advertising and programming for children. It claims that children are exposed to an endless stream of video content that may not disclose that they actually have deals with product makers.
YouTube Kids app was introduced a few weeks ago, positioned as the first product of the company designed from the ground up with children in mind. But the consumer rights groups argue that Google mixes and matches advertising and programming which can’t be done, for instance, on broadcast and cable television.
In addition, the complaint filed to FTC also alleges that YouTube violates its own advertising guidelines. For example, the company’s Advertising on YouTube Kids page reads that products related to consumable food and drinks are banned, while the stream of watchable videos includes a McDonald’s channel, marked “promotional consideration provided by McDonald’s”.
Industry observers point out that regulators often investigate advertising aimed at kids online. For instance, a few months ago, Yelp and TinyCo paid almost half million dollars to settle a case where they were accused of collecting personal information without explicit parental permission.
In response, a YouTube spokesperson explained that when developing the service for kids, the company consulted with numerous partners and child advocacy and privacy groups. Google claims it is always open to feedback on ways to improve the application for children.
Social media
Under the Turkish court ruling, access to the social media sites including YouTube, Twitter and Facebook was temporarily banned over the publication of images showing a prosecutor kidnapped by far-left militants in the capital of the country.
Mehmet Selim Kiraz was killed when security forces stormed the office in the Istanbul courthouse where far-left militants had taken him hostage. They published a picture of Kiraz held at gunpoint on social media. So, the social media ban arrived after a demand to block 166 websites that posted those pictures, including direct links to Turkish newspapers, 7 of which now face a criminal investigation for publishing the photo of Kiraz.
It became known that ban on Facebook was lifted after the company quickly complied with the court ruling. Then the ban on Twitter was also lifted when it removed the controversial images. As for the ban on YouTube, it remained, with the court ordering Google to also remove material on this story to avoid blockage. Turkish authorities confirmed that the procedure would continue and that all ISPs would be ordered to implement the ban rapidly.
It should be mentioned that once the Twitter ban came into effect, the hashtag #TwitterisblockedinTurkey became the top trending term globally. Of course, the local users quickly found a way to circumvent the ban – some of them actually learned that Twitter is blocked from… Twitter.
You may remember that Turkey has blocked social media before – in the runup to local elections a year ago, the country also blocked access to both Twitter and YouTube for publishing audio recordings alleging corruption in the country’s government.
Turkish Internet users learned the way to bypass the ban by heart now: for example, they use virtual private networks that allow to connect to the web undetected. Another way is to change the domain name settings to conceal the geolocation.
As usual, the ban caused widespread outrage all over the world. In response, a presidential spokesman defended the ban, saying that the ruling was passed only because some media outlets “spread terrorist propaganda” by publishing the controversial pictures. This is why the prosecutor’s office demanded that this image not be used anywhere on the Internet.
Launched
Airbnb, a leading home-rental company, has finally brought the sharing economy born in capitalism to communist Cuba. Obama’s move to relax cold war-era travel restrictions influenced the online development of the country. Airbnb was quick to benefit from such opportunities and started to cooperate with Cuba’s many hosts who have long rented out homes and rooms to foreign guests.
The Cuban government always encouraged private homes to serve tourists in order to promote tourism without the costs of hotels. After cooperating with them, Airbnb can launch services in Cuba with more than 1,000 listings, which include everything from colonial homes to terraced bedrooms and spare rooms in normal homes. The price is very attractive – usually less than $50. Although the hosts have to pay Airbnb a fraction of their fees, they expand to previously nonexistent marketplace in return.
The matter is that Cubans got used to a perpetually broken phone system and rare and expensive access to the Internet. This is why it turned out that Airbnb has jumped first into a unique and virtually empty market – in contrast to other companies, who can only provide phone numbers and emails for Cuban rentals, Airbnb books reservations right away.
Airbnb also revealed that it saw a 70% rise in searches for listings in Cuba after Obama’s move in January. Apparently, the company has an opportunity to start fresh in Cuba with a government newly open to US businesses. At the moment, its services in Cuba are available only to Americans because of the US trade embargo which prohibits offering listings to others.
By the way, other travel companies also show interest in offering services in Cuba: for example, flight and hotel website Kayak and the airliner Sun Country, which launched charter flights from New York to Havana. Netflix, a popular streaming service, also announced the launch of its services in the country.
Kevin Bollaert, 28, who operated a so-called “revenge porn” online service and then extorted cash from victims to remove nude images and personal data, was recently sentenced to 18 years in state prison. The individual from San Diego was convicted of 21 counts of identity theft plus 6 counts of extortion for operating a number of online services that capitalized on the worldwide web as a place for public shaming.
Kevin Bollaert created a website called ugotposted.com, where jilted lovers and hackers could publish nude photos and personal data of people, including names, addresses and social media details, without their consent, while remaining anonymous. Over 10,000 images, mainly of women, were uploaded to the website between December 2012 and September 2013. When victims of such behavior sought to have the embarrassing images taken down, they were directed to other website operated by Bollaert – changemyreputation.com – where they were charged up to $350 to remove the images.
The court sentenced Kevin Bollaert to as long as 18 years because the compromising images cost many people jobs, damaged relationships and even attempted suicide. In the meantime, the individual earned about $900 per month in advertising revenue from his site and, of course, collected quite much from the victims (around $30,000).
In attempt to defend his client, Bollaert’s lawyer was trying to insist at the court that although his business was indeed gross and offensive, Kevin Bollaert didn’t break any law, because he was not posting any pictures himself – instead, he allowed other Internet users to upload the explicit content.
