France, The UK The US, New Zealand, and Australia are really on the internet monitoring bandwagon recently.  If it’s not piracy, it’s hackers, and they’re looking for ways to keep tabs on what you’re doing online.  Sometimes they say its for our own good. Sometimes they say it’s for the good of society.  Every time it’s super annoying.  An offshore VPN is going to be the best way to combat big brother, not matter where you are.

Now the term ‘offshore’ is going to depend on where your shore actually is, but chances are that you mean something in Central/South America or Asia.  I’ll try not to sound too shady when I say this, but their laws are different there, and there are a lot of advantages and work arounds involved with having an IP or rerouting your internet traffic through these locations.

***DISCLAIMER***

Before you get to excited, it should be noted that VPN services are NOT FOR ILLEGAL ACTIVITY.  While things like online gambling websites, P2P, and some types of site content are permissible by international standards, if you are breaking international law, YOU WILL GET CAUGHT.  I don’t even want to mention some of the stuff that people do online for fear that my site will turn up in the search engines for those keywords, but you have an imagination.

REMEMBE: Using an offshore VPN hides your online activity from your ISP and own government.  It however, does not hide the virtual IP address from the VPN.  IF you use the IP address from the offshore VPN to do something that breaks international law, the IP address can be traced back to the VPN service.  With a court order, or sometimes even just a complaint from a foreign government, you could get your account disabled or worse.

For example, if you are in The USA and want to connect to a P2P site, you should not use a French IP address.  France’s government will see that a french IP is downloading torrents, contact the VPN service, and there could be consequences.  This is possible even if the VPN service is not located in France, or The USA.

***Notes About Anonymity***

Sorry for all the warnings.  No matter what VPN service you choose, they will keep logs of some sort. Most will not log your activity.  They do not know what you’re doing online.  They do however keep time logs, which means you activity can be traced back to you.  Continuing from the example above, if France logs a complaint that an IP address is downloading copyrighted content and traces it back to the VPN service, they can see what time the content was downloaded.  If you are on record of having used that IP at that time period, that labels you as the culprit.  All VPN services do this to maintain server and service integrity, and if they don’t, it’s probably a rubbish VPN service or they’re lying to you.

>>> Best Offshore VPN Services <<<

***it should be noted that with whatever VPN service you choose, regardless of the location of their ‘home base’, you can choose your IP address location. The following services are located in Hong Kong, but have many IP options including Malaysia, Russia, Switzerland, and more.

#1

The obvious #1 choice is 12VPN.  They have broader device support than other services, offer OpenVPN (more secure VPN protocol), SSL encryption upgrades (military grade), and are dedicated to great customer service.  Installation and setup is fast and easy, and it comes with a money back guarantee.  For an offshore VPN service, that’s all you can really hope to find: Privacy, Anonymity, Professionalism, Guarantees.  Servers are fast, and they offer two package options (US IP, and World VPN)

>>> Go To 12VPN

#2

PureVPN another Hong Kong based VPN service. They’re home base is located in Hong Kong.  They allow P2P on Russian, Netherlands, and a few other servers.  They’ve got live support, and unlimited server access to 14 different countries.  The standard service gives you 30 GB of bandwidth per month for the mega low price of $74.95 (I know that sounds like an advertisement, but it really is low).  There’s an unlimited bandwidth upgrade, and a dedicated IP server upgrade.  Definitely a high quality, fast offshore VPN service.  They don’t offer OpenVPN, but do have SSTP for Win 7/Vista.  VPN servers in Panama, Switzerland, Malaysia, Russia, and 10 other countries.

>>> Go To PureVPN

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Here’s an interesting quote from an article I read today in the Calgary Herald

It even has the same punch line – civil liberty and personal privacy in all of our online communications, blog postings, photo sharing and social networking will be sacrificed to big government, as well as the service providers, aggregation companies, and data mining corporations that operate, monitor and monetize the Internet.

The funny thing is that it is kind of like a joke.  Even if this bill doesn’t get passed, there will be another one.  Though CISPA has a bit of a different flavor – this time they’re attacking hackers, not file sharers, the idea is the same. Give the government as private organizations more power, to protect us from ourselves.

Read the full article HERE.

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Click Photo For Original Source

The owners of Google are in the limelight again, as Sergey Brin speaks out on the future of the internet.  The original article is HERE, from Yahoo! Finance.

Basically, Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google says he’s worried about the future of the internet.  He makes a good point that there are governments as well as corporations that are working for control of information. The internet, as it is now, pretty much allows information to flow freely.  Unfortunately that doesn’t jive with media corporations who are trying to get a handle on internet piracy.  And that doesn’t swing with governments who want to know who’s saying what…where they said it…and to stop them from saying it again.

While there are obvious examples like pretty much all of Asia, The Middle East, and Africa where governments exercise overt control over what can and can’t be said on the internet, The West is not 100% innocent.  I’ll agree that there needs to be some kind of regulation of the internet to stop the perverts and criminals from taking it over, but where we draw the line on protection and privacy often ends up in a gray area that no one can agree on.

In the article it was mentioned that Facebook was contributing to the ominous future for the internet because of their refusal to share information about their users.

What?

That bit didn’t make any sense to me at all!

Good job Facebook. Why on Earth would I want them to share statistics about what I do on Facebook?  If I’m missing something, please tell me.  A walled garden? Yes please, thank you.

I like Google.  Their search engine is great, and I can see that they’re really trying to change the internet for the better – more information, that’s easier to find, and more accurate.  Kudos.  But as far as privacy is concerned, they’ve got a lot to work on.

I don’t have much to hide, but as you might be able to tell by the them of this blog, my privacy is important to me.  Do I really want my G+ profile linked to my FB account linked to my Twitter account, linked to my G+ history, linked to my search history, linked to my ISP and IP address and Gmail account and personal phone number (remember that confirmation text when you made your Gmail account).  Plus all of this is connected with what you buy, what you click, and who knows what else.

I don’t know the answers.  I want a free and easy to use internet.  I want accurate search results and easy access to my accounts.  But I also want to know that I have the choice to be just some guy on the internet, and not have my identity digitally recorded every time I click a mouse.

Conclusion

Honest, the Facebook comment struck me as weird.  It kind of took the power out of his original statement and made it seem like Google is mad that FB won’t share statistics.  Now you can see why there’s a need to use an anonymous VPN service.

The Guardian has a equally skeptical take on Sergey’s statements HERE.

BTW, you might want to check out some of the comments. They’re pretty funny. Apples patent on iSlaves? Lets hope not.

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When writing an article about anonymous internet surfing, it’s tough to know what the reader is looking for. There are a lot of different kinds of people that need to be anonymous online.  Of course, as soon as ‘anonymity’ comes up, you might think of some guy huddled in the basement of his parents house watching fetish-porn worried about his mom finding out.

It’s none of my business.

But chances are, you’re not that guy.  You probably fit into one of these other categories.  These are common reason to use an anonymous IP when connecting to the internet.

1. You have an online business and want to keep you data private
2. You work for a company and need to access company servers from remote locations
3. You want to unblock websites/bypass firewalls on networks you don’t control (work, school, public)
4. You want to access foreign movie/music/TV/download sites, but they block your IP
5. You worry about your government spying on you, or private organizations tracking your IP
6. You got kicked out of a forum/website unfairly and want to access it under a different name
7. You want to create multiple accounts, but need multiple IP addresses to do this.
8. You download movies and music (P2P/Torrents), but don’t want to get in trouble

There are of course other reasons, but I think these 8 categories hit most of them.  Whatever the reasons, anonymous internet surfing is TOTALLY LEGAL.  It may sound kind of creepy if you’ve never heard of it before, but don’t think about it as “hiding”, but more as “protecting” your privacy.

For example, when you browse the net, all of your information goes through your ISP.  Every website you visit, ever link you lick, every song you download, and ever video you stream.  That information is stored, and can be accessed later.

How would you feel if the mailman could read every letter you wrote and then made a copy to store at the post office for later reference.

How would you feel if every time you went shopping, the store made a record of your name, address, phone number, and what you bought so that next time they knew what items to advertise to you?

How would you feel if the guy at your local DVD rental place followed you home and watched a movie with you?

Yeah. When you take the situation off the internet and into ‘real life’, it sounds pretty invasive.

So protect your privacy with anonymous surfing software.

It’s called a VPN (virtual private network).

It’s fast to download, easy to install, you can choose an IP from your home country or a foreign country.  It can be installed on your phone and laptop, or you can route your laptop to change the IP on your Xbox 360 or PS3.

I could go into details, but that would be boring. It’s best to download it and play around with it to see for yourself.  I’ve reviewed some services below (that I’ve personally used).  They all have money back guarantees, so try it out, and if you don’t like it or want to try another service, you can just get your money back.

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Best VPN Services
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StrongVPN

This is a great service because they have something for everyone.  It can be a bit of a challenge for a noob to find what they want – there’s just so much of everything, and too many options.  But it’s worth it to take a look if you know what you need.  You can also ask live support, and they can direct you to a product.   You can also choose a product based on location.  The most confusing thing for new users is deciding which VPN protocols to get.  IF security/anonymity online is your goal, you should be using a L2TP VPN for your smart phone or OpenVPN for your computer. IT’s as simple as that.

>>> Take me to StrongVPN!

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12VPN

This is actually the service I use on a regular basis.  Their customer service team makes all the difference, and if I run into any issues, they’re always fast and ready to help.  I’ve communicated with plenty of VPN services over the years, and many support (live/ticket) guys are very short in their response, unhelpful, and sometimes just rude.  Perhaps the worst experience was with a VPN live support person who told me, “That doesn’t concern me. Submit a ticket”, an signed out without saying bye.  12VPn also has a great prices and simple installation, which makes it a great VPN for noobs.  Data encryption options available as well.

>>> Take me to 12VPN!

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Hide My Ass

This is one of the most popular VPN services in the world.  They boast over 23,000 IP addresses in 38 countries and they’re still growing. Over the past year they’ve added several thousand IP addresses and 5 or more countries.  Six dollars a month is an excellent price for full access to all servers and unlimited bandwidth.  The 30 day money back guarantee pretty much seals the deal.

>>> Take me to Hide My Ass!

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