Possible new law in Europe about VPNs and Torrents

[pr1v 36]

I think it could affect AirVPN if it's accepted:

 

https://torrentfreak.com/europes-net-neutrality-could-allow-torrent-and-vpn-throttling-151022/

 

Maybe we could connect through ssl to avoid it, opinions?

[Staff 9972]

I think it could affect AirVPN if it's accepted:

 

https://torrentfreak.com/europes-net-neutrality-could-allow-torrent-and-vpn-throttling-151022/

 

Maybe we could connect through ssl to avoid it, opinions?

 

 

Hi,

 

actually throttling of p2p and VPN is what routinely occurs in the European Union. It is illegal, though, to do it if the customer has not been fully and clearly informed on the contract, please see here:

 

https://airvpn.org/topic/10967-slow-airvpn-speeds-050mbs-down-or-less/?do=findComment&comment=15358

 

The new regulation is an additional and nice step forward to Net Neutrality, but it's still weak and actually it still allows various discriminations. However, when the regulation is in force, situation for the EU citizen will be better or equal to the current situation, not worse. Since years ISPs have put encrypted traffic to the slow lane. But since HTTP is being discarded more and more and HTTPS is becoming dominant in the World Wide Web, OpenVPN over SSL to port 443 has always been a perfect patch, because usually ISPs tend to treat pure TLS traffic to port 443 totally equivalent to HTTPS, which you can't throttle too much without impacting 100% of your customers.

 

Kind regards

[pr1v 36]

Thank you for the answer!

[Staff 9972]

You can read the regulation here: http://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-10788-2015-INIT/en/pdf

[foxwood 4]

 

OpenVPN over SSL to port 443 has always been a perfect patch, because usually ISPs tend to treat pure TLS traffic to port 443 totally equivalent to HTTPS, which you can't throttle too much without impacting 100% of your customers.

 

Someone in a different thread mentioned that between SSL, SSH and Tor, SSL was the best option. 

 

I always thought because SSH typically uses SSL then it didn't really matter which of those two you use. Am I wrong?

[Valerian 20]

In another thread, Staff said: "Feel free to explain how it is a bad thing for Net Neutrality instead of a (although small) step forward to it."

 

Of course the regulation is a step forward, but without the amendments that are being voted on next Tuesday, loopholes in the regulation will legitimise certain existing bad practices rather than getting rid of them. That's my understanding from this EFF article: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/10/closing-loopholes-europes-net-neutrality-compromise

[zhang888 1066]

@foxwood you are right about OpenSSH using OpenSSL ciphers, but you are wrong about the performace comparison.

 

OpenSSH has much more overhead than a typical OpenSSL stream since you have to maintain the protocol (SSHv2)

standards inside the stream as well.

On modern hardware this should not result in more than 5-10% speed loss in real-world tests, but this might be noticable

especially where latency matters.

 

A simple performance comparison will look like this:

Tor(TCP+OpenVPN) <= OpenSSH(TCP+OpenVPN) <= OpenSSL(TCP+OpenVPN) <= UDP+OpenVPN

[Valerian 20]

"If adopted as currently written, these rules will threaten innovation, free speech and privacy, and compromise Europe’s ability to lead in the digital economy." - Tim Berners Lee

http://webfoundation.org/2015/10/net-neutrality-in-europe-a-statement-from-sir-tim-berners-lee/

 

Apparently it's looking like the amendments won't be carried, as UK Labour MEPs won't support them.

[pr1v 36]

http://www.businessinsider.com/european-parliament-net-neutrality-vote-2015-10

[Valerian 20]

Yep. None of the amendments were passed, and only 50 MEPs turned up for the debate.

 

Net neutrality: EU votes in favour of Internet fast lanes and slow lanes

http://arstechnica.co.uk/tech-policy/2015/10/net-neutrality-eu-votes-in-favour-of-internet-fast-lanes-and-slow-lanes/

[pr1v 36]

I think that sooner or later ISP,s will make our VPN connections slower or forbidden, and using ssl to connect the VPN will make our connections slower too, mostly our torrents.