UPDATED 13:11 EDT / JANUARY 31 2012

NEWS

Premiumize.me Now Delivers Anonymizing Proxy for Bitcoin Users

German Bitcoin blog, BTC Base, recently interviewed Mika of Premiumize.me, an Internet anonymization proxy service that gives users the option to go online and secure their location from prying eyes. It does so via multiple servers around the world that act as exit-points for Internet traffic and they store very little distinct information about the people who use it (only enough to make certain that they route the data correctly and limit bandwidth.)

Premiumize.me has started taking Bitcoins as payment for services and aside from giving proxies that allow users to access sites that block by region (such as Hulu.com) they also provided services that allowed users to one-click upload/download to file sharing services such as the now-fallen Megaupload.

Also in that process, Premiumize.me protects the privacy and anonymity of users who upload to and download from those sites. This could become important in the future.

“Through our proxy system, our users are already protected very well,” explains Mika, talking about the “one-click-host” service that gives users access to cyberlocker sites via the anonymity proxy. “Downloads of One-Click-Hosters also always run on multiple servers. The host thus sees only the IP address of the server from the last proxy chain.

“Also with us are per user and per hour only a checksum. The first two digits of the IP address is stored and the accrued amount of data transferred per Hoster.”

Recently, cloud-storage and cyberlocker services have appeared in the media after the US raided and seized Megaupload’s assets but little attention has been given to the security of the customers using them. So far, the biggest concern is the number of people who had files uploaded to Megaupload may never see them again and many plan to sue the FBI and the US government for causing the forfeiture of their property. However, it’s well known that trade organizations like the RIAA and MPAA go after individuals as well as siccing governments on websites that they feel infringe upon their intellectual property.

People use the cloud for a myriad reasons, a gigantic majority of which are entirely innocent; but some people also store financial documents, medical documents, or other sensitive personal information in the cloud. I myself encrypt anything that I need access to in multiple locations for storage in the cloud. Other people may feel that they need further protection from not just prying eyes into what they store, but who they are when they store it.

Privacy on the web can be greatly benefited by accepting Bitcoin

Bitcoin itself provides another layer of anonymity when it comes to making transactions happen with services designed to protect privacy. Since a user could obtain Bitcoins from an exchange such as MtGox or another site, this means that once they transfer it into a wallet, it makes it even more difficult for would-be prying eyes to hunt them down out of the wash of IP addresses and payments made to a service like Premiumize.me.

Users in foregin countries with tyrannical governments might greatly enjoy services such as Premiumize.me (in fact The Onion Router, TOR, network was designed specifically to help protect speech in these countries) especially with the addition of taking Bitcoin payments because it would make it even more difficult for their activity of paying for the service to be discovered.


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