SoftEtherVPN_Stable/WARNING.TXT

THE IMPORTANT NOTICES ABOUT SOFTETHER VPN

FUNCTIONS OF VPN COMMUNICATIONS EMBEDDED ON THIS SOFTWARE ARE VERY POWERFUL
THAN EVER. THIS STRONG VPN ABILITY WILL BRING YOU HUGE BENEFITS. HOWEVER, IF
YOU MISUSE THIS SOFTWARE, IT MIGHT DAMAGE YOURSELF. IN ORDER TO AVOID SUCH
RISKS, THIS DOCUMENT ACCOUNTS IMPORTANT NOTICES FOR CUSTOMERS WHO ARE WILLING
TO USE THIS SOFTWARE. THE FOLLOWING INSTRUCTIONS ARE VERY IMPORTANT. READ AND
UNDERSTAND IT CAREFULLY. ADDITIONALLY, IF YOU ARE PLANNING TO USE THE DYNAMIC
DNS, THE NAT TRAVERSAL OR THE VPN AZURE FUNCTIONS, READ THE SECTION 3.5
CAREFULLY. THESE FUNCTIONS ARE FREE SERVICES PROVIDED VIA THE INTERNET, ARE
NOT GUARANTEED, AND ARE NOT INTENDED TO BE USED FOR BUSINESS OR COMMERCIAL
USE. DO NOT USE THESE SERVICES FOR YOUR BUSINESS OR COMMERCIAL USE.


1. VPN Communication Protocols
1.1. SoftEther VPN Protocol
SoftEther VPN can perform VPN communication. Unlike traditional VPN protocols,
SoftEther VPN has an implementation of the newly-designed "SoftEther VPN
Protocol (SE-VPN Protocol)" . SE-VPN protocol encapsulates any Ethernet
packets into a HTTPS (HTTP over SSL) connection. Therefore SE-VPN protocol can
communicate beyond firewalls even if the firewall is configured to block
traditional VPN packets by network administrator. SE-VPN protocol is designed
and implemented to comply TLS (RFC 5246) and HTTPS (RFC 2818). However, it
sometimes have different behavior to RFCs. If you are a network administrator
and want to block SE-VPN protocols on the firewall, you can adopt a
"white-list" policy on the firewall to filter any TCP or UDP packets on the
border except explicitly allowed packets towards specific web sites and
servers.

1.2. NAT Traversal Function
Generally, if you use traditional VPN systems you have to request a network
administrator to make the NAT or firewall to "open" or "relay" specific TCP or
UDP ports. However, there are demands somehow to eliminate such working costs
on network administrators. In order to satisfy such demands, SoftEther VPN has
the newly-implemented "NAT Traversal" function. NAT Traversal is enabled by
default. A SoftEther VPN Server running on the computer behind NAT or firewall
can accept VPN connections from the Internet, without any special
configurations on firewalls or NATs. If you want to disable the NAT Traversal
function, modify the "DisableNatTraversal" to "true" on the configuration file
of SoftEther VPN Server. In order to disable it on the client-side, append
"/tcp" suffix on the destination hostname.

1.3. Dynamic DNS Function
Traditional legacy VPN system requires a static global IP address on the VPN
server. In consideration of shortage of global IP addresses, SoftEther
Corporation implements the "Dynamic DNS Function" on SoftEther VPN Server.
Dynamic DNS is enabled by default. Dynamic DNS function notify the current
global IP address of the PC to the Dynamic DNS Servers which are operated by
SoftEther Corporation. A globally-unique hostname (FQDN) such as
"abc.softether.net" ( "abc" varies as unique per a user) will be assigned on
the VPN Server. If you tell this unique hostname to a VPN user, the user can
specify it as the destination VPN Sever hostname on the VPN Client and will be
able to connect the VPN Server. No IP addresses are required to know
beforehand. If the IP address of the VPN Server varies, the registered IP
address related to the hostname of Dynamic DNS service will be changed
automatically. By this mechanism, no longer need a static global IP address
which costs monthly to ISPs. You can use consumer-level inexpensive Internet
connection with dynamic IP address in order to operate an enterprise-level VPN
system. If you want to disable Dynamic DNS, specify "true" on the "Disabled"
items of the "DDnsClient" directive on the SoftEther VPN Server configuration
file. * Note for residents in People's Republic of China: If your VPN Server
is running on the People's Republic of China, the DNS suffix will be replaced
to "sedns.cn" domain. The "sedns.cn" domain is the service possessed and
operated by "Beijing Daiyuu SoftEther Technology Co., Ltd" which is a
Chinese-local enterprise.

1.4. VPN over ICMP / VPN over DNS functions
If you want to make a VPN connection between SoftEther VPN Client / Bridge and
SoftEther VPN Server, but if TCP and UDP packets are prohibited by the
firewall, then you can encapsulates payloads into "ICMP" (as known as Ping) or
"DNS" packets. This function can realize a VPN connection by using ICMP or DNS
even if the firewall or router blocks every TCP or UDP connections. VPN over
ICMP / VPN over DNS functions are designed to comply standard ICMP and DNS
specifications as possible, however it sometimes has a behavior not to fully
comply them. Therefore, few poor-quality routers may be caused a
memory-overflow or something troubles when a lot of ICMP or DNS packets are
passed, and such routers sometimes freezes or reboots. It might affects other
users on the same network. To avoid such risks, append the suffix "/tcp" on
the destination hostname which is specified on the VPN-client side to disable
VPN over ICMP / DNS functions.

1.5. VPN Azure Cloud Service
If your SoftEther VPN Server is placed behind the NAT or firwall, and by some
reason you cannot use NAT Traversal function, Dynamic DNS function or VPN over
ICMP/DNS function, you can use VPN Azure Clouse Service. SoftEther Corporation
operates VPN Azure Cloud on Internet. After the VPN Server makes a connection
to the VPN Azure Cloud, the hostname "abc.vpnazure.net" ( "abc" is a unique
hostname) can be specified to connect to the VPN Server via the VPN Azure
Cloud. Practically, such a hostname is pointing a global IP address of one of
cloud servers which are operated by SoftEther Corporation. If A VPN Client
connects to such a VPN Azure host, then the VPN Azure host will relay all
traffics between the VPN Client and the VPN Server. VPN Azure is disabled by
default. You can activate it easily by using VPN Server Configuration Tool.

1.6. UDP Acceleration
SoftEther VPN has the UDP Acceleration Function. If a VPN consists of two
sites detects that UDP channel can be established, UDP will be automatically
used. By this function, throughput of UDP increases. If direct UDP channel can
be established, direct UDP packets will be used. However, if there is
something obstacles such as firewalls or NATs, the "UDP Hole Punching"
technology will be used, instead. The "UDP Hole Punching" uses the cloud
servers which SoftEther Corporation operates on Internet. UDP Acceleration can
be disabled anytime by setting up so on the VPN-client side.


2. VPN Software
The notes in this section are not specific to SoftEther VPN or VPN Gate, but
apply to general system software. SoftEther VPN Client, SoftEther VPN Server,
SoftEther VPN Bridge, and VPN Gate Relay Service will be installed on your
computer as system services. System services always run in the background.
System services usually do not appear on the computer display. Then your
computer system is booted, system services automatically start in the
background even before you or other users log in. To check whether
PacketiX-related system service is running, check the process list or the
background service list of your OS (called as "Services" in Windows, or
"Daemons" in UNIX.) You can activate, deactivate, start, or stop system
services using the functions of the OS anytime. PacketiX-related GUI tools for
managing system services communicate with these system services. After you
terminate these management GUI tools, PacketiX-related system services will
continue to run in the background. System services consume CPU time, computer
power, memory and disk space. Because system services consume power, your
electricity charges and amount of thermal of your computer increase as result.
In addition, there is a possibility that the mechanical parts of the life of
your computer is reduced.

2.1. SoftEther VPN Client
If you use SoftEther VPN Client on Windows, the Virtual Network Adapter device
driver will be installed on Windows. The Virtual Network Adapter is
implemented as a kernel-mode driver for Windows. The driver is
digitally-signed by a certificate issued by VeriSign, Inc. and also sub-signed
by Symantec Corporation. A message to ask you want to sure install the driver
might be popped up on the screen. SoftEther VPN Client may response the
message if possible. SoftEther VPN Client also optimizes the configuration of
MMCSS (Multimedia Class Scheduler Service) on Windows. You can undo the
optimizations of MMCSS afterwards.

2.2. SoftEther VPN Server / Bridge
If you use SoftEther VPN Server / Bridge on Windows with "Local Bridge"
functions, you have to install the low-level Ethernet packet processing driver
on the computer. The driver is digitally-signed by a certificate issued by
VeriSign, Inc. and also sub-signed by Symantec Corporation. SoftEther VPN
Server / Bridge may disable the TCP/IP offloading features on the physical
network adapter for Local Bridge function. In Windows Vista / 2008 or greater
version, VPN Server may inject a packet-filter driver which complies Windows
Filter Platform (WPF) specification into the kernel in order to provide IPsec
function. The packet-filter driver will be loaded available only if IPsec
function is enabled. Once you enables IPsec function of SoftEther VPN Server,
the built-in IPsec function of Windows will be disabled. After you disabled
IPsec function of SoftEther VPN Server, then the built-in IPsec function of
Windows will revive. In order to provide the Local Bridge function, SoftEther
VPN Server / Bridge disables the TCP/IP offloading function on the operating
system.

2.3. User-mode Installation
You can install SoftEther VPN Server and SoftEther VPN Bridge as "User-mode"
on Windows. In other words, even if you don't have Windows system
administrator's privileges, you can install SoftEther VPN as a normal user.
User-mode install will disable a few functions, however other most functions
work well. Therefore, for example, an employee can install SoftEther VPN
Server on the computer in the office network, and he will be able to connect
to the server from his home. In order to realize such a system by user-self,
no system administrative privileges are required in the view-point of
technical. However, breaking rules of the company to install software on the
computer without authority might be regarded as an unfavorable behavior. If
you are an employee and belong to the company, and the company-policy
prohibits installing software or making communications towards Internet
without permission, you have to obtain a permission from the network
administrator or the executive officer of your company in advance to install
SoftEther VPN. If you install VPN Server / Bridge as User-mode, an icon will
be appeared on the Windows task-tray. If you feel that the icon disturbs you,
you can hide it by your operation. However, you must not exploit this hiding
function to install VPN Server on other person's computer as a spyware. Such
behavior might be an offence against the criminal law.

2.4. Keep Alive Function
SoftEther VPN Server and SoftEther VPN Bridge has Keep Alive Function by
default. The purpose of this function is to sustain the Internet line active.
The function transmits UDP packets with a random-byte-array-payload
periodically. This function is useful to avoid automatic disconnection on
mobile or dial-up connections. You can disable Keep Alive Function anytime.

2.5. Uninstallation
The uninstallation process of SoftEther VPN software will delete all program
files. However, non-program files (such as files and data which are generated
by running of programs) ) will not be deleted. For technical reason, the exe
and resource files of uninstaller might remain. Such remaining files never
affects to use the computer, however you can delete it manually. Kernel-mode
drivers might not be deleted, however such drivers will not be loaded after
the next boot of Windows. You can use "sc" command of Windows to delete
kernel-mode drivers manually.

2.6. Security
You should set the administrator's password on SoftEther VPN Server / Bridge
after installation. If you neglect to do it, another person can access to
SoftEther VPN Server / Bridge and can set the password without your
permission. This caution might be also applied on SoftEther VPN Client for
Linux.

2.7. Automatic Update Notification
SoftEther VPN software for Windows has an automatic update notification
function. It accesses to the SoftEther Update server periodically to check
whether or not the latest version of software is released. If the latest
version is released, the notification message will be popped up on the screen.
In order to achieve this purpose, the version, language settings, the unique
identifier, the IP address of your computer and the hostname of VPN Server
which is connected to will be sent to the SoftEther Update server. No personal
information will be sent. Automatic Update Notification is enabled by default,
however you can disable it on the configuration screen. The setting whether
turned on or turned off will be saved individually corresponding to each
destination VPN server, by VPN Server Manager.

2.8. Virtual NAT Function
A Virtual Hub on SoftEther VPN Server / Bridge has "Virtual NAT Function" .
Virtual NAT Function can share a single IP address on the physical network by
multiple private IP address of VPN Clients. There are two operation mode of
Virtual NAT: User-mode and Kernel-mode. In the user-mode operation, Virtual
NAT shares an IP address which is assigned on the host operating system.
Unlike user-mode, the kernel-mode operation attempts to find DHCP servers on
the physical network. If there are two or more physical networks, a DHCP
server will be sought automatically for each segments serially. If a DHCP
server found, and an IP address is acquired, the IP address will be used by
the Virtual NAT. In this case, an IP entry as a DHCP client will be registered
on the IP pool of the physical DHCP Server. The physical default gateway and
the DNS server will be used by the Virtual NAT in order to communicate with
hosts in Internet. In kernel-mode operation, a Virtual Hub has a virtual MAC
address which is operating on the physical Ethernet segment. In order to check
the connectivity to Internet, SoftEther VPN periodically sends DNS query
packet to resolve the IP address of host "www.yahoo.com" or "www.baidu.com" ,
and attempts to connect to the TCP port 80 of such a resulted IP address for
connectivity check.

2.9. Unattended Installation of Kernel-mode Components
When SoftEther VPN will detect a necessity to install the kernel-mode
components on Windows, a confirmation message will be appeared by Windows
system. In this occasion, SoftEther VPN software will switch to the Unattended
Installation mode in order to respond "Yes" to Windows. This is a solution to
prevent dead-locks when a remote-administration is performed from remote
place.

2.10. Windows Firewall
SoftEther VPN software will register itself as a safe-program. Such an entry
will be remain after the uninstallation. You can remove it manually from the
Control Panel of Windows.


3. Internet Services
3.1. Internet Services which are provided by SoftEther Corporation
SoftEther Corporation provides Dynamic DNS, NAT Traversal and VPN Azure server
services on the Internet. These services are free of charge. Customers can
access to the services by using SoftEther VPN software, via Internet. These
service will be planned to be available from Open-Source version of "SoftEther
VPN" which will be released in the future.

3.2. Sent Information and Privacy Protection
SoftEther VPN software may send an IP address, hostname, the version of VPN
software on the customer's computer to the cloud service operated by SoftEther
Corporation, in order to use the above services. These sending of information
are minimal necessary to use the services. No personal information will be
sent. SoftEther Corporation records log files of the cloud service servers for
90 days at least with the received information. Such logs will be used for
troubleshooting and other legitimate activities. SoftEther Corporation may
provide logs to a public servant of Japanese government who are belonging to
courts, police stations and the prosecutor's office, in order to comply such
authorities' order. (Every Japanese public servants are liable by law to keep
the information close.) Moreover, the IP addresses or other information will
be processed statistically and provided to the public, not to expose the each
concrete IP address, in order to release the release of research activities.

3.3. Communication Data via VPN Azure Service
Regardless of the above 3.2 rule, if the customer sends or receives VPN
packets using VPN Azure Cloud Service, the actual payloads will stored and
forwarded via the volatile memory of the servers for very short period. Such a
behavior is naturally needed to provide the "VPN relay service" . No payloads
will be recorded on "fixed" storages such as hard-drives. However, the
"Wiretapping for Criminals Procedures Act" (The 137th legislation ruled on
August 18, 1999 in Japan) requires telecommunication companies to allow the
Japanese government authority to conduct a wire-tapping on the line. VPN Azure
Servers which are physically placed on Japan are subjects of this law.

3.4. Comply to Japanese Telecommunication Laws
SoftEther Corporation complies with Japanese Telecommunication Laws as
necessary to provide online services via Internet.

3.5. Free and Academic Experiment Services
SoftEther provides Dynamic DNS, NAT Traversal and VPN Azure as academic
experiment services. Therefore, there services can be used for free of charge.
These services are not parts of "SoftEther VPN Software Products" . These
services are provided without any warranty. The services may be suspended or
discontinued by technical or operational matters. In such occasions, users
will not be able to use the services. A user have to understand such risks,
and to acknowledge that such risks are borne by a user-self. SoftEther will
never be liable to results or damages of use or unable-to-use of the service.
Even if the user has already paid the license-fee of the commercial version of
SoftEther VPN, such paid fees don't include any fees of these services.
Therefore, if the online services will stop or be discontinued, no refunds or
recoveries of damages will be provided by SoftEther Corporation.

3.6. DNS Proxy Cloud Servers
In some regions, when a user uses Internet, a DNS query sometimes broken or
lost when it is passing through the ISP line. If SoftEther VPN Server, Client
or Bridge detects a possibility that the accessing to the actual VPN server
might be unstable, then DNS queries will be also transferred to the DNS proxy
cloud servers which are operated by SoftEther Corporation. A DNS proxy cloud
server will respond DNS queries with answering correct a IP address.


4. General Cautions
4.1. Needs an Approval from Network Administrator
SoftEther VPN has powerful functions which don't require special settings by
network administrators. For example, you need not to ask the administrator to
configure the existing firewall in order to "open" a TCP/UDP port. Such
characteristic features are for the purpose to eliminate working times and
costs of network administrators, and avoid misconfiguration-risks around the
tasks to open specific exception ports on the firewall. However, any employees
belong to the company have to obtain an approval from the network
administrator before installs SoftEther VPN. If your network administrator
neglects to provide such an approval, you can consider to take an approval
from an upper authority. (For example, executive officer of the company.) If
you use SoftEther VPN without any approvals from the authority of your
company, you might have disadvantage. SoftEther Corporation will be never
liable for results or damages of using SoftEther VPN.

4.2. Observe Laws of Your Country
If your country's law prohibits the use of encryption, you have to disable the
encryption function of SoftEther VPN by yourself. Similarly, in some countries
or regions, some functions of SoftEther VPN might be prohibited to use by
laws. Other countries' laws are none of SoftEther Corporation's concern
because SoftEther Corporation is an enterprise which is located and registered
in Japan physically. For example, there might be a risk that a part of
SoftEther VPN conflicts an existing patent which is valid only on the specific
region. SoftEther Corporation has no interests in such specific region outside
Japan's territory. Therefore, if you want to use SoftEther VPN in regions
outside Japan, you have to be careful not to violate third-person's rights.
You have to verify the legitimacy of the use of SoftEther VPN in the specific
region before you actually use it in such region. By nature, there are almost
200 countries in the World, and each country's law is different each other. It
is practically impossible to verify every countries' laws and regulations and
make the software comply with all countries' laws in advance to release the
software. Therefore SoftEther Corporation has verified the legitimacy of
SoftEther VPN against the laws and regulations of only Japan. If a user uses
SoftEther VPN in a specific country, and damaged by public servants of the
government authority, SoftEther Corporation will never be liable to recover or
compensate such damages or criminal responsibilities.


5. VPN Gate Academic Experiment Project
(This chapter applies only on SoftEther VPN software package which contains
the extension plug-in for VPN Gate Academic Experiment Project.)
5.1. About VPN Gate Academic Experiment Project
VPN Gate Academic Experiment Project is an online service operated for just
the academic research purpose at the graduate school of University of Tsukuba,
Japan. The purpose of this research is to expend our knowledge about the
"Global Distributed Public VPN Relay Server" (GDPVRS) technology. For details,
please visit http://www.vpngate.net/.

5.2. About VPN Gate Service
SoftEther VPN Server and SoftEther VPN Client may contain "VPN Gate Service"
program. However, VPN Gate Service is disabled by default.
VPN Gate Service should be activated and enabled by the voluntary intention of
the owner of the computer which SoftEther VPN Server or SoftEther VPN Client
is installed on. After you activate VPN Gate Service, the computer will be
start to serve as a part of the Global Distributed Public VPN Relay Servers.
The IP address, hostname and related information of the computer will be sent
and registered to the directory server of VPN Gate Academic Experiment
Project, and they will be published and disclosed to the public. This
mechanism will allow any VPN Gate Client software's user to connect to the VPN
Gate Service running on your computer. While the VPN session between a VPN
Gate Client and your VPN Gate Service is established, the VPN Gate Client's
user can send/receive any IP packets towards the Internet via the VPN Gate
Service. The global IP address of the VPN Gate Service's hosing computer will
be used as the source IP address of such communications which a VPN Gate
Client initiates.
VPN Gate Service will send some information to the VPN Gate Academic
Experiment Service Directory Server. The information includes the operator's
information which described in section 5.5, logging settings, uptime,
operating system version, type of protocol, port numbers, quality information,
statistical information, VPN Gate clients' log history data (includes dates,
IP addresses, version numbers and IDs), log records of destination HTTP/HTTPS
hostnames or IP addresses and port numbers of VPN Gate communications, and the
version of the software. These information may be exposed on the directory.
VPN Gate Service also receives a key for encoding which is described on the
chapter 5.9 from the directory server.

5.3. Details of VPN Gate Service's Behavior
If you enable VPN Gate Service manually, which is disabled by default, the
"VPNGATE" Virtual Hub will be created on the SoftEther VPN Server. If you are
using SoftEther VPN Client and attempt to active VPN Gate Service on it, an
equivalent program to SoftEther VPN Server will be invoked on the same process
of SoftEther VPN Client, and the "VPNGATE" Virtual Hub will be created. The
"VPNGATE" Virtual Hub contains a user named "VPN" by default which permits
anyone on the Internet to make a VPN connection to the Virtual Hub. Once a VPN
Client connects to the "VPNGATE" Virtual Hub, any communication between the
user and the Internet will pass through the Virtual Hub, and
transmitted/received using the physical network interface on the computer
which SoftEther VPN Server (or SoftEther VPN Client) is running on. This will
cause the result that a destination host specified by the VPN Client will
identify that the source of the communication has initiated from the VPN Gate
Service's hosting computer's IP address. However, for safety, any packets
which destinations are within 192.168.0.0/255.255.0.0, 172.16.0.0/255.240.0.0
or 10.0.0.0/255.0.0.0 will be blocked by the "VPNGATE" Virtual Hub in order to
protect your local network. Any packets which destinations are within
169.254.0.0/16, 224.0.0.0/4 or 100.64.0.0/10 will also be blocked for just in
case. These packet filters except DNS, ICMP and ARP packets. Therefore, if you
run VPN Gate Service on your corporate network or private network, it is safe
because anonymous VPN Client users will not be permitted to access such
private networks. VPN Gate Service also serves as relay for accessing to the
VPN Gate Directory Server.
In order to make VPN Gate Service familiar with firewalls and NATs, it opens
an UDP port by using the NAT Traversal function which is described on the
section 1.2. It also opens and listens on some TCP ports, and some TCP and UDP
ports will be specified as the target port of Universal Plug and Play (UPnP)
Port Transfer entries which are requested to your local routers. UPnP request
packets will be sent periodically. Some routers keep such an opened TCP/UDP
port permanently on the device. If you wish to close them, do it manually.
VPN Gate Service also provides the mirror-site function for www.vpngate.net.
This is a mechanism that a copy of the latest contents from www.vpngate.net
will be hosted by the mirror-site tiny HTTP server which is running on the VPN
Gate Service program. It will register itself on the mirror-sites list in
www.vpngate.net. However, it never relays any other communications which are
not towards www.vpngate.net.

5.4. Communication between Internet via VPN Gate Service
VPN Gate Service provides a routing between users and the Internet, by using
the Virtual NAT Function which is described on the section 2.8. VPN Gate
Service sends polling Ping packets to the server which is located on
University of Tsukuba, and the Google Public DNS Server which is identified as
8.8.8.8, in order to check the latest quality of your Internet line. VPN Gate
Service also sends and receives a lot of random packets to/from the Speed Test
Server on University of Tsukuba. These quality data will be reported to VPN
Gate Directory Server, automatically and periodically. The result will be
saved and disclosed to the public. These periodical polling communication are
adjusted not to occupy the Internet line, however in some circumstances they
might occupy the line.

5.5. Operator's Information of VPN Gate Service
If you activate VPN Gate Service on your computer, the computer will be a part
of the Global Distributed Public VPN Relay Servers. Therefore, the Operator's
administrative information of your VPN Gate Service should be reported and
registered on the VPN Gate Service Directory. Operator's information contains
the name of the operator and the abuse-reporting contact e-mail address. These
information can be inputted on the screen if the VPN Gate configuration.
Inputted information will be transmitted to the VPN Gate Directory Server,
stored and disclosed to the public. So you have to be careful to input
information. By the way, until you specify something as the operator's
information, the computer's hostname will be used automatically as the field
of the name of the operator, by appending the "'s owner" string after the
hostname.

5.6. Observe Laws to Operate VPN Gate Service
In some countries or regions, a user who is planning to activate and operate
VPN Gate Service, he are mandated to obtain a license or register a service
from/to the government. If your region has such a regulation, you must fulfill
mandated process before activating VPN Gate Service in advance. Neither the
developers nor operators of the VPN Gate Academic Experiment Project will be
liable for legal/criminal responsibilities or damages which are occurred from
failure to comply your local laws.

5.7. Protect Privacy of Communication
Most of countries have a law which requires communication service's operators,
including VPN Gate Service operators, to protect the privacy of communication
of third-persons. When you operate VPN Gate Service, you must always protect
user's privacy.

5.8. Packet Logs
The packet logging function is implemented on VPN Gate Service. It records
essential headers of major TCP/IP packets which are transmitted via the
Virtual Hub. This function will be helpful to investigate the "original IP
address" of the initiator of communication who was a connected user of your
VPN Gate Service, by checking the packet logs and the connection logs. The
packet logs are recorded only for such legitimate investigates purpose. Do not
peek nor leak packet logs except the rightful purpose. Such act will be
violate the section 5.7.

5.9. Packet Logs Automatic Archiving and Encoding Function
The VPN Gate Academic Experiment Service is operated and running under the
Japanese constitution and laws. The Japanese constitution laws demand strictly
protection over the privacy of communication. Because this service is under
Japanese rules, the program of VPN Gate Service implements this "Automatic Log
File Encoding" protection mechanism, and enabled by default.
The VPN Gate Service is currently configured to encode packet log files which
has passed two or more weeks automatically, by default. In order to protect
privacy of communication, if a packet log file is once encoded, even the
administrator of the local computer cannot censor the packet log file. This
mechanism protects privacy of end-users of VPN Gate Service.
You can change the VPN Gate Service setting to disable this automatic encoding
function. Then packet log files will never be encoded even after two weeks
passed. In such a configuration, all packet logs will remain as plain-text on
the disk. Therefore you have to take care not to violate user's privacy.
If you are liable to decode an encoded packet log files (for example: a VPN
Gate Service's user illegally abused your VPN Gate Service and you have to
decode the packet logs in order to comply the laws), contact the administrator
of the VPN Gate Academic Experiment Service at Graduate School of University
of Tsukuba, Japan. You can find the contact address at
http://www.vpngate.net/. The administrator of VPN Gate Service will respond to
decode the packet logs if there is an appropriate and legal request from court
or other judicial authorities, according to laws.
The Packet Logs Automatic Archiving and Encoding Function may be disabled
according to technical or administrative reason.

5.10. Caution if You Operate VPN Gate Service in the Japan's Territories
When a user operates VPN Gate Service in the Japan's territories, such an act
may be regulated under the Japanese Telecommunication Laws if the operation is
a subject to the law. However, in such a circumstance, according to the
"Japanese Telecommunication Business Compete Manual [supplemental version]" ,
non- profitable operations of communications are not identified as a
"telecommunication business" . So usual operators of VPN Gate Service are not
subjects to "telecommunication business operators" , and not be mandated to
register to the government.

5.11. VPN Gate Client
If SoftEther VPN Client contains the VPN Gate Client plug-in, you can use it
to obtain the list of current operating VPN Gate Service servers in the
Internet, and make a VPN connection to a specific server on the list.
VPN Gate Client always keeps the latest list of the VPN Gate Services
periodically. Be careful if you are using a pay-per-use Internet line.
When you start the VPN Gate Client software, the screen which asks you
activate or not VPN Gate Service will be appeared. For details of VPN Gate
Service, read the above sections.

5.12. Caution before Joining or Exploiting VPN Gate Academic Experiment
Project
The VPN Gate Academic Experiment Service is operated as a research project at
the graduate school on University of Tsukuba, Japan. The service is governed
under the Japanese laws. Other countries' laws are none of our concerns nor
responsibilities.
By nature, there are almost 200 countries in the World, with different laws.
It is impossible to verify every countries' laws and regulations and make the
software comply with all countries' laws in advance to release the software.
If a user uses VPN Gate service in a specific country, and damaged by public
servants of the authority, the developer of either the service or software
will never be liable to recover or compensate such damages or criminal
responsibilities.
By using this software and service, the user must observe all concerned laws
and rules with user's own responsibility. The user will be completely liable
to any damages and responsibilities which are results of using this software
and service, regardless of either inside or outside of Japan's territory.
If you don't agree nor understand the above warnings, do not use any of VPN
Gate Academic Experiment Service functions.
VPN Gate is a research project for just academic purpose only. VPN Gate was
developed as a plug-in for SoftEther VPN and UT-VPN. However, all parts of VPN
Gate were developed on this research project at University of Tsukuba. Any
parts of VPN Gate are not developed by SoftEther Corporation. The VPN Gate
Research Project is not a subject to be led, operated, promoted nor guaranteed
by SoftEther Corporation.

5.13. The P2P Relay Function in the VPN Gate Client to strengthen the
capability of circumvention of censorship firewalls
VPN Gate Clients, which are published since January 2015, include the P2P
Relay Function. The P2P Relay Function is implemented in order to strengthen
the capability of circumvention of censorship firewalls. If the P2P Relay
Function in your VPN Gate Client is enabled, then the P2P Relay Function will
accept the incoming VPN connections from the VPN Gate users, which are located
on mainly same regions around you, and will provide the relay function to the
external remote VPN Gate Servers, which are hosted by third parties in the
free Internet environment. This P2P Relay Function never provides the shared
NAT functions nor replaces the outgoing IP address of the VPN Gate users to
your IP addresses because this P2P Relay Function only provides the
"reflection service" (hair-pin relaying), relaying from incoming VPN Gate
users to an external VPN Gate Server. In this situation, VPN tunnels via your
P2P Relay Function will be finally terminated on the external VPN Gate Server,
not your VPN Gate Client. However, the VPN Gate Server as the final
destination will record your IP address as the source IP address of VPN
tunnels which will be initiated by your P2P Relay Function. Additionally, user
packets which are transmitted via your P2P Relay Function will be recorded on
your computer as packet logs as described on the section 5.8. After you
installed the VPN Gate Client, and if the P2P Relay Function will be enabled
automatically, then all matters on the 5.2, 5.3, 5.4, 5.5, 5.6, 5.7, 5.8, 5.9,
5.10, 5.11 and 5.12 sections will be applied to you and your computer, as same
to the situation when you enabled the VPN Gate Service (the VPN Gate Server
function). If your P2P Function is enabled, then your computer's IP address
and the default operator's name which is described on the section 5.5 will be
listed on the VPN Gate Server List which is provided by the VPN Gate Project.
You can change these strings by editing the "vpn_gate_relay.config" file
manually. Note that you need to stop the VPN Client service before editing it.
The VPN Gate Client will automatically enable the P2P Relay Function on your
computer if the VPN Gate Client detects that your computer might be located in
regions where there are existing censorship firewalls. If you want to disable
the P2P Relay Function, you must set the "DisableRelayServer" flag to "true"
on the "vpn_client.config" file which is the configuration file of the VPN
Client. Note that you need to stop the VPN Client service before editing it.
The VPN Gate Client does not recognize the particular regulation of your
country or your region. The VPN Gate Client activates the P2P Relay Function
even if your country or your region has the law to restrict running P2P relay
functions. Therefore, in such a case, you must disable the P2P Relay Function
on the VPN Gate Client manually by setting the "DisableRelayServer" flag if
you reside in such a restricted area, in your own responsibility.