According to the article the April 1st is chosen because of the IPRED legislation that is going active on that day (see also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPRED)
I know TPB has pulled some nice stunts when it comes to April Fool's jokes but because of this correlation I think they mean it. Even though the date isn't ideal... But I stand by my prior statement, that I will only believe it when I see it.
Well at least the IPRED legislation actually puts restrictions on prosecution. Companies will be forced to sue or not, and the use of any anonymity software to protect yourself will only make your chances of avoiding punishment better, because unless the company sues you in a short time then they won't be allowed to at all.
However, IPRED is only to enforce fair and just copyright laws. It protects people from being sued ridiculous amounts, but it will also likely increase the legal action taken. Possibly the worst part of this legislation is the overburden it will place on the legal system, there's enough problems with most countries court system that we don't need additional weight being placed by unnecessary and frivolous lawsuits.
Although on the other hand, I suspect most of these cases will end up going in front of a small claims court judge, which in most cases tend to be younger (basically it's where most judges start before going upwards), which may assist in beating the claims. If you get a 30 something judge then there's a high chance of them understanding technology, and equally a high chance that they themselves have 'pirated' something. They're less likely to tolerate BS and from what I know of the court system, if judges start seeing way too many cases from the likes of music associations it will start pissing them off, and when they're their decision is final it could end up good for the private citizen.
Tor encrypts data from your computer to the exit node; it's in the clear from the exit node to the server. Tor provides the same level of encryption as a VPN, but with anonymity.
How is this different from any other VPN? I am assuming that VPNs normally don't keep logs or destroy them quickly. So I really don't see any major benefit, other than the price and the fact that it is being run by TPB.
"The weak link in any VPN/anonymity service is always their willingness (or otherwise) to hand over your customer data when pressured under the law. However, with IPREDATOR this should not be an issue since the service is promising to keep no logs of user activity whatsoever."
see e.g. http://thepiratebay.org/blog/49, http://thepiratebay.org/blog/69