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NordVPN sued by Torguard for blackmail [pdf]

torguard.net

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Re: NordVPN sued by Torguard for blackmail [pdf]

#81

Post by BanazirGalbasi »

fao_ wrote: post #78
rasengan wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NordVPN is good at spinning stories, but quite frankly they have been caught in too many lies to ever trust again [1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18609655

If you take two seconds to read the responses to that link, the claims made in the post are almost entirely baseless.

The OP here is a co-founder of PIA, and IIRC he was behind a lot of the ProtonVPN and NordVPN controversy that is being cited in the link he provided. So basically, he's providing proof that he created a year ago.

Re: NordVPN sued by Torguard for blackmail [pdf]

#83

Post by dontbenebby »

cyberpunk wrote: post #20
cyberpunk wrote: post #10

Had a quick skim; it seems at a glance like someone from TorGuard badmouthed NordVPN on a youtube comment ( sigh ), so NordVPN apparently in response threatened to disclose "trade secret information obtained by NordVPN regarding TorGuard’s systems" it obtained via a hosting provider TorGuard used which is owned by the NordVPN people. This apparently involved some pretty sketchy stuff like sending people to the house…

Reading the parent pdf vs Nord's response [0] I'm slightly more inclined to believe Nords version of events here... 0: https://nordvpn.com/blog/torguard-lawsuit/

I always was a little sketched out by Torguard... much like how Wikileaks piggybacked on Wikipedia, the fact they put "Tor" in their name despite not being affiliated with Tor squicked me out a bit.

Re: NordVPN sued by Torguard for blackmail [pdf]

#84

Post by BanazirGalbasi »

rocky1138 wrote: post #60
jimbokun wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can anyone recommend another VPN provider, than Nord or Torguard? Main use case is for using public WiFi when travelling.

Private Internet Access. Besides providing great service, they sponsor a lot of free and open source software and services, like Freenode IRC.

Note that this post was submitted to HN by a co-founder of PIA, and they've been known to stir the pot a bit in the past. Last year they put out a few accusations against NordVPN and ProtonVPN that were very weakly supported.

Re: NordVPN sued by Torguard for blackmail [pdf]

#85

Post by dontbenebby »

ganoushoreilly wrote: post #49
penagwin wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure, their response could be fabricated too. I'm interested in if Torguard has any evidence of them physically approaching their employee. > Within an hour of this in-person and unannounced visit, the same TorGuard contractor received unsolicited correspondence from an employee at NordVPN. This correspondence stated that NordVPN had received certain of TorGuard’s confidential and trade secret information and…

What if I told you that a lot of these "VPN providers" were shell companies built to explicitly facilitate access and tools for crime / espionage with the premise of having users there as cover.

>What if I told you that a lot of these "VPN providers" were shell companies built to explicitly facilitate access and tools for crime / espionage with the premise of having users there as cover.

Interesting. I mean, Tor was was originally developed by the Navy as an OSINT tool, and later released because an "anonymity" network only used by the Navy isn't very useful.

More and more often non-state actors are doing what used to be in the purview of intelligence services, so it passes the sniff test.

But without specific evidence all I'll say is "plausible, but unconfirmed" :)

Re: NordVPN sued by Torguard for blackmail [pdf]

#86

Post by dontbenebby »

penagwin wrote: post #59
ganoushoreilly wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if I told you that a lot of these "VPN providers" were shell companies built to explicitly facilitate access and tools for crime / espionage with the premise of having users there as cover.

Oh trust me, I'm well aware of "VPN providers". Just checkout luminati.io . See how they offer an SDK so "You can offer the user a choice between advertisements or a bit of background data usage"? I asked, and they are only interested in partners with 100k active users a month. Right, like a legitimate company with that many users is going to use luminati. Or oxylabs.io who I think owns luminati? I'm also aware that…

IIRC can't an SSH tunnel leak your browsing through DNS leaks, or am I misunderstanding? I thought you usually want to use an actual VPN protocol like Wireguard.

Re: NordVPN sued by Torguard for blackmail [pdf]

#87

Post by daniel-cussen »

jimbokun wrote: post #58
kadoban wrote: post #13

NordVPN is by far the shittiest VPN service I have ever used. They billed me twice, two months in a row, and getting them to fix it was like pulling teeth. This is not to mention the hard time I had actually using the service, between random inability to connect and outages. They have ISP-level arrogance, without the lock-in. I have no idea how they're still in business. So I'd be very inclined towards believing this…

Can anyone recommend another VPN provider, than Nord or Torguard? Main use case is for using public WiFi when travelling.

Mullvad was alright. Didn't ask me any questions other than payment information.

Re: NordVPN sued by Torguard for blackmail [pdf]

#88

Post by RL_Quine »

dontbenebby wrote: post #86
penagwin wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh trust me, I'm well aware of "VPN providers". Just checkout luminati.io . See how they offer an SDK so "You can offer the user a choice between advertisements or a bit of background data usage"? I asked, and they are only interested in partners with 100k active users a month. Right, like a legitimate company with that many users is going to use luminati. Or oxylabs.io who I think owns luminati? I'm also aware that…

IIRC can't an SSH tunnel leak your browsing through DNS leaks, or am I misunderstanding? I thought you usually want to use an actual VPN protocol like Wireguard.

socks4 leaks DNS requests, socks5 can tunnel them as well.

Re: NordVPN sued by Torguard for blackmail [pdf]

#90

Post by matchcases »

cyberpunk wrote: post #10

Had a quick skim; it seems at a glance like someone from TorGuard badmouthed NordVPN on a youtube comment ( sigh ), so NordVPN apparently in response threatened to disclose "trade secret information obtained by NordVPN regarding TorGuard’s systems" it obtained via a hosting provider TorGuard used which is owned by the NordVPN people. This apparently involved some pretty sketchy stuff like sending people to the house…

How come everyone seems to ignore a fact where torguards server config file was floating around on the internet? I just can't wrap my head about that. Is this lawsuit really an attempt to intimidate nord, so they don't disclose this vulnerability publicly? Wouldn't surprise me if so.
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