PIA VPN to be acquired by malware company founded by former Israeli spy • Hacker News Board

Re: PIA VPN to be acquired by malware company founded by former Israeli spy

#271

Post by kragen » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 4:01 PM UTC

mirimir wrote: post #152

kragen wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, you need to trust the VPS provider. But many people already trust Amazon with their credit card number, their home address, which books they read when, and which passages they highlight in them, to say nothing of all the other websites they use that Amazon hosts; trusting Amazon instead of Comcast is probably purely an improvement for them. Tor is not operated by the US government; it's founded by them and partl…

The VPN that I connect directly to, I pay with a credit card. They know who I am, so why bother trying to hide. All other VPNs in my chains, I pay with Bitcoin that's been mixed multiple times. I have a bunch of Whonix instances that I use for mixing and storing Bitcoin. They all hit Tor through nested VPN chains. Each one has an Electrum wallet. It gets its Bitcoin from another Whonix instance through a mixing servi…

Interesting! Which VPN providers can you recommend?

Re: PIA VPN to be acquired by malware company founded by former Israeli spy

#272

Post by rasengan » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 4:04 PM UTC

harshreality wrote: post #243

rasengan wrote: post #4

This article and articles like this miscast Kape in an incorrect light. To be clear, in the past the company was known as CrossRider and provided a developer SDK that could be used to integrate with browsers. Unfortunately, CrossRider didn't do enough to prevent malware (like platforms these days and their fake news) and the platform was used by some bad people for bad purposes. When the new management team of CrossR…

Here's an idea or two. Wireguard. Stop sitting on your hands complaining about how wireguard isn't mature, and support it with the generic native apps (now there's even a (beta) windows client). The network address selection issue requires engineering effort, but wireguard itself is most likely not going to address that soon, because it's designed to be a minimal vpn codebase, so why don't you engineer a solution you…

We have financially supported wire guard for some time and have followed its development closely while being in communication with its developer.

We do have explicit stock OpenVPN support.

While your adversary might not be the NSA, it’s our duty to only use battle hardened, time proven systems because as others noted, privacy can be life and death.

We aren’t going to falter on it. We never have. And we never will.

NordVPN plays fast and loose as we see by their masked headquarter location, hidden hacks, and other not so above board actions. It’s exactly what I would never want in a VPN to be clear.

Re: PIA VPN to be acquired by malware company founded by former Israeli spy

#273

Post by JadeNB » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 4:08 PM UTC

bjourne wrote: post #245

jeltz wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has worked in the online gambling industry I can say that this article is very outdated and on some points misinformed. Things have changed a lot since 2010, and he is wrong even about how things worked back then. > It is routine for sites to demand the transmission of passport and credit card scans, drivers licenses, utility bills and other personal documents. All the available evidence indicates that…

What you're forgetting to mention is that none of the "improvements" is due to the industry itself. ALL of it has come from government regulation and threats from legislators to ban online gambling unless the casinos clean up their act.

While this fact surely deserves to be mentioned, I think plenty of companies make good PR off complying with legally mandated measures. Doing something good is doing something good, even if you don't want to do it.

Re: PIA VPN to be acquired by malware company founded by former Israeli spy

#274

Post by rasengan » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 4:11 PM UTC

sumedh wrote: post #165

rasengan wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Did you really need more resources? For what? Yes, to bring freedom thru privacy to people, The coming battle against privacy and free speech is by far the strongest and worst yet; the narrative and our voices are quickly getting quashed. Without the ability to communicate privately and speak freely, at best democracy is at risk; and at worst, humanity, or what it has meant to be human until now, itself may be at r…

So what exactly is the gameplan, how are you going to change the world by selling your stake?

The company is now no longer controlled by one man alone, but instead many. I’m still a major shareholder.

We are changing the world by fighting in the front lines with our PR as we always did [1], donating to organizations without pause or hesitation [2], and sticking to our decisions even when the world may not understand as they aren’t deep in the battle like us.

Time will prove everything, and we will help the people (and freedom of speech and privacy) achieve victory.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/61ns2w/private_intern... [2] https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/pages/companies-we-spo...

Edit: Unable to reply below so I wanted to clarify - our ad spend often times goes toward the benefit of people as opposed to being direct ads about our company.

Re: PIA VPN to be acquired by malware company founded by former Israeli spy

#275

Post by w0uld » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 4:14 PM UTC

nickpsecurity wrote: post #256

awoodbeck wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can only infer that as the result of court case demanding logs. And even then, it would have to be born out of the discovery process that PIA was truthful, in my opinion. Yet that only gives you comfort that they hadn't maintained logs up to that point. You have no guarantees from that point forward, which is what we're all concerned about. We aren't concerned about PIA's past operations, but rather what this new…

"You can only infer that as the result of court case demanding logs. " You can't be sure. In the Lavabit case, Lavabit argued giving up the key protecting all their users... compromising them to the FBI... would cost them customers due to damaged reputation and privacy. The FBI argued they could do it without telling them. Then, Lavabit would still look private with no financial harm. The judge agreed. That proposal…

While I agree with you, I think there's some nuance. In the Lavabit case, the FBI was investigating a national security threat whereas the PIA case involved the hacking of local social media sites. I can see a judge not wanting to rule against the FBI in a case of national security whereas I think a judge would be hesitant to do the same in the case of a misdemeanor offense. Then again, I'm continually surprised by the U.S. government in the "war against terror" era.

Re: PIA VPN to be acquired by malware company founded by former Israeli spy

#276

Post by codezero » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 4:15 PM UTC

rasengan wrote: post #270

nickpsecurity wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The merger between Kape and PIA affords PIA the resources needed" I'm one of those people who understand the importance of reputation and integrity. One bad deal might ruin mine forever. You needed resources to expand your privacy business. Did you try and fail to partner with reputable businesses such as Mozilla, get funding from governments/foundations, etc? Did you try to get with amoral companies whose backgroun…

We actually did reach out to many groups including some of those you mentioned. You would be surprised to find that “non profit” doesn’t always mean “for the public good.” As for others that were willing to partner with us, they wouldn’t sign a no log pact so I had no interest to work with them. It’s shocking how many private VPNs are shadily logging and/or selling your data.

Why don’t you out them? You haven’t had much trouble slinging mud on HN in the past, and to be clear, it has been appreciated.

Re: PIA VPN to be acquired by malware company founded by former Israeli spy

#277

Post by bogwog » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 4:17 PM UTC

computerfriend wrote: post #263

ActorNightly wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly want to agree with HN on this, but then Im reminded of the constant support for Apple on here, despite the fact that they have violated user trust on numerous occasions, while PIA has not. So I did some checking: * Teddy Sagi is a entrepreneur. To say that he is an ex spy is a gross misstatement. Yes, he worked as a developer in Israeli SIGINT program - so do a lot of developers who work for any number of…

> To say that he is an ex spy is a gross misstatement. Yes, he worked as a developer in Israeli SIGINT program This makes him an ex-spy. There's no prejudice or judgement in saying so, it's simply true.

There's a podcast called Darknet Diaries with an episode about this program[1], where the host interviews an ex-member. It's all very interesting, but there's one part in particular where he talks about the reunions that some ex-members regularly attend. It raises questions since many of these people are working in important positions at major corporations that compete with each other and compete with Israeli companies and companies founded by other members of their unit.

It wouldn't be fair to assume any collusion is going on of course, but considering their past in espionage and the military, it's at least worth mentioning.

[1]: https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/28/

Re: PIA VPN to be acquired by malware company founded by former Israeli spy

#278

Post by rasengan » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 4:29 PM UTC

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #103

rasengan wrote: post #4

This article and articles like this miscast Kape in an incorrect light. To be clear, in the past the company was known as CrossRider and provided a developer SDK that could be used to integrate with browsers. Unfortunately, CrossRider didn't do enough to prevent malware (like platforms these days and their fake news) and the platform was used by some bad people for bad purposes. When the new management team of CrossR…

Trust and ethics are important. A company that is identified as using questionable ethics in business, for an extended period, is not automatically "reset to neutral" by airdropping in a new management team and a rebrand. Honestly? That sounds more like a move to bury the bad news, which has a long and effective history, just as the day a story goes public does - The Friday News Dump, Thanksgiving News Dump, etc. So,…

Nice comments.

When Trump became president, was it still Obama’s administration?

Given my knowledge on corporate governance and publicly held companies, I disagree with your first statement. The CEO and management team are absolutely the ones who define the ethics of a company and are legally responsible as well.

As for Teddy, I’m not sure how knowing his background and being able to public verify his moves would cause less trust then, for example, the other VPNS which you have no idea who owns them or even where they are located. Transparency builds trust in real life and there is nothing but transparency here. This isn’t a blind faith.

PIA has never logged nor has KAPE. Checkout the other providers and see what they have done. It’s gross.

Regardless of your decision and your comments, I appreciate your contribution to the discussion.

While I disagree with some of the statements in the thread overall, I recognize that PIA can do more to provide more comfort to people. Unfortunately, I don’t believe in blind trust and theater so all we can do is continue to increase our transparency until there is no need for you to trust us.

And to Zero Trust we are headed.

Happy New Year and thank you for the opportunity to protect you until now. I trust we did a good job, and one day, I hope we will have created an ecosystem that doesn’t rely so much on trust in the future so that you might return and we can serve you again.

Best, Andrew

Re: PIA VPN to be acquired by malware company founded by former Israeli spy

#279

Post by DCKing » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 4:35 PM UTC

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #103

rasengan wrote: post #4

This article and articles like this miscast Kape in an incorrect light. To be clear, in the past the company was known as CrossRider and provided a developer SDK that could be used to integrate with browsers. Unfortunately, CrossRider didn't do enough to prevent malware (like platforms these days and their fake news) and the platform was used by some bad people for bad purposes. When the new management team of CrossR…

Trust and ethics are important. A company that is identified as using questionable ethics in business, for an extended period, is not automatically "reset to neutral" by airdropping in a new management team and a rebrand. Honestly? That sounds more like a move to bury the bad news, which has a long and effective history, just as the day a story goes public does - The Friday News Dump, Thanksgiving News Dump, etc. So,…

This is exactly my rationale. The fact that you have to explain that the company that bought you is not shady is writing on the wall, even if you have a good explanation. For the record, I think the explanation is pretty decent. But PIA is a commodity product from a technical perspective. It's the trust and reputation that's not the commodity, and being bought by a shady company (even if it's "formerly shady") you discard this right away.

I bought PIA because it had stellar reputation back in 2015 or so. Now it went from stellar reputation to "just another VPN provider". Mullvad appears to be prime candidate now, they're not based in the US if that means something to you, and they even have Wireguard to play with. Let's go.

Re: PIA VPN to be acquired by malware company founded by former Israeli spy

#280

Post by ta999999171 » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 4:39 PM UTC

ActorNightly wrote: post #129

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trust and ethics are important. A company that is identified as using questionable ethics in business, for an extended period, is not automatically "reset to neutral" by airdropping in a new management team and a rebrand. Honestly? That sounds more like a move to bury the bad news, which has a long and effective history, just as the day a story goes public does - The Friday News Dump, Thanksgiving News Dump, etc. So,…

I honestly want to agree with HN on this, but then Im reminded of the constant support for Apple on here, despite the fact that they have violated user trust on numerous occasions, while PIA has not. So I did some checking: * Teddy Sagi is a entrepreneur. To say that he is an ex spy is a gross misstatement. Yes, he worked as a developer in Israeli SIGINT program - so do a lot of developers who work for any number of…

> you gotta start boycotting all your popular software (and some hardware), cause Apple, Microsoft, Oracle, and Facebook all have a hand in buying these startups.

You make this sort of action sound out of reach/unreasonable.