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FreePN: Open-source peer-to-peer VPN service

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Re: FreePN: Open-source peer-to-peer VPN service

#51

Post by chii »

detaro wrote: post #7
risyachka wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shouldn't prosecutors prove that it was you and not someone else?

"Should", yes. (Details obviously depend on jurisdiction) For that, they get a warrant to search your home and for your computers to be confiscated to do the forensic analysis on them. You might get them back after a few years if nothing can be proven. They also might tie you into it for knowingly supporting it by installing such a VPN, some places make you responsible for everything happening through your connection…

Why can't anyone who join be incorporated as a utilities provider, and shed the responsibility of monitoring the traffic (and the legality of it) to the initiator of said traffic?

I mean, ISPs do this don't they? Telephone networks do this don't they?

Re: FreePN: Open-source peer-to-peer VPN service

#54

Post by oefrha »

dessant wrote: post #48
oefrha wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't imagine many of the owners of those IPs know what they're being used for. They don’t. For instance, Luminati, possibly the best known player in this market, uses HolaVPN users as exit nodes.[1] [1] https://www.trendmicro.com/vinfo/hk-en/security/news/cybercr...

I was approached by Luminati on Twitter to turn my browser extensions into exit nodes, they are enticing developers to exploit users. https://i.imgur.com/EbT96an.png

This is why these days I roll my own extensions except for a few extremely popular ones developed in the open. Forget small QoL extensions, if I need it I write my own. Malware businesses routinely reach out to any remotely popular extension for acquisitions or “joint ventures”, it’s just too risky to install anything that’s not trust: ultimate, or known to be vetted by tons of people.

Btw, Firefox seems to have made it impossible to run extensions uncrippled from source without uploading to their server for signing. Utter madness.

Re: FreePN: Open-source peer-to-peer VPN service

#55

Post by ian-bateman »

aero-glide wrote: post #52

How does this compare with SoftEther VPN gate? That's decentralized too

(Hopefully) it's a bit easier to use than SoftEther!

Also, unlike SoftEther, we don't depend on volunteers for our network - the network is largely made up of the users themselves!

Re: FreePN: Open-source peer-to-peer VPN service

#56

Post by edf13 »

_znkz wrote: post #43

This is all very unexpected actually! (No one from FreeVPN made the post here!) We've been doing some early market testing in a few Linux communities on Reddit, but full disclosure, the product is currently in an early-alpha stage (it’s only available on Ubuntu and Gentoo Linux currently, and very much under construction). We have big ambitions for the project, but it is still very early days. Love hearing the feedba…

Hi Ian,

What’s the long term business model then?

Re: FreePN: Open-source peer-to-peer VPN service

#57

Post by coddle-hark »

_znkz wrote: post #43

This is all very unexpected actually! (No one from FreeVPN made the post here!) We've been doing some early market testing in a few Linux communities on Reddit, but full disclosure, the product is currently in an early-alpha stage (it’s only available on Ubuntu and Gentoo Linux currently, and very much under construction). We have big ambitions for the project, but it is still very early days. Love hearing the feedba…

- How are you planning on monetising this?

- What happens if someone downloads CP through my home connection?

- How do you plan to block ads with both Chrome and Firefox moving to DNS over HTTPS?

Re: FreePN: Open-source peer-to-peer VPN service

#58

Post by ev1 »

bscphil wrote: post #49
oefrha wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't imagine many of the owners of those IPs know what they're being used for. They don’t. For instance, Luminati, possibly the best known player in this market, uses HolaVPN users as exit nodes.[1] [1] https://www.trendmicro.com/vinfo/hk-en/security/news/cybercr...

This is said way too often, but in this case I think it's justified - I really don't understand how this is legal. Doesn't using a non-consenting person's computer and network resources for your own purposes meet the definition of "hacking" in most jurisdictions?

I am an administrator on a forum that was attacked heavily by these "residential proxy services"; most of the time the users have agreed to a hidden EULA somewhere like at installation time of the extension buried deep within.

But almost everyone "a reasonable person" would not recognise or understand the technical words used in the disclaimer, nor even read all the way down where it's buried several links in.

Re: FreePN: Open-source peer-to-peer VPN service

#59

Post by ev1 »

MattGaiser wrote: post #36
anderspitman wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the link. I figured something like that had to be the case. I can't really think of a legitimate way to get access to that many IPs.

I periodically see ads on Kijiji (Craigslist for Canada) offering you 50 bucks for your internet connection. If that is the going rate, 50 million I enormously expensive.

The boxes have the ability to try to DHCP-release-renew your IP to get a new one after being banned for spam/fraud/DDoS/etc.

However, this is not how these residential proxies are sold- mass market ones with millions of IPs are generally botnet/hacked/malware/extension malicious author sellout/etc./ There are not actually millions of botnet user, they just try to make themselves look big. Like they say AT&T has a /8? So they get 1 botnet hacked PC on AT&T broadband and say "wow we have a /8 worth of proxies!!"). Criminals not known for their truthfulness.

The ones that ask you $20-50/m and to plug something into your network is generally used for fraud, account hijackings and maintenance (getting a stable IP for stuff like a credit card checkout or paypal account to use for more than a few days for fraud, long term social media abuse, similar) instead of mass market ban evasion.

Re: FreePN: Open-source peer-to-peer VPN service

#60

Post by deanclatworthy »

eightails wrote: post #9

They tried to promote the launch of this service on a bunch of linux-related subreddits 6 months ago, and I wasn't much of a fan of the concept or the way they advertised it, in skipping over the p2p nature of the system. Their answer to the question of 'what happens when a bad actor has their illegal activity routed through my connection' seemed illogical. They claimed that as more people signed up, the proportion o…

Indeed, there is no plausible deniability in someone viewing child porn using your connection, in the same way you are responsible for securing your wifi connection.

This is no different than that shady p2p VPN product that was shipped as a browser extension.

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