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Hola VPN turns 10M users into exit nodes

8ch.net

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Re: Hola VPN turns 10M users into exit nodes

#81

Post by tonyhb »

batuhanicoz wrote: post #12

Anyone knows a better alternative to luminati.io? We've been using it in our company but it feels expensive. I thought this thread may be good place to ask for an alternative.

Spin up VPS instances across multiple cities, countries and continents.

Hook them up with Docker and connect them with Swarm.

Label them with an IP/city/country/continent combination.

Use Docker Swarm's affinity labelling to start instances in a particular city when needed. Additionally record the last IPs used and use Swarm to not deploy to those servers.

Re: Hola VPN turns 10M users into exit nodes

#82

Post by signa11 »

tombozi wrote: post #42
8chan wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hola's browser extension is proprietary. A friend of mine has been considering reverse engineering it but is not sure of the laws.

I assume they forward the requests to their own servers? In that case there isn't much to reverse engineer without access to their servers. Unless they use some kind of P2P system, which I doubt.

their updated faq says the following

'Hola built a peer to peer overlay network for HTTP, which securely routes the sites you choose through other Hola users' devices and not through expensive servers'.

so it is a p2p system...

Re: Hola VPN turns 10M users into exit nodes

#83

Post by [deleted] »

albedoa wrote: post #77
zxcvcxz wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Explain what is wrong with gamergate. I don't game so I don't know. Seems to me reddit is the site you should be hating. Edit: Actually after thinking it over, it's free speech you should be against. It really sucks when sites host opinions you don't agree with doesn't it? I googled gamer gate and they seem to be against people exactly like you: People who want to shut down other peoples opinions that they don't agre…

I googled gamer gate and they seem to be against people exactly like you Incredible that you just learned about GamerGate and are already an expert. Oh wait: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9394472 And More: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9394708 Heh: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9556077

[deleted]

Re: Hola VPN turns 10M users into exit nodes

#85

Post by milankragujevic »

milankragujevic wrote: post #50
8chan wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hola's browser extension is proprietary. A friend of mine has been considering reverse engineering it but is not sure of the laws.

I've reverse engineered it a long time ago and are using their proxy clients (ZAgents as they refer to them internally) as proxies for clicking on my own ads. I have their username and password and a list of dyndns domains. Email me if you want the data.

Published the list here: http://milankragujevic.com/post.php?id=72&ref=hackernews&cid...

Re: Hola VPN turns 10M users into exit nodes

#88

Post by Nexxxeh »

pwnna wrote: post #45
TylerE wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happens when the Feds are knocking on your door because someone routed kiddie pr0n or drug deals through your connection?

To play devil's advocate: isn't this kind of a good thing for privacy though? If everyone routed everyone else's stuff, it will decouple the notion that IP = person. Although the service seems shady, if everyone did this wouldn't it be for the better? (albeit at cost of slower connections)

It provides plausible deniability. It wasn't me, it was Hola.

The issue is there's no informed consent. Outside of /r/netsec, /r/techsupport and HN etc, there probably aren't people who know how Hola works and what the implications are.

You can bet the majority of Hola users don't know what a MITM attack is. I'd wager more than half wouldn't know what a bot net is, or what an exit node is.

Most Hola users have not given informed consent.

Re: Hola VPN turns 10M users into exit nodes

#89

Post by joelkesler »

ajdlinux wrote: post #80

Anyone like to recommend a browser-extension-based VPN tool that's a bit more respectful than Hola and is relatively cheap? (Of course I run my own VPN server using OpenVPN, but Hola is really convenient when I'm only trying to get an American IP to avoid Australian geoblocking - it's also easy for non-technical friends to use.)

Tunnelbear recently released a chrome plugin for their VPN service. I hear good things about it. (I personally use the application on my Mac)

Re: Hola VPN turns 10M users into exit nodes

#90

Post by GigabyteCoin »

Nexxxeh wrote: post #88
pwnna wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To play devil's advocate: isn't this kind of a good thing for privacy though? If everyone routed everyone else's stuff, it will decouple the notion that IP = person. Although the service seems shady, if everyone did this wouldn't it be for the better? (albeit at cost of slower connections)

It provides plausible deniability. It wasn't me, it was Hola. The issue is there's no informed consent. Outside of /r/netsec, /r/techsupport and HN etc, there probably aren't people who know how Hola works and what the implications are. You can bet the majority of Hola users don't know what a MITM attack is. I'd wager more than half wouldn't know what a bot net is, or what an exit node is. Most Hola users have not gi…

>I'd wager more than half wouldn't know what a bot net is, or what an exit node is.

Hell, I'd wager that more than 90% of their users have no idea what a bot net is.

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