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

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

#121

Post by Akababa »

v64 wrote: post #113
rasengan wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Since PIA was in debt, it doesn't sound like maintaining the current service as is would be profitable. Private Internet Access is very profitable [1] and our new partner’s action of merging with PIA speaks louder than words whether privacy is important to them. [1] https://investors.kape.com/~/media/Files/K/Kape-IR/reports-a... (Slide 5)

First, I'd like to thank you for your participation in this thread. As a long time PIA customer (until recently), I trusted (and still continue to trust) the current staff. All of my hesitation is with Kape and I truly hope at the end of the day they don't end up steamrolling you. That being said, if the company was profitable, why even entertain this merger? I simply don't see how getting into bed with a company wit…

My guess is to partially cash out. According to the doc, the two founders each got about 26m cash and 21m equity in Kape, while PIA only had 14m EBITDA per year and 31m debt. So it's certainly a nice cash windfall for the founders.

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

#122

Post by mkl »

mkl wrote: post #9
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…

Hi Andrew, you may want to tidy up your HN "about" info if you're speaking on behalf of the company.

Note to everyone else: The about has been changed now, as my advice was taken.

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

#123

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

zigzaggy wrote: post #21

Whether this is true or not isn’t really the point. The fact that it it’s even possible is a huge red flag for my use case / threat model. It’s relatively easy, not to mention cheap (less than $10 per month) to spin up a streisand (0) instance and protect myself that way. As long as I keep my traffic encrypted, I can keep most / all of the vultures away that I’m concerned about. Happy to walk anyone through it. Takes…

VPNs have three purposes:

1. Encapsulate traffic on the way from your machine through the first few hops of your Internet connection.

2. Shield your identity from third parties trying to discover it, through technical or legal means.

3. Provide a bottomless pit for disposal of DMCA complaints and other nastygrams.

Your solution covers only purpose 1, which is becoming increasingly irrelevant as almost everything uses HTTPS, and DNS-over-HTTPS and Encrypted SNI is coming.

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

#124

Post by cbsks »

mirimir wrote: post #12
godzillabrennus wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their ios support isn’t great. I’m using ExpressVPN and while they cost more (as much as 3 times as these budget services) they so far seem to offer a fast product. You can also sign up with crypto currency if you want.

> You can also sign up with crypto currency if you want. But can you renew with Bitcoin etc?

Mullvad accepts Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash, FYI.

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

#125

Post by rasengan »

smsm42 wrote: post #116
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…

Thank you for taking time to explain your position. I can appreciate the need for resources and why you think this deal is the right thing to do for your company. I've trusted you company enough to use it for years and buy a multi-year subscription. Unfortunately, given the track record of Kape, I can't trust the bundle of Kape+PIA the way I trusted PIA alone. Maybe in the following years this trust will be accumulat…

If you think a platform is responsible for what their developers do with it, then I understand. However, Kape was never directly involved in adware other than providing SDKs that let developers create positive and negative things.

To say Kape was involved in adware would be akin to saying the Wright Bros killed millions of people - because they made planes which people used to kill people (which is simply untrue). Even the original article notes this ever so briefly so as not to show Kape positively.

Thank you for your trust until now, and given the long track record and relationship, I hope you can verify my statements as well.

Our future work will always be the same work we have been doing, so whether now or later, I'm confident we will re-earn your trust again, and hope you'll give us the opportunity.

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

#126

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

SXX wrote: post #88
guelo wrote: post #75

What do people use these VPN services for? Is it mostly for pirating, or public wifi users, or people that don't want their ISPs to know what they're doing? It all seems like niche use cases.

This might be not the case in the US, but outside VPN is very often used for opposite. Half of legal video / music / etc streaming companies have content locked behind per-country limitations and licensing. So if you want to pay for content you'll often need to pretend that you're from US. For piracy it's cheaper to setup seedbox.

I believe that that is still technically piracy.

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

#127

Post by Izkata »

baroffoos wrote: post #70
thatswrong0 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow that onboarding process was slick. Why aren't sites always this easy to sign up for?!

Because most people want some way to reset their password if they forget it.

There is no password, and if you forgot your account number it can possibly be recovered: https://mullvad.net/en/help/lost-account/

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

#128

Post by _8j50 »

mirimir wrote: post #72
NickHoff wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Me too. I cancelled my subscription about a week ago when I first heard of it (and I explained why on their cancellation form). I'm looking at Mullvad and NordVPN. I know Nord had a MITM attack on a Finnish datacenter a few months ago and didn't immediately notify affected users. I'm having trouble understanding what it says about Nord's culture and likely behavior in the future. On a technical level, it's pretty bad…

NordVPN apparently using residential proxies is pretty iffy.

Makes blocking harder,cloud/hosting IP can't access some content.

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

#129

Post by ActorNightly »

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,…

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 government contractors in US with security clearances working in SIGINT. Does that make them all spies? If you wanna believe in the conspiracy that all the Unit 8200 graduates who have gone on to found Silicon Valley Companies are still state sponsored, then man, 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.

* Crossmark, the company that Kape originaly was, had malware which is the equivalent of ad supported app on your mobile device - it was bundled with some software (much like Oracle used to bundle Adware with the Java installer), and injected browser traffic, while sending user information back, perhaps for better targeting This is a far cry from actual nefarious malware. Bad? Yes.

* Kape technologies is under the lead of a new CEO that was responsible for transforming the company away from Crossrider towards cybersecurity. Again, if you want to believe in a conspiracy theory, that is your choice.

* All other Teddys ventures since Kape are in the advertising space. There is a concern that can be made that perhaps advertising is going to sneak in to PIA, but lets cross that bridge if it actually happens.

TLDR, pretty much the expected overblown response, which is sadly becoming the standard for HN. By all means, vote with your wallet, but try to keep your voting consistent. Personally, given the web of investors and ownership that surrounds modern tech companies, I do not see any glaring red flags here.

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

#130

Post by godelski »

rasengan wrote: post #17
mirimir wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've recommended PIA for years. But no longer. I just don't trust Kape.

Thank you for your recommendations. We are working on and hope to go beyond the world of trust. We are now, the most transparent VPN as there are requirements to be transparent when you are a public company. We don't want people to be stuck with having to blindly believe in and trust us like other VPNs. Don't trust. Verify.

In the past I have highly recommended your VPN, but I can no longer. In your TOS you have the line.

> Client understands that the present Terms of Service are subject to changes made by PrivateInternetAccess at any time at its sole discretion, and you agree to be bound by any and all modifications, changes and/or revisions. You understand that it is your obligation to periodically review this webpage in order to account for any changes made, as they will be binding upon assent.

Such a line does not build trust, especially given Kape's history. Do you honestly expect us to constantly review the TOS? We're also not lawyers. There's no line that even suggests PIA will even attempt to inform subscribers (at least those you have emails for or through a blog post) of TOS or privacy changes.

You say

> We don't want people to be stuck with having to blindly believe in and trust us like other VPNs.

> Don't trust. Verify.

нет доверия и нет проверки.

How do we trust? How do we verify?

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