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ExpressVPN employees complain about ex-spy's top role at company

reuters.com

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Re: ExpressVPN employees complain about ex-spy's top role at company

#141

Post by ybbond »

saurik wrote: post #123
lemoncookiechip wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's far from a waste of money. They help with things such as skipping geoblocking, able to deceive ISPs that send mail warning users about pirated content, can in some cases help with gaming ping, allow users to trick sites that rely on IP logging and many other applications besides cybersecurity and privacy. The main issue is that they all seem to advertise themselves as these privacy and cybersecurity services fir…

Meanwhile, a lot of users really can't trust their ISP: your "ISP" might be coffee shop, or someone renting on AirBNB, or your friend (as you are at their home or office). If you are in any of these circumstances, I would probably first recommend "tether off your phone or something", but if you are finding yourself needing or merely wanting to use someone else's internet connection (maybe for speed or because you don…

correct in some part, but I think other main reason people use VPN is because their ISP block access to porn. VPN allows them to watch

Re: ExpressVPN employees complain about ex-spy's top role at company

#142

Post by saurik »

bcook wrote: post #134
saurik wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meanwhile, a lot of users really can't trust their ISP: your "ISP" might be coffee shop, or someone renting on AirBNB, or your friend (as you are at their home or office). If you are in any of these circumstances, I would probably first recommend "tether off your phone or something", but if you are finding yourself needing or merely wanting to use someone else's internet connection (maybe for speed or because you don…

>At some point, the people in the apartment next door to me figured out my wi-fi password That seems implausible.

My wi-fi password was loudly spoken often and our windows were open constantly. Honestly, if they had asked one of us for the password, I am sure we would have given it to them also (and for all I knew at the time that was how they got it: I am just saying they figured it out, not that they stole it). (It wasn't designed to be secure or anything... is yours? I do not even think I changed the password once they started using it... I just upped my cable modem plan so I wouldn't get affected by it ;P. I might have, though... this was like 15 years ago (I have been using the same wi-fi password at least since right after that, certainly?)

Re: ExpressVPN employees complain about ex-spy's top role at company

#143

Post by SkyMarshal »

saurik wrote: post #123
lemoncookiechip wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's far from a waste of money. They help with things such as skipping geoblocking, able to deceive ISPs that send mail warning users about pirated content, can in some cases help with gaming ping, allow users to trick sites that rely on IP logging and many other applications besides cybersecurity and privacy. The main issue is that they all seem to advertise themselves as these privacy and cybersecurity services fir…

Meanwhile, a lot of users really can't trust their ISP: your "ISP" might be coffee shop, or someone renting on AirBNB, or your friend (as you are at their home or office). If you are in any of these circumstances, I would probably first recommend "tether off your phone or something", but if you are finding yourself needing or merely wanting to use someone else's internet connection (maybe for speed or because you don…

> Meanwhile, a lot of users really can't trust their ISP: your "ISP" might be coffee shop, or someone renting on AirBNB, or your friend (as you are at their home or office).

Or your ISP may be one of the big ones - Comcast, Time Warner, etc or whatever they are in other countries, and you may legitimately not trust them either.

Re: ExpressVPN employees complain about ex-spy's top role at company

#144

Post by deelowe »

sxg wrote: post #135
monocasa wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VPN A only sees that the request is going to VPN B.

But VPN A has to relay the request for facebook.com to VPN B, meaning that VPN A has to be aware of the user's final destination. If my interpretation of this is incorrect, then how does VPN B become aware of the request for facebook.com?

VPN A knows there was a request to VPN B, that's it. The request is encrypted on twice the client. VPN A removed it's encryption but is only left with an encrypted request to VPN B. VPN B then removes it's encryption and then forwards the request to fb.com.

Re: ExpressVPN employees complain about ex-spy's top role at company

#145

Post by karaterobot »

elagost wrote: post #2

It's been clear for a long time that every single commercial VPN service is a waste of money. At best, you replace trusting your ISP with trusting a different group of unknown people with similar motivations. At worst, it's a government agency honeypot or someone like Facebook. If you think you want a VPN for "privacy", use Tor Browser. If you want a VPN for any other reason that "normal people" think they want a VPN…

> At best, you replace trusting your ISP with trusting a different group of unknown people with similar motivations. At worst, it's a government agency honeypot or someone like Facebook.

You're starting with the (completely correct) observation that any VPN is not guaranteed to be secure, confidential, or private, and then making an argument as though it were the case that every reputable VPN is equivalent to every untrustworthy ISP. I think that's why your argument doesn't make sense to me: I don't think there's an equal chance that a VPN provider with a good reputation is going to sell me out as my ISP.

It's axiomatic in risk management that there is no way to completely remove all risk. Running a proxy and Tor is not a guarantee of security any more than running the world's shadiest VPN is, though it's obviously more secure by far. But, it's a question of what the acceptable level of risk is, and what the marginal cost to reduce that risk is. For many people, a $5-10 (non-shady) VPN is a perfectly reasonable step to take.

Re: ExpressVPN employees complain about ex-spy's top role at company

#146

Post by jrootabega »

elagost wrote: post #2

It's been clear for a long time that every single commercial VPN service is a waste of money. At best, you replace trusting your ISP with trusting a different group of unknown people with similar motivations. At worst, it's a government agency honeypot or someone like Facebook. If you think you want a VPN for "privacy", use Tor Browser. If you want a VPN for any other reason that "normal people" think they want a VPN…

Having an easily-replaceable IP address is also of some value in case someone tries to DOS you in IRC/game chat/etc.

Re: ExpressVPN employees complain about ex-spy's top role at company

#147

Post by UncleEntity »

bcook wrote: post #134
saurik wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meanwhile, a lot of users really can't trust their ISP: your "ISP" might be coffee shop, or someone renting on AirBNB, or your friend (as you are at their home or office). If you are in any of these circumstances, I would probably first recommend "tether off your phone or something", but if you are finding yourself needing or merely wanting to use someone else's internet connection (maybe for speed or because you don…

>At some point, the people in the apartment next door to me figured out my wi-fi password That seems implausible.

I leeched off my old neighbors’ WiFi for a few years until everyone in the complex upgraded to routers which weren’t vulnerable to the pin key attack (or whatever it was called).

Re: ExpressVPN employees complain about ex-spy's top role at company

#149

Post by gumby »

edgyquant wrote: post #96
filmgirlcw wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree. The geoblocking is the most common reason a lot of people use VPNs, even if that isn’t always how they are directly marketed. A friend’s mom asked me a few weeks ago for VPN recommendations so she could watch British TV easier. She’s 70. Her concern isn’t about safer browsing stuff but watching GBB more easily. *Disclosure: ExpressVPN has sponsored my podcast in the past (tho I don’t handle ad sales fw…

It’s funny express has you advertise as being able to watch X service considering when I used express I couldn’t watch Netflix because they throw an error saying they know I’m using a VPN. Same with Amazon prime. I’ve switched to nordvpn but they are no different I can’t even use fast.com to check the speed when the vpn is on. False advertising I’d say

My kid contacts ExpressVPN when this happens and he says they are pretty good at following up.

We have no illusion that a third party VPN adds any security; we use it for this reason. I vpn to my personal colo machines when away from home.

Re: ExpressVPN employees complain about ex-spy's top role at company

#150

Post by j-bos »

edgyquant wrote: post #96
filmgirlcw wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree. The geoblocking is the most common reason a lot of people use VPNs, even if that isn’t always how they are directly marketed. A friend’s mom asked me a few weeks ago for VPN recommendations so she could watch British TV easier. She’s 70. Her concern isn’t about safer browsing stuff but watching GBB more easily. *Disclosure: ExpressVPN has sponsored my podcast in the past (tho I don’t handle ad sales fw…

It’s funny express has you advertise as being able to watch X service considering when I used express I couldn’t watch Netflix because they throw an error saying they know I’m using a VPN. Same with Amazon prime. I’ve switched to nordvpn but they are no different I can’t even use fast.com to check the speed when the vpn is on. False advertising I’d say

XV works with Netflix, just not the default servers.
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