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NordVPN library and client code open-sourced

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Re: NordVPN library and client code open-sourced

#171

Post by lucb1e »

user764743 wrote: post #69

NordVPN do logs and you will get caught if you do crimes using their services. It happened before during the Dutch KPN blackmail case and it will happen again. Everyone at BalCCon was warned about this a few years ago.

Every service does this. Either that or they're the next Pirate Bay: a service blocked under copyright law without violating copyright, they only linked to places that were happy to infringe copyright (specific torrent peers). Domains were expropriated, IP addresses blocked, ISPs coerced into replacing DNS entries... If I remember correctly, the founders also all have interesting stories about the legacy this carried for them personally when trying to do business later.

Until a VPN service gets that kind of status, you can assume they either follow local laws or haven't gotten a request for data logging for anything bad enough yet (realize that this doesn't have to be even close to murder-for-hire: being complicit in other people sharing movies between them reaches that "bad enough" bar).

Re: NordVPN library and client code open-sourced

#172

Post by makingstuffs »

edgyquant wrote: post #63
ehPReth wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear there's a dirty secret that more and more companies are doing this to make things like Netflix that block VPNs "just work" though their services. Not sure how true this is or how widespread, though.

This has been brought up before, Netflix does not work with a VPN on. It knows you’re using a VPN and blocks you (asks you to disable it.) Yes this is true even with NordVPN, which I bought specifically to be able to watch Netflix on when expressVPN didn’t work.

Netflix definitely works with NordVPN. My partner and I regularly use it to enable us to stream content which isn’t available in the UK but is elsewhere in the world.

Specifically to watch The Walking Dead if I am honest.

Re: NordVPN library and client code open-sourced

#173

Post by ramesh31 »

spookthesunset wrote: post #156
TecoAndJix wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Digging into this on oxylabs site i found this document: https://oxylabs.io/Oxylabs_Residential_Proxy_Acquisition_Han... "Consenting and fully aware individuals become a part of a residential proxy network in return for a financial reward or some other benefit. When they choose to participate in our suppliers’ pools, they consent that a part of their internet traffic and a small amount of the device’s hardware resour…

You’d almost certainly see that traffic going across your network, right?

>You’d almost certainly see that traffic going across your network, right?

This is why their marketing campaigns are so aggressive. They completely rely on the unsophisticated masses, to whom a computer is a magical box of fairy dust that plays Netflix shows.

Re: NordVPN library and client code open-sourced

#174

Post by rozab »

TecoAndJix wrote: post #49
acatton wrote: post #7

Reminder that it looks like NordVPN does shady stuff: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29285988 Allegedly, they are using their customers as botnets to resell traffic from residential IPs, mostly for scraping, through their other business "Oxylabs".

Digging into this on oxylabs site i found this document: https://oxylabs.io/Oxylabs_Residential_Proxy_Acquisition_Han... "Consenting and fully aware individuals become a part of a residential proxy network in return for a financial reward or some other benefit. When they choose to participate in our suppliers’ pools, they consent that a part of their internet traffic and a small amount of the device’s hardware resour…

I've read this stuff before, from various supposedly above-board companies. If this is true, where can I sign up? I've never seen companies clearly offering this without being misleading.

Since oxylabs allows selecting a proxy at a very granular location, it should be possible for researchers to get a bunch of these dodgy browser extensions and correlate which are forwarding oxylabs traffic.

Re: NordVPN library and client code open-sourced

#176

Post by lucb1e »

moffkalast wrote: post #144
kachurovskiy wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is your comment made possible by curiosity stream?

It can be viewed on nebula for sure.

I don't mind those two to be honest. They do seem to be by the creators themselves, not some third party that buys advertising time for a shady business. The content is good and the price is right. Perfectly legitimate way of diverting revenue from Google to the creators themselves and making a small step towards a video platform less run by algorithms and advertising.

(I am not a subscriber or an impacted creator, but I did try it out. Honestly you'll have seen all interesting content by the end of the week, but for that price... worth it to buy it every couple years when there is new content.)

Re: NordVPN library and client code open-sourced

#177

Post by lucb1e »

systems wrote: post #27

So, should we, or should we not use a VPN? If most sites nowadays are on HTTPS, is vpn still needed for daily use I think the only reason now to use a vpn, is to login to a site as if from a different location, if the site blocks your region, or sensor some of its content Any other good reason to use a vpn

> If most sites nowadays are on HTTPS, is vpn still needed for daily use

Let's say every website is still on HTTP (not S). How does a VPN for daily use help you at all?

Your traffic traverses the Internet unencrypted anyway: either from your ISP to target server, or from the VPN's ISP to target server.

It shifts the responsibility from one party to another, but it doesn't reduce the unencrypted path. Instead of trusting your ISP, you now have to trust a shady operator that often promises not to comply with local laws when the police comes with a warrant. They often also don't have assets to seize, so little reason to be legit. And it's not like you can stop paying the ISP that you are so distrustful of. It only costs you more money.

Re: NordVPN library and client code open-sourced

#178

Post by duxup »

wyldberry wrote: post #162
duxup wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I ran into a situation where I left a VPN on my phone on and the Target app (US store Target) would pop up an alert "true". I assume someone was detecting if you were using a VPN and testing and it somehow made it into production. I emailed them and never heard back. Granted ... I get why a retailer with financial activity going on might want to know if a VPN was used to possibly apply extra scrutiny to the purchase.

Target now also has a world class incident response and forensics team setup after their big breach and being nearly every security vendors topic du jour for years. It's entirely reasonable they do this to add to malicious detection signal, or fraud.

Yeah I agree, money and goods are changing hand, it seemed reasonable to do that level of detection.

Re: NordVPN library and client code open-sourced

#179

Post by Dowwie »

t8sr wrote: post #52

Well, the client code certainly isn't great. Reading through it random, I see a lot of undocumented code, functions with 20 positional arguments (who wants to bet some call sites silently swap two of them?), a file called constants.go where random strings are defined far away from where they're used, etc. There are also random, mostly undocumented, interfaces lying around /everywhere/, in all kinds of places not conn…

That's how you ship Rust with resource constraints. You get on with your work and pay down debts as you go. The fear of what other people will think about your code can become seriously debilitating, fucking up project timelines and priorities. Good on the author(s) for sharing. Perfect is the enemy of good enough.

I thought people have moved on from using slog for structured logging and instead rely on the same as exposed by the tracing library. In the end, slog was good enough for the task at hand and that's what matters most.

Re: NordVPN library and client code open-sourced

#180

Post by yunohn »

ramesh31 wrote: post #173
spookthesunset wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’d almost certainly see that traffic going across your network, right?

>You’d almost certainly see that traffic going across your network, right? This is why their marketing campaigns are so aggressive. They completely rely on the unsophisticated masses, to whom a computer is a magical box of fairy dust that plays Netflix shows.

> completely rely on the unsophisticated masses, to whom a computer is a magical box of fairy dust that plays Netflix shows

And that’s perfectly fine - computers are a tool, enabling valuable usecases for everyone.

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