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Who owns Express VPN, Nord, Surfshark? VPN relationships explained (2024)

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Re: Who owns Express VPN, Nord, Surfshark? VPN relationships explained (2024)

#311

Post by mapontosevenths »

haskellshill wrote: post #305
ashirviskas wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget ProtonVPN links to Tesonet, which they're trying hard to "debunk" (though no clue why, I have nothing against Tesonet). They only shared employees and accidentally signed apps with the same certificates, but are "totally unrelated". Their PR people are already on this thread. If they didn't try so hard to fight it, people might care less.

Proton are pretty shady. The Radware ties, the blocking of two journalists, etc. etc.

For anyone else who wondered what the radware thing was.

https://proton.me/support/protonmail-israel-radware

Re: Who owns Express VPN, Nord, Surfshark? VPN relationships explained (2024)

#312

Post by rasengan »

perks_12 wrote: post #278
rasengan wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back when I was running PIA, they threatened me a significant amount just for pointing these facts out. Now that I launched a verifiable VPN, they are once again sending legal threats [1]. [1] https://vp.net/l/en-US/blog/Verified-Privacy-vs-Trust

what makes your vpn verifiable? can i verify you run specific oss on your servers? secure enclave is just management's idea of implementing crypto. everyone out here knows that it is highly flawed and intel with their management engine bullshit can't be trusted at all.

You might find this helpful: https://youtu.be/sz7NAe0G1_Y?si=focPEWli8xv7NCDi

Re verifiability: the point isn’t trust us, it’s that you don’t have to.

We built it so anyone can independently confirm what’s running.

1. All server and client code is published.

2. Builds are reproducible.

3. Each node provides cryptographic attestations of its runtime and routing identity.

4. Enclaves are used for verifiable isolation.

You can peruse the code yourself to see exactly why the transparency we bring makes legacy “trust based” VPNs obsolete: https://github.com/vpdotnet/vpnetd-sgx

Re: Who owns Express VPN, Nord, Surfshark? VPN relationships explained (2024)

#313

Post by globalnode »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #137
justapassenger wrote: post #8

Is there any other real world usecases for VPN nowadays other than: 1. Getting access to geolocked data 2. Torrenting "Linux ISOs" ?

Australian ISPs are legally required to retain metadata for two years. That's one of the best reasons to use a VPN if you're in Australia. Give up as little as possible. I have found, however, lots of sites block or Captcha-restrict IP addresses that are (somehow determined as) non-residential, and Netflix restricts its content as well.

Won't TOR browser block metadata collection?

Re: Who owns Express VPN, Nord, Surfshark? VPN relationships explained (2024)

#314

Post by [deleted] »

sciencejerk wrote: post #209
walterbell wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SSL certificates have a centralized hierarchy. Many browsers trust a long list of root certificate authorities from multiple countries. https://cyberscoop.com/russia-tls-security-certificate-autho... https://jpgamboa.com/china-ssl-authority-revoked-by-browsers...

Do some countries force the browser companies to add their root cert, despite abuse?

[deleted]

Re: Who owns Express VPN, Nord, Surfshark? VPN relationships explained (2024)

#315

Post by rasengan »

InsideOutSanta wrote: post #261
ashirviskas wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget ProtonVPN links to Tesonet, which they're trying hard to "debunk" (though no clue why, I have nothing against Tesonet). They only shared employees and accidentally signed apps with the same certificates, but are "totally unrelated". Their PR people are already on this thread. If they didn't try so hard to fight it, people might care less.

"Links to" is doing a lot of work in that sentence. ProtonVPN is owned by Proton, which has no legal ownership ties with Tesonet. During Proton's expansion into Eastern Europe, Tesonet initially assisted Proton with HR, payroll, and local regulation, so for a period of time, people working for Proton were employed by Tesonet, since Proton had no local subsidiary that could hire them. These were not "shared employees"…

> so for a period of time, people working for Proton were employed by Tesonet, since Proton had no local subsidiary that could hire them. These were not "shared employees", they worked exclusively for Proton. In 2016, Proton created its own subsidiary, and these people are now employed by Proton. But for this historical reason, the ProtonVPN keystore on Android still lists Tesonet as the organization name, even though it is fully controlled by Proton.

So either:

1. Tesonet/Nord are loose with their private keys.

2. Proton isn’t being truthful.

Anyone who understands crypto and key management knows “not your keys, not your _____.”

If those staffers worked for Proton and not Nord, why did they have Nord’s key?

This level of negligence with private key management really can’t be explained away.

Re: Who owns Express VPN, Nord, Surfshark? VPN relationships explained (2024)

#316

Post by haskellshill »

mrweasel wrote: post #248
justapassenger wrote: post #8

Is there any other real world usecases for VPN nowadays other than: 1. Getting access to geolocked data 2. Torrenting "Linux ISOs" ?

It's probably more that a lot of people have been convinced that they need a VPN, but they don't. There are use cases, like I trust Mullvad more than I trust some random hotels WiFi. When traveling it can provide a slightly higher base layer of trust. If you live in a country that restricts your internet access, which to be fair is most these days, a VPN can help. Most of us just don't care about those restrictions o…

> I trust Mullvad more than I trust some random hotels WiFi

For what exactly? All sites are HTTPS now anyway, so the only thing you're leaking is the hostnames / IPs you visit. I don't exactly see how the whole "hotel WIFI" thing is relevant at all, except as a dishonest marketing strategy by VPN salesmen

Re: Who owns Express VPN, Nord, Surfshark? VPN relationships explained (2024)

#317

Post by domenbukovac »

class3shock wrote: post #190
ashirviskas wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Idk what's the official status, but it's Tesonet. Some fake debunking in the comments of this thread that is factually almost correct: https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtonVPN/comments/8ww4h2/protonvpn... EDIT: ProtonVPN app was "accidentally" signet by Tesonet. How do you think this could happen?

Proton's response in the thread: Hi everybody, this is Andy here. I'm one of the original researchers from CERN behind ProtonMail and ProtonVPN. There's some false info out there about ProtonVPN, and these stories were first fabricated by Private Internet Access, a competitor who has been feeling pressure from ProtonVPN lately. The stories are false, but we have always been very open with the community, so I would li…

> Due to the way the Android Play store works, this keystore can unfortunately never be changed, but it remains under our sole control.

Out of curiosity, why not release the new version as a separate app under a new package name. I realise that’s not an ideal solution since it would mean starting fresh with installs and reviews, but it could allow you to move forward without being locked into the old key.

Re: Who owns Express VPN, Nord, Surfshark? VPN relationships explained (2024)

#318

Post by Y_Y »

dartharva wrote: post #180
hansvm wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What idiot signed that bullshit into law?

This is actually not uncommon in most of the world. American 1A is actually an extremely novel concept most other countries still haven't caught up on.

Novel in what sense? Are you familiar with the hisory of free speech in e.g. the UK, Sweden, and France?

Re: Who owns Express VPN, Nord, Surfshark? VPN relationships explained (2024)

#319

Post by Citizen8396 »

haskellshill wrote: post #316
mrweasel wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably more that a lot of people have been convinced that they need a VPN, but they don't. There are use cases, like I trust Mullvad more than I trust some random hotels WiFi. When traveling it can provide a slightly higher base layer of trust. If you live in a country that restricts your internet access, which to be fair is most these days, a VPN can help. Most of us just don't care about those restrictions o…

> I trust Mullvad more than I trust some random hotels WiFi For what exactly? All sites are HTTPS now anyway, so the only thing you're leaking is the hostnames / IPs you visit. I don't exactly see how the whole "hotel WIFI" thing is relevant at all, except as a dishonest marketing strategy by VPN salesmen

...and the IPs you connect from, which tend to correlate with where you live, work, and so on.

Re: Who owns Express VPN, Nord, Surfshark? VPN relationships explained (2024)

#320

Post by InsideOutSanta »

steve1977 wrote: post #310
InsideOutSanta wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here you go: https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtonVPN/comments/8ww4h2/protonvpn... Here's the Handelsregisterauszug for Proton, which shows ownership: https://www.zefix.admin.ch/en/search/entity/list/firm/118926... Proton's peering relationships: https://bgp.tools/as/62371#asinfo I'm not sure what exactly you're looking for.

> Here's the Handelsregisterauszug for Proton, which shows ownership It doesn‘t. It’s a joint-stock corporation and while the shareholders are registered, the register is not public.

Proton discloses shareholder information here: https://proton.me/support/who-owns-protonmail

But I guess they could be lying.

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