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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)

#371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My comment still applies regardless of any level of “explaining” [1]: 1. Either Nord/Teso are loose with keys (horrible) Or 2. Proton isn’t being truthful. I don’t think it’s a conspiracy or anything that it is Tesonet/Nord. Rather, the problem is you cannot trust someone with your privacy if they can’t even manage their own keys. [1] The explanation is poor at best and doesn’t explain why they worked so hard to try…

The people who couldn't handle their keys were at Nord. The people you trust are at Proton. > worked so hard to try to delete all of the evidence The cert is still there. Apparently, they didn't work nearly hard enough.

They worked pretty hard as detailed in an archived article changing names and any records they could [1], but you're right - not good enough [2].

As pointed out on this reddit post [3], Proton's appears to contradict itself a number of times.

It's a good thing trust based VPN's are obsolete. After all, trust isn't constant [4] as seen in this article showing how Proton supplied IP addresses to "authorities."

[1] https://archive.ph/wG8t8

[2] https://archive.ph/4bzBm

[3] https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/8x9aik/protonvp...

[4] https://techcrunch.com/2021/09/06/protonmail-logged-ip-addre...

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

#373
post #19

Are we allowed to discuss (edit: if it's not too political?) if Kape Technologies has any connections to Israeli security services, given the nature of VPNs and given the amount of data that can be trivially collected, and: "Being from Israel, Teddy Sagi had connections with the Israeli military intelligence sphere and was able to procure himself a real-life cyber spy [his co-founder] from the famed Unit 8200 (kinda…

[flagged]

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

#374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might help your goal of a PSA if you source your claims, so this doesn't become inflammatory.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freenode

Too late, already flagged.

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

#375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a good friend from Lithuania, who has told me so many amazing/wonderful/superlative things about the country he grew up in and loves very dearly, as well as its people. I can't wait to visit someday. Unfortunately, he only has Russian and American citizenship, so he can't purchase real estate there currently, but luckily most of Lithuania's restrictions have been very common-sense (applying only to people who…

> most of Lithuania's restrictions have been very common-sense (applying only to people who frequently travel between Russia and Lithuania). Common-sense like a complete ban for entering the country for red passport holders. Lithuania is a wonderful, beautiful country and I understand the need to push the hardliner stance in the EU, but their decisions during the conflict have been strictly political, not in the slig…

Isn't Lithuanian passport red ? or the context here is communism ?

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

#376
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Teddy Sagi had connections with the Israeli military intelligence sphere Does this mean much given that israel has mandatory military service? Unlike in the US where you have to make a conscious choice (eg. patriotism or desperation) to join the CIA/NSA/military, that's not really the case in israel. "has ties to unit 8200" might as well mean "has ties to stanford/MIT/caltech" or "has ties to big tech".

Unit 8200 is a cyberwarfare and spy unit. They were responsible for the Lebanon pager supply chain terror attack. I definitely want to know if they are involved with any tech I'm using so I can avoid it.

yes. they are involved in tech that you are using. they are working in apple, google, microsoft, nvidia, intel, amd, arm, qualcomm, cisco, etc that have presence in Israel and even expand it.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/nvidia-plans-to-boost-presence...

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

#377

Note that all of these companies are also under the umbrella of Tesonet, a Lithuanian VC firm also headed by Tomas Okmanas (Tom Okman in TFA). Their flagship investments are Nord Security, Hostinger, Oxylabs, Surfshark, Decodo, Mediatech, and nexos.ai - all closely related business models around proxying. They don't seem to have Russian ties: "In 2022, CyberCare opened an office in Lviv, Ukraine. Although planning fo…

[flagged]

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

#378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Makes perfect cover though? "He was only a conscript changing printer cartridges"

People who don't live in countries with mandatory conscription for all don't really understand: everyone is connected to the military but it means nothing. Judging an Israeli citizen on their IDF ties is like judging a US citizen on the fact that they went to public school.

> everyone is connected to the military but it means nothing.

No, people who live in tiny countries with mandatory conscription don't really understand that it means that their entire country is militarized. It's not surprising that fish can't see water.

> is like judging a US citizen on the fact that they went to public school.

It's exactly like that. If public school in the US trained people to kill and spy, it would be entirely safe to assume that the US was full of killer spies. For example, if you know that US public school taught a view of world history that was distorted in particular ways, and had very little emphasis in foreign languages, it would be safe to assume that Americans have a distorted view of the world, and largely don't speak foreign languages.

I don't know, this seems basic to me.

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

#379

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.

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

There is no mention of proton whatsoever, even more sending legal threats to your vpn, in the link though?
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