Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Lulzsec fiasco - from HideMyAss VPN provider

blog.hidemyass.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 62 posts

Re: Lulzsec fiasco - from HideMyAss VPN provider

#41

Post by gnu6 »

randomaccount4 wrote: post #18

Throwaway account here. I've actually done work for the owner of this website, on this particular service (front end) and another couple services that he runs (back end). He is a good guy - I believe people are reading into this a bit too much. In the end, he is just like us; trying to build a business/s. He runs a few websites that are fairly successful, and I believe he sold one a year or so ago - good for him. I d…

Interesting that you use website as a synonym for company. The web site of this company is nothing more than a front end for interfacing with the public for marketing and customer service. Presumably, the company also has their actual VPN structure which they use to deliver their service to their customers, offices (optional), bank accounts, etc.

Re: Lulzsec fiasco - from HideMyAss VPN provider

#42

Post by icebraining »

pavelkaroukin wrote: post #17

for some reason i sympathize this team, but really.. if you are so high profile hackers group, why use mostly-legitimate-use vpn service when you can buy: 1) vpn service hosted in the bot net (i.e. on zombies machines) 2) hosting on the bot net (i.e. one you can not stop at all, you can not track it) These "services" quite possible to buy and they are not really expensive. The only downside is link speed which should…

At least don't use a VPN on the same jurisdiction! That's a big WTF.

Re: Lulzsec fiasco - from HideMyAss VPN provider

#44

Post by TheCapn »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #37
randomaccount4 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He states that only two things are recorded - the time you start using the service, and the time you stop. I assume the FBI pieced that crime together based on this data. I honestly don't know much more than that, or what he has been up to in the past 2 years. I just know him from previously doing work for him, and thought I could give some insight to who he is and what he's like.

Three things would have to be recorded in that case: the "you" part of the start & stop times, as well as the times themselves. I'll take your word for it that he's a decent person. I certainly have no reason to think otherwise. But that doesn't change that his service is recording information that it ought not to be.

I'm sort of interested how you plan to make profit by billing unknown sources for use of your services...

A responsible business that wishes to comply with tax law and other important parts of making a living needs to have record of income.

Re: Lulzsec fiasco - from HideMyAss VPN provider

#45

Post by hmacom »

objclxt wrote: post #11
blake8086 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I came in here to ask exactly that. They explicitly "forbid" illegal activity and then immediately promote their service as a way of breaking other countries' laws.

Exactly - I think they're a bit confused in their language. When HMA say: "our VPN service and VPN services in general are not designed to be used to commit illegal activity" ...what they actually mean is: "...not designed to be used to commit illegal activity in the USA " Clearly one of their main selling points is the ability to circumvent censorship in countries where that's a problem. For better or for worse, try…

We are not based in the US, we are a UK company, and operate using UK law only.

Re: Lulzsec fiasco - from HideMyAss VPN provider

#46

Post by skeptical »

I agree with numerous opinions in here that consider this a fiasco. Many say that the law must be interpreted in it's context (uk) and that the guy behind the service couldn't much, etc. But honestly, why putting up a service bragging to fight the power all the time, specifically pointing out that it can be used to circumvent censorship, etc. if you're going to give in at the first trouble. I don't recall them clearly stating that their service was not meant to provide means to those breaking laws. If they are so loyal to some country law, then they should clearly state it, instead of bragging how cool they are by rebelling against some other county law.

I say, if you put a service like this up, stand up for its integrity, or else, don't bother creating it in the first place.

Re: Lulzsec fiasco - from HideMyAss VPN provider

#47

Post by zizee »

TheCapn wrote: post #44
thaumaturgy wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Three things would have to be recorded in that case: the "you" part of the start & stop times, as well as the times themselves. I'll take your word for it that he's a decent person. I certainly have no reason to think otherwise. But that doesn't change that his service is recording information that it ought not to be.

I'm sort of interested how you plan to make profit by billing unknown sources for use of your services... A responsible business that wishes to comply with tax law and other important parts of making a living needs to have record of income.

The service charges a monthly or yearly fee for unlimited data transfer. They don't need to log when you actually use the service.

Re: Lulzsec fiasco - from HideMyAss VPN provider

#48

Post by thaumaturgy »

TheCapn wrote: post #44
thaumaturgy wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Three things would have to be recorded in that case: the "you" part of the start & stop times, as well as the times themselves. I'll take your word for it that he's a decent person. I certainly have no reason to think otherwise. But that doesn't change that his service is recording information that it ought not to be.

I'm sort of interested how you plan to make profit by billing unknown sources for use of your services... A responsible business that wishes to comply with tax law and other important parts of making a living needs to have record of income.

http://hidemyass.com/vpn/

HMA does not bill by the minute. Nice snark, though.

Re: Lulzsec fiasco - from HideMyAss VPN provider

#49

Post by devicenull »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #37
randomaccount4 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He states that only two things are recorded - the time you start using the service, and the time you stop. I assume the FBI pieced that crime together based on this data. I honestly don't know much more than that, or what he has been up to in the past 2 years. I just know him from previously doing work for him, and thought I could give some insight to who he is and what he's like.

Three things would have to be recorded in that case: the "you" part of the start & stop times, as well as the times themselves. I'll take your word for it that he's a decent person. I certainly have no reason to think otherwise. But that doesn't change that his service is recording information that it ought not to be.

The way you typically record this is start time, end time, and IP assigned. It's still not enough to identify what sites or traffic was visited, but when you get a spam email forwarded to you by your upstream provider, it's enough to identify a customer.

Re: Lulzsec fiasco - from HideMyAss VPN provider

#50

Post by gojomo »

DeusExMachina wrote: post #4

I find curious that they first state this: "As stated in our terms of service and privacy policy our service is not to be used for illegal activity, and as a legitimate company we will cooperate with law enforcement if we receive a court order" And then this: "In 2005 we setup HMA primarily as a way to bypass censorship of the world-wide-web whether this be on a government or a corporate/localized scale." If censorsh…

If censorship is government driven, it means that the law prohibits you to see some things

I don't think that's strictly true. Governments exert themselves in a number of ways that amount to 'soft censorship', and it is often neither illegal nor very difficult to circumvent these measures. They just want to make it inconvenient, and create an appearance of distance/disapproval. Politics rewards such hypocrisy.

For example, content filters on government-workplace or government-accomodation internet access. They may not really care if you tunnel around them – it's rarely illegal – they just want to make sure there's no appearance they condone the activity.

Even things like the national internet blacklists can fall into this category. They might require ISPs to block certain direct routes to disfavored sites, making access inconvenient. But the legal mandate is not to block all access via all means, and if you figure out how to access the target sites, you may not have broken any law (depending on what content you then copy/disseminate yourself).

Post reply on HN