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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)

#411

Post by smileybarry »

oefrha wrote: post #343
class3shock wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> it would not have been possible to source local candidates, handle HR and payroll, understand local regulations, etc, without outside assistance I have no dog in this fight, but I agree with the "smear campaign" that this is 100% bullshit. I work for a fully remote company with employees from all over the world, including Eastern Europe, and we didn't need to partner with any local company, let alone a competitor.…

> I work for a fully remote company with employees from all over the world, including Eastern Europe, and we didn't need to partner with any local company

Because your company already has considerable experience in working remotely in another territory, of course they didn't need any help. Or potentially, they were already contracting a firm for local bureaucratic matters.

> Plus it was never mentioned what these "local partners" get in return

Money? They could sell these bureaucratic services at a markup, where they have experience with the paperwork etc. part of expanding internationally.

Additionally, another commenter said they offloaded some worse talent on them[1], so that's another possible benefit to them.

1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45500737

And to cover the astroturfing allegations in this thread: no, I don't work for or have any relationship with ProtonVPN, other than being a user.

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

#412

Post by smileybarry »

jiggunjer wrote: post #336
gorbypark wrote: post #334

I only ever use a VPN to access region blocked content and the occasional "linux iso" torrent..I tried Mullvad first, but they just don't play the game of cat and mouse with the streaming providers and all their IPs are pretty much blocked. I have about a 95% success rate with NordVPN (except for Amazon Prime video which have some sort of wizardry and always are able to detect VPNs). It's a shame because Mullvad has…

But you can connect any machine to any vpn and have it be a tailscale exit node?

Well, yes, but being able to designate a VPN node as a Tailscale exit node directly means you don't need a random server in the middle for it. (Which is beneficial if you use it as an exit node for road warrior devices)

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

#413

Post by smileybarry »

gorbypark wrote: post #334

I only ever use a VPN to access region blocked content and the occasional "linux iso" torrent..I tried Mullvad first, but they just don't play the game of cat and mouse with the streaming providers and all their IPs are pretty much blocked. I have about a 95% success rate with NordVPN (except for Amazon Prime video which have some sort of wizardry and always are able to detect VPNs). It's a shame because Mullvad has…

I use ProtonVPN for bypassing media geoblocking, and they're fairly good, with some exceptions (BBC iPlayer works via browser but not the Apple TV app, local IPTV doesn't work on any Proton local servers).

They have an Apple TV app so I just switch it on as needed, and it's restricted to just that Apple TV. (Without having to fiddle with a separate WiFi network etc.) IKEv2, OpenVPN and Wireguard work without their apps so I don't have to install their apps on non-sandboxed platforms (Windows, macOS).

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

#414

Post by PlutoChaplin »

michaelt wrote: post #123
gruez wrote: 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".

If I was running an intelligence agency and was given my choice of conscripts, I wouldn't hand my intelligence secrets to people who resented being forced to be there; or to mouthy people I thought might blab about it after the end of their service; or to people with an anti-authority streak or at risk of a Snowden-style attack of conscience about civil liberties. I would select for people with a deep love of their c…

> I wouldn't hand my intelligence secrets to people who resented being forced to be there; or to mouthy people I thought might blab about it after the end of their service; or to people with an anti-authority streak or at risk of a Snowden-style attack of conscience about civil liberties.

Well, I know people there from all groups you mentioned. Especially the "resented being forced to be there", which is very common in all parts of the army, with people counting down the days until their 2-3 years are over. It didn't feel like the unit selected against this, choosing to accept it because of the technical skills of who they accepted.

(And yes, this is a new account. I've been on Hacker News for years, this is just for privacy reasons.)

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

#415

Post by smileybarry »

sporkxrocket wrote: post #383
tguvot wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Talking about the breath of which Israel has compromised our technology is actually helping to make my point. They're operating a comprehensive surveillance network and have the ability to literally plant explosives in our consumer devices.

[flagged]

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

#416

Post by ashirviskas »

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"…

> "Links to" is doing a lot of work in that sentence.

How? it is obvious.

> 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", they worked exclusively for Proton.

So basically same people managed teams, same people paid the employes, but my "Links to" is doing heavy lifting and in the previous sentence you say "ProtonVPN is owned by Proton, which has no legal ownership ties with Tesonet."? Who is doing the heavy lifting here?

How much is Tesonet or Proton paying you to post in here?

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

#417

Post by Dylan16807 »

TZubiri wrote: post #406
Dylan16807 wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using a VPN means you have to trust one company instead of every wifi you connect to, and also makes that an entity that's an expert at privacy instead of working off a half-forgotten router in the back. How is any of this "medicine becoming the poison" or "schizophrenic"?

No, you have to trust the one company, as well as everyone you were trusting before. You are still using the router, and now you are also trusting the VPN provider, as well as the nodes in between the VPN provider and your original destination. Also, you are just switching up the "unprotected stretch" between your local wifi, and, say, Google's servers, whereas now that "unprotected stretch" lies between the VPN prov…

> No, you have to trust the one company, as well as everyone you were trusting before. You are still using the router, and now you are also trusting the VPN provider, as well as the nodes in between the VPN provider and your original destination.

As long as the VPN is up, the worst the wifi can do is cut you off. It can't alter your connections.

It's far fewer trust points.

> Also, you are just switching up the "unprotected stretch" between your local wifi, and, say, Google's servers, whereas now that "unprotected stretch" lies between the VPN provider servers in Latvia or British Virgin Islands or Panama, or whatever dubious jurisdiction, and, say, Google. Sure, you added a layer of protection against the random hacker sitting in your Starbucks, but you have added many more vectors.

When I use a VPN for protection, the server is in the US too.

And if it's for netflix I'm going to some major country, not dubious-land.

(Also I'd say datacenter and internet core routers are less likely to attack some random person's traffic, but that's not core to my argument.)

> It becomes the poison because the solution you are introducing brings more issues. And it's schizophrenic because the issue to begin with, was minuscule (a hacker stepping into MacDonalds, breaking the network encryption and then also the application encryption.

For most wifi networks, there is no encryption between users. And it's quite likely that the neglected router got hacked over the internet and is part of a botnet.

> Maybe if this were 2010 and websites still used HTTP, or you are using a local email client without TLS configured. But it's 2025, everything has HTTPs and you are using an HTTPs email client.

Until you type in a URL and HSTS isn't set.

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

#418

Post by sporkxrocket »

smileybarry wrote: post #415
sporkxrocket wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Talking about the breath of which Israel has compromised our technology is actually helping to make my point. They're operating a comprehensive surveillance network and have the ability to literally plant explosives in our consumer devices.

[flagged]

A better analogy would be: would you use Nazi technology? There were roughly 8.5 million Nazis.

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

#419

Post by tguvot »

sporkxrocket wrote: post #418
smileybarry wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

A better analogy would be: would you use Nazi technology? There were roughly 8.5 million Nazis.

do you use israeli technology ? or medicine ?

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

#420

Post by alcide »

rasengan wrote: post #324
crossroadsguy wrote: post #198

At this point, the VPN industry is so rife with shady dealings, suspicious ownership structures, weird exits, questionable marketing/PR practices/pushes, and rumours that waters have been muddied sufficiently for every provider out there. It might have been by design as well. Who knows. I now believe that you know your use case and use VPN only for that, and decide whether you really need to pay with parts of your ki…

Yeah, agreed. Most VPNs just move the trust boundary from your ISP to another opaque network and call it privacy. There’s no way to verify what’s running, who controls it, or what happens to your data once it leaves your machine. We solve this with vp.net, by making the service verifiable. The code can be reviewed, the builds are reproducible, and each node can prove what software it’s running and where your traffic…

“We're sorry but vp.net doesn't work properly without JavaScript enabled. Please enable it to continue.”
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