VPN owners: 97 VPN products run by 23 companies • Hacker News Board

Re: VPN owners: 97 VPN products run by 23 companies

#81

Post by mijowi » Sat, Jul 06, 2019, 10:02 AM UTC

IshKebab wrote: post #78

GordonS wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the Snowden affair showed anything, it's that the tinfoil hat wearers were right all along - you'd have been ridiculed if you'd suggested just about anything from the Snowden files.

I still think the NSA employs Linux devs so they can deliberately insert flaws. Why would they not? It would be very easy. But every time I mention it people reply "But but many eyes! They'd get caught!"

I’m sure they make the flaws look like honest mistakes, and whatever gets found by someone else is simply patched with a “bugfix” commit.

Re: VPN owners: 97 VPN products run by 23 companies

#82

Post by SXX » Sat, Jul 06, 2019, 10:13 AM UTC

andreareina wrote: post #58

ubercow13 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cloudflare is going to offer a free VPN

The marginal cost to Cloudflare for the extra engineering, compute, and bandwidth is lower than it would be for many other organizations, and it's good marketing for the things they actually make money on.

Actually it's provide them much more than just marketing. They'll be only one company to know detailed information about client connection quality, they'll able to optimize routes for their CDN even more. It's crucial competitive edge for their primary service.

Re: VPN owners: 97 VPN products run by 23 companies

#83

Post by reshie » Sat, Jul 06, 2019, 10:15 AM UTC

GordonS wrote: post #60

yardstick wrote: post #19

Tinfoil hats aside, it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if the NSA and other intelligence agencies around the world operated VPN service providers as a way to spy on users.

If the Snowden affair showed anything, it's that the tinfoil hat wearers were right all along - you'd have been ridiculed if you'd suggested just about anything from the Snowden files.

the difference is speculation to outright imagination which does no favor to real threats. there are plenty of crackpots and conspiracy nut-jobs out there.

Re: VPN owners: 97 VPN products run by 23 companies

#84

Post by jen729w » Sat, Jul 06, 2019, 10:18 AM UTC

ExpressVPN are on a podcast advertising spree, so I thought I’d give them a look. I tried to pay using Bitcoin and got a generic “There was an error” error.

And when I say generic, I mean ‘I recognise the Semantic UI React default error block’ generic.

I used their live chat support. “Is this normal,” I asked. “No,” I was told.

I tried again a day later. Same.

I tried them on Twitter. Nothing.

So, it seems that ExpressVPN have a good marketing budget and little else. I shan’t be bothering to try again.

Re: VPN owners: 97 VPN products run by 23 companies

#85

Post by nickpsecurity » Sat, Jul 06, 2019, 10:18 AM UTC

IshKebab wrote: post #78

GordonS wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the Snowden affair showed anything, it's that the tinfoil hat wearers were right all along - you'd have been ridiculed if you'd suggested just about anything from the Snowden files.

I still think the NSA employs Linux devs so they can deliberately insert flaws. Why would they not? It would be very easy. But every time I mention it people reply "But but many eyes! They'd get caught!"

Although possible, they don't have to given how many bugs Linux developers already put in on a regular basis:

https://events.linuxfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/1...

Re: VPN owners: 97 VPN products run by 23 companies

#86

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jul 06, 2019, 10:20 AM UTC

andreareina wrote: post #58

ubercow13 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cloudflare is going to offer a free VPN

The marginal cost to Cloudflare for the extra engineering, compute, and bandwidth is lower than it would be for many other organizations, and it's good marketing for the things they actually make money on.

[deleted]

Re: VPN owners: 97 VPN products run by 23 companies

#87

Post by kpU8efre7r » Sat, Jul 06, 2019, 10:25 AM UTC

atmosx wrote: post #76

nurettin wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is not to make a choice but to be informed about how the industry is somehow tied together in interesting ways. I would also add that many of these VPN services turn your machine into a drone where you knowingly or unknowingly enter into a contract so that they can sell your bandwidth to paying customers to provide them with randomized IP pools so that they can scrape amazon and alibaba.

Interesting. Given that scraping Amazon is illegal, shouldn't these companies pinpointed and sued?

Is it illegal or against terms?

Re: VPN owners: 97 VPN products run by 23 companies

#88

Post by grepthisab » Sat, Jul 06, 2019, 10:26 AM UTC

icelancer wrote: post #79

krn wrote: post #77

This post is almost surely funded by affiliate commissions paid by ExpressVPN, NordVPN, and Astrill VPN, all of which are listed as "Top VPN providers" before the article even begins. Therefore, there are some serious omissions[1] in this list. [1] https://i0.wp.com/vpnscam.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/201...

Probably. So what? Doesn't make the facts of the article any less true. Just need to do research on those three companies as well independently if you want to know more.

It's important to know where one's information is coming from, even if that information is "technically" accurate. Mere facts can be misleading through context, and it's important to know where biases are.

Re: VPN owners: 97 VPN products run by 23 companies

#89

Post by fit2rule » Sat, Jul 06, 2019, 10:26 AM UTC

IshKebab wrote: post #78

GordonS wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the Snowden affair showed anything, it's that the tinfoil hat wearers were right all along - you'd have been ridiculed if you'd suggested just about anything from the Snowden files.

I still think the NSA employs Linux devs so they can deliberately insert flaws. Why would they not? It would be very easy. But every time I mention it people reply "But but many eyes! They'd get caught!"

The Wests' military-industrial-pharmaceutical complex has weaponised groupthink to such an extent that the ease by which incitement of mass hysteria at scale can be manifested is a non-issue for these players.

Too many times, the western collective is convinced of its own righteousness in regards to issues which factually were counter to its own survival.

The point is, even if the NSA did have key Linux devs on its roster, we don't have the tools - as the unwashed masses - to counter it. Besides which, the Linux kernel is hardly the right target - compilers, however, are...

Re: VPN owners: 97 VPN products run by 23 companies

#90

Post by grepthisab » Sat, Jul 06, 2019, 10:28 AM UTC

atmosx wrote: post #76

nurettin wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is not to make a choice but to be informed about how the industry is somehow tied together in interesting ways. I would also add that many of these VPN services turn your machine into a drone where you knowingly or unknowingly enter into a contract so that they can sell your bandwidth to paying customers to provide them with randomized IP pools so that they can scrape amazon and alibaba.

Interesting. Given that scraping Amazon is illegal, shouldn't these companies pinpointed and sued?

It's not illegal, it's against their TOS, bug difference. In any case, if there's money to be made, you'll find even more reputable entities will operate at the margins of ethics and legality. In any case, probably more cost effective to come up with a technical solution rather than suing every pop up scraper of Amazon. Or just sue the VPN provider itself?