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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)

#81

Post by optimalquiet »

IggleSniggle wrote: post #64
octo888 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TLS doesn't hide which websites (hostnames) you visit

It does if you do DNS over TLS or HTTPS, although I guess that information would still be knowable to your DNS provider if they terminate your TLS behind the scenes

Not quite. In order to make TLS certs work on a per-site basis, requests sent over HTTPS also include a virtual host indicator in cleartext that shows the hostname of the site you’re trying to connect to, so if the IP on the other end is hosting multiple domains it can find the right cert. For this reason some people feel that DNS over TLS is pretty pointless as a privacy measure.

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

#82

Post by zelphirkalt »

tacker2000 wrote: post #63

I tried Proton but their VPN wasnt as good as NordVPNs… But if Nord is sketchy, what is the recommended one?

You will have to be a lot more specific than "wasn't as good as", to get a response that is helpful to you. What are you looking for in a VPN provider?

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

#83

Post by baby_souffle »

gruez wrote: post #55
0x073 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free wifi hotspots Nowadays most traffic is tls encrypted, but there are still metadata that can be collected.

>but there are still metadata that can be collected. That logic is questionable given how poorly "spying on public wifi users" scales. You either need to put a bunch of eavesdropping radios in a bunch of public places or somehow convince a bunch of small businesses to use your "free wifi" solution. Even if you do have access, it's hard to monetize the data, given that nearly every device does MAC randomization (so yo…

Doesn't pretty much every Starbucks location in the United States use a nationwide provider?

Despite the randomized Mac address, you can still fingerprint devices using all the usual tricks when they connect to the authentication and authorization page before you allow them to access the broader internet.

If the receipt had a passcode on it, you've got a link between all of your browser fingerprint, radio fingerprint and payment detail fingerprint and possibly customer loyalty provided at time of payment.

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

#84

Post by Havoc »

gruez wrote: post #45
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" ?

Protection from IP tracking, especially if your ISP doesn't do CGNAT. Of course there's a trade-off here between a) your ISP (who knows your billing information) knowing which sites you visit, and any site you visit can correlate internet activity back to your household b) your VPN provider knowing all the sites you visit

CGNAT won't save you in a world where everything is fingerprinted to within an inch of it's life.

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

#85

Post by octo888 »

baobun wrote: post #74
octo888 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried Airvpn but the MacOS client is beyond trash. And the website just gives 2005 amateur PHP coder vibes. Not just the design. The session expiry is seems very long - I hadn't visited for a few days and I'm still logged in. I'd be surprised if it wasn't infinite.

For multiple reasons it's better and safer to avoid using official provider client in the first place, regardless of provider, and connect with a good wireguard/openvpn/whatever client.

Not universally true. The Mullvad client has lots of additional features to enhance privacy. Killswitch, split tunnelling (you might otherwise disconnect the VPN to use a certain app, so it can overall improve privacy), Shadowsocks, Lockdown mode etc

It's extremely high quality on MacOS in my experience. It's never crashed for example whereas Airvpn's crashes daily. It connects almost instantly. I don't think I've ever seen it give an error

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

#86

Post by greekrich92 »

qntmfred wrote: post #44
octo888 wrote: 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]

The second part of your comment seems like a non sequitur

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

#87

Post by jibcage »

ashirviskas wrote: post #59
zer0tonin wrote: post #16

I have to admit that discovering that ProtonVPN was actually just owned by Proton Technologies feels underwhelming.

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?

It’s not Tesonet, Proton is wholly self-owned and managed. Proton VPN was briefly sharing employees with Tesonet during initial app bringup, and that partnership is long over. Naturally due to competition and the huge importance of privacy in this space, people still bring this up, but Proton VPN does not and never will sell or share your data with anyone.

Source: I am a Proton VPN employee.

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

#88

Post by pfexec »

octo888 wrote: post #27
justapassenger wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With TLS being everywhere, and just few clicks away from having DNS over TLS, I really don't get eavesdropping on public wifi prop value.

TLS doesn't hide which websites (hostnames) you visit

Which is more likely, your barista collecting this data for nefarious purposes, or your ISP?

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

#89

Post by MrOwen »

optimalquiet wrote: post #81
IggleSniggle wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does if you do DNS over TLS or HTTPS, although I guess that information would still be knowable to your DNS provider if they terminate your TLS behind the scenes

Not quite. In order to make TLS certs work on a per-site basis, requests sent over HTTPS also include a virtual host indicator in cleartext that shows the hostname of the site you’re trying to connect to, so if the IP on the other end is hosting multiple domains it can find the right cert. For this reason some people feel that DNS over TLS is pretty pointless as a privacy measure.

I think this is only true if SNI is disabled. Otherwise you really only get the IP of SRC and DEST.
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