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NordVPN library and client code open-sourced

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Re: NordVPN library and client code open-sourced

#91

Post by taftster »

VonGuard wrote: post #82
acatton wrote: post #7

Reminder that it looks like NordVPN does shady stuff: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29285988 Allegedly, they are using their customers as botnets to resell traffic from residential IPs, mostly for scraping, through their other business "Oxylabs".

They, and ALL VPN PROVIDERS, sell your DNS data, as well. That's the real business model.

Shouldn't that just be ALL PROVIDERS in general? There's probably a few choice ISPs that maintain their dignity, but I wouldn't put it past Comcast, Verizon, and all the mobile providers out there.

Re: NordVPN library and client code open-sourced

#92

Post by tjoff »

dvdbloc wrote: post #67
acatton wrote: post #7

Reminder that it looks like NordVPN does shady stuff: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29285988 Allegedly, they are using their customers as botnets to resell traffic from residential IPs, mostly for scraping, through their other business "Oxylabs".

Is this behavior only enabled by their client? If you use your own OpenVPN client to connect to their OpenVPN server are you avoiding this behavior?

Regardless, you shouldn't treat trust like that, don't use nordvpn. If I had to trust a mainstream vpn it would be mullvad.

Re: NordVPN library and client code open-sourced

#93

Post by r3trohack3r »

edgyquant wrote: post #63
ehPReth wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear there's a dirty secret that more and more companies are doing this to make things like Netflix that block VPNs "just work" though their services. Not sure how true this is or how widespread, though.

This has been brought up before, Netflix does not work with a VPN on. It knows you’re using a VPN and blocks you (asks you to disable it.) Yes this is true even with NordVPN, which I bought specifically to be able to watch Netflix on when expressVPN didn’t work.

While working at Netflix this was a real bummer.

I had whole home VPN configured and I couldn't access NFLX streaming content from the house. Getting Netflix traffic to bypass the VPN is incredibly difficult without hacking the client side code to have it update the bypass rules on-demand in response to the client side JSON payloads - or hook into DNS resolution and do VPN bypassing there based on a regeular expression of the origin and the returned records.

The way NFLX works under the hood, from the client's perspective, is that it makes an initial request to a service hosted in AWS. That service stitches together the list-of-lists on the home page. Then you select a film to watch, it again reaches out to a service hosted in AWS to ask to stream the content. This is really straightforward to get working with whole home VPN, you just bypass the VPN for those origins (using DNS queries to get the IP blocks) and you are golden. A little cron job could keep that IP bypass list fresh and it worked well enough to get through the UI.

But then the AWS service responds with a list of streams you are licensed to watch and URLs that point to their location. Those URLs point to Netflix's OpenConnect CDN hosts. Nearly every time I went to stream, I'd pull a different origin for the content and that would route back through the VPN. The list wasn't stable, so I couldn't compile a comprehensive list of origins to route around the VPN with.

So NFLX blocks VPNs to protect their licenses, which I understand. But their architecture made it impossible for me to allow their service to bypass my VPN. So any device I wanted/needed to use NFLX on had to have a direct connection to the internet.

Re: NordVPN library and client code open-sourced

#94

Post by JeanSebTr »

moffkalast wrote: post #62
throw0101b wrote: post #14

This reminds me of the 'original' 2019 video by Tom Scott called "This Video Is Sponsored By [redacted] VPN" where he explains most of the reasons listed to use VPN by ads is useless: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVDQEoe6ZWY And then a few years later with "My robot double sells out (so I don't have to)" he did a follow-up listing useful reasons (geo-based content, better prices on vacation sites, etc) which was…

Isn't he now doing a lot of NordVPN ads himself in recent videos too? Turns out everyone has their price.

I wouldn't say "a lot", but he did some. He never said he would never do VPN ads, he said he would not do it using the false advertisement talking points. For example, when speaking of geo-block bypassing, he alway mention this probably goes against the terms of services of most streaming services.

Re: NordVPN library and client code open-sourced

#95

Post by suddenclarity »

moffkalast wrote: post #62
throw0101b wrote: post #14

This reminds me of the 'original' 2019 video by Tom Scott called "This Video Is Sponsored By [redacted] VPN" where he explains most of the reasons listed to use VPN by ads is useless: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVDQEoe6ZWY And then a few years later with "My robot double sells out (so I don't have to)" he did a follow-up listing useful reasons (geo-based content, better prices on vacation sites, etc) which was…

Isn't he now doing a lot of NordVPN ads himself in recent videos too? Turns out everyone has their price.

Out of curiosity I scrubbed through his 20 latest videos and three of them had NordVPN segments. To be fair on him though, he "only" promotes it as a way to get around geo restrictions when travelling the world. Accessing UK websites for example. If I remember his original video, it was more a complaint about people promoting VPN as "more secure" against hackers and such.

Re: NordVPN library and client code open-sourced

#96

Post by ramranch »

mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote: post #81
zpeti wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think its sketchy, it's just that the VPN business has extremely large revenues compared to costs of the service, which means A LOT of money remains for marketing. They can spend exorbitant amounts on youtube ads and affiliate review sites. It's a bit of a unique market in this way, people are willing to pay $5-$10 per month for something that costs $1.

Nothing shady about fleecing your customers ;) The fact they're in Panama suggests some kind of money laundering scheme to me at the very least.

Every VPN worth its salt is located in a similar country, as it's critical for a VPN to operate out of a jurisdiction that does not require log retention for a certain period of time nor cooperates with Five Eyes law enforcement.

Re: NordVPN library and client code open-sourced

#97

Post by hrunt »

VonGuard wrote: post #82
acatton wrote: post #7

Reminder that it looks like NordVPN does shady stuff: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29285988 Allegedly, they are using their customers as botnets to resell traffic from residential IPs, mostly for scraping, through their other business "Oxylabs".

They, and ALL VPN PROVIDERS, sell your DNS data, as well. That's the real business model.

Ex-employee of Golden Frog GmbH here (makers of VyprVPN). Golden Frog nor VyprVPN ever sold any of its customer information in my time there. Based on my conversations with current employees, they still do not.

Not all VPN providers sell data (DNS or otherwise). Some operate for privacy-driven reasons and actively seek to be good stewards for their customers.

Re: NordVPN library and client code open-sourced

#98

Post by antihero »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #15
mjdowney wrote: post #9

Since there is so much criticism here of NordVPN (in general, not for open-sourcing), what are the VPNs that people like?

Take a look at Mullvad for a VPN done right. Completely anonymous usernames, randomly generated, accepts cryptocurrency or cards purchased anonymously at a physical store with cash. One concerning issue is the Swedish jurisdiction. The nordic countries are better at privacy, but Sweden is a 14-eyes nation. But I can't say it's better or worse than NordVPN's... Panama.

As long as people still realise that regardless of whether they pay with cash in an envelope or directions to the end of a rainbow, if they connect with their own IP to mullvad’s servers and there’s some compromise of these promises (court order, etc), it’s trivial to be owned.

Re: NordVPN library and client code open-sourced

#99

Post by r3trohack3r »

4ggr0 wrote: post #89
edgyquant wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has been brought up before, Netflix does not work with a VPN on. It knows you’re using a VPN and blocks you (asks you to disable it.) Yes this is true even with NordVPN, which I bought specifically to be able to watch Netflix on when expressVPN didn’t work.

No? I've used Netflix with NordVPN like 2 years ago and since then switched to ProtonVPN, which works as well... Using VPNs for Streaming is selling point #1 for tons of people.

It fully depends on whether the IP address associated with your VPN tunnel has tripped their automated detection systems or managed to land on a public blacklist like Project Honeypot. But they do actively track and block VPN traffic.

Re: NordVPN library and client code open-sourced

#100

Post by netfortius »

edgyquant wrote: post #63
ehPReth wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear there's a dirty secret that more and more companies are doing this to make things like Netflix that block VPNs "just work" though their services. Not sure how true this is or how widespread, though.

This has been brought up before, Netflix does not work with a VPN on. It knows you’re using a VPN and blocks you (asks you to disable it.) Yes this is true even with NordVPN, which I bought specifically to be able to watch Netflix on when expressVPN didn’t work.

Netflix works just fine through VPN - it just limits the offerings. If I disable VPN I additionally get local-to-the-country offerings, on top of the "through VPN" ones.
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