VPNs coming under pressure.

Klingerman01

https://www.pcgamesn.com/vpn/beginning-of-the-end I was wondering what people thought about the idea that VPNs will largely be forced to keep logs on everyone and what this would mean for privacy.

Franckienogotobollywood

Klingerman01 hello, Internet service providers, of which VPNs are part it seems to me, are legally obliged to provide connection logs to the authorities, at least in Europe. Correct me if I'm wrong. This is the reason why if I had to use something to hide my IP I would use Apple's private relay or tor. I'm quite categorical. I never trusted VPNs

Wass1947

im pretty sure that most VPNs keep logs anyway and we are heading towards a time where every vpn will keep logs

I guess more people will just have to switch to Tor

SgtSurehand

Wass1947 one worse than another. I'd still prefer selected VPN since I am not familiar with TOR which is a bit obscure at best, come, help me out @Blastoidea

area51

SgtSurehand we are at complete opposites, I prefer Tor and do not use or considerer a VPN. All my laptops are devoid of HDD or SSD and I run tails on USB sticks, so always Tor, sure there are hiccups, but I can live with them.

Delaney

area51 I prefer Tor and do not use or considerer a VPN.

Why not?

SgtSurehand I'd still prefer selected VPN since I am not familiar with TOR

Tor essentially does the same thing as a VPN. It masks your IP address, just in a different, more sophisticated way.

HecticHector

Times have changed. No one will comply because Hollywood is losing money. Disney is more likely to get boycotted than VPN's keep logs. VPN's aren't a time machine to go to limewire in 2000's aka piracy has been around since prior to VPN's.

JayJay

Will always be a jurisdiction which will be log free

mhbcrypto

You could always use a decentralized VPN service like Sentinel DVPN for example

Rootus

area51 Wow, no HDD/SSD ?! This seems to be an overkill. How do you store gigabytes/terabytes of your data (like personal photos and videos) then?

3mox0

There is also an interesting project from safing called SPN, which runs through portmaster: https://safing.io/spn/

area51

Delaney my laptops have the SSD/HDD removed and I use tails on USB, so TOR is used exclusively. This is the way I interact with the internet. So a VPN to me is of no use. My phone is purely a phone, nothing more, no apps just GrapheneOS.

Rootus

I don't have problem with VPN keeping logs if they are required by law. Though I expect transparency from VPN companies explicitly disclosing that. I use VPN for legitimate reasons and I understand that I can be subpoenaed by my gov to disclose my online activity so the reason I use VPN is to avoid being tracked by the 3rd parties for commercial and fraudulent purposes. Moreover, some jurisdictions respect privacy more than others so it is not an issue of finding VPN companies having servers in those countries. The arising problem that I see is when commercial online services block users from accessing their services through VPN. Anyways, VPN is not a complete privacy fix and you still can be fingerprinted even when using VPN.

area51

Rootus overkill, nah, my laptop is a tool to interact with the internet, the less of my stuff on it when online the safer and secure my stuff is. Just like my phone, nothing on it except GrapheneOS and that's it, no apps or personal photos, contacts.

FlipSid

I'll worry about it once a notice appears on the Mullvad blog. Or once I find something in their privacy policy (which I haven't read since a while)

Until then I see no reason to reduce my security or browsing speed, which means I'll continue with Vanadium together with Mullvad VPN.

It also doesn't make sense to make users worry about their VPN service and then recommend some VPN service in the >same< Article 🤪

Klingerman01

I personally use proton vpn for legitimate purposes. That being said I don't like logs simply on principle.

Speeduser7533

Klingerman01 I expect Proton will relocate (they've already stated this) should the Swiss start requiring gov't access to VPNs and secure cloud storage.

FWIW I have a nice Nextcloud instance spun up and online should Proton, etc. ever start giving governments access to cloud data. If that happens all of my data will be removed from the 3rd party cloud services I use currently. As far as VPNs I'm not sure yet what my strategy would be.

BeepBeep

Trul privacy-respecting VPNs will probably withdraw (at least officially) from problem countries, as needed to maintain their principles.

Of possible interest:
https://obscura.net/
(Multi-company, multi-hop -- a faster, baby TOR)

Franckienogotobollywood

Speeduser7533 The data protection laws in Switzerland (LPD) only protects the Swiss on the territory. Even Swiss companies are not protected. You have to stop thinking that Switzerland is respectful of your privacy

mmobder

those claiming ppl will simply switch to Tor has never tried to use Tor consistently. otherwise they would never state this)

Klingerman01

Franckienogotobollywood That is fair. I am by no means a lawyer and most definately not educated on foreign law, but my isp is googe fi and it might be cynical but i trust proton more than google.