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Well, it's not like the button is any more dangerous than the streaming sites itself. If your browser is exploitable you will get hit one way or another. Thinking that blocking rather random things is going to do much is really just making it worse. You'd be better off just accepting the fact that the more questionable content you visit the more likely it is you'll face some exploit which in turn might succeed sooner or later.
#insertionvpn
Speaking of VPNs. https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/08/mcafee-acquires-vpn-company-tunnelbear/
I'm surprised.
Put yourselves into the chair of nsa people. All them anti-virus products commonly and during their normal operations have admin level system access and look into much of io - hence it would seem extremely unlikely that nsa and similar would not make use of that and e.g. create and run antivirus companies.
Similar with vpn. From a spooks perspective running a vpn is simply access to all your surfing and other internet communications. Even better, vpn users are the very people who for some, no matter how innocent and valid, reasons do not want their traffic observed by lea, spooks, etc - in other words, for spooks running a vpn server is like the perfect self pre-filtering trap.
Disclaimer: I'm a nordvpn customer myself - but I wouldn't expect any real protection or secrecy. Such a vpn is a comfortable way to not let everybody and his dog get at all your meta data, eavesdrop, etc. But, it certainly is NOT a protection against lea, spooks, etc - quite the contrary; I assume that the vast majority of vpn providers are spook operations, be it directly or indirectly.
As for that blog post: pardon me but windows users using a vpn client provided by [any vpn provider] are just begging "fuck me, use all my orifices, and beat me while doing it".
IPA is nice but the second you start a torrent your speeds drop drastically. NordVPN I don’t have issues with in that sense.
Make your own vpn problem solved
In ways that's vastly less anonymous and secure though.
Yes, and they will know exactly who owns the VPS if anyone were trying to identify you LOL.
You do realize that pretty much all VPN providers store connectivity information for "billing" purposes, or "to calculate server load", or "for FUP purposes", and that this information is readily available for anyone who wishes to identify you and holds a court order. And guess what... your IP address is inside this log and it holds a timestamp...
E.g. PureVPN: https://thehackernews.com/2017/10/no-logs-vpn-service-security_8.html
If you want to do shady stuff, VPN is not really the way to go. Anyone who does shady stuff, knows that.
VPN really isn't going to help you hide, especially not within the five / fourteen eyes jurisdiction: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes. Long story short: VPN only makes it inconvenient to track you down, but not impossible or even remotely hard. It's great for use over public WiFi's and to bypass firewall / country restrictions, but not a whole lot more than that.
PIA does not store connectivity information, as said at the top of the thread, has been vetted by 3rd party services and also in a US court case. It does store transactional information which is why you pay in an anonymous way (and I don't mean give fake info).
You can be tracked in other ways....
I'd rather not assume a provider REALLY doesn't log and they are moderately secure
As you insist again and again: What pia says (incl. in court) is not a proof, not even evidence, but merely words - that may or may not be true.
Moreover it's not up to pia alone. For a start, their servers, at least most of them, are in 3rd party DCs and hardly under pias full control. Also keep in mind that even if it were actually true what pia said that would still not be proof, simply because it would be necessarily limited to what pia knows.
Well noted, I'm not in any way against pia. What I said is valid for virtually all of the other vpn providers, too.
Then I wonder how this works? (Quoted from their TOS: https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/pages/terms-of-service/)
I'm not trying to talk shit about PIA or anything, just trying to be reasonable. VPN's do have plenty of advantages, but breaking the law simply isn't one of them.
TL;DR
Using a VPN service (instead of self hosted VPN) is totally fine for:
Unblocking geo restricted content
Securing your network activity in public wifi
Circumvent ISP throtteling
Making it harder to "track you down" when torrenting/streaming.
(E.g. in Germany some lawyer companies would send hundreds of (automated) Abmahnungen/DMCA-like letters in which they request you to stop streaming and pay 300€ one time. This is a really big thing in Germany and every other person from another country Ive told about this has only laughed about it because only streaming content does not get you in trouble there. In this case using a vpn service & a swiss/ru/spain IP is beneficial because basically these letters are only sent to german ip adresses they gathered and found out the owner by requesting the info by german ISPs.
A self hosted vpn in this case would still obviously lead to you as an individual but if you use a vpn service they usually dont go the extra mile to find out who you are. They want quick cash that's all.)
Using a VPN service is not..
making you completly anonymous
making you untraceable
a free ticket to trust your vpn provider with anything
Honestly, I still don't see the benefits of a VPN service over a self-hosted VPN by the list you provided. Both can easily be tracked down to you as a person if people are willing to invest time in that. But to each his own, pick whatever works for you.
As for the German Abmahnungen, as a Dutchy that regularly visits Germany (don't you guys dare to continue with this silly toll thing btw :-)), I can confirm that I have had zero issues torrenting / streaming and sort of content using a HostSolutions VPS as VPN.
That's because they would usually only contact german ISPs/Providers (Hetzner, Netcup..). Anyhing Cross-Border is most likely not worth the time for them. Just saying that asking the hosting provider "who owns this IP?" (self hosted) is faster than "Who owns this IP?" --> "Oh a VPN company. Let's go through the hassle of sending a letter to Panama and see what comes of it." .
I'm not saying you can't be tracked down via VPN but you have to agree that contacting ISP/provider directly about who owns a certain IP and be given an individual is faster and way less a hassle than finding out a VPN company is behind it and having to inquire them for potential information, or trying to track down one of several users of the same IP. That being said you should be fine with your own vps outside of Germany, too. Or use a swiss ip and rest assured that aside from high level state crime/murder your IP is considered private information and is not to be shared with authorities that easily. Additionally streaming & downloading in swiss is allowed.
Sure, I'm not denying that, but it really isn't that easy to get any personal details on who owns a certain IP. I'm not too familiar with how it works in Germany, but we have something similar in place in the Netherlands. This law however, is worth nothing outside of the Netherlands, aka, any foreign host doesn't have to comply with this particular law. To this date, most ISP's don't even hand out personal data which makes this law a joke.
So it's impossible for them to get any personal details on an IP address that is not routed from the Netherlands, and I'm pretty confident there is a very strict policy on when datacenters may provide certain personal details belonging to such IP address. It's not like you can just drop them an email, saying "sup? I need billing details of IP xx.xx.xx.xx". It really isn't "less hassle" to reach out to get the personal details, it's just less of a hassle for the datacenter to report back with the actual personal details, as opposed to a VPN provider, who has to dig into logs. If you get a court order, and have appropriate agreements in place with the country where the datacenter resides, you're done.
Sure. That's why with an ip not from Germany you'd be alright
They can only disclose information they keep.... which is nothing identifiable to a person meaning it still does what they say they do.
https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-providers-no-logging-claims-tested-in-fbi-case-160312/
Scroll down to the bottom of the article :-).
https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/forum/discussion/comment/50944/#Comment_50944
So the link is not working for me. What's the TLDR; about Nord shit services?
Original link: https://nordvpnspyapp.blogspot.de/2018/03/nordvpn-spy-app-censoring-customers.html?m=1
This is old shit, a VPN does not make you safer in most cases, a open wifi sure but the rest?
The intelligence agency's have taped nearly every IX and subway cable, they will get your meta data anyways, if you are using a VPN or not, i guess with a VPN its even easier.
Read this a few times, who's the guy that made this report?
So he found... Nothing? Nothing at all?
I sure as shit hope that a decent VPN app hooks your kernel, or else nearly ANY malicious program will be able to bypass your VPN without challenge.
The blog-owner was unable to enable logs for strongSwan less than a month ago, he has no authority & judging by his "analysis" - no knowledge of security in general.
I wouldn't be surprised if this is an underhand disinformation campaign from their NordVPN's competition.
I have acctually been recommending Nord so far. Not looking to trashtalk it.
Ah heck, sorry - edited my post to be a bit more clear.
I was referring to the blogspot guy, not you.
Ah okay
Gotcha^^
I also read this blog post several times, and found only specious accusations. I sincerely doubt the ability and/or security knowledge of the author.
Not sure if it was "an underhand disinformation campaign," but paranoia and delusion is what comes to my mind, especially when the author has a tendency to blame Intel Management Engine for all sins.
It's not nord shit but NordVPN and I'm a happy customer of them.
Re. that hole thing: Pardon me, but all I've seen so far is one (1) single guy making noise and assertions, which may or may not be true. Plus, correct me if I'm mistaken, we do not even know a lot about that single guy except that he is noisy.
That's not a basis to shit talk and smear a company, even less one with lots of happy customers.
I am confused by this, all it shows is OTHER VPN providers getting caught with not logging?