I see a lot of comparisons and stances that cause issues. I am tangentially related to the space and am interested in what could be done. I don’t know anyone who works for these companies and do not myself. Nor do I have any financial stake.

  • @listless
    12•3 days ago

    The issue with VPNs is there is no way to verify their claims.

    Typically, you want VPNs to promise not to collect data about you, or what sites you visit. They can promise to delete or never store data, but there’s no way to verify they are doing what they say.

    Many, many VPNs have claimed they don’t store user data or allow traffic sniffing, only to later have been compromised by a government or other entity to track everything you do and hand it over to a hostile government after a subpoena / information request.

    This is a more important issue than any feature or service they may provide.

        • @Squizzy@lemmy.worldOP
          2•2 days ago

          Do the canaries really work though,nothing stopping a state sponsor saying do not remove any terms and conditions or other information that may expose an operation.

          • @TrollAccount69@lemmy.ml
            2•1 day ago

            No, warrant canaries don’t work.

            You gotta look at things that have happened.

            I post it all the time but mullvad doesn’t have port forwarding anymore because Interpol got together with all the cdns and blacklisted their servers after the company was unwilling to backdoor their systems to catch csam traders and raids didn’t turn anything up. The police had wanted to surveil the company’s systems so they could identify people using port forwarding to trade files using windows file sharing (bonkers). When that failed they turned to a cdn block of all their server ips so either the company would discontinue port forwarding or dissolve, flushing the csam trading into less private or secure channels.

            Mullvad ended up ditching port forwarding rather than work with the police. They took a huge hit for it too, lots of people left for ivpn or air.

            What the other person is saying about trust is true. Ultimately you’re trusting the provider of the service. I trust mullvad because they don’t have port forwarding anymore.

          • @InFerNo@lemmy.ml
            1•1 day ago

            It all boils down to trust in the end. Trust they don’t keep records, trust they don’t share your info, trust the canary is real, … There’s always someone else you have to trust.