Private Internet Access sold to Kape Technologies (a shady company known for bad privacy ethics).

AltTabbins

AltTabbins

Fully [H]
Joined
Jul 29, 2005
Messages
20,387

Kape Technologies is very well known for their lack of privacy ethics, selling user data and including malware/spyware in their software.

Here is a snippet of their TOS (Credit: /u/VADept on reddit)

Lastly, we may share Non-personal Data associated with the use of our Website with 3rd part suppliers for the purposes of optimization of our Website and Services as well customer analytics (e.g.VWO, Facebook, Yahoo, Twitter, Bing, Google, Mixpanel, Instabug, BugSplat, OpenX etc). These third parties will use Non-personal Data and/or Personal Data relating to your use of our Website to evaluate your use of the Website, compile reports on Site activity and provide other Site activity and internet related services, all in accordance with their applicable privacy policy.

We may further collect and possibly share your Personal Data to enforce the Terms of Service. This may be done to prevent a crime or violation of our Terms of Service or to help solve a transgression that has been committed.

We also reserve the right to disclose your Personal Data as required by law and when we believe that disclosure is necessary to protect our rights and/or comply with a judicial proceeding, court order, or legal process served on our Web site.
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Needless to say, as a 8 year customer.. today will be my last day with them.
 
I used PIA in the past. It was my go to VPN if I wanted one. Looks like I won't be one trying them again in the future.
 
I've already canceled my resub. It actually took me a good 20 minutes to figure out where it was auto-renewing since I haven't had to mess with it in so long. I was up for a renew in Feb, so good timing I guess. Time to research an alternative.
 
So who is a good alternative to PIA? My renewal is next week time to cancel the autorenew now. I was at one point looking at Nord then they got their keys stolen so they are out.
 
Can’t be any worse than anyone else. Facebook, NordVpn the list goes on. 5 year’s later we forgot to tell anyone to bend over and grab your ankles cause we don’t give reach arounds
 
This really blows :( I love PIA, their android app was amazing. Gonna have to look into a new one that hopefully has a good android app as well.
 
This is awful news.

Guess I am going to have to cancel as well. No idea what to replace them with :(
 
LurkerLito said:
So who is a good alternative to PIA? My renewal is next week time to cancel the autorenew now. I was at one point looking at Nord then they got their keys stolen so they are out.
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Those “stolen keys” had no effect on user privacy whatsoever and exposed absolutely no one. It was an overblown non-issue.


Zarathustra[H] said:
Sooo..... is NordVPN still considered good?
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Yes. I also highly recommend ExpressVPN if speed is a concern.

NordVPN has insane Black Friday deals coming up.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Sooo..... is NordVPN still considered good?
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Shoganai said:
Those “stolen keys” had no effect on user privacy whatsoever and exposed absolutely no one. It was an overblown non-issue.



Yes. I also highly recommend ExpressVPN if speed is a concern.

NordVPN has insane Black Friday deals coming up.
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What? NordVPN had a major security breach AND MORE IMPORTANTLY did not reveal it to affected users for a long, long time. Not to mention of course that the name itself is very nearly something of a life - "Nord" VPN is based in Panama.

You're much better off with Mullvad , CryptoStorm, ProtonVPN and a few others. Be wary everyone , like with Kape, lots of VPNs are being absorbed by companies with sketchy backgrounds and in some cases significant connections to intelligence services.
 
RanceJustice said:
You're much better off with Mullvad , CryptoStorm, ProtonVPN and a few others. Be wary everyone , like with Kape, lots of VPNs are being absorbed by companies with sketchy backgrounds and in some cases significant connections to intelligence services.
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What kind of performance have people been getting with these? With PIA I have been getting ~500mbps
 
VyprVPN seems to get good reviews on privacy, and be pretty fast, and have some fantastic Black Friday deals coming up.

Anyone know anything about them?
 
Welp, shit... it was a great 6 years, PIA.

Back in the hunt for a service now.

Any benefit to an EC2 instance VPN or is it time to plunk down the scratch for a dedicated server in iceland (LOL)?
 
RanceJustice said:
What? NordVPN had a major security breach AND MORE IMPORTANTLY did not reveal it to affected users for a long, long time. Not to mention of course that the name itself is very nearly something of a life - "Nord" VPN is based in Panama.

You're much better off with Mullvad , CryptoStorm, ProtonVPN and a few others. Be wary everyone , like with Kape, lots of VPNs are being absorbed by companies with sketchy backgrounds and in some cases significant connections to intelligence services.
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Again, they were temporary keys which had no bearing on user data information or exposed IPs. Panama is also outside US jurisdiction and are not a part of the “Eyes”. There’s literally nothing wrong with them being located in Panama. Quit spreading FUD. It doesn’t help anyone.
 
/dev/null said:
I can't believe you guys trust any of these VPNS for privacy reasons....
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Privacy? There is no privacy on the internet, nor true anonymity.

But, it is just enough to hide from your local ISP as well as MPAA/RIAA. At least make it not worth their while to do anything about it.

Know the limitations of them, and you'll be ok. They aren't some end all solution to privacy. They're just one tool out of many.
 
Ur_Mom said:
Privacy? There is no privacy on the internet, nor true anonymity.

But, it is just enough to hide from your local ISP as well as MPAA/RIAA. At least make it not worth their while to do anything about it.

Know the limitations of them, and you'll be ok. They aren't some end all solution to privacy. They're just one tool out of many.
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They provide 0 privacy. I don't understand why anyone spends any money on VPNS for "privacy" reasons at all.
 
NordVPN is still solid. Yes, there was a breach, but if you read the details it doesn't look like anything came out of it, nor was it as bad and some clickbait articles wanted it to seem.

If you stop using services just because of one non-consequential security issue, well, you might as well pull your ethernet cable because you couldn't use the internet anymore. Or throw out your machine if you use an Intel CPU, come on.

NordVPN has apps for all major platforms (including Linux), and things like DNS and killswitch are handled with an easy setting switch. Lots of servers and decent speed depending on where you are connecting to, And the sale price is reasonable.
 
/dev/null said:
They provide 0 privacy. I don't understand why anyone spends any money on VPNS for "privacy" reasons at all.
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Only for technical reasons, i.e. public WiFi. Could do a reach-back to anywhere really, but these services do add a layer of convenience.
 
LurkerLito said:
Here is a nice list for comparisons from thebestvpn.com:
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Fuck everything about this table. They have NordVPN as the top choice for a good reason and it’s not because it’s actually the best. They get a high kickback amount from NordVPN and that table uses their affiliate link. They shouldn’t even be a consideration for your vpn service after they recently got hacked.
 
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FrgMstr said:
Mullvad.
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I’ve been researching since I canceled with PIA and this is going to be my pick. I was impressed with the trial when they were a sponsor here on the forum and while I still preferred PIA at the time, it was mostly because I was already a paying PIA customer. If anyone is looking for a replacement, have a good look at Mullvad.
 
AltTabbins said:
I’ve been researching since I canceled with PIA and this is going to be my pick. I was impressed with the trial when they were a sponsor here on the forum and while I still preferred PIA at the time, it was mostly because I was already a paying PIA customer. If anyone is looking for a replacement, have a good look at Mullvad.
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I vetted these guys before we allowed sponsorship and was happy with what I saw. $5 month, by the month.
 
Well I can give you my first impressions of SurfShark. It's fast enough but I think PIA was a little faster, with a gigabit connection I only max at about 150mbps in both directions, but it is incredibly cheap. Seriously, less than $2 a month lol. $47.76 for 27 months for the next 6 days during their BF sale. Though their linux "client" sucks. Seriously it is command line ONLY and no indicator in your task bar if your connected or not. Two of the features of the service are not available on Linux (Whitelister and Killswitch). In windows things work as expected though.
 
AltTabbins said:
I’ve been researching since I canceled with PIA and this is going to be my pick. I was impressed with the trial when they were a sponsor here on the forum and while I still preferred PIA at the time, it was mostly because I was already a paying PIA customer. If anyone is looking for a replacement, have a good look at Mullvad.
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FrgMstr said:
I vetted these guys before we allowed sponsorship and was happy with what I saw. $5 month, by the month.
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I have no doubt they are one of the most trustworthy options.

Can anyone speak to what kind of performance they have gotten with them on gigabit internet with capable router hardware? One of the reasons I was very happy with PIA was because of this:


Without VPN:

90610_upload_2017-9-24_15-59-7-png.png





With VPN:

90611_upload_2017-9-24_15-59-31-png.png


Judging by the CPU load on my router (never above 20%) I'm guessing my ~500mbit/s to ~600mbit/s figures were provider limited, not limited on my side.

If Mullvad can match it, I'm onboard.
 
/dev/null said:
I don't understand
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Highlighted the relevant part.

Just because you don’t get it doesn’t change the fact that many of us do. If you don’t see the value in basically the entire internet not knowing your actual IP or location (when used appropriately by an informed individual) then I’m not sure what else to say. Perhaps your particular use case wouldn’t benefit but a lot of us have decided that ours do.

Obviously the VPN provider would know who/what/where you are. How they handle (or preferably don’t) that information is essentially the entire point of this thread.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I have no doubt they are one of the most trustworthy options.

Can anyone speak to what kind of performance they have gotten with them on gigabit internet with capable router hardware? One of the reasons I was very happy with PIA was because of this:


Without VPN:

View attachment 202010




With VPN:

View attachment 202011

Judging by the CPU load on my router (never above 20%) I'm guessing my ~500mbit/s to ~600mbit/s figures were provider limited, not limited on my side.

If Mullvad can match it, I'm onboard.
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Mullvad on 200/200.

upload_2019-11-24_10-55-45.png



upload_2019-11-24_10-55-30.png
 
/dev/null said:
They provide 0 privacy. I don't understand why anyone spends any money on VPNS for "privacy" reasons at all.
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Nothing in life is perfect, but that doesn't mean we should all stop trying.

With our ISP's tracking our every move and even injecting non-removable identifiers into our TCP packets a VPN can be an improvement.

Yes, you still have to worry about tracking cookies and all that nonsense, but this is one layer of a multi-layered approach.

It all comes down to trust. Can you trust that VPN provider to not do the same tracking nonsense as your ISP (or worse). This is where it becomes a judgment call. But I will say, it's not difficult for an organization to become more trusted than my ISP. There are few things I trust less than ISP's.
 
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FrgMstr said:
Mullvad on 200/200.

View attachment 202083


View attachment 202082
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I think I'm going to give them a try. I will report back with my speed results once I get it up and running.

Their webpage is scant on details though. (either that or I am totally failing at navigating it).

They really ought to detail things like:

- How many simultaneous connections are included with the subscription?

- What platforms does their app support?

- Do you have to use their app, or can you connect using OpenVPN?


EDIT:

Update, found the list of supported application platforms on their download page. Not the most user friendly website, but I am not paying for web design. I am paying for VPN :p

EDIT2:

The Mullvad guys have great customer service. I emailed asking a few questions, and got a reply withoin 5 minutes on a Sunday evening. Their response to my speed questions was to speak about their hardware, but tell me it is difficult to predict due to many variables, and sending me a free three day trial account for my testing purposes.

I hope to have enough time to do some testing tonight, and will report back.
 
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Even if you don't want privacy (which you should, but that is your call to make) VPNs provide essential security when you are on untrusted networks.

For example, if you connect to wifi at Starbucks, any two-bit hacker in the shop could attempt a MiTM attack (or similar). Or if you use wifi at an airbnb, a malicious host could be recording everything you do.

Of course, if you connect to SSL websites, that will be encrypted, but they can at least see what domains you visit and they can use that for a further attack.

For example, they might find you use Chase Bank and use that in a social engineering attempt (say, call you claiming to be from Chase and tell you that your account was locked, etc.).

In these cases, if you had a VPN, the ISP, hackers on the network, or malicious hosts/employees would only see you connected to a particular VPN provider and that's it.

Being completely anonymous is very hard or almost impossible these days, but you can make things as difficult as possible so they don't bother anymore.

Like they say: if you and I are being chased by a bear, I don't have to run faster than the bear. I just have to run faster than you.
 
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