PureVPN Hands Over IPs to FBI to Catch Cyberstalker

[Gigus Fire]

This is a bit of a nisnomer though. People assume the definition of privacy is to pirate things. It's not. The privacy element of a VPN is meant to protect you from outside intruders, such as hackers. Thats why VPN's were created, to establish a secure tunnel to a specific network that cant be spied on by an outside attacker. A federal agency walking in the front door is an entirely different element.

It could be used by both parties who use it for legitimate and illegitimate reasons. Privacy isn't a morale issue, it's always one of protection.

 

[0neTwo]

PureVPN will be "out of business" in a couple of weeks, and you can expect a totally new VPN services to pop up right afterwards.


Live video from the PIA headquarters:

 

[PaulP]

PureVPN will be "out of business" in a couple of weeks, and you can expect a totally new VPN services to pop up right afterwards.

Let's check back in a couple of weeks to see how accurate your prediction was, OK?

 

[mord]

While I hear you, I think this line is clearly drawn at the moment the service is paid for. Citing PureVPN's service agreement we find "You specifically agree not to: Use our Website and/or Services to harm, threaten, 'stalk' or otherwise harass another person/business;".

The customer drew the line with their money, and then crossed it.

Then I got no problem with that. Read the fine print.

 

[/dev/null]

The point of encryption is so that people can't read your packets. Period.
You log into the corporate network. They know your identity, same as when you log onto any vpn service. Your isp can only see that you connected to some endpoint but your packets are unreadable (without a lot of work) therefore they can't tell if you're accessing your work email or watching kiddie porn.

If you wanted only to protect integrity, there would be something else like a checksum used to verify authenticity. But to my knowledge there's no such thing.

Encryption by itself doesn't hide identity. A VPN is encryption with a different origination ip. The site you want to connect to can only see the VPN service's ip address. From that standpoint, it does indeed hide your identity for some part. There's practically no such network that allows you to be totally anonymous, not even TOR (with it's compromised nodes and the fact that each node records logs).

ISPs are compromised already. Even if they didn't collect logs, your packets would be readable as well.

"Your isp can only see that you connected to some endpoint"

It's Not some endpoint. It's a specific ip address. That IP address will be registered with the appropriate registry (arin/ripe/etc...). Arin/Ripe/Etc will then tell you with a whois WHO that ip was allocated to. There is no anonymity in the packet headers.

 

[blade12]

The thought was don't buy an American vpn with jurisdiction here. Unfortunately, I believe PureVPN is located in Hong Kong so that thought goes out the window. The only thing remaining if you want complete privacy is to get a vpn that collects no logs of any kind at all whatsoever. There are quite a few such services out there but you have to do your research.

It does piss me off when someone uses a vpn to be a sexual predator or something truly disgusting & vile like that.... A few people like the scumbag stalker ruin things for everyone else who use it for legit reasons...

 

[Verge]

Someone who bothers someone who can't be bothered to block the person or shut off their computer/phone.

That's kinda what i thought, i suspect it went a bit further than that.


But millennials man, who knows.

 

[Krazy925]

Someone who bothers someone who can't be bothered to block the person or shut off their computer/phone.
It's the old targeted prank caller.
There are varying degrees to which this happens. Unfortunately the details on what he/she actually did to warrant having their information sent to the authorities without them requesting it was missing from the article.

That's kinda what i thought, i suspect it went a bit further than that.


But millennials man, who knows.

https://torrentfreak.com/purevpn-logs-helped-fbi-net-alleged-cyberstalker-171009/

The guy was an old roommate, maybe boyfriend?

What’s in the article is he made bomb threats, leaked her personal info to men who showed up at her house and doxxed her family. Guy was definitely trying to cause as many issues as possible.

The guy was a turd.

 

[sfsuphysics]

https://torrentfreak.com/purevpn-logs-helped-fbi-net-alleged-cyberstalker-171009/

The guy was an old roommate, maybe boyfriend?

What’s in the article is he made bomb threats, leaked her personal info to men who showed up at her house and doxxed her family. Guy was definitely trying to cause as many issues as possible.

The guy was a turd.

It's times like these that you kind of wish everyone had some "key" to the internet, and when you do something like this, bammo, your key is revoked for life, no more internet for the rest of your life because you don't know how to play well with others.

 

[Krazy925]

It's times like these that you kind of wish everyone had some "key" to the internet, and when you do something like this, bammo, your key is revoked for life, no more internet for the rest of your life because you don't know how to play well with others.

Reading follow up articles this kid sounds either mentally ill or just really bad at adapting to life.

Also as a typical criminal he thought he was smarter than everyone else while overlooking major issues with his plan.

 

[Gigus Fire]

It's times like these that you kind of wish everyone had some "key" to the internet, and when you do something like this, bammo, your key is revoked for life, no more internet for the rest of your life because you don't know how to play well with others.

You can do most of those actions without the internet. Phones still are easy to use and conversations aren't normally recorded.

Guy definitely sounds like an ex without hangup issues about getting over her.

bomb threats are one thing. Signing her up for tinder without her knowledge is a bit odd. Is that a crime? Doxing your ex's family is uhhh... not really sure he'd have to dox anything.

I'm not quite sure this is a felony crime. Looking it up it probably is in most jurisdictions in the US. The rest? Pretty iffy.

 

[Krazy925]

You can do most of those actions without the internet. Phones still are easy to use and conversations aren't normally recorded.

Guy definitely sounds like an ex without hangup issues about getting over her.

bomb threats are one thing. Signing her up for tinder without her knowledge is a bit odd. Is that a crime? Doxing your ex's family is uhhh... not really sure he'd have to dox anything.

I'm not quite sure this is a felony crime. Looking it up it probably is in most jurisdictions in the US. The rest? Pretty iffy.

Bomb threats most likely elevated this to the level we are seeing. Especially in today’s climate.

Sending men over to have sex with your ex because you’re mad she’s moved on seems like a bit of short sightedness. Who am I to judge though? I doubt that every time something weird happened with the internet she didn’t know it was her ex roommate.

 

[Gigus Fire]

Bomb threats most likely elevated this to the level we are seeing. Especially in today’s climate.

Sending men over to have sex with your ex because you’re mad she’s moved on seems like a bit of short sightedness. Who am I to judge though? I doubt that every time something weird happened with the internet she didn’t know it was her ex roommate.

It's definitely harassment and could get a restraining order against him. I'm not excusing his actions or trying to downplay it, i just don't applaud PureVPNs actions or give them an excuse because of the severity or lack of severity of the crimes.

 

[Krazy925]

It's definitely harassment and could get a restraining order against him. I'm not excusing his actions or trying to downplay it, i just don't applaud PureVPNs actions or give them an excuse because of the severity or lack of severity of the crimes.

Bomb threats definitely increases the threat level.

Had he stuck to just harassing her I’d be even more disgusted with PureVPN, and I won’t use them. Now if he’s making bomb threats it makes sense they would get involved.

Something I learned in grade school, bomb threats bring a lot more attention then a fire alarm (or a little harassment).

 

[Gigus Fire]

Bomb threats definitely increases the threat level.

Had he stuck to just harassing her I’d be even more disgusted with PureVPN, and I won’t use them. Now if he’s making bomb threats it makes sense they would get involved.

Something I learned in grade school, bomb threats bring a lot more attention then a fire alarm (or a little harassment).

But then you get into credible threats vs non credible threats and expending resources to check every time. It's a waste of money and time and 99.9% of bomb threats at least in america are just hoaxes.
Again i'm not excusing him, but anyone who can't figure out how much hot water empty threats like that can land you in are probably mental in some form or another. Combined with the other things he did reinforces that belief. I think a lot of these cases the people involved in making the threats should be evaluated to see if they have some serious issues with them that can be corrected with medication or if they need to be removed from society. I don't really agree that jails are substitute mental institutions.

 

[Krazy925]

But then you get into credible threats vs non credible threats and expending resources to check every time. It's a waste of money and time and 99.9% of bomb threats at least in america are just hoaxes.
Again i'm not excusing him, but anyone who can't figure out how much hot water empty threats like that can land you in are probably mental in some form or another. Combined with the other things he did reinforces that belief. I think a lot of these cases the people involved in making the threats should be evaluated to see if they have some serious issues with them that can be corrected with medication or if they need to be removed from society. I don't really agree that jails are substitute mental institutions.

Honestly I’d like to know more about the bomb making charge as that’s the most serious. That’s a pipe dream (bad pun?) as we’ve already found more about the criminal charges than I ever thought we would.