PIA Acquisition by Kape Technologies

[Airee]

I really hope LTT works with Mullvad, though it's unlikely. I don't think they have a huge budget.

 

 

edit: first post (on this account? coulda sworn i had another one), sound like a shill.

[Taf the Ghost]

5 minutes ago, Airee said:

I really hope LTT works with Mullvad, though it's unlikely. I don't think they have a huge budget.

 

edit: first post (on this account? coulda sworn i had another one), sound like a shill.

You do a little, but Mullvad is a good service.

[realpetertdm]

Damn, first Tunnelbear and now PIA.

 

I personally use Windscribe because I get free 15 GB of data for free every month, idk about their privacy record though.

[kting15]

I come here looking for things about Paypal’s acquisition of Honey and find this instead... I got rid of Tunnelbear because of the McAfee acquisition. Idk if I should get rid of PIA now as well because some shadier company has acquired it. At least McAfee has brand recognition...

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

i was this close to getting PIA.. oh well

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

2 hours ago, kting15 said:

I come here looking for things about Paypal’s acquisition of Honey and find this instead... I got rid of Tunnelbear because of the McAfee acquisition. Idk if I should get rid of PIA now as well because some shadier company has acquired it. At least McAfee has brand recognition...

wait what? Fuck paypal 

[imreloadin]

1 hour ago, Rohith_Kumar_Sp said:

wait what? Fuck paypal 

 

[TigerHawk]

I bought a 2 year sub for PIA too....

 

My friend swears my Avast VPN? I didn't even know that was a thing? I thought they just had a browser....

 

What's Avast's track record like?

[mcbaes72]

1 hour ago, Rohith_Kumar_Sp said:

i was this close to getting PIA.. oh well

Same here, but went with Surfshark instead. $1.77/month (USD) for two years and three months free. As long as they're not bought out by a shady company, I made a good choice. We'll see. 

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

1 hour ago, imreloadin said:

 

well
 

 

[YamiYukiSenpai]

For the time being, I'm gonna trust PIA.  It'd be a bad move on Kape's part if they betray us because PIA has a reputation for being pro-privacy.

 

And besides, I still got 3 years.

[Trik'Stari]

I'm starting to get the feeling that network technology is so weaponized against the populous, that our only hope is to abandon it almost entirely, in favor of more traditional methods of spreading information (word of mouth, etc.).

 

Which, to be honest, we should have known that corporations and governments would have corrupted anything they touched, almost instantly.

 

The analogy that I would make is that government and corporations are to technology, what religion was to the ability to read for many centuries.

[JoostinOnline]

I canceled my subscription. I was grandfathered into a lower rate, so it still kind of hurts as none of the other options are as cheap. I'm thinking of switching to NordVPN though. I'm not thrilled about their security record, but it does at least back up that they don't keep records.

[axipher]

Not sure if Strawpoll Links are allowed here, but maybe a quick survey on how people use VPN's, maybe this can get featured on WAN show tonight.

 

What do you use a VPN for?  https://www.strawpoll.me/18979413

• Protecting my browsing on public/foreign internet
• Getting around geo-restrictions on content
• Accessing private/corporate networks
• Using ad-blocking/traffic reduction services
• Something else

 

[3vitor]

My concern is:

 

Is there a possiblitily PIA was already storing users data and this Kape Tech company bought knowin that so they can profit on it..

 

I'm completely in the dark here... It's just speculation.

[Unixsystem]

I've been a PIA subscriber since 2013 but I just unsubscribed last night (fortunately I only had ~4 months left). 

 

A sales rep contacted me and assured me that none of their policies about logging or privacy would change but then immediately mentioned that the details of the merger hadn't even been ironed out yet so I'm assuming that there's zero actual credibility to that statement.

 

I suppose the only hope is that, if the deal isn't finalized, then maybe the massive negative feedback will force them to reconsider the merger, but I assume that they wouldn't have even announced it if it wasn't already far along in the process (and it sounds like PIA was already in pretty deep debt and likely doesn't have much say in the matter). 

 

Anyone have any experience with TorGuard? 

[amdorintel]

pia is still paying linus to have an ad up on his website

[Jito463]

And me still with over a year left on my subscription.  Drat.  No use worrying about it just now, I suppose.  I'll have to wait and see what happens when the buyout gets closer.

[Sorachan]

On 11/21/2019 at 12:35 AM, Orcblood said:

ExpressVPN seems like the only good VPN anymore. 

You guys do realise ExpressVPN is actually Hong Kong based, and the only VPN without traffic obfuscation but still accessible in China?

 

Chinese suspect they are actually entrapment used by Chinese government to monitor VPN traffics.

 

Additionally, a quick google search shows that ExpressVPN is highly likely owned by Chenbao LTD, this is clearly a mainland Chinese name since the name is in pinyin, not used by Hongkongers. Even if they don’t give anything to Chinese government, they are definitely owned by someone in mainland China, which raises even more questions: At such a big size and accessible in China, why the owner is not yet arrested? There are a lot of arrests this year in IDC industry in mainland China, mostly due to illegal websites, or you guessed it, VPN.
 

(Usually VPNs in China use obfs features to hide, such as Shadowsocks with simple obfs, or v2ray. Even so they still could be blocked. ExpressVPN is the only one that uses easily identifiable protocol but somehow never been blocked in China.)

[straight_stewie]

On 11/20/2019 at 4:11 AM, Arika S said:

So yeah, Shady as hell parent company, based purely on them now owning PIA, i would not trust PIA to keep your data safe

I feel the need to point out that you should never trust anyone else with your data.

Using a VPN of any type, whether your own cloud machine or from a SaaS provider like Nord, Tunnel, PIA, or Express for outward facing network access (i.e. to access the internet) is only useful if you own the hardware and it's not tied to you through payment documentation. For most of us, if you can maintain these two constraints, it's likely at your house running through your WAN connection, and therefore a moot point anyway. The very fact that you pay for a public VPN service with credit/debit/paypal violates the second constraint and ties your data to your real identity anyway.

If anyone else has physical or administrative access to the machines running your VPN server it is not possible to be certain that they aren't actively collecting and selling your data.

What's worse, while the VPN provider may actually be trying to be secure, they almost always use rented services from cloud service providers. This means that you also have to trust the cloud service providers with your data. Just as an example of the problems that this can cause, ExpressVPN rents some of their servers from Micfo LLC, a company with a long history of committing internet based fraud: Most recently a huge IP fraud scam in which Micfo was found selling fraudulently obtained IP addresses to literally anyone who would pay them the money.

Unless you are trying to circumvent Internet Censorship, the only valid and secure setup for a VPN is to place it on your own network with the purpose of using it to remotely access your own network. This way, you own and can provide the physical and administrative security layers for both machines, and the data is encrypted before hitting any public nodes, and decrypted only once it's reached your private node running the VPN. Even then, it's possible to see that you made that connection, it's just not possible to see the data you're sending over that connection.

[StarsMars]

2 hours ago, straight_stewie said:

I feel the need to point out that you should never trust anyone else with your data.

People should be more conscious of what they do and say on the internet.

You can play safe, but there are always companies, people and governments looking for data.

[acbluflame]

Consider the following options for alternative VPNs: https://www.privacytools.io/providers/vpn/

[wildegnux]

Try to get a deal with https://mullvad.net/ !

[kn1ghtnsh1narmr]

I don't post a lot.  But I felt like I had to add my 2 cents.

I am super pissed about this.  I have been using PIA before LTT sponsorship.  Wendell recommended it randomly .  I researched all the companies.  It's the only VPN I've ever used and recommended it to everyone.  I love the WAN show idea of getting the CEO on in a video to assure us of security.  If it isn't done soon I'll be gone and now I gotta see what LTT, Wendell, and some other tech youtubers recommend, as a starting point.  Then, I gotta read and research all over again.  What a waste of time.

If I change then I have to explain to other people why they have to leave.

 

I felt so lucky I didn't have to deal with the TunnelBear BS or the Nord BS.

I also found what Sorachan said about expressVPN interesting.

[amdorintel]

2 minutes ago, kn1ghtnsh1narmr said:

Then, I gotta read and research all over again.  What a waste of time.

If I change then I have to explain to other people why they have to leave.

 

I felt so lucky I didn't have to deal with the TunnelBear BS or the Nord BS.

I also found what Sorachan said about expressVPN interesting.

well you either do the research or you pick another vpn

you dont have to explain anything to no one

 

be interesting to hear about what the problems with tb and nord were.