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PIA Acquisition by Kape Technologies

Go to solution Solved by Arika,

Going to post some snippets from the below source that i posted in a previous thread that makes me very weary about how this is going to turn out

 

https://restoreprivacy.com/cyberghost/

 

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In 2017 Knapp sold CyberGhost to an Israeli company called Crossrider for €9.2 million.

 

Crossrider changed its name to “Kape Technologies” in 2018 – for reasons that we’ll explain below.

Now here’s where things get interesting. When you research the company Crossrider (now Kape) you learn it is a company known for infecting devices with malware.

 

When you research the company Crossrider, you find numerous articles about Crossrider malware and adware, such as this article from Malwarebytes:

Crossrider offers a highly configurable method for its clients to monetize their software. The common method to infect end-users is software bundlers. The installers usually resort to browser hijacking. Targeted browsers are Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, and sometimes Opera. Crossrider not only targets Windows machines but Macs as well.

PUP.Optional.Crossrider installs are typically triggered by bundlers that offer software you might be interested in and combine them with adware or other monetizing methods.

According to Malwarebytes and many other reputable online security websites, Crossrider was hiding malware in software bundlers, which would then infect the user’s computer with “adware or other monetizing methods”.

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While some may dismiss this as old “history”, recent articles from 2018 illustrate how Crossrider malware is still deceiving users and infecting computers with fake Adobe Flash updates:

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With such a troubling history, it appears that the parent company attempted to distance itself from its own past. In 2018, Crossrider decided to change its name to Kape Technologies.

As the CEO admitted here, the name change was an attempt to distance Kape from shady “past activities”:

The decision to rename the company, explains Erlichman was due to the strong association to the past activities of the company as well as the need to enhance the consumer facing brand for the business.

CyberGhost even hinted at this ironic conflict of interest in their blog post:

While CyberGhost focused on privacy and security from day one, Crossrider started out as a company that distributed browser extensions and developed ad tech products. Quite the opposite of what we did.

 

Reading through the Terms and Conditions, I did find this excerpt:

You understand that CyberGhost undertakes no responsibility for your actions. In case of statutory violations by the user, Crossrider may cooperate with public or private authorities at its sole discretion as provided by law.

 

This is “lawyer speak” for saying that the parent company can and will cooperate with third parties when it deems necessary.

 

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

5 minutes ago, Cyberspirit said:

He talked about it on WAN show. Here's the timestamp:

  Hide contents

 

TL;DW: They suspended their deal with PIA but they've given them a chance to respond.

ahh, i need to catch up on wan show, i'm a week behind. thanks. 

 

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On 11/20/2019 at 11:46 AM, elfensky said:


Goddammit. And I actually got a 2 year PIA sub earlier this year. Talk about putting money down the drain. Guess that's a lesson for me, a lot can happen in 2 years, so pay monthly.

I wonder if I can get refunded for my remaining time.

I'm the same, bought a 2 year. What gets me is that PIA went above and beyond taking out full page ads in the Ney York times during the whole Net Neutrality debacle, you'd think even if they were looking to sell, that they wouldn't sell to someone with such a shady history. It basically ruins the name for me entirely. As soon as the acquisition goes ahead I'll be shopping around.

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When I cancelled, I gave the reason of new ownership. Well guess who emails me back today with this pure damage control:

Quote
Hello S w a t s o n,
 
Thank you for reaching out to us here at PIA Customer Support.
 
As you know, we recently became part of Kape Technologies. This was not a decision we took lightly, and the deal has been in the making for more than a year. 
As you might expect in such a situation, there was due diligence performed on both sides. So, we had the chance to get to know Kape very well in the process.
During our research, we have discovered no kind of adware in Kape’s products.
What’s more, because adware is technically easy to detect, if it existed, it would have been public knowledge by now. 
I also want to let you know that:
  1. There will be no changes to our services, principles, or policies.
  2. We will keep staying true to our strict no-logging policy.
  3. We will continue to operate independently. 
  4. No customer data will be shared with Kape Technologies.
  5. Our jurisdiction, team, and dedication stay the same.
If you have any questions or need more details, I’m here for you. Just hit the reply button.

Note, I didnt "reach out" to customer support, this was a reason box in the cancellation process. The link takes you to a longer form version of this damage control. They must be seeing a good number of cancellations. We did it, not reddit!

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I think I'll switch to Firefox Private Network when it comes out of beta. Support a good cause and the company seems like it'll have my back.

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On 12/3/2019 at 11:02 AM, Jisagi said:

Kinda sad to see all this happen. I really liked PIA so far, but I had to make a decision. My subscription was due to renewal tomorrow, so I canceled it. Nothing stops me to renew the sub in the future if this ends well or at least better than we right now expect.

My subscription is up in May. I'm holding tight right now and not changing anything, but I'm definitely going to get keeping an eye on things.

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8 hours ago, S w a t s o n said:

Note, I didnt "reach out" to customer support, this was a reason box in the cancellation process.

I did the same thing when I cancelled my subscription. I didn't get a reply though. 

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Cancelled my PIA subscription last month, was considering renewing. Glad I didn't.

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16 minutes ago, OlympicAssEater said:

So nord and pia are out. Express vpn sponsorship?

I am curious to know what they go with honestly.  I think those were the two most well-known and trusted names until both of them lost that title due to recent events.  Perhaps they'll just steer clear of VPNs entirely now... might be a good choice.  I like what Louis Rossmann had to say on the subject.  To paraphrase/summary heavily, "I can recommend soldering stations and cleaners and other things because not only do I use them myself but I can take them apart and see that they're made using good parts.  I can't do the same with a VPN.  I have absolutely no way to verify that what they're doing is actually good for the end user, no way I can tell if they're worthy of my trust, and so it's not worth it to me to sell out my credibility.  I may make a few thousand dollars today with an ad, but in the long term if something goes wrong with one that I recommended, which is all too possible since I can't verify or test them, I lose something far more valuable - the trust of my customers, etc. and it's just not worth it".

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He also had another video more or less saying the exact same thing before this whole thing went down (the title is a joke BTW):


 

 

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Let's see how this plays out, stuff like this is good for competition. 

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1 hour ago, Gix7Fifty said:

Let's see how this plays out, stuff like this is good for competition. 

companies killing themselves at least give opportunities for smaller players to rise up

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PS PIA will come on Wan show soon to address this.

 

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20 hours ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

I am curious to know what they go with honestly.  I think those were the two most well-known and trusted names until both of them lost that title due to recent events.  Perhaps they'll just steer clear of VPNs entirely now... might be a good choice.  I like what Louis Rossmann had to say on the subject.  To paraphrase/summary heavily, "I can recommend soldering stations and cleaners and other things because not only do I use them myself but I can take them apart and see that they're made using good parts.  I can't do the same with a VPN.  I have absolutely no way to verify that what they're doing is actually good for the end user, no way I can tell if they're worthy of my trust, and so it's not worth it to me to sell out my credibility.  I may make a few thousand dollars today with an ad, but in the long term if something goes wrong with one that I recommended, which is all too possible since I can't verify or test them, I lose something far more valuable - the trust of my customers, etc. and it's just not worth it".

  Reveal hidden contents

 

He also had another video more or less saying the exact same thing before this whole thing went down (the title is a joke BTW):

 

 

 

 

Maybe mobile games or any console games or pc games sponsorship?

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  • 1 month later...
On 12/9/2019 at 8:16 PM, S w a t s o n said:

When I cancelled, I gave the reason of new ownership. Well guess who emails me back today with this pure damage control:

Note, I didnt "reach out" to customer support, this was a reason box in the cancellation process. The link takes you to a longer form version of this damage control. They must be seeing a good number of cancellations. We did it, not reddit!

For me it took them 6 minutes to send me that. (Reason for cancellation: Kape)

 

Oh and I can't reach them from my Workplace anylonger. Its fun. 

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I have a few year sub so this is concerning, Ill wait and see I would rather not have to get a new one till my multi year sub is up. I got a good deal on it to dangit.

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  • 2 weeks later...

So it been around 2 months since Linus said about giving them time for PIA to come back with info, but I haven't seen anything from LTT since.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 1/25/2020 at 4:34 AM, GazCBG said:

So it been around 2 months since Linus said about giving them time for PIA to come back with info, but I haven't seen anything from LTT since.

On 1/25/2020 at 6:10 AM, Tony Tony Chopper said:

Would honestly expected something by now.

 

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