
Pornhub launches VPNhub, its own virtual private network app - sahin-boydas
https://venturebeat.com/2018/05/24/pornhub-launches-vpnhub-its-own-virtual-private-network-app/
======
fredley
> “VPNhub is free and unlimited, anonymous and easy to use, [...] a good
> number of [people] use [VPNs] to circumvent and bypass restrictions to
> access adult content. It only makes sense that they use Pornhub’s.”

So wait, as a UK citizen I can use Pornhub's VPN to circumvent the UK
Government's "Porn Filter", a system that's run by..... Pornhub.

~~~
mediocrejoker
>So wait, as a UK citizen I can use Pornhub's VPN to circumvent the UK
Government's "Porn Filter", a system that's run by..... Pornhub.

I had no idea that PornHub is in charge of filtering adult content for the UK
government. Got any more info about this relationship?

~~~
stuaxo
A scheme, where other porn companies can pay them - and if they can't afford
it, go out of business.

~~~
monkeynotes
I don't really understand how a country can ask a website to comply with its
laws if the content is not hosted in that country. I guess it could be asked
to comply under threat of being blocked in response to non-compliance.

It's such a weird area.

~~~
travmatt
If you change ‘website’ to ‘business’ and ‘hosted’ to ‘headquartered’ it’s
straightforward and just as accurate.

~~~
thomasahle
You could also argue it's like a shoe company based in the US, where UK people
are ordering from them and asking them to ship it to the UK, while UK
government threats to set up import restrictions.

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amelius
My boss will totally believe I'm doing job-related stuff while I'm connected
to Pornhub's VPN ...

/s

~~~
akerro
No one should care as long as you do your job.

~~~
zulln
Using a VPN for everything they have right to care though. All job-related
traffic goes through it as well, hence potentially leaking sensitive stuff?

~~~
herge
The VPN has as much a view in your traffic as your ISP or mobile carrier, for
what it's worth.

~~~
zulln
I imagine most companies trust the ISP with sensitive company information more
than they trust Pornhub. I am not saying one is more trustworthy than the
other, but I am quite certain others do.

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gesman
Sort of like when Amazon entered cloud space.

For PH it makes sense due to them already have infra to support it especially
video streaming.

The challenge with privacy VPNs is a matter of trust.

~~~
chii
I think if more peopled used TOR, and also ran public exit nodes and/or
relays, it will work better than private VPN companies.

~~~
gnode
The fundamental problem with this is that it's charity / freeloading. I don't
mean this as an ethical complaint, just that the economic incentive isn't
there.

I could imagine cryptocurrency potentially offering a solution to this which
solves both issues of trust and economics, but it would be a challenge to
guarantee its security.

~~~
chii
it would be nice if TOR had reciprocity where a user using it will also donate
some network bandwidth. But i guess that might not really work since it forces
you to run an exit node, which is where the dangers of running TOR is
currently.

~~~
gnode
That's not actually true; nodes can be non-exit and relay only. This helps
insofar as to reduce the relaying load on the exits too.

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AndrewKemendo
Assuming that people were using a VPN to browse pornography, doesn't the
ownership of this VPN by a Porn hosting company kind of eliminate the
anonymity benefits of using it?

I'm also confused by why the gentleman in the ad was going to browse PornHub
in a crowded coffee shop while waiting on his coffee.

~~~
cgh
I imagine this service would appeal to people who want to remain anonymous to
local law enforcement. Pornhub realises there is a huge untapped market in eg
Islamic countries, for example.

Regarding the coffee shop thing: I was walking past a place some time back and
I saw a woman staring thoughtfully at her laptop. She was sitting with her
back to the wall. Behind her was a glass-covered painting, allowing me to see
a reflection of her laptop screen. She was browsing porn. I guess it's not
that uncommon.

~~~
forapurpose
> this service would appeal to people who want to remain anonymous to local
> law enforcement

It doesn't make you anonymous at all. It announces: "I'm using Pornhub".

> ge untapped market in eg Islamic countries

Do you have any evidence of that? What's an 'Islamic country'? Is every
country that you've lumped together in this category the same in regard to
this issue? Is Islam even one uniform religion?

> I guess it's not that uncommon.

That is not evidence of frequency except in that coffee shop at that moment. I
have far more evidence: In all the time I've been in coffee shops, I've never
observed it.

~~~
krageon
It announces "I'm using VPN", nothing more.

It is unclear why you are asking these questions in the first place. What is a
"Christian country"? It's a country founded on predominately christian ideals.
If you thought about it, I think you can come up with some countries that
definitely fall under that category. Do something similar to come to a list of
countries that are predominately Muslim. While they obviously will not have
identical standpoints, there is at least _one_ that springs to mind instantly
when you think "banned pornography". No, it is not one uniform religion, but
thankfully that also wasn't the point.

~~~
forapurpose
> It announces "I'm using VPN", nothing more.

That is false, and it's important that VPN users are not mislead about it:
Anyone with visibility into your network traffic, including your employer,
your ISP, and government, knows exactly the address of the VPN you are using;
they will know the address belongs to Pornhub's VPN. If you want to mitigate
that risk (imperfectly), use Tor. And if you try to use both Tor and a VPN,
make sure you know what you are doing or you could get it very wrong.

> What is a "Christian country"? It's a country founded on predominately
> christian ideals.

Most advanced countries actively eschew support of any specific religion, are
overwhelmingly secular, and are founded on Enlightenment ideals such as
individual liberty (including freedom of religion), limited government, and on
reason and science as opposed to religion. This isn't the Middle Ages.

And certainly Christianity doesn't embrace pornography! I don't see religious
leaders of any stripe advocating for it. Let's drop the absurd, hateful
Christian nationalism - nationalism has a really bad track record, and is a
convenient excuse to abuse and exclude others, including Muslims. For a
religion founded on the compassion and love of the Gospels, it's ironic that
the nationalists are the most judgmental, prejudiced, and abusive toward
others - but the reality is that it's true of all nationalists.

> there is at least one that springs to mind instantly when you think "banned
> pornography".

I think of the UK, and almost every business' HR policy.

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fencepost
The pricing on this seems out of line with other VPN providers unless I'm
missing something. $12-14/month = $144/year give or take. Even if they do a "2
months free if you pay annually" it's still $120/year while something like
privateinternetaccess is $7/mo, $40/year or $70/2 years.

Unfortunately the vpnhub site appears to have been hammered into the ground as
of time of posting.

~~~
godzillabrennus
Wow that’s a lot to pay for this kind of thing. Maybe I’m the minority on here
but I watch Tech shows on YouTube. Linus Sebastian is quite popular on there.
He has been recommending
[https://www.privateinternetaccess.com](https://www.privateinternetaccess.com)
and their prices are lower.

~~~
anderber
Keep in mind that his show is sometimes sponsored by PIA. But on that note,
I've used them and have no complaints. Their speeds aren't as good as Mullvad
though. Actually, no VPN that I've ever tried is as fast as Mullvad.

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dguido
It might be a good time to mention that Algo VPN now supports Ubuntu 18.04,
many new cloud providers, and soon (days) will have Wireguard support.

[https://github.com/trailofbits/algo](https://github.com/trailofbits/algo)

~~~
antihero
What advantages does this have over something like OpenVPN Road Warrior
installer? [https://github.com/Nyr/openvpn-
install](https://github.com/Nyr/openvpn-install)

~~~
nickpsecurity
We covered weaknesses of OpenVPN and strengths of Wireguard in this sub-
thread:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17092338](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17092338)

~~~
antihero
Cheers, I'll set one up!

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awat
Interesting, I totally understand that this is adult entertainment and that it
carries it’s own implications. But I hope this isn’t the way of the future,
direct tunneling to get through restrictions, snooping, and regulations.

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globuous
My parents live in Dubai and had a VPN for VoIPing, but recently the VPN
stopped working. I'm terrible at networking and don't really know how all of
this works, but is it possible for ISPs to block particular VPNs ?

~~~
gruez
>but is it possible for ISPs to block particular VPNs ?

yes, at both the network level (by blocking IP ranges belonging to VPN
services) and protocol level (ie. known handshake sequences for VPN software).
but both can be easily bypassed with a few google searches.

~~~
xrisk
According to the OpenVPN docs, running it in static key mode makes the traffic
indistinguishable from ordinary HTTPS. Regardless, my university network still
manages to block it even though I use TCP mode + port 443. What gives?

~~~
chipperyman573
Does it block it right away? If it works for a minute or two (or ten) then
cuts off they might be doing more deep heuristics, but that's usually
something only governments do (ex, great firewall). They also might have just
blocked the IP range of your VPN because you connected to it in a different
mode before and the network just remembers that.

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choward
Is this going to be the new trend? This is worse than Facebook with Onavo.

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KenanSulayman
Interestingly, the VPN clients connect to
[https://wlvpn.com](https://wlvpn.com) and the whole service seems to actually
be run by WLVPN, a white label VPN service, and not actually MindGeek (the
company running PornHub).

~~~
ComodoHacker
So their VP must be lying:

>“It’s also developed by us, the leading adult entertainment platform in the
world".

~~~
qu4z-2
Based on my experience, that means they "developed the solution" out of
entirely off-the-shelf existing software/infrastructure.

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philip1209
This is hilarious. Is PornHub still one of the largest Google Cloud customers?

~~~
dsfyu404ed
A company of that size who's core product is video streaming is (or should)
have some way of abstracting the CDN(s) away from most other stuff so that
they can shuffle things around in real time or close to real time.

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felipemesquita
Can anyone who tried this elaborate on what are the ads on the free tier? Are
they only in the iOS app or is the service intercepting unsecured traffic to
insert ads?

~~~
willstrafach
These appear to be in app ads. Not injected into actual browsing activity.

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Escapado
Wait can I use US netflix from Germany for free then? Oh gawd pls

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deadmetheny
It seems strange to me that PornHub would be entering the VPN space - it's
already got pretty stiff competition as it is, it'll be tough to beat off the
exiting players if they wanna get a firm handhold. Though with various
governments banning any VPNs they come across, maybe it's not so bad to get
some fresh meat.

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Greycht
Free version is very limited and monthly model costs a fortune. Why not stick
to well-known brands that keep your data secure for a fraction of that cost?
I'll stick to NordVPN or ProtonVPN or any other more known brand thank you
very much.

