I can't help but think that VPN providers all eventually have to cave to law enforcement. If they don't, they will experience pressure from credit card processors, the same way that sex workers do and OnlyFans did.
There are good VPN providers such as mullvad that accept payment in cryptocurrencies, but HN said those were useless... They also accept cash in an envelope if you are extremely paranoid.
I’d never seen anyone simultaneously invoke a straw man and make a case in its favour.
Even if HN had a monolithic opinion on the uselessness of cryptocurrencies, your example illustrates a case where they are indeed not necessary, with the alternative satisfying even the “extremely paranoid”.
Cash has slower transaction speed (snail mail vs <30 min).
Requires additional supplies to use (pen, stamp, envelope).
It’s illegal in the USA to send cash in the mail.
No way to get delivery confirmation without risking deanonymizing yourself.
All it takes is Square and Stripe preventing CC transactions from known VPN node IP addresses to de facto make that happen; they're like the Cloudflare of ecommerce
But they are gatekeepers. Which are a morality police. And we're quickly aligning all the powerful interests in society to remove anonymity of any kind online.
Here is the type of pressure they apply. PornHub already caved all that meant is more pressure came[0]. Hedge fund manager pokes credit card company to poke a consumer.
As they should, unless they believe law enforcement is acting outside of their authority or the government in their opinion is illegitimate (not, "I don't like the regime") or foreign to their resident jurisdiction. Else, they are criminals.
> unless they believe law enforcement is acting outside of their authority
Not just "acting outside their authority". Law enforcement can ask for a lot of things where the answer can be no. There are lots of cases where caving is optional, and it's better when companies don't cave.
Responding to court orders is different from generically responding to law enforcement.
Also civil disobedience is a legitimate response to being forced to log browsing activity.
Law enforcement personnel are not the law. The police makes "unlawful" requests and demands all the time, it's common for investigations. The desire to not cooperate unless forced to (by law) does not make you a criminal, that should be perfectly clear.
"No" is a fine and acceptable answer to many cooperation requests by law enforcement.
Seems like a valid thing to publicize, considering that even without logs they could be ordered to capture traffic for a specific client and that seems exactly like something the US would do.
Edit: or ordered to redirect a certain customer to a specific server regardless of what they select since I assume most customers are using the Nord desktop and mobile app anyway.
Well... not really. The no-logs policy is a bit misleading: “We are 100% committed to our zero-logs policy – to ensure users’ ultimate privacy and security, we never log their activity unless ordered by a court in an appropriate, legal way.”
No need to route them to a specific server, a court could just ask NordVPN to log the person's traffic
That’s why I think Mullvad is best. The signup process has no email, you just hit signup and it gives you your account secret. You can then pay in a range of methods which do not identify you.
> “NordVPN operates under the jurisdiction of Panama and will only comply with requests from foreign governments and law enforcement agencies if these requests are delivered according to laws and regulations.”
I dont get why anyone thought that their VPN provider would go to jail for them for $8 a month (use code PAID-SHILL at checkout to get 50% off for a limited time).
What an annoying site. Even if you reject all and object all video still gets autoplayed.
The only way to be sure no interception happens is not using VPN providers, but rent your own instances, which is of course a lot more expensive.
I wonder if this couldn't be democratized, like an exchange where if I offer my traffic I receive credit to use another node's traffic, without having to pay a middleman like NordVPN.
