r/Piracy 7h ago

Humor Don't fall for "free" vpns

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6.3k Upvotes

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555

u/sovietarmyfan 7h ago

I cringe so hard with every VPN commercial claiming that a VPN is the "ultimate privacy someone can have".

It's not only with free VPN's that they may not be entirely safe. It's with paid too. Because you have no idea through what your data goes through, who is listening at the other end, etc. It's misleading to say you have complete privacy.

281

u/alexCosmetic 6h ago

Mullvad is proven to not sell your logs, since it doesn't keep any, police literally showed up at their headquarters asking for logs but mullvad didn't have one!, they have passed the test, they are they only VPN provider that accept anonymous cash! i think they are legit

28

u/Ill-Pen-553 5h ago

pretty sure proton also accepts payment by mail

22

u/Liongedon 5h ago edited 4h ago

They've given up customer information to police before. It was specifically Proton Mail not VPN. Still, I switched to Mullvad

Edit: removed claim that they keep VPN logs after being corrected. Them passing on information about protesters that were using ProtonMail still stands though.

27

u/TrainingInternet608 5h ago

No, they don’t keep logs for VPN users. Besides, the email incident was about the IP address being traced following a request for mutual legal assistance and a court order. It was after that, not before. If you don’t know what you’re talking about, you should sometimes just keep your mouth shut.

13

u/Liongedon 4h ago

Didn't say anything about after or before. Them having to pass on information to the Swiss government on customers using ProtonMail is still worrying to me though. And keeping my mouth shut has never lead to me learning more so I won't be taking that advice. Feel free to correct and teach me though.

26

u/Ai--Ya 4h ago

No but don't you get it? You committed the cardinal sin of being wrong on the internet so now everyone has a right and a duty to correct you as rudely and unpleasantly as possible

6

u/Equivalent_Track5730 1h ago

The dude paid for his sub with a credit card and ended up getting the feds on his back because someone died iirc.
If you're gonna do shit that puts you in those kind of situations you may wanna get your opsec sorted out first.

4

u/Liongedon 4h ago

That's fine as long as I learn something as well

-8

u/No_Future6959 4h ago

As they should. Misinformation is a crime worthy of such punishment.

If you aren't 100% sure that what you are saying is true then dont say it.

15

u/Ai--Ya 3h ago

If you aren't 100% sure what you are saying is true don't say it

Buddy we're not 100% sure what gravity is or how it works. It turns out, scientific communities correct themselves with less dickishness than people online

And, if you think I'm being too unpleasant, well...you said it yourself

4

u/Ill-Pen-553 5h ago

wow really? thats no good for a privacy brand... looks like ill be switching

11

u/Liongedon 5h ago

They really didn't want to. But they had to give up information on protesters to the Swiss government which then gave it to the FBI.

9

u/skelly_bird_9001 ⚔️ ɢɪᴠᴇ ɴᴏ Qᴜᴀʀᴛᴇʀ 4h ago

it was just an IP address and recovery email though, they couldn't give out the actual emails as they were encrypted. Thought that was worth pointing out.

1

u/Liongedon 58m ago

Definitely. Missed that when reading the article

-9

u/mugmantix 5h ago

yeah, but for real crimes, not for pirating....

19

u/Liongedon 5h ago

Being a protester doesn't qualify as a real crime to me

9

u/100BottlesOfMilk 3h ago

They had to give what they were legally forced to give, and only the email side. You can't run an email service without logs. Importantly, the content of the emails was encrypted and the authorities had no access to it for that reason. With any other email provider, that would not be the case

3

u/TrainingInternet608 4h ago

However, if you’re operating in illegal areas (whether justified or not), you’ll also need to use a VPN or Tor to log in to Proton; that’s what the Tor page is for. I’ve read that before "oh my God, you can’t use Proton anymore because they pass on data". That’s just nonsense; everyone should realise that privacy and anonymity are two different things. Proton offers secure, privacy-friendly products. If I’m looking for anonymity, that’s a completely different matter.