Technology @lemmy.world AnActOfCreation @programming.dev 6 mo. ago

Independent auditors confirm top VPN doesn't log your data

www.techradar.com Independent auditors confirm top VPN doesn't log your data

Private Internet Access aces its second no-log audit since 2022

Deloitte confirms PIA's no-log claims, with servers running on RAM-only system for maximum privacy.
Independent audit verifies PIA's infrastructure is not vulnerable to third-party exploitation, ensuring online activity remains private.
PIA offers full transparency with open-source apps and regular third-party audits, proving its commitment to data protection.

96 comments

PIA got purchased by Kape Technologies a couple years ago. With their track record, you can choose to believe the report issued by consultants they paid, or you can just go to companies with better track records, like Mozilla VPN or Mullvad.

Seems like an easy choice to me.
- Or Proton.
  
  I use Proton vpn and love it. I actually like mullvad more as a standalone vpn, but Proton vpn is still great and I use it because of the whole bundle. It's a great deal and VERY convenient. The unlimited email aliases built in seamlessly to the password manager is a game changer for easy to use privacy.
  
  Proton also, unlike PIA, doesn't routinely crash and break my VPN access on iPhone.
  
  My sessions go until I disable them (for stuff like sports betting that legally has to restrict VPN usage).
  
  Do they have port forwarding?
  
  Fav thing about proton is that you can generate wireguard/openvpn configs on the free tier
- Mozilla VPN vor Mullvad
  
  I mean, Mozilla VPN is Mullvad, so yeah. You can trust Mullvad.
  
  Does Mullvad let you use a custom DNS?
- Yeah as soon as I saw Delloite I knew it was shit.
- I understand the sentiment about the inherent conflict of interest with paying someone to audit your software, but it's highly unlikely that anyone is going to do that work for free. I'd want some evidence before taking your comment for anything other than opinion/bias. I don't use any of these products so whatever the reality is doesn't affect me, it just seems like nuance is too easily lost.
- What’s wrong with PIA’s track record?
  
  Kape used to be a malware company or something. Also, a few years ago PIA made a negative statement about Proton but instead it backfired. I can't remember exactly what it was
- I used Nord VPN after a lot of research when I initially started using them years ago. What have you heard about them?
  
  Personally I don't trust companies who aggressively advertise like they do, but that's not a real reason grounded in evidence. It just tends to be correct. I recommend Mullvad.
  
  Nord had a very bad incident a few years ago https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/21/nordvpn-confirms-it-was-hacked/
  
  They were also REALLY late to the disclosure and tried to play it off as "them being responsible":
  
  NordVPN said it found out about the breach a “few months ago,” but the spokesperson said the breach was not disclosed until today because the company wanted to be “100% sure that each component within our infrastructure is secure.”
  
  They (at least were) also very aggressive about advertising (all over YouTube at one point sponsoring all kinds of stuff)... Which is typically the opposite of what you want.
  
  Proton has had write ups in the past about the VPN review market as well and how a lot of reviews are "whoever pays us the most money is the top VPN." Proton has a strong enough track record in their other software for doing the right thing and truly valuing security, privacy, and open standards, so I'm inclined to believe them. VPN was one of the first spinoff products they launched when it was still mail, and they did so because some of their more sensitive customers (think journalists in some bad parts of the world) were having to rely on third party VPNs of questionable integrity.
  
  I trust Mullvad and Proton at this point for VPNs, nobody else.
  
  To counter some of the other comments, them being based in Panama is a huge plus imo, if you're inclined to do things deemed illegal by local authorities. They have no incentive to comply with government issued search warrants or the like. Most western country-based companies are legally obligated to comply with those requests, or even store information for a number of years. With quantum-based decryption there's no saying how long even encrypted data will be safe.
- I loved mullvad but they removed port forwarding and now I don't know where to go sadly.
  
  I think Air VPN supports port forwarding
Hey, if your adversarial model does not include nation states, it’s a great service. Totally fine against basic IP tracking, and I haven’t received a nastygram for sharing movies in years.
- Which one is good against nation states? Asking for a friend.
  
  If you need to ask, you probably don't know enough to keep yourself anonymous. But it starts with tails, tor and not doing anything stupid like reusing user names that you use on the clear web or signing into something like Facebook. If a nation state has reason to find out who you are, they most likely will. All it takes is one little mistake that you most likely didn't even know was a mistake.
  
  Use the one they’re using: Tor.
  
  There’s a long list of reasons why you might not want to use it though.
  
  The solar powered RPI jump box you installed on a telephone pole outside the McDonald's.
- Exactly. If all you want to do is torrent then it's by far the best option. $2.22/mo ($80 for 3 years) which is less than half the price of anything else, has portforwarding, and with wireguard I can saturate a full gigabit no problem on private trackers.
  
  And while they have a sale it gets down to 68 for three years...
Yeah, I dunno if I’d trust Deloitte about anything, not to sh!t on PIA’s tech which I have no knowledge of.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Deloitte+scandals&t=ffip&ia=web
This just reads like an ad. There doesn't seem to be any journalistic value to this article and it's got a clickbait title. At minimum, it should have noted results for competitors.
- How is that a clickbait title?? If this is clickbait, there is no possible title that wouldn't be..
Lol what the hell does Deloitte know about technical infrastructure.
I am dedicated to Proton to be honest but PIA always seemed good to me based on these type of situations and audits.
- I think there was some bad vibes when they got bought by a less than reputable company a while back. I know a lot of people, myself included switched to Mullvad. I am on Proton now though for the port forwarding.
  
  What is the benefit of port forwarding?
- PIA was good until they got bought out. That's when my friend and I switched our VPNs (me to proton, him to express).
  
  A shady parent company isn't what you want in a VPN.
  
  … um…..Express is also owned by Kape
  
  PIA got bought out
  switched to express
  
  Oh no
  
  On September 13, 2021, it was reported that ExpressVPN had been acquired by Kape Technologies, an LSE-listed digital privacy and security company
  
  I'm on Express VPN only because they apparently specialise in avoiding geoblocks and VPN detection for overseas TV sites etc. (Plus three months free for being a TWiT.) So far it's true for BBC iPlayer, RTe Player and UK Channel 4. For this purpose I'm not overly worried about how log-resistant they are, but interesting to keep up with the score here. The integrated 'ad blocking' is also useful, but slower than AdGuard as it seems pages have to wait for assets to fail to load before displaying rather than just being 404'd.
Remember when Google wasn't evil?

Nah, it's time for something other than email that does what email did before but without the ability to spam or inject bad stuff.
Only 1 more year left on my PIA subscription. /sigh
I wonder, is there a way to ensure they work the way they advertise to besides being investigated by the police and observing the result? It has to be blatant in order to force the VPN service to comply if they can.

It's a case od who do you believe more. The provider or the police.
How is windscribe?
- I tried it for awhile. Speed was good, unfortunately for my use case had some show stoppers.
  
  Pros: -It worked good on Linux. -Custom pricing plans (you can pick exactly which nodes you need and only pay for those) available month-to-month, makes it easy to try
  
  Cons: -Android app couldn't remain connected as I move from mesh WiFi pod to pod. It would think its connected still but I would have no internet connectivity until I manually reconnected the app. (Everytime I crossed my house I would have to manually reconnect). -No port forwarding (torrents)
  
  Ended up switching to airvpn. Use "openVPN for Android" which handles the mesh pods, and openvpn on Linux as well. Works perfectly.
  
  Port forwarding is available with Windscribe. A temporary, resetable one is included in pro plans. Permanent port forwarding is available for additional costs
- I am also interested in the Lemmy opinion of windscribe. My wife really likes them but their app used to brick my computer requiring a hard reset so I don't use them.
  
  their app used to brick my computer requiring a hard reset so I don't use them.
  
  Which OS?
Permanently Deleted
How to you syslog or net flow to identify malicious actions if you’re not logging?
- You don't, which is why VPN ips get blacklisted so much.

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