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Comment by saas_co_de | Hacker News Reader

Whether a company promises not to keep logs or not they can and always will comply with legal requests (court order, warrant, national security letter, etc, etc) to monitor specific targets. Otherwise they will be out of business.

Bottom line: don't do illegal stuff. These services (if they are actually telling the truth about not logging) are good for protecting your privacy as a law abiding citizen but they don't really provide any shield for criminal activity.

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The problem with that argument (just like "If you have nothing to hide...") is that the line for "illegal" moves over time. It's not entirely unreasonable to expect something that I do legally today will lead to prosecution (in certain countries) or heightened surveillance tomorrow. Them keeping any logs of what I do today is a risk, even if my conduct is legal.

So you're just going to ignore the fact that they explicitly promised their users that they don't keep logs, while keeping logs?

I wonder if it qualifies as unlawful false advertising.

If they didn't keep logs and aren't lying, they could still be asked or warranted to allow LEO to monitor their system live during a suspect's usage in order to identify them.

Indeed, they could be compelled to do that, but according to the article they were keeping logs in this case, despite explicitly advertising that they didn't.

This is exactly the issue that should be stressed repeatedly. When a firm advertises itself as such, that values customers' privacy,etc etc. There should not be any logs, espeically if they make it their number one selling-point.

Regarding illegle activities, if there is a will strong enough that warrents Powers that be to track down something, one way or another, it will happen. No matter, how much one deludes himself into a sense of security. The idiot in the article shoudln't have been posting shit in a fucking irc channel to begin with.

Pardon my english, am very tired and not my mother-language.

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