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Comment by jchw | Hacker News Reader

>Don’t click random links!

Alternatively, consider always using at least some kind of VPN.

In the modern climate of VPN ads all over tech videos I doubt it is terribly unusual if you have one, yet it immediately makes this kind of bullshit considerably less likely.

I feel Wireguard (for those not in the know: a VPN protocol and software suite like OpenVPN) provides the kind of performance and latency that is completely acceptable for almost all traffic other than video games, and if you are a Linux user you can even play with things like network namespaces to force some apps through Wireguard (and maybe some through bare metal.)

I am not affiliated with any VPN but I am a happy customer of Mullvad for years, and I don’t recall any time they’ve ended up in the news for bad reasons. I’ve also heard ExpressVPN and PIA are good options.

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PIA might not be a good option anymore: https://restoreprivacy.com/private-internet-access-kape-cros...

PRQ (run by the people who run the Pirate Bay) has a VPN tunneling service run out of Sweden. It’s about $10/month for the slowest package.

https://prq.se/?p=tunnel

Will that help at all? The VPN itself will keep track of all your activity, just a warrant away, that’s how they make real money.

>The VPN itself will keep track of all your activity

- The trouble here is that the ISP is in the same country as your police. Having a VPN that is in a different jurisdiction requires international warrants. (IANAL.)

- Mullvad claims they do not log, as many VPN providers. I have a tin foil hat usually but I think their track record warrants an unusual amount of trust.

- You can also do multi hop through Wireguard, if you’re into that kind of thing.

>just a warrant away, that’s how they make real money.

Now that is unbelievable. You are suggesting to me that the police are paying VPNs for logs? Why would they pay if they have a warrant?

I don’t think the data that ISPs or VPNs have is actually worth that much. For VPNs most of it is probably genuinely torrent traffic and HTTPS traffic. Even DNS can be encrypted nowadays (and should be imo.)

It’s one thing to say they are selling logs, but it’s hard to believe that’s where they make the real money from. And either way, it’s a completely unsourced claim.

>Now that is unbelievable. You are suggesting to me that the police are paying VPNs for logs? Why would they pay if they have a warrant?

I'm not leaning in either direction here but worth noting that warrants are hard to get without evidence. Illegally obtained information can be used for ostensibly legal targeting, pre-warrant. It's a dangerous, clandestine abuse of power called parallel construction [1].

1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction

I know parallel construction exists. But I highly doubt VPN services make their 'real' money selling logs.

I find that hard to believe these days. It seems that getting a warrant is easier than ever.

https://apnews.com/a2b48c6f1911472986b0e501bdca9f25 - Most Utah warrants approved in less than 3 minutes

They sell your activity to data mining companies, retargeting, and ad replacements you’ll never notice; also your email and related profile to marketers. They have your logs. Not having them is a huge liability for them, you have absolutely zero reason to believe they don’t.

https://thenextweb.com/insider/2017/10/10/purevpns-non-exist...

Here's the HN discussion about that case [0]. The VPN service was keeping logs of when you signed on and off, not of where you were visiting. The FBI used those timestamps to validate what they already knew from the guy. There was never any working backwards to find an original IP from some VPN-assisted visit.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15432827

Can you elaborate on the "that’s how they make real money" part? Do they charge LEOs for complying with a warrant?

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