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Tor says it’s "still safe" amid reports of police deanonymizing users
(www.bleepingcomputer.com)
this post was submitted on 20 Sep 2024
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Privacy
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ISPs definitely keep records. At least some VPNs claim that they don't, and that their networks are set up in such a way that they can't. Some organizations claim to validate the claims of the VPNs, but it's unclear if they're trustworthy.
So your choice is to use something that definitely keeps logs, or to use a company that at least says that they don't/can't.
Yes, and there's also the fact that some VPNs such as Mullvad let you be anonymous so even if Mullvad were keeping logs, if you pay privately they have no way of knowing whose logs they are (unless the content itself of your internet history reveals your identity). Meanwhile your ISP definitely knows who you are, and absolutely will collaborate with the police if asked to.
You can pay anonymously, but if you regularly connect from your home IP address, it hardly matters.
I think the point here is to deny ISP data to sell.
Yeah I use mullvad for mostly that reason myself.
The VPN company themselves may not keep logs. However, they might be a little black box somewhere in the data center...
As Proton made evident, VPNs can be legally compelled to start keeping logs on specific accounts as the result of a court order. So if you're gonna do something incriminating, then I guess you should create a new account each time.
That's true but it also depends what attack vector you're trying to defeat. If someone is doing a timing attack and you're running through a VPN, it might be harder to work for them, depending on where they sit.
Yeah, VPN at the very least adds another hoop they have to jump through.
I mean, you could set up your own VPN on a VPS and ensure it doesn't keep logs. You could also get a VPS in a different legal jurisdiction from where you're at.
Depending on what you're doing, that probably wouldn't be a significant hinderance to law enforcement. Child sexual abuse, drug trafficking, etc., all tends to get lots of interagency cooperation, regardless of political issues.
And that's a very good thing too.