Law enforcement intercepted VPN traffic, seized domains, and arrested its operator.
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See full article...
Police boast of hacking VPN where criminals “believed themselves to be safe”
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Someone is asleep at the editor/publishing wheel today... Policy != Police.
Screenshot because I expect they'll figure it out eventually:
Screenshot because I expect they'll figure it out eventually:
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Privacy is only as good as the amount of money a state or company is willing to spend to violate it.
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Never heard of First VPN. But I also never really get on TOR either, or mess with those underground groups. Wouldn't be surprised to see action against Surfshark or one of the other VPN services hocked all over YouTube boasting that you can use their service to get around Netflix geofencing.
Those ads need to stop saying the quiet part out loud.
Excellent article, thank you!
Those ads need to stop saying the quiet part out loud.
Excellent article, thank you!
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The US/FBI were only tangentially involved, and from the article only issued security alerts (and probably some behind the scenes support). Also this effort kicked into high gear well before K. Edgar Boozer took over the agency.
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500 users they think they've identified. Sounds low but I don't know how well known they were. I guess a lot paid in some safe enough way and used Tor->VPN.
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As stated in the article:
There's a huge margin between claiming your VPN can bypass Netflix geofencing and claiming your VPN can conceal your activities from the authorities.
Pretty sure VPNs like Surfshark will be fine as long as they don't claim you can evade the police when using their service.
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ReadandShare
Ars Centurion
Good: caught the bad guys.
Bad: violation of privacy - potentially of everyone.
Which one outweighs the other?
Bad: violation of privacy - potentially of everyone.
Which one outweighs the other?
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So if law enforcement can discover the users of this VPN service, does that mean they can discover the users of any VPN service? In other words is there any way to protect your identity online? Is there any VPN service that is much more foolproof? Is TOR much more secure? Does layering services like using both a VPN and TOR hide your identity even better? What about using a seedbox, or perhaps some other service that I haven’t even heard of? I literally have no idea, but I do find this kind of scary/frustrating: there are times when I — and pretty much everyone — want to be anonymous online, and the reasons why are nobody’s damn business!
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1) Smaller service with limited financial backing.
2) Advertised itself as criminal tools.
3) Main person behind it was located Ukraine. A country needing financial support for an ongoing war. This is not the first black hat or criminal service that was based out of Ukraine to be targeted by law enforcement since the need for war cash from other countries started.
2) Advertised itself as criminal tools.
3) Main person behind it was located Ukraine. A country needing financial support for an ongoing war. This is not the first black hat or criminal service that was based out of Ukraine to be targeted by law enforcement since the need for war cash from other countries started.
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In theory yes. In practice, this was more a case of a VPN nakedly advertising use for illegal activities on sites being used for illegal activities, so there was motivation for law enforcement to actually try to root out users. Considering most VPNs are used by businesses or regular people for beating geofences, there's no real reason for law enforcement to try digging through them.
All security is obscurity, anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to sell you something.
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What crime are they actually being charged with? Is it illegal to operate a VPN with anonymity features? I hope they never come for Mullvad...
Sure, this one advertised on online spaces frequented by criminals. But if I'm selling ACME Crowbars, and I advertise my crowbars on a website that burglars hang out in, and many people there happen to buy my crowbars and break into houses with them, that doesn't make me a burglar, just an unscrupulous entrepreneur, and at least in the US--or anywhere that values freedom--I'm not breaking any laws.
Sure, this one advertised on online spaces frequented by criminals. But if I'm selling ACME Crowbars, and I advertise my crowbars on a website that burglars hang out in, and many people there happen to buy my crowbars and break into houses with them, that doesn't make me a burglar, just an unscrupulous entrepreneur, and at least in the US--or anywhere that values freedom--I'm not breaking any laws.
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It does if you advertise your crowbars as "crime-grade, for best crimes which you can commit with a crime-grade crowbar. Here's how you commit crimes with these crowbars, criminally! Please to use ill-gotten crime funds to buy of crime-grade crowbars here ilegally, for crimes, which you commit"
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I would be interested to know the specific charges/statutes as well. But a good general rule of thumb is that if police present you with a search warrant, or a subpoena, for information about alleged crimes, you have to at that point cooperate with them.
Depending on the jurisdiction, you may or may not be under an obligation to maintain and provide connection logs. I don't think in the US that if you operate a VPN, you have to provide past logs, but once there is a search warrant, you may be required to start keeping a log in order to provide the police the information they seek related to criminal activity.
Ultimately, it all comes down to the laws in the jurisdiction where the VPN is run, and where the crime occured. If the VPN is in Ukraine and the crimes occurred in the EU, it would also depend on the treaties in force regarding cooperation on criminal investigations. It seems Ukraine has agreed to cooperate with EU investigators and to investigate crimes originating in Ukraine or passing through Ukraine infrastructure.
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This is why real hackers use 7 proxies VPNs!
(Yes, I know that using multiple VPNs wouldn’t protect you from this kind of exposure.)
(Yes, I know that using multiple VPNs wouldn’t protect you from this kind of exposure.)
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