We have noticed a disturbing trend in the VPN industry. More and more VPN providers are promising an “anonymous” or “no logging” VPN service while providing minimal, or zero, transparency about how they actually handle your data. These so called “anonymous” VPN providers fall into two categories:. They advertise an “anonymous service” on their website but the fine print in their privacy policy suggests they log a significant amount of customer data.
They advertise an “anonymous service” on their website, but their privacy policy simply says “we don’t log” without further explanation or detail.We aren’t the only ones who question the “anonymous” or “no logging” VPN providers:if someone tells you ‘you will be completely anonymous, because you’ll have VPN running all the time’, that’s a lie. Anonymity is defined as not being named or identified. You are not anonymous when you are online, even when using privacy tools like Tor, Bitcoin or a VPN.
Every service has at least one piece of information that can be used to distinguish different users, whether it’s a set of IP addresses (VPN and Tor) or a wallet (Bitcoin). This information alone may not reveal any private details about the user, but it can be associated with other similar information to eventually identify an individual.Several publications have correctly pointed out that neither nor make you anonymous.A VPN doesn’t make you anonymous either, but does greatly increase your privacy and security online. A VPN is similar to the curtains for the windows of your house. The curtains provide privacy for activities happening inside your house – even though your house address is public.Privacy is a more realistic goal, not anonymity.
Privacy is inherently personal and has different definitions for different people, but privacy generally means the ability to exclude information about yourself. Privacy can also mean the right to express yourself:privacy is your right and ability to be yourself and express yourself without the fear that someone is looking over your shoulder and that you might be punished for being yourself, whatever that may be. Services that claim to make you anonymous attempt to eliminate any identifying data (which is not a realistic goal, as discussed in Myth #1). However, services designed to protect privacy instead allow users to control access to their personal data, but do not eliminate all identifying data.Internet users can use private web browsers, proxies, Tor, encrypted messaging clients, VPNs and other great tools to increase their privacy online. These privacy tools help defend against mass surveillance by governments or by private corporations “deputized” to collect information at the direction of the government (in the United States companies such as AT&T, Verizon, Time Warner, Comcast). But none of these tools, alone or in any combination, make you anonymous.
Jul 28, 2015 Learn why a VPN does not make you anonymous and why you should demand more transparency from your VPN provider. ← Return to Blog. July 28, 2015. I Am Anonymous When I Use a VPN – 10 Myths Debunked. Our Insights. If your VPN provider does not run its own network, you are susceptible to their hosting company listening for traffic on both.
Online privacy through secure communications is a realistic goal, but anonymity is a false promise.Edward Snowden to focus on increasing privacy to defeat “mass surveillance:”basic steps will encrypt your hardware and your network communications making youfar, far more hardened than the average user – it becomes very difficult for any sort of a mass surveillance. You will still be vulnerable to targeted surveillance. If there is a warrant against you, if the NSA is after you, they are still going to get you. (emphasis added) But mass surveillance that is untargeted and collect-it-all approach you will be much safer.As one of Golden Frog’s founders posted to the Usenet, “You are not anonymous on the Net. You can run, but you can’t hide.”. Several VPN providers advertise an “anonymous service” on the marketing pages of their website, but have terms in the fine print of their privacy policy indicating they do log.A VPN Provider in the UK that advertised an “anonymous service” on its website was to the authorities. As you will read below, limited VPN logging is not necessarily bad, as it helps the VPN provider troubleshoot customer issues, prevent abuse of its IP space and network and offer different VPN plans (such as multi-device or GB limited plans).
When a VPN provider simply says they perform “no logging” it does not guarantee online anonymity or privacy. Any systems or network engineer will confirm that some minimal logging is required to properly maintain and optimize systems or the network. In fact, any provider claiming “no logging” should cause you to immediately question what is happening with your private data. If a VPN provider kept absolutely no logs, they wouldn’t be able to:.
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Offer plans with limits on GB usage or per user basis. Limit VPN connections to 1, 3 or 5 on a per user basis. Troubleshoot your connection or offer support for server-side problems.
Handle your DNS requests when using the VPN service. They might rely on a 3rd Party DNS provider that logs DNS requests. Prevent abuse, such as spammers, port scanners and DDOS to protect their VPN service and their usersThe logging issue is more complicated than placing a single line in your privacy policy stating “we don’t log” and then advertising your service as “anonymous.” There have been too many instances where user data was turned over by “no log” VPN providers, yet they continue to promise an anonymous service. For example, a “no-logging” VPN provider to monitor customer traffic to prevent abuse.
VPN users should demand more transparency from their VPN providers. What Golden Frog doesGolden Frog is transparent about what data we retain.Golden Frog logs the following information and we only retain it for 30 DAYS:. Customer’s source IP address (generally the IP address assigned by the customer’s ISP). VyprVPN IP address used by the user. Connection start and stop time.
Total number of bytes usedGolden Frog logs this very minimal amount of data so we can deliver the best service and so users don’t have to sacrifice speed and performance to protect their privacy and security. We never make false promises of “total anonymity” or “no logging.”. Anyone that runs server infrastructure knows running infrastructure with ZERO logs is extremely difficult, if not impossible.
Now imagine how hard it would be to eliminate logging if you DIDN’T run your own infrastructure and instead rented your VPN servers and network from 3rd parties! Aside from Golden Frog, virtually all VPN providers in the world do not run their own infrastructure. Instead, VPN providers “rent” their servers and network from a “landlord,” such as a hosting company or data center. When the VPN provider “rents” instead of “owns,” how can it guarantee that its “landlord” will respect the privacy of its VPN users?Just last year, a Dutch customer of a “no log” VPN Provider was after using the “no log” VPN service to make a bomb threat. The VPN provider’s data center provider (“landlord”) apparently seized the VPN server at the direction of the authorities. The data center provider was also keeping network transfer logs of the VPN provider.
The VPN Provider with the data center but strangely didn’t address the other 100+ locations where they presumably rent VPN servers. Did they cancel contracts with those data centers too? Predictably, this same VPN Provider still prominently advertises an “anonymous VPN service” and claims it keeps “absolutely no logs.”In the forum of a different VPN Provider, a discussion thread when a user questioned whether users can trust data centers to not log.In 2016, another VPN provider, Perfect Privacy, had by police in the Netherlands. In this instance the authorities went straight to the hosting provider to obtain the hardware, bypassing the VPN provider completely. This again illustrates the danger of using third parties. What Golden Frog doesGolden Frog doesn’t “rent” servers but instead owns and operates 100% of our VPN servers, secured physically using keys, biometrics and software. Together with our sister companies, – a global data center provider and – the world’s leading Usenet Provider, we have been in the Internet business since the dawn of the Internet over 20 years ago.We have the experience to run our own infrastructure on a worldwide basis, and the financial stability to make the financial investments to engineer privacy into our infrastructure.
It is impossible to engineer privacy into your service if you don’t own and operate your own infrastructure. Most VPN providers (except Golden Frog of course!) don’t run their own network and instead let hosting providers run the network for them. “Running your own network” means you own and operate the router and switches. If your VPN provider does not run its own network, you are susceptible to their hosting company listening for traffic on both inbound and outbound connections. Listening to Internet traffic allows for a tremendous amount of correlation and identification of user activity.For example, if you listen to two people talk in a restaurant you can learn enough from the conversation to identify who is talking – even if you don’t know their identity when you start listening.
If a VPN provider does not run its own routers, then it can’t control who is listening to its users. Even worse, a “no-logging” VPN provider to monitor traffic to prevent abuse. What Golden Frog doesWe own and operate our worldwide network. Besides faster speeds and increased reliability, running our own network offers VyprVPN members more privacy. Imagine if you connected at home directly to the backbone Internet providers allowing you to bypass your snooping ISP.
That is effectively what happens when you connect to VyprVPN.Not only do we encrypt the connection from your house to our servers, we connect to multi-backbone Internet providers. This makes it impossible for someone to listen to inbound connections and exceedingly difficult for anyone to listen to outbound connections because we typically have three different paths to the Internet backbone from our servers. This is a large part of what it means to run your own network. By logging a minimal amount of data, VPN providers can vastly improve your experience when using a VPN. What Golden Frog doesGolden Frog only retains the minimum amount of data to operate our business and we delete the data as soon as we don’t need it.We log the following information and only retain it for 30 days:. Customer’s source IP address (generally the IP address assigned by the customer’s ISP). VyprVPN IP address used by the user.
Connection start and stop time. Total number of bytes usedThat’s it.
That’s all we we log.So, we do NOT log:. The content of your communications. The websites that you visit. The services that you use. Your physical location. Any other personal informationWe own our own servers, our own DNS and manage our own network so we can deliver on this promise to our customers. In addition, Golden Frog is incorporated in Switzerland, which offers favorable online privacy laws that we use to protect users.
We are committed to operating a blazing fast, high quality infrastructure that allows VyprVPN to remain a respected tool for online privacy and freedom. We have noticed a disturbing trend of “so-called” privacy companies offering free services so they can snoop on users. Just because a company offers a privacy product or service does not mean they will keep your data private.
This is especially true for companies that offer free services to users. When you use a privacy tool you are often are required to give access to more information than the tool can protect, so you need to trust the company.
Marketing companies have rushed into the privacy space and are abusing that trust. Here are some examples:. Onavo (by Facebook)Facebook called Onavo in 2013. Why would Facebook buy a VPN app? Because the VPN functionality gives the app visibility into the network connection for the entire phone.
Consequently, information such as URLs and app usage is exposed, and Facebook can examine user activity for their own purposes. The price of free is just too high.Privacy Policy: “When you use the Apps, you choose to route all of your mobile data traffic through, or to, Onavo’s servers. As a result, we receive information regarding you, your online activities, and your device or browser when you use the Services.”. HolaHola is yet another offender masquerading as a privacy company. As, some VPN products can suffer from IPv6 leakage and DNS vulnerabilities, causing many users to think twice about relying on a VPN to protect them online. However, not all VPNs are created equal. When it comes to the IPv6 leak, only VPNs that run through IPv6 are in danger, and those that use 3rd-party clients are most at risk.
As for the DNS vulnerabilities, most VPN providers don’t. When DNS requests are sent over 3rd-party networks to 3rd-party DNS servers, users are more vulnerable to monitoring, logging or manipulation.