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1. Non-unique IP, which, for good no-logging VPNs, means no way to map a connection to a person, even through the legal system. 2. Hiding your activities from

1. Non-unique IP, which, for good no-logging VPNs, means no way to map a connection to a person, even through the legal system. 2. Hiding your activities from your own ISP. And I would guess that the vast majority of VPN customers are simply doing what you said VPNs are good for: hiding copyright-violating activities.

SXX 11y ago
For hiding IP and bandwidth you don't really need to know even a third of options included in that list. And for "good no-logging VPNs" do you actually belive service like that may even exist for longer than a few years?
- mirimir 11y ago
  Do check out AirVPN, BolehVPN, Cryptohippie, Insorg, iVPN, Mullvad, etc via https://archive.org/ https://archive.org/ They've been around for more than a few years. Maybe eventually they'll be unable to lease usable servers. It's hard to say.
  - rabidrabbit 11y ago
    Mullvad in the recent past had trouble find exit servers in the USA, I think it was reported in their blog.
    - mirimir 11y ago
      Idiots who torrent from US endpoints tend to burn them down :(
- dublinben 11y ago
  Mullvad is one of the better companies on that list, and they've been around since at least 2010.
- ionised 11y ago
  Another endorsement for Mullvad here.
- ionised 11y ago
  Another endorsement for Mullvad here.
drdaeman 11y ago
> Non-unique IP, which, for good no-logging VPNs, means no way to map a connection to a person, even through the legal system. Not guaranteed. That depends on the network setup and on how much pressure legal system had on the ISP in question. Possible cases: 1. Dynamic IPs allocated from a shared address pool, but no carrier-grade NAT, just 1:1 mappings. Most likely, ISP's AAA (authentication, authorization and accounting) systems keep track of those, so the account details are one warrant away. Especially if ISP has or historically had metered plans, using IP addresses is generally the most straightforward way to match flow reports (with traffic volume data) to customers. 2. User is behind a carrier-grade NAT, ISP's local jurisdiction requires ISPs to disclose information about customers, and local law enforcement aren't happy with "uh... we don't know, there's a NAT, we only can tell it's someone of those thousand accounts from that BRAS, sorry" replies, so ISP had been fined or threatened with license revocation (if ISP services are licensed in their jurisdiction). In such case they had probably at least set up two flow probes - before and after the NAT, so it's usually possible to correlate the streams. Or, more likely, implemented logging of NAT connection mappings (on GNU/Linux machines this is quite simple with conntrack and ulogd, no idea about Ciscos - not my area of expertise), so it's also well possible to determine who it was. Since one generally can't know what ISP's routers are capable of, having carrier-grade NAT should be only considered as a possible hindrance, but not as a guaranteed way to keep their account identity anonymous.

SXX 11y ago

For hiding IP and bandwidth you don't really need to know even a third of options included in that list. And for "good no-logging VPNs" do you actually belive service like that may even exist for longer than a few years?

mirimir 11y ago
Do check out AirVPN, BolehVPN, Cryptohippie, Insorg, iVPN, Mullvad, etc via https://archive.org/ https://archive.org/ They've been around for more than a few years. Maybe eventually they'll be unable to lease usable servers. It's hard to say.
- rabidrabbit 11y ago
  Mullvad in the recent past had trouble find exit servers in the USA, I think it was reported in their blog.
  - mirimir 11y ago
    Idiots who torrent from US endpoints tend to burn them down :(
dublinben 11y ago
Mullvad is one of the better companies on that list, and they've been around since at least 2010.
ionised 11y ago
Another endorsement for Mullvad here.
ionised 11y ago
Another endorsement for Mullvad here.

drdaeman 11y ago

> Non-unique IP, which, for good no-logging VPNs, means no way to map a connection to a person, even through the legal system. Not guaranteed. That depends on the network setup and on how much pressure legal system had on the ISP in question. Possible cases: 1. Dynamic IPs allocated from a shared address pool, but no carrier-grade NAT, just 1:1 mappings. Most likely, ISP's AAA (authentication, authorization and accounting) systems keep track of those, so the account details are one warrant away. Especially if ISP has or historically had metered plans, using IP addresses is generally the most straightforward way to match flow reports (with traffic volume data) to customers. 2. User is behind a carrier-grade NAT, ISP's local jurisdiction requires ISPs to disclose information about customers, and local law enforcement aren't happy with "uh... we don't know, there's a NAT, we only can tell it's someone of those thousand accounts from that BRAS, sorry" replies, so ISP had been fined or threatened with license revocation (if ISP services are licensed in their jurisdiction). In such case they had probably at least set up two flow probes - before and after the NAT, so it's usually possible to correlate the streams. Or, more likely, implemented logging of NAT connection mappings (on GNU/Linux machines this is quite simple with conntrack and ulogd, no idea about Ciscos - not my area of expertise), so it's also well possible to determine who it was. Since one generally can't know what ISP's routers are capable of, having carrier-grade NAT should be only considered as a possible hindrance, but not as a guaranteed way to keep their account identity anonymous.