7 ms·

I have zero trust in Proton<anything> after learning, that the free ProtonVPN service is provided by a data mining company from Eastern Europe[1]. [1] https://

by krn 8y ago

I have zero trust in Proton<anything> after learning, that the free ProtonVPN service is provided by a data mining company from Eastern Europe[1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17258203 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17258203 (please turn on "showdead" in settings, to see the entire thread)

driverdan 8y ago
They explained it quite clearly: > We used Tesonet as a local partner before we had an official Lithuanian subsidiary, and rented office space from them. We don't share employees, infrastructure, etc. We have had a similar temporary arrangements with local companies when we opened offices in other jurisdictions where we didn't have an official presence yet. This type of arrangement is common in the startup world.
- krn 8y ago
  The section from the "About" page of Tesonet (26 Apr 2018)[1], which got removed soon after that HN thread: "For the latest project, Tesonet is working together with an international brand from Switzerland to create a security product that helps users protect their network traffic. As part of this technical partnership, we are collaborating on datacenter and network infrastructure that can easily supply 10 Gbps worth of bandwidth to users around the world. The product is developed using the latest authentication encryption methods and the best practices in the security world." [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20180426161609/https://tesonet.com/about/ https://web.archive.org/web/20180426161609/https://tesonet.c...
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
nabla9 8y ago
There is nothing wrong with data mining itself. It's completely neutral technology. You are just thrwoing shade with link flooding (those who read the links find out that they don't credibly confirm what you say). Tesonet provides all kinds of services, like hosting, software development and cybersecurity for it's customers.
- krn 8y ago
  > There is nothing wrong with data mining itself. It's completely neutral technology. Tesonet's Oxylabs offers "10+ Million Mobile IPs in Every Country and Every City in the World"[1], which might explain why ProtonVPN, whose Android app is signed by Tesonet[2], is a free service. This is how Luminati, Tesonet's largest competitor in Residential Proxies, operates: it provides a free VPN service, Hola VPN, and then connects its users into a botnet[3], which is used for data mining operations. [1] https://oxylabs.io/proxies/residential-proxies https://oxylabs.io/proxies/residential-proxies [2] http://apkforandroid.org/com.protonvpn.android/34007825-protonvpn+-+unlimited+free+vpn+made+by+protonmail-1.0.0/ http://apkforandroid.org/com.protonvpn.android/34007825-prot... [3] http://fortune.com/2015/05/29/hola-luminati-vpn/ http://fortune.com/2015/05/29/hola-luminati-vpn/
  - steampunkskull 8y ago
    This can easily be checked with tools like Wireshark. It's not hard to verify whether you are being used as an exit node for web scrapping or not.
  - krn 8y ago
    It turns out, that Luminati Networks Ltd sued UAB Tesonet over patent infringement in "Large-scale web data extraction products and services with residential proxy network (oxylabs.io)"[1] in July 2018. [1] http://litigation.maxval-ip.com/Litigation/DetailView?CaseID=Epee88Womxg%3D&logstat=false&Party=Luminati%20Networks%20Ltd.%20v.%20UAB%20Tesonet http://litigation.maxval-ip.com/Litigation/DetailView?CaseID...
prophesi 8y ago
Please, that's not a verified claim[0], and you shouldn't trust any VPN service that isn't operated by you in the first place. [0]: Plus, it was raised by a competitor, Private Internet Access, so it makes it even more difficult to get the facts straight.
- krn 8y ago
  > Please, that's not a verified claim[0], and you shouldn't trust any VPN service that isn't operated by you in the first place. The co-founders of ProtonMail were caught providing multiple inaccurate statements about their business practices in that thread, and couldn't deny any of the facts stated by the co-founder of PIA[1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17262566 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17262566
  - close04 8y ago
    Which part of the world should any service be provided from to be trustworthy? Let me rephrase, which services are known to have never cooperated with any agency, nor ever being hacked by them?
    - ltc5505 8y ago
      ... Facebook
- rasengan 8y ago
  > it was raised by a competitor, Private Internet Access Focus on the facts. Not the messenger. Secondly, I admire your love of this discussion [1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17497912 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17497912
  - crankylinuxuser 8y ago
    1. You are the user in question that is a co-founder for PIA. 2. You are a direct competitor to Proton* 3. "Messengers", especially in the position of founder of the competitor, have significant bias. 4. You have a fiduciary reason for them to fail. 5. user protonmail has noted significant harassment regarding this issue Im inclined to distrust both of you. I find that your arguments might have merit. But I also see you as a digital aggressor. I don't particularly like either.
syoc 8y ago
I agree that people should read the linked comments. I did not find the the evidence to be as clear cut or damning as OP seems to think at all after reading through it. Most claims are also put forward by a co founder of Private Internet Access. A direct competitor.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- yacn 8y ago
  This is exactly my thoughts as well. rasengan is the cofounder and thus is very biased against ProtonMail since they're a competitor.
  - krn 8y ago
    ProtonVPN is no competitor to Private Internet Access in terms of the size and the number of users. If you were a co-founder of PIA, would you risk your reputation by publicly providing false accusations against a company 1/100 of the size of yours?
    - yacn 8y ago
      No but there's incentive to provide many small half-truths out of context to shape the narrative into one beneficial for yourself want.
      - krn 8y ago
        That's the problem. I haven't found any of his statements, that would be only half-true. I even discovered a conference held in Lithuania in 2017, where one of the speakers was presented as the head of B2B sales at Tesonet, working on Oxylabs[1]. It is very unlikely, that ProtonMail was not aware of who it was partnering with on a free VPN service. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20170909183904/https://salesclub.lt/events/salesclub-login-2017-sales/ https://web.archive.org/web/20170909183904/https://salesclub...
trumped 8y ago
Cloud<everything> should not really be trusted for anything that requires privacy (unless you encrypt the data locally first using GPG or something similar).
sneak 8y ago
This sort of racism is not acceptable.
- krn 8y ago
  Eastern Europe, from which ProtonVPN is operated as a legal entity without the knowledge of its users, is an entirely different jurisdiction from Switzerland in terms of privacy and data retention laws.
  - iicc 8y ago
    >Eastern Europe, from which ProtonVPN is operated as a legal entity without the knowledge of its users, is an entirely different jurisdiction from Switzerland in terms of privacy and data retention laws. Eastern Europe is not a jurisdiction.
    - krn 8y ago
      As a Eastern European myself, I chose not to single out Lithuania, because most of the region is now in the EU.
avip 8y ago
I strongly resent the implied concept that being "East European" by itself could be used as a valid argument to doubt the quality or integrity of a service.
- krn 8y ago
  Tesonet denies to its customers[1], that it is running both, a VPN service, NordVPN, and a data mining service, Oxylabs, from its HQ in Vilnius, Lithuania, even though both of these facts can be easily verified by anyone with the internet connection[2][3]. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/VPNTorrents/comments/90jyoy/heres_why_you_cant_trust_nordvpn_and/e2w2heg https://www.reddit.com/r/VPNTorrents/comments/90jyoy/heres_w... [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20180607165926/https://ui.awin.com/merchant-profile-terms/9399 https://web.archive.org/web/20180607165926/https://ui.awin.c... [3] https://web.archive.org/web/20180426151621/http://oxylabs.io.cutestat.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20180426151621/http://oxylabs.io...

by krn 8y ago

driverdan 8y ago

They explained it quite clearly: > We used Tesonet as a local partner before we had an official Lithuanian subsidiary, and rented office space from them. We don't share employees, infrastructure, etc. We have had a similar temporary arrangements with local companies when we opened offices in other jurisdictions where we didn't have an official presence yet. This type of arrangement is common in the startup world.

krn 8y ago
The section from the "About" page of Tesonet (26 Apr 2018)[1], which got removed soon after that HN thread: "For the latest project, Tesonet is working together with an international brand from Switzerland to create a security product that helps users protect their network traffic. As part of this technical partnership, we are collaborating on datacenter and network infrastructure that can easily supply 10 Gbps worth of bandwidth to users around the world. The product is developed using the latest authentication encryption methods and the best practices in the security world." [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20180426161609/https://tesonet.com/about/ https://web.archive.org/web/20180426161609/https://tesonet.c...
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

nabla9 8y ago

There is nothing wrong with data mining itself. It's completely neutral technology. You are just thrwoing shade with link flooding (those who read the links find out that they don't credibly confirm what you say). Tesonet provides all kinds of services, like hosting, software development and cybersecurity for it's customers.

krn 8y ago
> There is nothing wrong with data mining itself. It's completely neutral technology. Tesonet's Oxylabs offers "10+ Million Mobile IPs in Every Country and Every City in the World"[1], which might explain why ProtonVPN, whose Android app is signed by Tesonet[2], is a free service. This is how Luminati, Tesonet's largest competitor in Residential Proxies, operates: it provides a free VPN service, Hola VPN, and then connects its users into a botnet[3], which is used for data mining operations. [1] https://oxylabs.io/proxies/residential-proxies https://oxylabs.io/proxies/residential-proxies [2] http://apkforandroid.org/com.protonvpn.android/34007825-protonvpn+-+unlimited+free+vpn+made+by+protonmail-1.0.0/ http://apkforandroid.org/com.protonvpn.android/34007825-prot... [3] http://fortune.com/2015/05/29/hola-luminati-vpn/ http://fortune.com/2015/05/29/hola-luminati-vpn/
- steampunkskull 8y ago
  This can easily be checked with tools like Wireshark. It's not hard to verify whether you are being used as an exit node for web scrapping or not.
- krn 8y ago
  It turns out, that Luminati Networks Ltd sued UAB Tesonet over patent infringement in "Large-scale web data extraction products and services with residential proxy network (oxylabs.io)"[1] in July 2018. [1] http://litigation.maxval-ip.com/Litigation/DetailView?CaseID=Epee88Womxg%3D&logstat=false&Party=Luminati%20Networks%20Ltd.%20v.%20UAB%20Tesonet http://litigation.maxval-ip.com/Litigation/DetailView?CaseID...

prophesi 8y ago

Please, that's not a verified claim[0], and you shouldn't trust any VPN service that isn't operated by you in the first place. [0]: Plus, it was raised by a competitor, Private Internet Access, so it makes it even more difficult to get the facts straight.

krn 8y ago
> Please, that's not a verified claim[0], and you shouldn't trust any VPN service that isn't operated by you in the first place. The co-founders of ProtonMail were caught providing multiple inaccurate statements about their business practices in that thread, and couldn't deny any of the facts stated by the co-founder of PIA[1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17262566 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17262566
- close04 8y ago
  Which part of the world should any service be provided from to be trustworthy? Let me rephrase, which services are known to have never cooperated with any agency, nor ever being hacked by them?
  - ltc5505 8y ago
    ... Facebook
rasengan 8y ago
> it was raised by a competitor, Private Internet Access Focus on the facts. Not the messenger. Secondly, I admire your love of this discussion [1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17497912 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17497912
- crankylinuxuser 8y ago
  1. You are the user in question that is a co-founder for PIA. 2. You are a direct competitor to Proton* 3. "Messengers", especially in the position of founder of the competitor, have significant bias. 4. You have a fiduciary reason for them to fail. 5. user protonmail has noted significant harassment regarding this issue Im inclined to distrust both of you. I find that your arguments might have merit. But I also see you as a digital aggressor. I don't particularly like either.

syoc 8y ago

I agree that people should read the linked comments. I did not find the the evidence to be as clear cut or damning as OP seems to think at all after reading through it. Most claims are also put forward by a co founder of Private Internet Access. A direct competitor.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
yacn 8y ago
This is exactly my thoughts as well. rasengan is the cofounder and thus is very biased against ProtonMail since they're a competitor.
- krn 8y ago
  ProtonVPN is no competitor to Private Internet Access in terms of the size and the number of users. If you were a co-founder of PIA, would you risk your reputation by publicly providing false accusations against a company 1/100 of the size of yours?
  - yacn 8y ago
    No but there's incentive to provide many small half-truths out of context to shape the narrative into one beneficial for yourself want.
    - krn 8y ago
      That's the problem. I haven't found any of his statements, that would be only half-true. I even discovered a conference held in Lithuania in 2017, where one of the speakers was presented as the head of B2B sales at Tesonet, working on Oxylabs[1]. It is very unlikely, that ProtonMail was not aware of who it was partnering with on a free VPN service. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20170909183904/https://salesclub.lt/events/salesclub-login-2017-sales/ https://web.archive.org/web/20170909183904/https://salesclub...

trumped 8y ago

Cloud<everything> should not really be trusted for anything that requires privacy (unless you encrypt the data locally first using GPG or something similar).

sneak 8y ago

This sort of racism is not acceptable.

krn 8y ago
Eastern Europe, from which ProtonVPN is operated as a legal entity without the knowledge of its users, is an entirely different jurisdiction from Switzerland in terms of privacy and data retention laws.
- iicc 8y ago
  >Eastern Europe, from which ProtonVPN is operated as a legal entity without the knowledge of its users, is an entirely different jurisdiction from Switzerland in terms of privacy and data retention laws. Eastern Europe is not a jurisdiction.
  - krn 8y ago
    As a Eastern European myself, I chose not to single out Lithuania, because most of the region is now in the EU.

avip 8y ago

I strongly resent the implied concept that being "East European" by itself could be used as a valid argument to doubt the quality or integrity of a service.

krn 8y ago
Tesonet denies to its customers[1], that it is running both, a VPN service, NordVPN, and a data mining service, Oxylabs, from its HQ in Vilnius, Lithuania, even though both of these facts can be easily verified by anyone with the internet connection[2][3]. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/VPNTorrents/comments/90jyoy/heres_why_you_cant_trust_nordvpn_and/e2w2heg https://www.reddit.com/r/VPNTorrents/comments/90jyoy/heres_w... [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20180607165926/https://ui.awin.com/merchant-profile-terms/9399 https://web.archive.org/web/20180607165926/https://ui.awin.c... [3] https://web.archive.org/web/20180426151621/http://oxylabs.io.cutestat.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20180426151621/http://oxylabs.io...