4 ms·

I don't think its sketchy, it's just that the VPN business has extremely large revenues compared to costs of the service, which means A LOT of money remains for

by zpeti 4y ago

I don't think its sketchy, it's just that the VPN business has extremely large revenues compared to costs of the service, which means A LOT of money remains for marketing. They can spend exorbitant amounts on youtube ads and affiliate review sites. It's a bit of a unique market in this way, people are willing to pay $5-$10 per month for something that costs $1.

mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
Nothing shady about fleecing your customers ;) The fact they're in Panama suggests some kind of money laundering scheme to me at the very least.
- ramranch 4y ago
  Every VPN worth its salt is located in a similar country, as it's critical for a VPN to operate out of a jurisdiction that does not require log retention for a certain period of time nor cooperates with Five Eyes law enforcement.
  - mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
    They have a ridiculously high ad spend, ridiculously high prices, located in a tax haven, their advertising routinely makes false, exaggerated claims, they've been exposed as having logs even though they claim otherwise, and may or may not be running a botnet. Everything about this company screams money laundering scheme to me. EDIT: I've realised my claims about logging were overblown. But I'm not so insecure as to edit it out so here's a disclaimer :)
    - epups 4y ago
      To my knowledge, nordvpn is independently audited on its no log claims. Can you provide a source for what you said regarding logs?
      - mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
        I don't trust audits. Too many ways to trick auditors, or auditors could be corrupt. And it only proves what was the case during the audit, assuming the auditors didn't miss anything, not before or after. I'll admit I misread another comment on this post as them definitely being exposed for logging though, my mistake. I've been unable to corroborate it. I did find that the company openly admits it cooperates with law enforcement and does log on behalf of law enforcement. Additionally there are so many other red flags I'm not inclined to believe anything they say.
  - kube-system 4y ago
    Panama may be where they're incorporated, but they have operations all around the globe.
- boomboomsubban 4y ago
  While I can agree that something about the business seems sketchy as hell, I don't see how it would be money laundering. Do you think they're buying a bunch of YouTube sponsorships with drug money to then attract customers to an unprofitable business? Or they're buying their product themselves and then advertising to make it seem like they have a legitimate business?
  - mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
    For laundering, the more legitimate cash flow the better. The less actual work, also the better. Throw money at Youtubers, they make the ads for you. Indiscriminately approve the sponsor spots(Check out IncognitoMode's sponsor spots. He practically designs his spots to be unapprovable. NordVPN will always work with him anyway. They don't seem to care). You get lots of customers, charge them enough that a large profit margin is to be expected. Botnet users to save even more cost on getting hosts. Log user data and sell it on dark markets. That's the money you can then launder with your large clean cashflow. At least that's the sort of set up I had in mind. The datamining and botnetting is possibly optional. Dirty money could also be from any other criminal activity, maybe crypto scams or some other e-crime. Or just drugs/sex trafficking. Or here's a wildly speculative one: use your vpn service to aggregate CSAM and sell that on the dark web, then launder the money via your seemingly legit vpn service. Bonus: keep logs for blackmail purposes in case your Dark Web enterprise craters. Blackmail futures! I feel like I could sit here all day listing viable ways of building a nasty, disturbingly profitable criminal enterprise under the guise of a VPN service. (I swear I'm not a criminal I just know how to think like one).
    - boomboomsubban 4y ago
      You've described many malicious things they could do, but none of it is really money laundering. And if your goal was money laundering, I'd assume you'd want to make that business look as clean as possible, not a VPN we can all agree appears shady as hell.
deleted 4y ago
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by zpeti 4y ago

mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago

Nothing shady about fleecing your customers ;) The fact they're in Panama suggests some kind of money laundering scheme to me at the very least.

ramranch 4y ago
Every VPN worth its salt is located in a similar country, as it's critical for a VPN to operate out of a jurisdiction that does not require log retention for a certain period of time nor cooperates with Five Eyes law enforcement.
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
  They have a ridiculously high ad spend, ridiculously high prices, located in a tax haven, their advertising routinely makes false, exaggerated claims, they've been exposed as having logs even though they claim otherwise, and may or may not be running a botnet. Everything about this company screams money laundering scheme to me. EDIT: I've realised my claims about logging were overblown. But I'm not so insecure as to edit it out so here's a disclaimer :)
  - epups 4y ago
    To my knowledge, nordvpn is independently audited on its no log claims. Can you provide a source for what you said regarding logs?
    - mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
      I don't trust audits. Too many ways to trick auditors, or auditors could be corrupt. And it only proves what was the case during the audit, assuming the auditors didn't miss anything, not before or after. I'll admit I misread another comment on this post as them definitely being exposed for logging though, my mistake. I've been unable to corroborate it. I did find that the company openly admits it cooperates with law enforcement and does log on behalf of law enforcement. Additionally there are so many other red flags I'm not inclined to believe anything they say.
- kube-system 4y ago
  Panama may be where they're incorporated, but they have operations all around the globe.
boomboomsubban 4y ago
While I can agree that something about the business seems sketchy as hell, I don't see how it would be money laundering. Do you think they're buying a bunch of YouTube sponsorships with drug money to then attract customers to an unprofitable business? Or they're buying their product themselves and then advertising to make it seem like they have a legitimate business?
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
  For laundering, the more legitimate cash flow the better. The less actual work, also the better. Throw money at Youtubers, they make the ads for you. Indiscriminately approve the sponsor spots(Check out IncognitoMode's sponsor spots. He practically designs his spots to be unapprovable. NordVPN will always work with him anyway. They don't seem to care). You get lots of customers, charge them enough that a large profit margin is to be expected. Botnet users to save even more cost on getting hosts. Log user data and sell it on dark markets. That's the money you can then launder with your large clean cashflow. At least that's the sort of set up I had in mind. The datamining and botnetting is possibly optional. Dirty money could also be from any other criminal activity, maybe crypto scams or some other e-crime. Or just drugs/sex trafficking. Or here's a wildly speculative one: use your vpn service to aggregate CSAM and sell that on the dark web, then launder the money via your seemingly legit vpn service. Bonus: keep logs for blackmail purposes in case your Dark Web enterprise craters. Blackmail futures! I feel like I could sit here all day listing viable ways of building a nasty, disturbingly profitable criminal enterprise under the guise of a VPN service. (I swear I'm not a criminal I just know how to think like one).
  - boomboomsubban 4y ago
    You've described many malicious things they could do, but none of it is really money laundering. And if your goal was money laundering, I'd assume you'd want to make that business look as clean as possible, not a VPN we can all agree appears shady as hell.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]