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Yeah, Nord is for example infamous for pimping out their users as scraping proxies: https://oxylabs.io/pricing/residential-proxy-pool https://oxylabs.io/pricing
by moffkalast 3y ago
Yeah, Nord is for example infamous for pimping out their users as scraping proxies: https://oxylabs.io/pricing/residential-proxy-pool https://oxylabs.io/pricing/residential-proxy-pool
- jvanderbot 3y agoI don't know why, but I did not expect a completely public, normal looking pricing page for something this nefarious-seeming.
- sim7c00 3y agoluminati.io, similar for hola. guess they rebranded now as that one redirects :p but its still the same. this should be illegal really...
- KomoD 3y agoNord as in NordVPN? Source in that case please?
- moffkalast 3y agohttps://www.techradar.com/news/judge-orders-mediation-after-jury-orders-oxylabs-to-pay-dollar75m-in-latest-episode-of-proxy-wars https://www.techradar.com/news/judge-orders-mediation-after-... http://web.archive.org/web/20191128170008/https://medium.com/@derek./how-is-nordvpn-unblocking-disney-6c51045dbc30 http://web.archive.org/web/20191128170008/https://medium.com... It's pretty well known.
- KomoD 3y agoSkimmed it and I don't see anything about Nord making their users into proxies, second link is questionable (since its deleted and you linked to an archive)
- internetter 3y ago> Aside from its link to Oxylabs, Tesonet also advertises itself as a creator and investor of a number of online services, including NordVPN, Hostinger and others. Where else would they get the 100 million users?
- KomoD 3y agoYeah I saw that part but it does not mean they are using the users from NordVPN for Oxylabs, there's nothing explicitly showing so.
- girvo 3y agoI'll be honest, the fact that they're directly linked to Oxylabs alone is enough to deter me. I can't see how else they'd get 100 million+ residential customers on Oxylabs side... sure, I'm not going to go around claiming I have direct proof, but that's more than enough for me to not use their services.
- wswope 3y agoWhy don't you try installing Nord in a VM and monitoring traffic yourself, instead of taking low-quality blogspam Medium articles at face value? If they're truly hijacking end user clients, why don't you point to the section of their open source client that's responsible for that? https://github.com/NordSecurity/nordvpn-linux https://github.com/NordSecurity/nordvpn-linux Easy enough to prove.
- KomoD 3y agoExactly, I'd love to see some proper proof other than "the parent company owns a residential proxy service"
- internetter 3y agoHonestly, "the parent company owns a residential proxy service" is more than enough to deter me from the product.
- internetter 3y agoI always thought nord seemed incredibly sketchy. Thanks for the confirmation.
- wswope 3y agoIt's not "well-known"- because your links don't say what you're claiming they do, and this is a conspiracy theory that's been shut down on here a thousand times before. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22532682 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22532682 NordVPN used residential proxies at one point to enable access to Disney+ and other streaming services; that's a world apart from hijacking end-user connections. They've got an open source client. Where's the code that's turning end users into endpoints? https://github.com/NordSecurity/nordvpn-linux https://github.com/NordSecurity/nordvpn-linux
- internetter 3y ago> NordVPN used residential proxies at one point to enable access to Disney+ and other streaming services I'm sorry but that's incredibly sketchy
- jug 3y agoIt really is of course, but I can honestly see them resort to this only to be able to offer a competitive edge because when it all comes around, this stuff is what many use VPN for rather than privacy. As streaming sites keep clamping down on VPN providers, the low hanging fruits of dodging via mere national IP addresses are blacklisted by them and these providers need to go even further to fool them and compete. But yes, it's also sketchy with the other implications and all, and not the least what kind of traffic that people want to hide that you're unknowingly a proxy to!
- Phemist 3y agohttps://github.com/NordSecurity/nordvpn-linux/tree/main/meshnet/exitnode https://github.com/NordSecurity/nordvpn-linux/tree/main/mesh... The standard linux vpn client clearly has some exitnode capabilities.
- KomoD 3y agoThat's for Meshnet: https://nordvpn.com/meshnet/ https://nordvpn.com/meshnet/
- klelatti 3y agoGosh. "We are a market-leading web intelligence collection platform, driven by the highest business ethics" I think that's a bit debatable!
- greyface- 3y agoI own some IPv4 space and get constant spam from these companies with pitches like "monetize your IP addresses". It's funny how upset they get when you respond and use the word "botnet" to describe their operation, or suggest that the traffic they generate is illegitimate.
- sim7c00 3y agobusiness ethics. these words seem contradictory haha. not to say theres no ethical businesses, but it just sounds funny to me :D
- earleybird 3y agoThere are no ethical businesses. A lawn mower can give you a nicely manicured lawn or a trip to the ER. The lawn mower doesn't care.
- moffkalast 3y agoIt would take quite a while to drive to the ER on a lawn mower. You're supposed to call the ambulance /s
- 3y ago
- codedokode 3y agoAnd why is there need for scraping proxies? Because greedy capitalists do not allow to scrape their sites.
- kortilla 3y agoIt has nothing to do with greedy capitalists. I don’t want anyone scraping my site at all. I don’t charge anything for it.
- codedokode 3y agoLet's take as an example a website which compares prices in different stores and shows which has the cheapest price. You can do it manually, but using automation it is faster and more convenient. Is doesn't make sense to read websites manually when you can use a script or a language model. Obviously for consumer it is better to be able to scrape sites. It is only those store owners (greedy capitalists) who do not want consumer to know that their prices are inflated. Another thing is looking for some information, it is better just to have a language model go around the web and summarize the data for you rather than read someone's site with white letters on black background and weird font.
- dewey 3y agoIt's not uncommon that companies ask other companies to scrape their site as they don't have the tech resources to build an API / integration for whatever they want to have.
- sim7c00 3y agoif u run a small site and ppl scrape it aggresively that can rack up ur bills.depending on where u host ur site. ofcourse not an issue for billion dollar companies, but a line needs to be drawn somewhere. also, whats the purpose of the scraping? usually its greedy capatalist purposes, so.then ur point is a bit moot, dont u think?
- codedokode 3y agoLet's say someone makes a site that compares prices in different stores. It needs a lot of scraping, but is useful for consumers. Obviously, the only ones who are against it will be the store owners.
- noizejoy 3y ago> While the lawsuit names Lithuania-based Teso LT, UAB as a defendant rather than “Tesonet”, this is as a result of a corporate restructuring several years ago. Aside from its link to Oxylabs, Tesonet also advertises itself as a creator and investor of a number of online services, including NordVPN, Hostinger and others.[0] [0] https://www.techradar.com/news/judge-orders-mediation-after-jury-orders-oxylabs-to-pay-dollar75m-in-latest-episode-of-proxy-wars https://www.techradar.com/news/judge-orders-mediation-after-...
- dhdhhdd 3y agoNord offers OpenVPN configs. Those configs don't seem to allow nat/routing from Nord VPN network? I never looked into that, but always used Nord VPN via the official OpenVPN client.
- Timber-6539 3y agoWhile old OpenVPN configurations still work, NordVPN stopped providing username and password for OpenVPN configs in the account dashboard.