'Snoopers' Charter' spybill passage and AIRVPN

[zimwebob 7]

"The Investigatory Powers Bill - dubbed the "snoopers' charter" by critics - was passed by Parliament this month after more than a year of debate and amendments." - Original article.

 

Just wondering how this will affect AIRVPN service, if the Netherlands falls under the jurisdiction of this bill?

 

Safe and happy holidays.

[LZ1 672]

Hello!

 

It's a British bill, so I don't see why you're mentioning the Netherlands, so I suppose the answer is "No" it doesn't fall under UK jurisdiction. Besides, you don't need a bill like that to make it potentially dangerous to operate in the Netherlands or connect to it, because one of the defining "features" of bills like the Snoopers Charter, is that they retroactively legitimise any past government hacking that may or may not have been carried out. There's also a bill in the us which saw the FBI be granted extended hacking powers. There's already a number of other threads about this topic, both in this forum and in the off-topic forum, which discuss the bill you linked to. Air hasn't, to my knowledge, replied to any of them yet. However we've got several strong indications that if Air thinks the bill poses a threat to its service and thus its users, it would take action .

[greenclaydog 6]

Hello!

 

It's a British bill, so I don't see why you're mentioning the Netherlands, so I suppose the answer is "No" it doesn't fall under UK jurisdiction. Besides, you don't need a bill like that to make it potentially dangerous to operate in the Netherlands or connect to it, because one of the defining "features" of bills like the Snoopers Charter, is that they retroactively legitimise any past government hacking that may or may not have been carried out. There's also a bill in the us which saw the FBI be granted extended hacking powers. There's already a number of other threads about this topic, both in this forum and in the off-topic forum, which discuss the bill you linked to. Air hasn't, to my knowledge, replied to any of them yet. However we've got several strong indications that if Air thinks the bill poses a threat to its service and thus its users, it would take action .

 

Then why haven't they? The "snooper" charter is clearly a threat to the privacy of UK citizens, and without a doubt any foreigners connecting in via VPN. Personally i would like to hear what Staff thoughts are regarding the new legislation instead of assuming the best in hopeful speculation. The legislation has put customers in doubt about the security of servers in the UK; it is only fit that if there is a reason to stay, AirVPN ought to state why. I honestly believe that the "snooper" charter is just as damning if not more so as any other legislative effort that has been cause for server withdraw; If the UK is the exception to AirVPN's ethical mission i think we have the right to know why. Even if AirVPN decides to stay it's our individual responsibilities to not use them if we think they are insecure. If recent events prove anything it's that AirVPN isn't always going to be there to close servers when dangerous laws come into play, they may close in France, but ignore bigger problems in the UK. 

[LZ1 672]

Well the Air Staff are quite the Stoic types . So it is my experience that they do not say anything, regarding anything, unless they really feel they have something of value to say. Not everyone likes this. But if you really want *answers* you can always submit support tickets I guess. Also, as zhang has said or hinted at on a number of occasions (sorry I can't reference it), datacenters may follow a different set of rules in a country, to my understanding. Thus companies like Air may not be impacted as much as one might otherwise expect.

 

Of course we can imagine why it could be in Airs interest not to withdraw the UK as a server region: there's many UK servers and UK content is perhaps amongst some of the most popular. Thus it can hurt financially doing so. But that's just my musings . I still trust in Air to withdraw servers and/or otherwise take action somehow, if they believe there's a real threat. After all, the most treasured VPN commodity is trust. Without it, VPNs go bust pretty quickly. It's good you're concerned and paying attention though. Oh and as for France, I think France is also a special case because it's currently still in a state of emergency. Perhaps in addition to any existing lackluster privacy legislation. The ending of this emergency has simply been continuously post-phoned. Under such circumstances, the government has additional "rights" that it normally doesn't have.

[dellawee 13]

VPNuser172 - The charter doesn't come into effect until January 1, 2017 so there is still time for Air to make a decision on what they want to do. There is also a petition in the UK to force parliament to reconsider and they have already made the 100,000 signatures. Of course they can always use more, so if you live in the UK please sign it!

[greenclaydog 6]

VPNuser172 - The charter doesn't come into effect until January 1, 2017 so there is still time for Air to make a decision on what they want to do. There is also a petition in the UK to force parliament to reconsider and they have already made the 100,000 signatures. Of course they can always use more, so if you live in the UK please sign it!

 

Sadly i do not reside there, so i may not have a say in the matter. But i would implore anyone that does to sign it. 

[greenclaydog 6]

Well the Air Staff are quite the Stoic types . So it is my experience that they do not say anything, regarding anything, unless they really feel they have something of value to say. Not everyone likes this. But if you really want *answers* you can always submit support tickets I guess. Also, as zhang has said or hinted at on a number of occasions (sorry I can't reference it), datacenters may follow a different set of rules in a country, to my understanding. Thus companies like Air may not be impacted as much as one might otherwise expect.

 

Of course we can imagine why it could be in Airs interest not to withdraw the UK as a server region: there's many UK servers and UK content is perhaps amongst some of the most popular. Thus it can hurt financially doing so. But that's just my musings . I still trust in Air to withdraw servers and/or otherwise take action somehow, if they believe there's a real threat. After all, the most treasured VPN commodity is trust. Without it, VPNs go bust pretty quickly. It's good you're concerned and paying attention though. Oh and as for France, I think France is also a special case because it's currently still in a state of emergency. Perhaps in addition to any existing lackluster privacy legislation. The ending of this emergency has simply been continuously post-phoned. Under such circumstances, the government has additional "rights" that it normally doesn't have.

 

 

I understand that the UK is a popular location. But if this legislation violates their ethical mission, which i believe it will considering that VPN servers are unlikely to be exempt from this snooping; AirVPN might have to decide whether they hold to their code of ethics or stay in the UK anyway. I believe this would be counter intuitive for AirVPN as it prides itself on being strict to it's standards ( more users would likely appreciate them leaving for the right reasons than staying for the wrong reasons). But they do indeed have a year to decide, i just hope that they make a decision before the snooping is implemented. 

[LZ1 672]

I'd definitely rather see them leave, than risk anything, if it comes to that. I'm staying with them regardless. Air is like water in a desert lol, you don't just give it up.

[Ricnvolved1956 51]

VPNuser172-- You nailed it with your post. Whether the new law forces Air to eventually remove the U.K. servers or not, I have no idea. For me personally, it makes no difference at all. I've been an Air subscriber for 1 year and I've rarely run any of my devices through the U.K. servers. I understand that some Air subscribers depend on the U.K. servers to bypass content territorial restrictions, and I'm sympathetic to that. In any event, I made the decision to delete the profiles for the U.K. and Ukrainian servers from the OpenVPN app. I wouldn't dare try to tell other Air subscribers which servers to use or avoid, but I prefer to play it safe and permanently stop going through Air's servers in the countries just mentioned. I've always had the uneasy feeling that GCHQ has already been spying on internet traffic within Britain and this new law will just give the spys the legitimacy I'm sure they've been demanding behind the scenes.

[greenclaydog 6]

I'd definitely rather see them leave, than risk anything, if it comes to that. I'm staying with them regardless. Air is like water in a desert lol, you don't just give it up.

 

 

Believe me, i have scoured the vast amount of VPN's out there. AirVPN is the sole oasis in a desert of fake no logging claims, server seizures and fake servers and ip addresses and the selling of consumer data. 

 

There is simply no place i would rather be. But i won't and no one else should let their guard down because Air is the safest place to be.

 

I would never go to any other service, but i should be vigilant wherever i go. 

[snapz 37]

Britain’s Terrifying New Surveillance Laws – “Nothing to do with Fighting Terrorism”

http://truepublica.org.uk/united-kingdom/britains-new-surveillance-laws-nothing-to-do-with-fighting-terrorism/

 

a quote of the above mentioned article:

 

"The government and their agencies have access to everything you do from the second your alarm clock wakes you (if you use a mobile phone) to the time you go to sleep. Every website, every app, what subscriptions you pay for, how much you earn, what you spend it on, any personal suspicions you may have about your health, relationships, working environment, your friends and family and acquaintances. They don’t need your passwords. It gets worse though.

If you search google for an embarrassing health issue or join the 3 million who called the NHS 111 service, the government knows. It knows if you, a friend or an acquaintance of yours has joined a protest group objecting to say, fracking. You are implicated by your friends. Facebook tried to sell on-line lenders credit scores by ‘judging’ American borrowers’ creditworthiness. Thankfully, it failed, but not for trying. What do you think the government will attempt to do assisted by these ubiquitous and often nefarious corporations whoring themselves as they do today for a buck?"

 

And: "Welcome to the panopticon, you deserve everything you didn’t bother fighting for. Your grandparents did though and so did theirs. Wake up for god’s sake!"

(I am a grandparent, born in the difficult years shortly after WW2. And for those in the UK, for god's sake SIGN THE PETITION!)

 

UK is blacklisted in EDDIE since i am AIRvpn'er, so is the USA (because of GCHQ and NSA). But with this snooper law now it comes realy serieus!

 

I understand that the UK is a popular location. But if this legislation violates their ethical mission, which i believe it will considering that VPN servers are unlikely to be exempt from this snooping; AirVPN might have to decide whether they hold to their code of ethics or stay in the UK anyway. I believe this would be counter intuitive for AirVPN as it prides itself on being strict to it's standards ( more users would likely appreciate them leaving for the right reasons than staying for the wrong reasons). But they do indeed have a year to decide, i just hope that they make a decision before the snooping is implemented. 

Me to, i hope they will.

[Reso 19]

The snoopers charter is something you'd expect a totalitarian country to come up with. I'm embarrassed to be British right now.

 

The Labour party tried to get it on the books years ago. The Conservatives opposed it, then as soon as they got in power they suddenly thought it was a good idea. It was put on hold because they were in coalition. As soon as they got a majority it was back on.

 

A sad day when our supposed representatives passed this.

 

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[lordbeau 8]

PIA have temporarily shut down their UK servers and are rooting them through the Netherlands already while they work out what to to do.

[Khariz 109]

PIA is also massively technologically inept compared to AirVPN.  Have you seen how much of a complete mess their client is?  I can't imagine they run their servers much better. You may be asking what my point is.  My point is that PIA isn't really a good model for what other VPN companies should do.   

 

I have a really dumb question:  Have any of you actually read the charter?  I have.  I proposed a list of points in another thread about this.  Here's what I said.  Feel free to pick these apart:

 

 

1. AirVPN is not an ISP. 

2. The hosting companies that AirVPN contract with are not ISPs.

3. AirVPN is not a U.K. Company.

4. AirVPN owns the baremetal servers and has access to all of the logging functions. 

5. Even if there is some kind of downstream /upstream, ISP / Backbone logging going on what use would that be in pinpointing what any single user is doing? So we have 100+ people connected to AirVPN's server. All of the activity is on the same shared IP. AirVPN's internal system isn't logging which originating IP address is doing what. The theoretical upstream / downstream ISP logging is seeing AirVPN exitIP visiting thousands of sites, and cannot connect that ExitIP to any single user due to the nature of the sharedIP system. 

What exactly is the issue? AirVPN can't be forced to comply with the UK's new laws any more than they can be forced to comply with the DCMA in the United States. Any incidental snooping data gathered in the U.K. Would be useless in identifying any of us individually. 

[Khariz 109]

Since PIA got mentioned, here is their formal response to this, which they posted today:

The United Kingdom has passed a draconian mass surveillance law, the Investigatory Powers Act (IP Act), which will force the collection of UK internet connection records for a whole year. We want to take this opportunity to remind everyone that Private Internet Access doesn’t store traffic logs or connection records of any kind.

We are the premier no log Virtual Private Network (VPN). What this means is that even when we are served with government requests, warrants, or subpoenas, we respond with the truth: We keep no logs.

Private Internet Access has been following the progression of the Investigatory Powers Bill with a keen eye over the last year. We have planned out several possible solutions to maintain our users’ security and privacy no matter what ends up happening. Exactly how the IP Act will be enforced remains to be seen.

Upon confirming that the Investigatory Powers Act had received Royal Assent on November 30th, we temporarily pointed all UK traffic at NL servers as a precautionary measure. As of December 1st, UK London and UK Southampton exit nodes will connect and provide a UK IP address as normal. Our datacenter partners have advised us that the Investigatory Powers Act is not yet being enforced and the specifics of how and when it will be enforced, and who will pay for it, is still to be determined.

Private Internet Access is confident that both UK customers and non-UK customers can connect to our UK London and UK Southampton servers without worrying about internet connection records. We are closely monitoring this law and are prepared to take action should this change.

Compensating for an Internet Service Provider (ISP) that logs your activity is one of the primary uses of a VPN privacy service.  All VPN traffic is encrypted so your ISP’s logs are useless.  Therefore whether UK ISPs start logging due to this law or have been logging the entire time, Private Internet Access has protected your privacy throughout.

We will be working with the top tech lawyers and our datacenter partners in the UK to stay on top of the IP Bill as it starts being enforced. If things change for the worse, we are prepared to leave the UK as we did for Russia when similar draconian laws were passed and enforced.

Thank you for your continued support and helping us fight the good fight.

Sincerely,The Private Internet Access Team

 

 https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/forum/discussion/23173/private-internet-access-responds-to-investigatory-powers-act-aka-snoopers-charter

[LZ1 672]

That's the kind of post I'd like to see from Air. It doesn't have to be as long though

 

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