Multi Hop VPN: Useless gimmick or security feature?

[User of AirVPN 46]

I am aware that Multi Hop VPN has already been discussed here and the general consensus was that it would not bring much to the table, but after experimenting with a free trial of a different VPN service (ProtonVPN) , they have a multi hop VPN which they have named the  "Secure Core" feature and I have read that it can be useful for connecting to VPN servers in countries where there is a high risk of surveillance, government intervention, etc, such as USA. For example, if a user connects to a server in the USA using their multi hop VPN, and the connection is logged/intercepted by a government/datacenter/etc , the adversary will only be able to track the connection back to the first hop of the VPN connection, which they call "Secure Core" server, instead of to the user's real IP address, and the idea behind this is that their Secure Core servers are located in countries with strong privacy laws and are not under jurisdiction of United States. Previously I had largely believed multi hop VPN to be a gimmick that did little more than slow down your internet speeds and give you some false sense of security, but after reading about this implementation I can now understand how Multi Hop VPN can be used to improve the user's security and make it harder for their connections to be traced back to them. So I think that it would be a useful feature for Air to add some sort of multi-hop feature where for example if one wishes to connect to a server in USA but is weary of surveillance on the part of the datacenter/government/etc , their VPN would make two hops: For example if they wanted to connect to the USA their connection would first be routed through one of AirVPN's existing servers in Europe in a country of the user's choice. Yes it would slow down the speeds and make things like streaming slower, but I think that it would be a useful feature to have to increase your security while using AirVPN. I'd like to hear what the community thinks about this feature and whether they think it should be implemented as it's possible that there is something I'm missing which makes it less than the ideal solution that I thought.

[OpenSourcerer 1359]

21 hours ago, User Of AirVPN said:

and the idea behind this is that their Secure Core servers are located in countries with strong privacy laws and are not under jurisdiction of United States.

But it's still linked to a single provider, might create a single point of failure, like when your account is frozen and you end up with zero possible connections.

What you describe is better accomplished by mixing VPN and Tor, for example. A proxy instead of Tor does work, too, if you have one you can trust.

[User of AirVPN 46]

2 hours ago, giganerd said:

But it's still linked to a single provider, might create a single point of failure, like when your account is frozen and you end up with zero possible connections.

What you describe is better accomplished by mixing VPN and Tor, for example. A proxy instead of Tor does work, too, if you have one you can trust.

Good point there, Tor/proxy would probably be better for that

[chimney sweep 1]

My ISP contacted my a while ago saying that I was suspected to having sent spam emails.

I told them that I hadn't, that I install only software after making sure the source is official (and no cracked software), and that I regularly use VPN servers which many other users are connected to.
They left me alone after that.

I suppose someone on an AirVPN server might have sent spam and they just looked up one IP address that was connected, whatever the methodology might have been. Maybe they contacted everybody who was connected to the server at the time, or just me.
Perhaps the theory is wrong entirely and there was another reason.

But I thought that multi hop would be nice to have because it might be able to prevent such an attribution of network activity to me. 

 

[OpenSourcerer 1359]

It's got nothing to do with AirVPN if your ISP tells you your ISP IP (what you use on the net if not connected) sent spam. If the connection to AirVPN was there (and probably configured correctly, too), the ISP wouldn't have found out in the first place.
Is there a way for them to tell you how they came to the conclusion? Maybe they only detected outbound connections on port 25 and raised an eyebrow? Or maybe they detected VPN usage and tried to see if you admitted to using one? These two things are funny, though, because if they look at the connections you do, what else are they looking at…?

[Caelius77 0]

Apologies for resurrecting an old topic, but I've never been completely sure about the privacy advantages offered by VPN companies offering this feature.  Their IP is still linked to their service, regardless of how many nodes you pass through.  I use a "big name" commercial VPN on my router and either Air, Mullvad, Perfect Privacy, or IVPN on all my devices connected to it.  When on cellular/wifi (Not at home) I use any one of those four not already in use at home (I rotate them).  I have no personal use-case for using a third VPN in a VM.