asn REQUEST: show endpoint & data-center provider explicitly

[ctss36pwwon 0]

We all know, all VPNs, have most of their servers rented from or stationed at 5, maybe 7 major data-center companies (the number is true if one excludes US & UK). When one goes to the client area or to the server's list, there's all sort of statistics about the server EXCEPT who is that provider.

Of course, this is easily found out, but it would be of great help everyone, I imagine, if on both the client area (before generating configs) and the server list pages you'd make it explicitly clear which ASN the endpoint or, rather, the entrypoint, to be precise, server is rented from / located at. It would, of course, also be useful to know the same for the potential exit points, but that may harder to predict and implement.

So for example, AirVPN, from what I can tell, has a much greater number of M247 endpoints -- a lot more, it seems, than other providers. Now one has to check every IP-address one connects to, or intends to connect to, to merely find out if it is M247 or not. I, for one, love M247: it is a wonderfully transparent global company, collecting information on all of us for what I can only imagine, could be, the greater good of humanity, but the point still remains: it'd be lovely to avoid other non-friendly-ministry-of-truth-approved ASN and their endpoints and only use M247. Hence my request.

Do you think it's possible to display, as I explained, the ASN information (and perhaps other related info for each server, which usually comes with ASN databases)? Other VPNs show this, and, I imagine, it'd be splendid if you implemented this feature as well. Wouldn't you agree?

Thank you. Otherwise, great service. Design doesn't matter, I like your featureful interface (no sarcasm).

[Staff 9764]

49 minutes ago, ctss36pwwon said:

Do you think it's possible to display, as I explained, the ASN information (and perhaps other related info for each server, which usually comes with ASN databases)? Other VPNs show this

Hello!

Yes, it is definitely possible. We will think about it.
 

49 minutes ago, ctss36pwwon said:

I, for one, love M247: it is a wonderfully transparent global company, collecting information on all of us for what I can only imagine,

To the best of our knowledge M247 does not collect information about our customers and this practice, when involving personal data, without explicit consent would be a criminal offense in most jurisdictions M247 operates in. We have contractual agreements which do not allow M247 to do it, but please substantiate your claim now. On one hand we are interested in checking thoroughly your claim, on the other hand we host these forums for the community so we would like to put in place a little protection against any retaliation for libel or defamation, not to mention the right of reply to a company (whose customers we have been for years) especially in case of allegations of criminal offenses as well as statements damaging to reputation.

We expect your expeditious reply (or corrections if necessary).

Kind regards
 

[ctss36pwwon 0]

Oh, absolutely. I don't mean to make any claims or allegations towards M247. Please don't anybody take my words as anything more, but a friendly joke.

However, if I were to be serious, while M247 may not be collecting any information whatsoever, it may be being collected by parties that M247 itself is doing business with (being collected unbeknownst to them, even) or by some rouge employees - this may quite possibly be the case not just for M247, but for any company, including even your own. In fact, just recently, if you read HN, there was a post on HN, describing a huge leak from multiple (unnamed) VPN providers - a leak containing the information they were claiming they were not collecting. So all I'm saying is: who knows? But then again, who cares either?

Thank you and I hope I didn't make it look like I was trying to accuse anybody of anything whatsoever. Was merely trying to exercise some logic and reason.

Edited ... by ctss36pwwon

[Staff 9764]

@ctss36pwwon

Stating that the claim you made toward M247 is not a claim toward M247 does not improve things much. It shows that you wrote without any clue or proof of what you wrote.
 

26 minutes ago, ctss36pwwon said:

doing business with (being collected unbeknownst to them, even) or by some rouge employees this may quite possibly be the case not just for M247, but for any company, including even your own.

That's a very different thing, and let's get that straight, because once again you seem to be writing without any evidence or even a clue as to what you're writing, and jumping to assumptions and conclusions that are patently false or impossible.

The event you mischievously suggest as potentially possible in our infrastructure would only be actually possible if:

1. we had any employee with access to the customers' database
2. the customer entered personal information in spite of the fact that AirVPN does not require it

Point 1 is not met because AirVPN does not have any employee with access to the database (please read the privacy notice and terms).
Furthermore, if the user or customer follows the recommendations, the database contains no personal data at all.
 

Quote

just recently, if you read HN, there was a post on HN, describing a huge leak from multiple (unnamed) VPN providers - a leak containing the information they were claiming they were not collecting.

That's very interesting and shows how better and different AirVPN is, please feel free to provide a link if possible. We found an article on The Register:
https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/17/ufo_vpn_database/

In this article the leak allegedly comes from

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UFO VPN, FAST VPN, Free VPN, Super VPN, Flash VPN, Secure VPN, and Rabbit VPN – all share a common entity, which provides a white-labelled VPN service.

Kind regards
 

[ctss36pwwon 0]

Oh, I do apologize. Let me be very clear: the original message was NOT a claim or an allegation. Please forgive me, I'm somewhat new here and I was not aware of how serious you take words typed here, and that sarcasm is not to be used (which is fine by me, you provide the service, you define the terms & conditions). Therefore, please consider my statements in the original message, them being perceived as allegations or not, a mere mistake on my part. Would that be fair?

As for rouge employees and your statements: fair enough. I'm NOT an auditor, just a customer. I purchased, which means I believe you (to the extent I generally believe people and organizations), so I have no issue with this whatsoever. My statements are more general, rather than concerning a specific company. And they are also not the result of any kind of investigation, proof or evidence - they are based purely on logic and reason. And by that token, we ought, I believe admit, that there are, currently, certain technological limitations to "trust" which we may rely upon, when it comes to all things "online". Wouldn't you agree?

I won't be posting much anyway, so shall we consider the discussion resolved? I had no intention of sparkling debate over privacy or something. Not at all.

And, once again, thank you for the great service. I had a chance to compare, you're one of the best, it appears.

Edited ... by ctss36pwwon

[Staff 9764]

@ctss36pwwon

Hello!

OK that's fine, a mistake can be made by anyone and anyway we were genuinely interested in knowing the basis of your allegations, since M247 provides something like 20% of our global bandwidth, which is a remarkable amount. Glad to know that there's no basis, then.

Sarcasm is welcome here except when it serves the purpose to write defamation in disguise. Please keep in mind that errare humanum est, perseverare autem diabolicum. Usually we leave the moderation to the community moderators but throughout the years we were forced to chime in for annoying and potential defamatory cases, so we prefer when possible a moderate prevention.

Do you have the HN link we asked for, regarding the mega-leak you mentioned?

Thank you for your great feedback.

Kind regards
 

[ctss36pwwon 0]

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Do you have the HN link we asked for, regarding the mega-leak you mentioned?

My browser history is never stored, so I'll have to check with the search engine and post that link a bit later.

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We were genuinely interested in knowing the basis of your allegations

If that's the case, please check your inbox. As one fictional character with a permanent smile on his face had explained: "if you're good at something, never do it for free". Check your inbox, then.

But, suffice to say, I had done a fair bit of research over the years (not by intent or as my main task, but more like as a by-product coming out of an occasional requirement from a particular unrelated task on some project). So there's both empirical data I've seen which told me things as well as experience, understanding and reasoning I happen to possess. Which is why I had written what I'd written: we ought, I believe, admit, that there are, currently, certain technological limitations to "trust" which we may rely upon, when it comes to all things "online".