Important notice about security

[Staff 9748]

An "HideMyAss" VPN service user identity has been compromised and as a consequence personal freedom of the customer is now at stake. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/09/fbi-arrests-lulzsec-member-for-sony-pictures-hack.ars

As a consequence, apparently to defend their activity by saying that they did nothing more than what any other provider would have done, HideMyAss released a series of statements which are not correct.

For example, they claimed that "all VPN providers keep logs. When there was a court order issued to them, they WILL release it". On top of that, they released on their website a communiqué which, in our opinion, is harmful to the professional reputation and to the the status of mere conduit of a service provider.

For the aforementioned reasons, we would like to re-assure our users and our customers that nothing like that may happen with AirVPN, for a series of legislative (we are based in the EU, not in the USA, and we don't recognize USA jurisdiction, obviously) and above all technical reasons.

When we built our infrastructure we had in mind access from people who live in freedom of expression extremely hostile areas, where identity disclosure can lead to critical threats to physical safety and to personal freedom. Therefore we have planned solutions designed to give higher security and stronger anonymity layers which can be used by anyone.

These solutions have been designed so that you don't need to have "faith" in what we say (for example, when we say "we don't keep logs", how can you trust us if you're outside activists circles?), but to be inherently secure, regardless of what you think of us and regardless of which pressures we might receive from enforcement or criminal entities.

The key is that we must NOT know who you are (on the other hand, EU law prohibits us to investigate privately about your personal data and real identity, or to monitor your communications).

1) If you don't wish to leave a trail payment, the most secure way is to buy a subscription via some cryptocurrency. We accept a wide variety of cryptocurrencies.

2) For extremely critical data transfer (whistleblowers, reports on organized crimes, etc.) please consider to use AirVPN over Tor, or Tor over AirVPN (on top of end-to-end encryption, of course). Please see https://airvpn.org/tor

3) If/when you need to communicate with us, always use a secure and safe e-mail account which can't be exploited to reveal your identity.

For some further information, you might be interested in reading this post: https://airvpn.org/index.php?option=com_kunena&func=view&catid=3&id=54&limit=6&limitstart=6&Itemid=142#1745

If you live in freedom of expression hostile areas and you can't afford the payment, you can obtain a free access. Feel free to contact us. Some free access coupons are usually available also from the Telecomix cluster (best way to reach them is through their IRC servers).

Kind regards and datalove
AirVPN

[bubblebobble 2]

2) For extremely critical data transfer (whistleblowers, reports on organized crimes, etc.) please consider to use AirVPN over TOR. A simple example: https://airvpn.org/tor

Please note that it is not TOR over VPN, it's VPN over TOR.

I followed those instructions, and I've paid to use AirVPN over Tor for 6 months so far. I examined firewall logs and see that before a VPN connection is established over Tor, first your software will circumvent Tor and send my real IP address directly to AirVPN servers. Why is your software sending my real IP address to your servers?

[Staff 9748]

Hello,

 

the Air client connects to airvpn.org to retrieve the servers list etc. Use OpenVPN directly or OpenVPN GUI in order not to connect to airvpn.org. Anyway if you run OpenVPN over TOR, your real IP address is not communicated to any VPN server, client or not.

 

Kind regards

[VPS 1]

Hello,

 

the Air client connects to airvpn.org to retrieve the servers list etc. Use OpenVPN directly or OpenVPN GUI in order not to connect to airvpn.org. Anyway if you run OpenVPN over TOR, your real IP address is not communicated to any VPN server, client or not.

 

Kind regards

 

Informationweek (http://www.informationweek.com/security/privacy/lulzsec-suspect-learns-even-hidemyasscom/231602248) writes:

>>Likewise, for extremely critical activities--"whistleblowers, reports on organized crimes"-- it recommended using VPN over Tor. "Please note that it is not Tor over VPN, it's VPN over Tor," it said.