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1 point
Is M247 falsifying server locations?
User of AirVPN reacted to Daniel15 for a post in a topic
@GrandeGiovanni I'm pretty sure you're right, and it's fairly trivial to verify. I have a server physically located in Los Angeles, in Psychz Networks' data center. If I ping Indus from that server, I get pings as low as ~0.40ms: $ ping indus.airservers.org PING indus.airservers.org (193.37.254.26) 56(84) bytes of data. 64 bytes from 193.37.254.26 (193.37.254.26): icmp_seq=1 ttl=59 time=0.421 ms 64 bytes from 193.37.254.26 (193.37.254.26): icmp_seq=2 ttl=59 time=0.554 ms 64 bytes from 193.37.254.26 (193.37.254.26): icmp_seq=3 ttl=59 time=0.450 ms 64 bytes from 193.37.254.26 (193.37.254.26): icmp_seq=4 ttl=59 time=0.403 ms ^C --- indus.airservers.org ping statistics --- 4 packets transmitted, 4 received, 0% packet loss, time 3004ms rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.403/0.457/0.554/0.058 ms I don't want to post any links because I'm afraid the forum system will mark this reply as spam, but you can verify this result by searching Google for "Psychz looking glass" and going to their Los Angeles looking glass. It'll let you send pings from their LA network. I can guarantee you that you will not get <0.5ms pings to a server that's physically in another location. I can't even get pings that low from one Los Angeles data center to othrer data centers in Los Angeles (ColoCrossing and QuadraNet)! Even the best networks are limited by the speed of light. Ping times are round-trip time, so a ping of 0.4ms means it takes 0.2ms to reach the server. Even if you assume a perfect network where data can flow at the speed of light with zero delays (which in reality is not possible), 0.2ms multiplied by the speed of light is only around 60 kilometers. That's less than 1/10 of the distance from Los Angeles to Phoenix! Fremont is around the same distance from Los Angeles as Phoenix. If I ping Aquila from the same server, the results are more what you'd expect for that distance: $ ping aquila.airservers.org PING aquila.airservers.org (199.249.223.129) 56(84) bytes of data. 64 bytes from 199.249.223.129 (199.249.223.129): icmp_seq=1 ttl=57 time=10.5 ms 64 bytes from 199.249.223.129 (199.249.223.129): icmp_seq=2 ttl=57 time=10.4 ms 64 bytes from 199.249.223.129 (199.249.223.129): icmp_seq=3 ttl=57 time=9.98 ms 64 bytes from 199.249.223.129 (199.249.223.129): icmp_seq=4 ttl=57 time=9.89 ms 64 bytes from 199.249.223.129 (199.249.223.129): icmp_seq=5 ttl=57 time=10.5 ms ^C --- aquila.airservers.org ping statistics --- 5 packets transmitted, 5 received, 0% packet loss, time 4005ms rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 9.885/10.258/10.544/0.270 ms From what I've seen so far, I can pretty much guarantee you that the servers are not in that data center. I've tried traceroutes from several providers using Cogent transit. If your VPN servers were actually on Cogent's network in Phoenix, I'd expect them to reach a Cogent router in Phoenix before seeing M247 in the traceroute, as Cogent will keep the traffic in their backbone network for as long as possible. However, in every single case I've seen, the traffic is only routed to Los Angeles on Cogent's network, before moving onto M247's network. Perhaps the most telling is doing a traceroute from somewhere east of Phoenix. Here's a traceroute I did from Chicago to Indus via Cogent's looking glass: traceroute to indus.airservers.org (193.37.254.26), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets 1 gi0-0-0-15.99.agr21.ord01.atlas.cogentco.com (66.250.250.89) 0.733 ms 0.731 ms 2 be2522.ccr42.ord01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.81.61) 1.145 ms 1.150 ms 3 be2831.ccr21.mci01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.42.165) 12.541 ms be2832.ccr22.mci01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.44.169) 16.431 ms 4 be3036.ccr22.den01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.31.89) 23.957 ms be3035.ccr21.den01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.5.89) 23.820 ms 5 be3046.ccr21.elp01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.0.45) 36.725 ms be3047.ccr21.elp01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.1.125) 36.957 ms 6 be2930.ccr32.phx01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.42.77) 44.976 ms be2929.ccr31.phx01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.42.65) 44.659 ms 7 be2932.ccr42.lax01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.45.162) 56.892 ms 56.898 ms 8 be3359.ccr41.lax05.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.3.70) 56.621 ms be3243.ccr41.lax05.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.27.118) 56.532 ms 9 38.104.85.170 (38.104.85.170) 56.920 ms 56.904 ms 10 * * 11 vlan2909.as09.lax1.us.m247.com (193.9.115.169) 56.739 ms vlan2921.as09.lax1.us.m247.com (193.9.115.167) 56.890 ms 12 * * 13 * * 14 * * Notice how hop 7 is going from Phoenix to Los Angeles? If the server was physically in Phoenix, there would be no reason to do that. All signs point to this server being physically located in Los Angeles. There's a possibility that they terminate the network in Los Angeles and then have private backhaul (like a GRE tunnel) from LA to Phoenix, but I wouldn't bet on it, especially with the 0.4ms pings from Los Angeles. -
1 pointhttps://coinatmradar.com/
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1 pointIt's already said: the choice of VPN provider depends a lot on your personal needs and wishes. Are you a Showden or a dude who just wants to watch Netflix? For me, comparing ExpressVPN to AirVPN, the main things I like of ExpressVPN compare to AirVPN: - Third party auditing. It's always good to have an independant entity compare your promises with reality. - RAM driven servers. Simply said, this architecture means that logs CANNOT be stored. - Being based in British Virgin Islands. Although having historical and present ties to UK, they are autonomous since 1967. They are not part of the Five Eyes. What I like about AirVPN: - Eddie is open source. Anybody can compare promises with reality. - The superior kill switch, which works essentially differently than you average kill switch. As far as I know, AirVPN is the only VPN povider with such a network locking system. - Some security features are impressive and well-overthought. For example, the Diffie-Hellman key exchange with client-side lowerable re-keying interval is just unhackable. - Founded and run by activists. And I think the last one is maybe the most important. Many serious VPN providers have slightly different but decent enough technique, performance and options. All of them say "zero logs!" (while some of them have been caught logging AND handing over data). It all comes down to trust. Who would you trust more? A privacy activist with open source software or a businessman with closed source software? That being said, I wouldn't mind if AirVPN would have a third party do some auditing and go for fully RAM driven servers too. Never mind being based in 14-Eyes-Italy - it's remarkable that AirVPN doesn't have any servers (anymore) in Italy. Altogether I would choose for AirVPN, even if ExpressVPN was half price. Actually I did, and having approx. 1500 days left, with no regrets so far. It's being said that AirVPN is 'too technical' for some, but is that so? It's very possible to just install Eddie and use it out-of-the-box without studying settings and options for hours. It might be suitable for your sister as well. Why not try a one month's subscription? Please note the disclaimer: "This is my personal opinion. My advice should never be followed blindly." As for ProtonMail vs. Tutanota, I simply don't trust ProtonMail (anymore). They said it themselves at the start: accepting outside financing would mean loosing credibility. So it's simple. Since they accepted outside financing (March 2015, see https://protonmail.com/blog/protonmail-has-raised-2m-usd-to-protect-online-privacy/ ), they lost credibility. Mind you, this outside financing is done by Fongit (which is financed by the Geneva district of Switzerland) and by CRV, with eyebrow-frowning ties to US intelligence. CTemplar has the advantage of being based in Iceland, which is a pro compared to Switzerland (with an MLAT treaty with USA) or Germany (a 14 Eyes country). But also here it comes down to trust and where that trust is based upon.