Ricnvolved1956

Rep Chumley would have to arrange for his like minded colleagues to be paid to work all day looking for porn sites that were not blocked on South Carolina computers. Someone has to do it, but the stress, and the PTSD payouts.
Non Americans may wonder if the US is in reverse gear, but driving by the rear view mirror. Perhaps the Believers will return to the Reformation, with Catholics and Protestants slaughtering each other for control and purity of various cities and villages. It is all Good with God on Our side.

https://www.rt.com/usa/370910-south-carolina-porn-ban-computers/

The end of net neutrality and the other changes to the internet you suggest could happen under Trump. But I also think Clinton wouldn't have been any better. A few years ago she called for a modern day "Manhattan project" to bust encryption. If Trump is in the hip pocket of the surveillance state, Clinton is just as much, and probably moreso.
 
But more to the thread topic... I don't use AirVPN for piracy or geolocation reasons. I'm your garden variety anti-NSA, paranoid privacy fanatic. I don't have the technical savvy to get around copyright and content restrictions; I was barely able to set up AirVPN on my devices.
 
But, serenacat-- I get what you're saying about possible (probable?) upcoming changes to the cyber world. I have a dark foreboding of the future on that and I don't think anyone here is going to like it. At all.

Keith Alexander = piece of sh*t moron
 
https://www.rt.com/document/584a52a8c4618859348b467b/amp
 
Nice to know there's an exodus, but there's no shortage of misguided fools to come in behind them. The NSA will be always be dangerous, but as long as the best brains are out there in the cyber mists fighting against these assclowns, there will always be hope.

They should be avoided if you know anything about the intelligence community (and have worked in it). These companies generally have intelligence officers as leaders and revolving doors with intelligence firms. Anyone that knows anything about intelligence operations knows the close knit community, the brotherhood. How people bring along others with them as they move from company to company. How their rolodex's are filled with 'I have a guy' cards to hand out to anyone and everyone and those cards are usually former associates.
 
Make no mistake, these products SHOULD be avoided if you value your security and privacy. Even if you ignore the history lesson - which is many of these companies have already been implicated in backdooring and/or ignoring exploits or delaying patches in their products and/or services as well as in some cases offering up enhanced telemetry. There is a very specific reason intelligence firms are keen to fund new companies and get a feeler in the door. It's much easier to build bridges into firms through funding and networking at the outset than it is later to force compliancy through threats, National Security Letters or Intelligence Directives.
 
I'd take it so far to recommend people that live in the USA to never use any US-Corporate product for security and privacy. Once again, history as our lesson - it's a terrible idea.. (Yahoo, McAfee, Juniper, etc) Quite a number of major corporations we work with as one of the largest MSP's won't touch US-Corporate security products. Spreading privacy over multiple jurisdictions is SMART.

Hello !
 
Would AirVPN be interested in supporting the Electronic Frontier Foundation and/or the Free Software Foundation? No specific project or technology as such.
 
It seems a bit remiss of AirVPN to not support these, in my view .
 

About The EFF

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the leading nonprofit organization defending civil liberties in the digital world. Founded in 1990, EFF champions user privacy, free expression, and innovation through impact litigation, policy analysis, grassroots activism, and technology development. We work to ensure that rights and freedoms are enhanced and protected as our use of technology grows.

Even in the fledgling days of the Internet, EFF understood that protecting access to developing technology was central to advancing freedom for all. In the years that followed, EFF used our fiercely independent voice to clear the way for open source software, encryption, security research, file sharing tools, and a world of emerging technologies.

Today, EFF uses the unique expertise of leading technologists, activists, and attorneys in our efforts to defend free speech online, fight illegal surveillance, advocate for users and innovators, and support freedom-enhancing technologies.

Together, we forged a vast network of concerned members and partner organizations spanning the globe. EFF advises policymakers and educates the press and the public through comprehensive analysis, educational guides, activist workshops, and more. EFF empowers hundreds of thousands of individuals through our Action Center and has become a leading voice in online rights debates.

EFF is a donor-funded US 501©(3) nonprofit organization that depends on your support to continue fighting for users. 

About The FSF

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a nonprofit with a worldwide mission to promote computer user freedom. We defend the rights of all software users.

As our society grows more dependent on computers, the software we run is of critical importance to securing the future of a free society. Free software is about having control over the technology we use in our homes, schools and businesses, where computers work for our individual and communal benefit, not for proprietary software companies or governments who might seek to restrict and monitor us. The Free Software Foundation exclusively uses free software to perform its work.

The Free Software Foundation is working to secure freedom for computer users by promoting the development and use of free (as in freedom) software and documentation—particularly the GNU operating system—and by campaigning against threats to computer user freedom like Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) and software patents. 
Why should AirVPN do it? Because:
Both organisations routinely make new technologies available which help to enhance peoples freedoms. Not just software-wise either, but hardware too. Both organisations comply with AirVPNs mission on multiple levels. Many kinds of freedom form the basis of free societies. Free speech, freedom of assembly, etc. So what about free software/privacy? The EFF fights the required legal battles that come before or after new technology or laws that limit, constrict and/or endanger us all in more ways than one. The FSF provides a completely different philosophy/approach to hardware and software; namely that it should be completely free. Not proprietary & closed. Eddie being open helps us all. Support will also mean even more support for software like HTTPS Everywhere, which both the EFF & The Tor Project made. AirVPN already supports The Tor Project, so why not add the EFF? Because the FSF is a hardcore supporter of free software & freedom of software provides a range of benefits for everyone:
As a software developer, free software lets you build and improve on the work of others, as part of a social community — built on the principles of sharing.
As an artist, you can do things with free software that proprietary software does not allow. All free software allows you to use it for any purpose.
As a user, free software removes you from the power struggle of proprietary software, where you are able to help yourself and are not dependent on a single developer or company to help you.
As a student, you can study and modify the software you use, learning from and enhancing the tools that you use for education.

I think it's one thing to support various technical means of opposing state & company control, closedness and censorship, but quite another thing to oppose these things through legal means.
Because while technical tools are great, one could argue that we shouldn't, in an ideal world, even need them. But we do, because various laws force us to, if we want to maintain
a shred of privacy and security. But whether or not these organisations do battle legally, they both still provide a wealth of different tools and technologies which help advance
AirVPNs mission. So in a sense, it's like a package deal !
 
Even the best VPN in the galaxy won't have much to say in the face of running on a compromised system.
Even the best combination of security practices, software & hardware can come under attack when governments give themselves permission to do things that are illegal & immoral for everyone else to do.
 
In addition, supporting organisations which fight the necessary legal battles, could perhaps have direct implications for AirVPNs server locations, as Air writes:


Of course there's many parameters to take into account when it comes to server locations; not least cost & infrastructure availability. But I'm sure we can agree that it's easier to set up a server in a
country that doesn't have laws or systems hostile to AirVPNs mission statement; perhaps one of the major reasons we haven't had many Iranian and Mainland Chinese servers, hmm?
For a primer on what the FSF is really about, you can watch this.
 
Thank you :]

Hello!
 
My opinion is:
 
It's not a VPN. So it can't even be in the forum "Other VPN competitors or features" really and is not a competitor for Air, as it's an anti-blocking tool, not a VPN. So this is what I'll judge it on. It's developed by Brave New Software, which is based in the US. That's strike 1 against it. It's also by the US government. Strike 2. As stated on the above news link: "“Lantern is a tool to provide access – it is not designed to prevent monitoring,” - said one of the developers. Strike 3. The lack of information, such as *what* encryption, how it's implemented and the level of it, is bad. Security is not its focus. Things like "speed" are. Even the motto "Better than a VPN" is just misleading. Better at what? It may also serve to trick non-techy users into thinking VPNs are just for getting past blocks and nothing else. But never mind the list. If we're skeptical, any US-government sponsoring should probably immediately add 10 strikes haha. It reminds me of Radio Free Asia - also sponsored by the US government. Maybe it's just me, but perhaps if the US government invested the same amount of resources into their own problems, they might in fact have some moral high ground; instead of just a foxhole. Note that many (if not most?) VPN reviewers these days count it as a con if a service is based in the US - thus I do too here.

Kepler-- Thank you for your apology. I extend mine in return. Though I have the feeling we're not always going to agree on political subjects, it's a good thing we can agree to disagree courteously.

I would like to start this thread to try to understand the practical implications of Rule 41 for vpn users and service providers.
 
- As I understand it, Rule 41  requires two things:
   1) anything that could be considered criminal activity (something as simple as sharing a copyrighted photo, or anything that exceeds the vague boundaries of Fair Use), and 
   2) using any vpn technology (TOR, Openvpn, Airvpn, etc.) while doing so.
 
- if the FBI or other three letter organizations (TLOs) believes such activity is happening they can obtain a simple blanket court order to install spyware on a suspect's computer or phone to record the activity and reveal the user's identity (and who knows what else). This applies not just to US citizens but to anyone worldwide (stunningly draconian overreach). It's not clear to me how broad this blanket can be, or whether the TLO needs probable cause.
 
This brings up so many questions it's hard to know where to begin:
 
- What technical options do TLOs have for installing spyware? How easy is it for them to do this?
- How can vpn users protect themselves from having spyware installed on their computers?
- How will this affect Airvpn's service?
- Will it be more risky to use US located servers?
 
I hope people who respond to this thread will differentiate between speculation (which can be useful)  and established fact so that we can arrive at a clear understanding of how Rule 41 will affect vpn users and service providers.
 
Also I think it would be very helpful if Airvpn staff either contribute here, or put out a statement that answers questions around Rule 41 and provides specific help.
 
P.S. Links to succinct factual sources would be especially helpful.

Your privacy is not safe under any presidential candidate
 
whether its Donald "Pussy Grabber" Trump or Hillary " What does it matter now" Clinton, neither of them could give less of a shit about your privacy.
 
For all we know the US funded encryption and web browsing tools as a means of purchasing themselves a back door, or maybe they developed these technologies with the intention of specifically protecting their data.
 
I simply find it too hard to believe that the same country running the worlds largest digital mass surveillance operation funding globally used encryption and obfuscation technologies is merely an innocent coincidence that we should just overlook. 

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/french-man-sent-prison-visiting-202857691.html
 
 
No one should be condoning or supporting the actions of ISIS or related terror groups; however arresting someone for their browsing habits is unacceptable. 
 
The world is beginning to accept thought crime as a valid criminal offense. 
 
 
First they come for the terrorists
 
then they come for the people who make and watch child porn
 
then they come for normal porn
 
then they come for torrents/piracy
 
Eventually this chain of arrests and crackdowns will come for the political posts on facebook, which news sites you visit, the public figures you support, who you vote for. and the list goes on and on and on.
 
The world can find better solutions to fighting global terrorisim than by tapping the entire internet and arresting people who seek information they disagree with. 
 
Some actual terrorists have been found and investigated by the FBI beforehand and they did nothing stop them, even with all the tools and assets of mass surveillance at their backs. 

Ironically enough, politicians seem to get off on making other people getting off illegal. I do not have the links on hand at the moment, but the US and UK have repeatedly attempted to restrict or ban porn. The UK recently proposed a total ban on "non standard pornography". It's quite disturbing that we live in an era when it's acceptable for a government to dictate what it's people can and cannot masturbate to or decide whether they can do it at all. 

The comments on the article are just as bad.
 
 
Just because people want to protect their right to browse the internet freely does not mean that privacy groups support harboring terrorists and child molesters. 
 
We do not believe the crimes are justified in any sense of the word 
 
We just believe that the methods and legislation's they use to uncover these individuals can, will be and have been used to steal, harm and defame innocent citizens and restrict the ability to attain knowledge on controversial topics and political ideologies all over the world.
 
Simply put, you have to violate the privacy and fundamental rights of lots of Bobs, Alice's, Johns, and Janes before you can end up on a Muhammad or an Osama or a Herbert The Pervert. 
 
And when you ask someone, anyone if they think this is acceptable they respond with...
 

 
(Obligatory Professor Umbridge reference)

O Canada.... I'm seeing a very sickening fad developing.
 
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/canada-software-encryption-backdoors-feedback,33131.html

I love this board precisely because we can have civil discussions about privacy related matters.  You guys are awesome.  Thanks for not getting offended, Ricnvolved1956, because I certainly meant no offense.
 
Oh, and your "little act of defiance" is awesome.  The more of us who do this (use AirVPN) the more anonymous we all are.  It's pretty cool to think about it like that.  The more this catches on, the less useful any single data point is.

Well well well! Some highly interesting and informative responses. My thanks especially to Khariz for lessening my paranoia... some. As a result I've reloaded the config generator files for the U.K. and Ukrainian servers.
 
I personally don't take offense with Khariz having a good chuckle at the fuss and bother of this topic thread. Getting that kind of knowledge is why I've begun hanging around this forum more than before. I'm one of the AirVPN users/customers technologically challenged and glad there are folks here who can help to educate others like myself. I dare to venture that the overwhelming majority of Air's customers are not genuinely malicious actors on the world stage actively trying to evade the surveillance goons. Speaking for myself, I seek out the most private and secure ways to use the internet out of equal parts principle and defiance. The revelations from Edward Snowden... Julian Assange... Thomas Drake... John Kiriakou... William Binney... Kirk Wiebe... Ray McGovern... and many, many others who are anonymous..... I take what they have to say in deadly earnest. Those men are true heroes to me. ALL of them have made enormous personal sacrifices to alert the world of the very real danger of government intrusion and overreach. Their effort on our behalf is surely a thankless task, which will be more thankless if too many ignore their warnings. In the words of Joni Mitchell: "Don't it always seem to go... you don't know what you got till it's gone..." Far too many who go online either are blissfully unaware of the dangers these men are trying to warn us about, or they've chosen to shrug in complacency, convinced the fight is already lost.
 
So, Khariz-- No, I'm not one of the true bad actors you referenced. In the overall scheme of things, I really don't have that much to hide beyond keeping my personal information private. But that's really not the point for using AirVPN, is it? I'm just a teeny tiny fish in this huge internet ocean, exercising my teeny tiny act of defiance. My hope is that others are concerned enough to join my little act of defiance to make it clear we're not about to roll over just because some entrenched, power mad bureaucrats tell us that we must because, "It's to keep you safe." It has very little to do with keeping anyone safe and everything to do with accumulating every scrap of power they can get away with. It's purely political and no one will ever convince me otherwise.
 
I read "1984" in high school and the impression it made was powerful and has stayed with me 45 years later. That kind of future may yet be the fate of this planet and if it does happen while I'm still around.... I'll go kicking and screaming before the goons toss my ashes down the memory hole.

O Canada.... I'm seeing a very sickening fad developing.
 
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/canada-software-encryption-backdoors-feedback,33131.html

"nice to hear things directly from the horse' mouth"
Horses are not allowed to talk, the mafia bookmakers would shoot them.
 
Here is a thread from a popular forum in Australia about gagging of the data collectors:
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=2574156
 
From the boss ISP representative:
"We have received written advice from the Attorney General's Department that we are not permitted to publicly discuss our Data Retention practices, ..."
 
Some of the discussion may not be relevant, but the Surveillance State apparatus is similar in au, uk.
As Julian Assange shows, they have ways of making you NOT talk.
 

Hello!
 
It would be nice if Air would make a habit out of making statements about the biggest/worst pieces of legislation, when they're enacted. Even if it's a simple "We know what's happening and we'll report back within X weeks about it". Even if it's a short message saying "Hi, Rule 41 affects us in ways 1, 2 and 3. But not in ways 4, 5 and 6, have a nice day muahhh" hahah. Then we'd all share that around like mad.
 
That would be nice . Then if they were really ambitious, they could have a small 5 question FAQ, with stuff like "Is Air affected? If yes, how?", "Does Air think it may have to close servers in country X?" and so on. It could preempt a lot of the questions .
 
@Khariz
1-3 seem (respectfully speaking) irrelevant to me, as that sort of legislation only serves to legitimise past (illegal) behavior, by for instance intelligence agencies. Besides, I'm sure they could always expand on the legislation if they needed (extended) hacking powers. GCHQ once hacked a Belgian ISP. So I don't see them having issues with Italian Air, legally. As for 5, the methodology can always be questioned. Sometimes all it takes is a little JavaScript to reveal even Tor users.
 
The issue is that these various kinds of legislation pose an increasing threat to people who use the Internet. Thus to stop the spread of FUD, it would be beneficial if Air Staff tried to communicate their thoughts on the matter. People absolutely love it when they do. I think if you only read the exact letter of the law, you risk blinding yourself, as you'll think "if it doesn't say so in the law, then it can't happen". Maybe you won't think it's blown out of proportion, once all other EU countries enact similar or perhaps even worse versions of the UK Snoopers Charter. What then? It's important to deal with things ahead of time, to prevent FUD; Fear Uncertainty Doubt. Not to say "it doesn't affect me, so it's ok". I also think you do a disservice to readers by calling it conspiracy theory - when these past few years have proven many "conspiracy theorists" right, in regards to state surveillance.
 
That said, I have enough trust in Air to think that they'd both act and state their intentions, if they believed it was relevant . It's always nice to hear things directly from the horse' mouth though.

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

Note that this only gained traction right after Trump won, when media realized they don't control people anymore. This is full panic mode from the defeated, and it's so laughably transparent. Watching them get ever more desperate as they continue to fade into irrelevance is going to be great.

I am mostly a libertarian fella, and my general mantra is to get government out of everything and have as little power as possible. But I am well aware of how flawed the medical system is, and I have advocated a single-payer system - because there is heavy government interference and regulations anyway, and with what I consider subsidies to insurance companies on top of it - and I hate insurance companies. I don't know if single-payer would work, but it should be given a chance. I am very glad you have gotten help and hope it can continue. Trump said something about keeping parts of it so maybe there's hope. I feel that if the existence of a government is to be justified at all, it should at least take care of people that can't make it. So I diverge from the libertarian school of thought there but it's probably the only area I am more statist than they are - usually I am too anarchistic for them if our paths diverge   And  I absolutely despise Limbaugh and all these blowhard "conservative" talk radio types

Not sure how relevant this article is to the thread, but here goes. I'm beginning to suspect surveillance t*rds in Amerika and England are in a..... "friendly".... competition as to who can erode privacy protections the fastest and most.
 
http://www.infowars.com/how-much-does-the-fbi-really-know-about-you/

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/11/new-us-law-making-it-easier-to-search-computers-takes-effect-thursday/
 
A pointed reminder to the political left apologists-- This happened under Obama's watch. Do you really think Clinton would've done anything to change this had SHE won the election?

FromtheWalls-- I agree with all you say in your post. But for the purpose of full disclosure in regards to my own self interest, I am sincerely and eternally grateful for one huge benefit of Obama being president. Namely, The Affordable Care Act. I will keep this as brief as possible, but the unfortunate fact is that I have a medical condition called Peutz Jeghers Syndrome and the only way I could get insurance in the past was through workplace coverage. However, I've been out of the workplace for 8 years and The Affordable Care Act has been literally a financial lifesaver. Without it, there is no way any health insurance company would issue me a policy, or certainly not one I could afford. The Affordable Care Act has been the object of nearly incessant abuse and criticism from the politically conservative right, a lot of it from ignorance but mostly because republican conservatives made it a political football and dog whistle. Since it became law there has been a torrent of demagoguery and screaming to completely do away with it. Why not just reform and improve it instead? At the time The ACA became law there were statistics that approximately 43 million to 45 million people in the U.S. were either severely underinsured or had no coverage at all. If The Affordable Care Act is abolished, what are people like me to do?
 
I'll conclude this with a demagogic gem from Rush Limbaugh during the time The ACA was prominent in the news. He was being his usual gasbag self and bellowed that Amerikans already had health coverage-- If you get sick and you don't have health insurance coverage, just go to the emergency room. I swear to you he said that. If I could have blown his head off with an AK-47 at that moment, I would've done it and worried about the consequences afterward. He could go to his local hospital emergency room and get treated. (I've also wondered if his health insurance policy covered his oxycontin detox program and his viagra when he went to The Dominican Republic for his sex tourist vacations. Anyway.... Rush?.... Save your money and ditch your healthcare coverage! If you get cancer.... just go to the emergency room! Lead by example, you f*cking moron!)