Staff

Hello! Transparency report. NGOs, persons or entities in general whose public activities are compatible with our mission and that we decided to help, according to the limits set by our resources and the commitments to our customers, during the first half of 2019, in alphabetical order AccessNow, for the steadfast activity aimed to defend and extend the digital rights of users at risk around the world. Caitlin Johnstone, for her commitment to totally independent journalism, for publishing non-copyrighted articles and for her fight against censorship in the pursuit of truth. Chelsea Manning (through her legal defense fund), for having put freedom of expression and the right to access and make information public pertaining to war crimes on a level higher than her personal safety and freedom with exceptional courage and moral integrity. Electronic Frontier Foundation, for outstanding support of civil liberties and fundamental rights in the digital and non-digital world through correct and precise information, pro bono legal activities and support inside and outside courts, and development of valuable open source software tools. Mastodon, for the ongoing development of an open source software project which has the potential to significantly enhance freedom of expression and privacy in a "social network" environment Tor nodes and Tor Project, for their effective and invaluable ability to enhance privacy and bypass censorship in the digital world, through open source software, in ways easily available to any Internet-connected citizen in the world. WikiLeaks, for having revolutionized the world of journalism with unprecedented courage, through a nonprofit organization, in spite of the enormous risks derived by such a disruptive activity. Please consult our mission web page for details and additional information, as well as other entities supported by AirVPN in periods earlier than 2019: https://airvpn.org/mission NOTE During the first half of 2019, Amnesty International, for its long standing activities in protection of the right to a due and fair process, freedom of expression and other human rights, had been taken into serious consideration and donations had been planned. However, new events have caused concern and disappointment to AirVPN founders. AirVPN founders deem that Amnesty International decision to not consider Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange as prisoners of conscience is unfair and factually wrong. AirVPN founders also deem that Amnesty International decision to not pursue any active work in defense of Manning and Assange requires a serious re-consideration about the compatibility of Amnesty International activities with AirVPN mission. https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/05/23/assa-m23.html In the course of 2019, in case Amnesty is not going to change the aforementioned decisions, donation funds for Amnesty will be re-allocated to support different NGOs or entities. EDIT: position of Amnesty International changed on late February 2020: https://www.amnesty.org/en/get-involved/take-action/julian-assange-usa-justice/ when Amnesty asked: thus recognizing that Assange is a political prisoner, as he is charged for his publishing activities. Kind regards and datalove AirVPN

@zhang888 You really need to read it all. TorGuard claims much more: blackmail, unsolicited physical approach...

Hello! Today we're starting AirVPN ninth birthday celebrations! From a two servers service located in a single country providing a handful of Mbit/s, the baby has grown up to a wide infrastructure in 22 countries in three continents, providing now 230,000+ Mbit/s to tens of thousands of people around the world. Software related development has also been powered up. Eddie Android edition is now a fully mature application which features an exclusive best effort method to prevent traffic leaks and a complete integration with AirVPN. In 2019 AirVPN has also started operating in South America, on top of Asia, Europe and North America, and the infrastructure has grown significantly, counting now on more than 260 bare metal servers, whose traffic is mainly powered by tier1 and tier2 transit providers. AirVPN has also become recently an EFF "Super Major Donor" member. Furthermore, and we're very glad to announce it here publicly for the first time, development for OpenBSD and FreeBSD has started. We are also integrating OpenVPN 3 on new software which will couple Eddie on UNIX-like systems, including Linux, during the second half of 2019. GDPR compliance was already a de facto standard for AirVPN way before the Regulation entered into force, mainly because we don't collect personal data, period. By the way the compliance is now fully formalized (check details in our Privacy Notice and Terms https://airvpn.org/privacy ). AirVPN provides probably the strongest protection to your data, not only personal data but all data, you can find on any service. If you are an AirVPN customer or user, you are probably aware that our service is radically different than any other VPN service you might have met anywhere. No whistles and bells, no marketing fluff, no fake locations, no advertising on mainstream media, a transparent privacy policy, no trackers on the web site or in mobile applications, no bullshit of any kind in our infrastructure to sell your personal data to any personal data merchant, and above all a clear mission which is the very reason which AirVPN operates for. https://airvpn.org/mission Many of you know that when you buy AirVPN service, you not only support yourself and improve your ability to exercise your fundamental rights, but you also support AirVPN mission. However, while AirVPN in itself has flourished, AirVPN mission aims and values related to fundamental rights have experienced, in 2018 and 2019, a grim time. Australia "encryption-busting" monstrous law is fully in force; the European Union has definitively approved the bad Copyright Directive, mandating automated filters, which will unavoidably limit freedom of expression on big boards, and making the first step to undermine the liability exemptions of mere conduits and web publishers alike; new threats to citizens' privacy are becoming real through plans of wide face recognition deployment, indiscriminate DNA databases proposals, more pervasive and efficient profiling (possibly even through AI), and strict cooperation between Internet tech giants and intelligence agencies; the persecution of journalists, publishers and whistleblowers all around the world has reached unprecedented levels, revealing a widespread plan to suppress freedom of the press and freedom of expression even in so called "Western democracies". One of the greatest journalists and publishers of all times, Julian Assange, nominated seven times for the Nobel Peace prize and winner of many journalistic prizes and awards, has been and is prosecuted and persecuted for having merely published the truth about war crimes, corruption, torture and more, with a 100% accuracy, and for having protected his sources as any good investigative journalist does. He has been detained arbitrarily and illegally, as widely ascertained and recognized by the UN. He has been victim of an abominable smear campaign based on ignominious lies and defamation, a campaign aimed to turn the public opinion against him and distract from WikiLeaks publications content exposing war criminals in governments key positions, warmongers, torture maniacs, systematic illegal surveillance, endemic privacy violations and plots to limit and reduce fundamental rights. He is currently detained in solitary confinement 23 hours a day, with no access to books, maximum two visits per month, forbidden in practice to coordinate a defense with his lawyers, in a tiny cell of a maximum security UK prison which has been designed for dangerous murderers and terrorists, while UK will decide whether to extradite him to the USA to face a potential 175 years imprisonment. Whistleblowers like Chelsea Manning, who should be regarded as a hero, as Noam Chomsky, John Pilger, Daniel Ellsberg and other titans of our times pointed out, have been tortured and are still persecuted by the very same criminals whose crimes were exposed. Privacy activists and software developers, like Ola Bini in Ecuador, are imprisoned without charges, simply for having showed friendship to Assange or WikiLeaks, or for having developed software aimed to protect privacy through encryption. And the list can go on and on and on. But make no mistake: the dark times we are living in, the environment of fear and intimidation that various governments are building against the exercise of those fundamental rights which our mission forces us to protect to the best of our abilities, the mounting attacks against "encryption for everyone" and the awareness that enemies of human rights nestle inside government agencies, have not undermined our determination. Quite the opposite: they have convinced us that our service is even more necessary now and we are resolute to do even more. Our mission has been and will be empowered by the ongoing support to projects and NGOs which aim to the protection of privacy, personal data and freedom of expression, now more than ever. We have confirmed our support to Tor and we will progressively add support to champions of freedom of expression and privacy in any way our capacities and abilities will allow us. If you're curious to know something about a series of fortunate events which gave birth to AirVPN, have a look here: https://airvpn.org/aboutus To worthily celebrate AirVPN ninth birthday, we're glad to inform you that starting from now we will offer a 20% discount on all long term plans. Hurry up, this special offer will end on June the 11th, 23:59:59 UTC! Check the new prices here. Kind regards and datalove AirVPN Staff

Hello! We're very glad to inform you that TLS 1.3 is now supported on all AirVPN web servers. Why TLS 1.3 is better than 1.2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_Layer_Security#TLS_1.3 TLS 1.0, 1.1 and 1.2 will still be available for backward compatibility. Kind regards and datalove AirVPN Staff

Hello! We're very glad to inform you that twelve new 1 Gbit/s servers located in Alblasserdam (Netherlands) are available: Aljanah, Alpheratz, Aspidiske, Capella, Eltanin, Larawag, Melnick, Muhlifain, Piscium, Scuti, Suhail, Tiaki. The AirVPN client will show automatically the new servers. If you use the OpenVPN client you can generate all the files to access them through our configuration/certificates/key generator (menu "Client Area"->"Config generator"). The servers accept connections on ports 53, 80, 443, 1194, 2018 UDP and TCP. Just like every other "second generation" Air server, they support OpenVPN over SSL and OpenVPN over SSH, TLS 1.2 and tls-crypt. Full IPv6 support is included as well. As usual no traffic limits, no logs, no discrimination on protocols and hardened security against various attacks with separate entry and exit-IP addresses. Do not hesitate to contact us for any information or issue. Kind regards and datalove AirVPN Team

Hello! We're glad to inform you that we are opening the beta testing phase of our free and open source software Eddie for Android version 2.3. You can participate to the beta testing by joining the beta community in the Google Play Store here: https://play.google.com/apps/testing/org.airvpn.eddie You can also download the Eddie Android 2.2 beta 1 apk directly from our repository: https://eddie.website/repository/eddie/android/2.3beta1/org.airvpn.eddie.apk The application is fully localized and we look for translators, especially for translations into Japanese, Korean and other languages. If you wish to translate (from English) please contact info@airvpn.org for every detail. Available languages: Chinese (simplified), Chinese (traditional), Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Russian, Turkish. Eddie for Android is free and open source software released under GPLv3. We invite you to check from independent 3rd parties the lack of trackers code signatures, for example here: https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/search/org.airvpn.eddie New in version 2.3: Disabled data backup on uninstall Server statistics shown in Favorite/Forbidden/Countries & Servers groups Logout drops user credentials Native library updated to the latest openvpn3, lz4, mbedtls and asio commits Minor bug fixes Main features: Free and open source OpenVPN GUI based on OpenVPN 3 The only Android application officially developed by AirVPN Robust, best effort prevention of traffic leaks outside the VPN tunnel Battery-conscious application Low RAM footprint Ergonomic and friendly interface Ability to start and connect the application at device boot Option to define which apps must have traffic inside or outside the VPN tunnel through white and black list Localization in simplified and traditional Chinese, Danish, English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish Full integration with AirVPN Enhanced security thanks to locally stored encrypted data through master password Quick one-tap connection and smart, fully automated server selection Smart server selection with custom settings Manual server selection Smart attempts to bypass OpenVPN blocks featuring protocol and server fail-over Full Android TV compatibility including D-Pad support. Mouse emulation is not required. Enhancements aimed to increase accessibility and comfort to visually impaired persons AirVPN servers sorting options Customizable "Favorite" and "Forbidden" servers and countries OpenVPN mimetype support to import profiles from external applications Multiple OpenVPN profile support. The app now imports and manages multiple OpenVPN profiles Support for custom bootstrap servers Support for favorite and forbidden countries AirVPN broadcast messages support User's subscription expiration date is shown in login/connection information The app is aware of concurrent VPN use. In case another app is granted VPN access, Eddie acts accordingly and releases VPN resources Optional local networks access. In such case, local network devices are exempted from the VPN and can be accessed within the local devices Localization override. User can choose the default language and localization from one of the available ones Favorite and forbidden lists can be emptied with a single tap VPN Lock can now be disabled or enabled from settings VPN reconnection in case of unexpected OpenVPN disconnection. (It requires VPN Lock to be disabled) User can generate an OpenVPN profile for any AirVPN server or country and save it in OpenVPN profile manager Server scoring algorithm implementing the latest AirVPN balancing factors in order to determine the best server for quick connection Network name and extra information are shown along with network type Device network status management Changelog 2.3 beta 1 (VC 21) - Release date: 17 May 2019 by ProMIND AndroidManifest.xml - [ProMIND] set android:allowBackup and android:fullBackupOnly to false airvpn_server_listview_group_item.xml - [ProMIND] added server statistics layout ConnectAirVPNServerFragment.java - [ProMIND] AirVPNServerExpandableListAdapter.GroupListViewHolder: added server statistics items - [ProMIND] AirVPNServerExpandableListAdapter.getGroupView(): added server statistics items to HEADER and GROUP types - [ProMIND] createGroupList(): compute server statistics for HEADER and GROUP types AirVPNUser.java - [ProMIND] getUserLocation(): set connection timeout to SupportTools.HTTP_CONNECTION_TIMEOUT - [ProMIND] getUserLocation(): set read timeout to SupportTools.HTTP_READ_TIMEOUT - [ProMIND] logout(): user name, password and current profile are set to empty and forgetAirVPNCredentials() is called native library - [ProMIND] updated to the latest openvpn3, lz4, mbedtls and asio commits manifest.xml - [ProMIND] updated to the latest document Complete changelog for stable release 2.2: https://gitlab.com/AirVPN/EddieAndroid/blob/master/ChangeLog.txt Kind regards and datalove AirVPN Staff

Hello, unless we misunderstand the request, the need can be met by ticking "Lock current" in the "Servers" tab. Kind regards

Hello! We're very glad to inform you that five new 1 Gbit/s servers located in Frankfurt (Germany) are available: Alsephina, Dubhe, Menkalinan, Mirfak, Mirzam. The AirVPN client will show automatically the new servers. If you use the OpenVPN client you can generate all the files to access them through our configuration/certificates/key generator (menu "Client Area"->"Config generator"). The servers accept connections on ports 53, 80, 443, 1194, 2018 UDP and TCP. Just like every other "second generation" Air server, they support OpenVPN over SSL and OpenVPN over SSH, TLS 1.2 and tls-crypt. Full IPv6 support is included as well. As usual no traffic limits, no logs, no discrimination on protocols and hardened security against various attacks with separate entry and exit-IP addresses. Do not hesitate to contact us for any information or issue. Kind regards and datalove AirVPN Team

Hello! It should be traffic shaping because your CPU power can not be the problem. If you can rule out that something in your local network is throttling yourself, then the "culprit" is your ISP. Test the alternative connection modes that allowed you to evade the shaping with the other services you mention. Try for example connections to port 443 of entry-IP address 3, in TCP. Connection mode can be changed in Eddie's "Preferences" > "Protocols" window. Eddie is the free and open source Air software. Kind regards

Hello! We're very glad to inform you that a new 1 Gbit/s server located in Belgrade (RS) is available: Alnitak. The AirVPN client will show automatically the new server. If you use the OpenVPN client you can generate all the files to access it through our configuration/certificates/key generator (menu "Client Area"->"Config generator"). The server accepts connections on ports 53, 80, 443, 1194, 2018 UDP and TCP. Just like every other "second generation" Air server, Alnitak supports OpenVPN over SSL and OpenVPN over SSH, TLS 1.2 and tls-crypt. Full IPv6 support is included as well. As usual no traffic limits, no logs, no discrimination on protocols and hardened security against various attacks with separate entry and exit-IP addresses. You can check the server status as usual in our real time servers monitor: https://airvpn.org/servers/Alnitak Do not hesitate to contact us for any information or issue. Kind regards and datalove AirVPN Team

Update: May the 10th, 2019 Chelsea Manning has been released. Chelsea’s release follows the expiration of the term of the EDVA Grand Jury that previously demanded her testimony. “Unfortunately, even prior to her release, Chelsea was served with another subpoena. This means she is expected to appear before a different grand jury, on Thursday, May 16, 2019, just one week from her release today." https://www.sparrowmedia.net/2019/05/chelsea-manning-released-from-alexandria-detention-center Kind regards AirVPN Staff

Hello! The Tor exit-nodes list is highly fluid and can change from one minute to another. Kind regards

All the Air VPN servers are named after stars and constellations. Alderamin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_Cephei Caelum: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caelum

@stryjenKN Hello! Unfortunately none of the issues you report is reproducible in our Android 9 systems. Can you please provide us with Eddie log taken after the problem has occurred? If possible, could you also get a logcat? Kind regards

@EtV Thanks! The issue has been resolved. Kind regards

@giganerd Hello! It's an interesting consideration. In nowadays world some choices are hard, either because you do not have enough evidence or because astroturfing and other operations are ongoing. At some point you must make a decision. We have carefully evaluated EFF operations especially on legal and law procedural grounds, software releases and informative/educational articles, and we have found an outstanding work. We do not believe that Google huge sponsoring amount might impair EFF operations in the field of privacy (which is in our opinion a threat to Google current model and even more in the growing practical AI applications), at least not in the near future, and we hope that this is not the beginning of a "capture by sponsorship" (something which sinisterly reminds "regulatory capture" by big companies, although the means are different) which happened multiple times, for example with newspapers and publishers: I am a giant company and progressively buy your newspaper spaces for my ads, until you depend on me economically; then one day I tell you "do not publish that, rather publish this, or else I will withdraw all of my ads from one day to another". Take Tor, as an additional example. It's no secret that we have significantly supported Tor and the Tor Project in the last years. However, the Tor Project has been funded almost entirely by the former Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG, now USAGM), the US Navy and the US Department of State bureau for Human Rights for years. Is this enough reason to drop Tor and not use it anymore? No, because we have total lack of substantial evidence about backdoors to favor any the mentioned agencies or anybody else, and that a person that should be above any suspect under this context (Edward Snowden) recommends Tor usage. Eyes must always remain wide open but at the same time if you get lost in a network of theories and you see conspirators everywhere you risk to get stuck and never act. Kind regards

Hello and thank you! Our provider ensured us that this migration is essential to resolve once and for all the congestion problems you have might noticed in the last weekend. We need more redundancy and assurance that our guaranteed bandwidth allocation is respected by the dc. Yes, you need to re-generate the configuration files after the migration has been completed. Kind regards

Hello! We inform you that the following Chicago servers need to be re-located to a different section of their Chicago datacenter: Alkaid Microscopium Pavonis A change of IPv4 and IPv6 addresses is necessary. We will use the migration as chance for a complete machines upgrade. Impact will therefore be minimal: we expect to bring up the new machines when we turn off the previous ones almost simultaneously, so just a single disconnection will affect the clients connected to those servers. Users running Eddie will need to re-download servers information (Eddie does that periodically but you can force it to do it immediately), while users not running Eddie will necessarily need to re-download configuration files. Planned disconnection will occur on April the 26th, 2019, 13:00 UTC Kind regards and datalove AirVPN Staff

Hello! We are glad to inform you that we support Mastodon as "Platinum" donors. Mastodon is an online, self-hosted, federated, community owned and ad-free social media and social networking service https://joinmastodon.org Check our mission page: https://airvpn.org/mission Kind regards and datalove AirVPN Staff

Hello! We're glad to inform you that we support the journalistic work of Caitlin Johnstone, "rogue journalist". Her journalistic work is entirely supported by her readers. Her articles are not copyrighted and she gives unconditional permissions to republish them or part of them free of charge. https://caitlinjohnstone.com Check our mission page: https://airvpn.org/mission Kind regards and datalove AirVPN Staff

Hello! We inform you that we have started contributions to Chelsea Manning's legal fund. We are proud to contribute to it but not "glad", meaning that in a really democratic and free country Chelsea Manning would not be detained indefinitely for her refusal to testify before a grand-jury (*) in matters that she exhaustively treated before a court martial, and would not need a legal fund at all by now. (*) A grand jury means that the public is not allowed entry: the hearings are held in secret She disclosed nearly 750,000 military and diplomatic documents to WikiLeaks revealing, amongst many other things, war crimes. I will not participate in a secret process that I morally object to, particularly one that has been used to entrap and persecute activists for protected political speech. Chelsea Manning Manning should be regarded as a hero. [...] doing what an honest, decent citizen should be doing: letting your population know what the government, the people who rule you are doing. They want to keep it secret of course. Noam Chomsky Action Network page for Manning's legal fund donations: https://actionnetwork.org/fundraising/chelsea-manning-needs-legal-funds-to-resist-a-grand-jury-subpoena Check our mission page: https://airvpn.org/mission Kind regards and datalove AirVPN Staff

Hello! We proudly announce that today AirVPN has become an Electronic Frontier Foundation "Super Major Donor". 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. https://www.eff.org Check our mission page: https://airvpn.org/mission Kind regards and datalove AirVPN Staff

Hello! Since this 6 years old thread has been linked on social networks, an update is due. What happened since 2013/2014 In mid January 2017, AirVPN developed growing concerns regarding Coinbase behavior and privacy policy AirVPN inquiries did not lead to a satisfactory resolution of the aforementioned concerns On January 26 2017, Coinbase informed AirVPN that "[AirVPN] has engaged in prohibited use in violation of our Terms of Service and we regret to inform you that we can no longer provide you with access to our service. " On January 27 2017, AirVPN asked Coinbase for clarifications and also asked to know exactly what Terms of Service points or articles AirVPN infringed. The request remained and remains currently unanswered. On January 27 2017, Coinbase, without mentioning any ToS violation, required a tax form document which AirVPN could not produce since it was a tax form exclusively reserved to USA taxpayers. AirVPN explained why such request was improper and what equivalent EU documents AirVPN could produce and re-iterated the previous request to disclose what part or articles of the Terms of Service AirVPN infringed. On January 28, 2017, Coinbase recognized that the tax form request for USA citizens or companies was an obvious mistake and that AirVPN could disregard it as a mistaken request by Coinbase. No mention of infringements of the Terms of Service was made and no reply to AirVPN previous questions was sent. On January 30, 2017, Coinbase threatened to cease service for AirVPN in 6 business days, reiterating the very same tax form request that was recognized by Coinbase itself as a mistake just two days earlier It was AirVPN understanding that Coinbase reiterating a mistaken and impossible to comply requirement, as well as its inability to specify which articles or parts of the ToS AirVPN infringed, had to be interpreted as actions aimed to find any justification, even irrational, to drop the service in any case. Such a behavior also contributed to further confirm previous AirVPN concerns. As a consequence, AirVPN stopped accepting payments via Coinbase on February 01, 2017, relying instead on BitPay and Coinpayments During February 2018, AirVPN founders decided that it was time to accept Bitcoin directly in order to cut out any intermediary, fully use Bitcoin potential and get rid of any current or future intermediary privacy intrusion and/or arbitrary decisions in Bitcoin transactions and/or Bitcoin accounts. Coinpayments remained and remains active to accept other cryptocurrencies (check https://airvpn.org/buy ) On March 26, 2018, AirVPN started to accept Bitcoin directly, without any intermediary In April 2018, Coinbase froze WikiLeaks account https://news.bitcoin.com/wikileaks-coinbase-shop-blocked/ In February 2019, Bitcoin Magazine published the following article https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/grim-stories-of-ethical-privacy-abuses-emerge-about-coinbases-new-partners/ In April 2019, Repubblica published the following article https://www.repubblica.it/esteri/2019/04/08/news/hacking_team_khashoggi-223556958/?refresh_ce Kind regards

@zhang888 That's correct, in the European Union cooperating with a private entity in an attempt to disclose and transmit personal data (including an IP address, which is recognized under specific circumstances as "personal data") is a borderline operation which may configure civil and even criminal infringements. The transmission of personal data between private companies without the explicit and informed consent of the data subject is a serious infringement in every EU country. Just for information or curiosity, in Italy the attempt to disclose a person's identity through IP addresses harvesting and request to the provider (ISP in general, proxy, VPN...) has been recognized as an illegal act, which must be rejected, in the so called "Peppermint affair", a long dispute between 2005 and 2010, which ended with a resounding defeat of all copyright trolls. One of central roles defending the interests of the citizens whose identities could have been disclosed according to the improper or illegal requests of copyright trolls was covered by lawyer Carlo Blengino, who has been a source of inspiration to protect privacy and personal data for an AirVPN founder throughout the years, inspiration that is one of the leading AirVPN creation reasons. https://www.altalex.com/documents/news/2010/03/24/caso-peppermint-la-riservatezza-delle-comunicazioni-prevale-sul-diritto-d-autore Kind regards

Hello! Can you please also tell us at your convenience the browser(s) you experienced the problem with, as well as your Operating System(s)? Kind regards