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Who Owns, Operates, and Develops Your VPN Matters

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201 points sdsantos | 6 comments | 03 Sep 25 16:51 UTC | HN request time: 0.417s | source | bottom
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arewethereyeta ◴[03 Sep 25 18:04 UTC] No.45118747[source]▶
That's why we sell only the service [1] and point our users to the default app install (Wireguard in our case). Ever since Holla VPN and the entire Brightdata/Luminati clusterf~ VPNs are a risky business for users. Most of them are proxy nodes underneath, they rent you datacenter IPs while they sell your residential internet to third parties.

[1] https://www.anonymous-proxies.net/products/

replies(2): >>45118764 #>>45118974 #
1. timpera ◴[03 Sep 25 18:06 UTC] No.45118764[source]▶
Do you have a source that shows that popular VPN providers such as Mullvad or NordVPN actually sell your residential internet to third parties? That's a bold claim, but pretty scary if true.
replies(2): >>45119180 #>>45119201 #
2. arewethereyeta ◴[03 Sep 25 18:50 UTC] No.45119180[source]▶
yes, search for NordVPN vs Luminatti (guys behind Holla VPN) scandal: "nordvpn luminati lawsuit patent". Basically Luminatti, now known as bright data, reached out to NordVPN in order to utilise their user's internet as residential proxy nodes. NordVPN thought otherwise and created their own network instead (Oxylabs if I'm not mistaken). They are still in patent wars I believe.

I don't know anything bad about Mullvad! That being said I, as a small business owner in this space, will not use any of them, ever. I know it sounds like a "yeah right" because I sell the services but I know better.

replies(2): >>45120466 #>>45120538 #
3. rpcope1 ◴[03 Sep 25 18:52 UTC] No.45119201[source]▶
I mean can they really even if you're using off the shelf client software like plain OpenVPN?
replies(1): >>45119223 #
4. arewethereyeta ◴[03 Sep 25 18:53 UTC] No.45119223[source]▶
maybe, harder tho and they will refuse to do so because that client install is close to malware on some providers. That's why we only hand out the config and instruct the user to install the official app.
5. kelnos ◴[03 Sep 25 21:13 UTC] No.45120466[source]▶
> I don't know anything bad about Mullvad!

Is it even possible for them to do something like this for people who just use the OpenVPN/Wireguard configs and don't install an app?

6. yjftsjthsd-h ◴[03 Sep 25 21:20 UTC] No.45120538[source]▶
> That being said I, as a small business owner in this space, will not use any of them, ever. I know it sounds like a "yeah right" because I sell the services but I know better.

If you weren't you, would you trust your service?