Caution Subscribing to a VPN Service

[dougawhite]

The Treasury Dept just indicted several Chinese nationals for running a scam VPN service in the US. The criminal enterprise, the Treasury Department said Tuesday, was a residential VPN proxy service known as 911 S5. Such services provide a bank of IP addresses belonging to everyday home users for customers to route Internet connections through. When accessing a website or other Internet service, the connection appears to originate with the home user.

Basically, you think you're getting a VPN service but you're actually just providing computer resources for their illegal networking operation.

US sanctions operators of “free VPN” that routed crime traffic through user PCs | Ars Technica (https://arstechnica.com/security/2024/05/us-sanctions-operators-of-free-vpn-that-routed-crime-traffic-through-user-pcs)

[Two Bills]

The Treasury Dept just indicted several Chinese nationals for running a scam VPN service in the US. The criminal enterprise, the Treasury Department said Tuesday, was a residential VPN proxy service known as 911 S5. Such services provide a bank of IP addresses belonging to everyday home users for customers to route Internet connections through. When accessing a website or other Internet service, the connection appears to originate with the home user.

Basically, you think you're getting a VPN service but you're actually just providing computer resources for their illegal networking operation.

US sanctions operators of “free VPN” that routed crime traffic through user PCs | Ars Technica (https://arstechnica.com/security/2024/05/us-sanctions-operators-of-free-vpn-that-routed-crime-traffic-through-user-pcs)

Using a Free service, you get what you pay for.
Lots of recommended companies with a history of competence and secure service available for reasonable fees.

JMO.

[Blueblaze]

That's the whole problem with VPN. Yes, you're anonymous to everyone on on the internet -- EXCEPT YOUR VPN PROVIDER, who sees it all. How do you know you can trust that company?

[Two Bills]

Better anonymous to all bar one.
At least you know who will/would/has/could screw you.
Same as any other product, do your homework before purchase.
I have been with my VPN provider for years without an issue. They are one of the best out there.