PIA and Freenode joining forces

by blibble • 9 years ago

117 35 9 years ago

donatj• 9 years ago

Interesting. I have a lot of trust in PIA for now.

Veratyr3• 9 years ago

I think they're one of the better VPN companies but they're under US jurisdiction, which makes them vulnerable to NSLs and other forms of government surveillance. Yes they don't log, so they can't be subpoena'd for past information but they can be compelled to provide ongoing interception.

I'd be interested to know however whether the US government can intercept traffic to/from:

- Servers located in the USA but operated by VPN companies incorporated and staffed outside the USA.

- Servers located outside the USA but operated by VPN companies incorporated or staffed inside the USA.

It seems to me that as long as you're using a US-based VPN server, there's always the risk the cloud or transit provider can be compelled to intercept traffic regardless of the owner's jurisdiction.

The question of how well protected non-American servers operated by Americans are still seems to be unanswered too. Microsoft seems to be winning their case against handing over overseas data[0] but Google seems to be losing[1].

[0] https://secure.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2017/01/mi...

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...

mst6• 9 years ago

Happily, the freenode non-profit is not under US jurisdiction so we don't even have that problem.

I have no idea how exactly it affects PIA though.

mschuster91• 9 years ago

- Servers located in the USA but operated by VPN companies incorporated and staffed outside the USA.

Not terrorism/other serious crimes, but Megaupload had the same constellation (they had some US colocated servers), and it will unfortunately likely end with Kim Dotcom being deported to the US. So yes, such a service constellation may very well lead to deportations to the US as soon as some bought-off or incompetent US judge/DA gets his rubberstamp.

The massive outreach of the US (not just this, but also that their citizenship is bound to paying taxes, even abroad - leading to the massive ... called FATCA) is something that really angers me. But hey, it's difficult to argue with a country that might send four dozen Tomahawks based on the current Fox News programming. (Obviously sarcastic, but the "the US regularly abuses its foreign power" still stands)

peteretep2• 9 years ago

You need to pick your battles. Not being tapped by the NSA is a pretty high bar, where certainly for me, I just don't want my ISP or sites I visit to have the data.

peteretep2• 9 years ago

I feel like I should always shout-out Freedome on these things. Run by F-Secure, who have an excellent pedigree, and the client software is good on Mac and iPhone.

Veratyr3• 9 years ago

Freedome logs your IP address, which kinda kills it from a privacy perspective. It also seems to make unreasonable claims about its effectiveness and incentivises people to spam social media.

Source: https://thatoneprivacysite.net/vpn-comparison-chart/

mst6• 9 years ago

"Purchased by" is a clickbait lie.

Please can we use the actual title of the actual blog post.

Edit: Thanks!

jlgaddis2• 9 years ago

Do you believe that freenode wasn't "purchased"? The details are a bit light but that certainly sounds like what happened -- PIA now "owns" the non-profit entity freenode (and christel scored a job out of it).

mst6• 9 years ago

There is a significant distinction between "company X hires open source person Y and allows them to spend some of their time on project Z" and "company X now owns project Z".

Wild speculation based on "I think it sounds like that" isn't actually constructive.

I've had the blog post updated to say "allied with" rather than "joining the family of" in the hopes that people will actually read the words going forwards rather than jumping to conclusions.

dang2• 9 years ago

Ok, title changed from "freenode IRC network purchased by VPN company PIA".

Submitters: Please use the original title unless it is misleading or linkbait, as https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html asks.

blibble• 9 years ago

it is misleading, it's hard to read the post as anything other than the announcement of an acquisition, once you remove the corporate waffle

ryanlol• 9 years ago

I wonder if this is a sign that freenode is returning to their old ways http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/01/29/buy_a_piece_of_net/

andoon3• 9 years ago

I don't think it will sink to what it was when lilo still lived. I find it funny that article calls him "professional online beggar", because he was way worse than that. Not that the network was better handled after his disappearance though.

mst6• 9 years ago

Thanks for that! After all, it's not properly a comment thread about freenode until a newly registered account turns up to piss on our founder's grave.

andoon3• 9 years ago

freenode is such a dumpster fire. Well, it's always been a dumpster fire, but since a ton of opers resigned because it wasn't clear what was happening with the donations, it's just getting worse and worse. Let's see what comes from this.

throwaway2048• 9 years ago

This post is the truth, freenode always has been really poorly managed from its inception, its amazing it remains so popular.

During the javascript irc flooding attacks a while back, efnet took 1 day to patch their servers, rizon took 3, freenode took 7 months (of nonstop netsplits and network breakage)

martin1975• 9 years ago

Makes me feel a tad better for my yearlong PIA subscription :)

pekk• 9 years ago

PIA has already supported Freenode for a long time.

In return, Freenode has consistently sabotaged the Tor service so that the only way to connect safely is with a VPN.

mst6• 9 years ago

tor was being used for password brute force attacks and required significant infrastructure fixing to make it work safely.

It's now fixed.

If you continue to have problems, please file a support ticket rather than throwing around unfounded accusations of sabotage.

Famicoman• 9 years ago

How was it fixed, if you happen to know?

KindOne• 9 years ago

Freenode has consistently sabotaged the Tor service

No. Some idiots decided to brute force passwords via tor. They finally fixed it after a few years or so.

betaby• 9 years ago

I feel there could conflict of interest. Also it's unclear how now sponsored server are related or unrelated withing legal frameworks to the fact that the author has role in PIA.

PIA and Freenode joining forces

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