{"id":25977,"date":"2019-07-16T15:49:00","date_gmt":"2019-07-16T19:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=25977"},"modified":"2019-10-22T16:14:40","modified_gmt":"2019-10-22T20:14:40","slug":"most-free-vpn-apps-secretly-owned-by-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2019\/07\/16\/most-free-vpn-apps-secretly-owned-by-china\/","title":{"rendered":"Most “Free” VPN Apps Secretly Owned by China"},"content":{"rendered":"

Simon Migliano<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Unfortunately, the majority of apps appearing in the top results for “VPN” searches are free products from obscure and highly secretive companies that deliberately make it very difficult for consumers to find out anything about them.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Our investigation uncovered that over half of the top free VPN apps either had Chinese ownership or were actually based in China, which has aggressively clamped down on VPN services over the past year and maintains an iron grip on the internet within its borders.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Apple and Google have let down consumers by failing to properly vet these app publishers, many of whom lack any sort of credible web presence and whose app store listings are riddled with misinformation.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Via Josh Centers<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Additionally, the investigation revealed many have bad or nonexistent privacy policies, don’t even have legitimate Web sites, and share user activity with third parties. If you’re selecting a VPN in order to guard your privacy, be careful of which one you choose and do your research to find a trustworthy provider because a VPN service can monitor all of your Internet activity.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

How can you even tell whether a paid VPN is trustworthy—not a honeypot and actually follows its privacy policy?<\/p>\n\n

Update (2019-07-17): Adi Robertson<\/a> (tweet<\/a>):<\/p>\n

An OO-certified app or site must meet three criteria<\/a>. First, it needs to demonstrate “a basic level of transparency” by making its code and infrastructure — among other things — public and fully documented. Second, it needs to lay out its policy in the form of “claims with proof,” establishing what user data is collected, who can access it, and how it’s being protected. Third, those claims must be evaluated by an OO-certified auditor who then makes the audit results public.<\/p>

The site OpenlyOperated.org, for example, is OO-certified. (It’s one of two OO-certified services right now, alongside Lin and Dewan’s Confirmed VPN<\/a>.) Its audit report<\/a> lists several easily readable and footnoted claims about the site, including the claim that your email address is kept totally private — even from the site’s operators. It then includes details about the encryption system that makes this possible, plus statements from cybersecurity consultants who corroborate the claims. While companies can already run privacy audits, Openly Operated’s branding is supposed to promise a certain level of depth, in addition to guaranteeing transparency.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Update (2019-08-19): Kenn White<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Myths about VPN providers<\/p>\n

- they protect your identity
\n - they’re safe
\n - they don’t log
\n - they are competent
\n - they’ll shield you from the law
\n - NSA can’t…no, just stop. Really.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Update (2019-10-21): Kenn White<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

A story of the entire VPN industry, in 4 acts. Starring NordVPN.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

See also: Dan Goodin<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Simon Migliano: Unfortunately, the majority of apps appearing in the top results for “VPN” searches are free products from obscure and highly secretive companies that deliberately make it very difficult for consumers to find out anything about them. […] Our investigation uncovered that over half of the top free VPN apps either had Chinese ownership […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"2019-07-16T19:49:03Z","apple_news_api_id":"3205fe78-a281-4700-ac25-a90501733d63","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2019-10-22T20:14:45Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAw==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AMgX-eKKBRwCsJakFAXM9Yw","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[91,1547,31,1610,26,30,476,355,1132],"class_list":["post-25977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-appstore","tag-china","tag-ios","tag-ios-12","tag-iosapp","tag-mac","tag-networking","tag-privacy","tag-virtual-private-network-vpn"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25977"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25977\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27013,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25977\/revisions\/27013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}