It is something to always take into consideration and not forget.
A smart VPN will avoid going to jail for you by not storing any of the data law enforcement wants in the first place.
Yeah, Mullvad was searched and they shrugged and said “well, go ahead” and could then proudly publish that the Swedish authorities could take zero info from there: https://mullvad.net/en/blog/update-the-swedish-authorities-answered-our-protocol-request
Just recently signed up for Mullvad… No CC numbers or email addresses, you just get a string of numbers and that’s all you need to connect with it anywhere. And you can pay with Monero.
It’s like the paranoid person’s dream.
Heck, if you want, you can pay with hard cash by mailing it with your payment token to their office. It’s pretty great when it comes to choice of privacy.
Wondering how these magicians measure quality of service then, since they collect no juicy data. I find this hard to believe.
Quality of service is usually only useful with aggregate data which is worthless for prosecuting an individual.
Meh, just Mullvad. Cops can raid em all they want; they just walk away empty handed
Considering this is straight from a VPN provider, take this with a boulder-sized grain of salt.
And I say that as someone who believes using a VPN is generally more beneficial than not. And espouses most of that advice regarding the VPN.
Even if a VPN were totally benevolent and gave daily tours of its office, there’s still no 100% guarantee their claims can be verified at all times. So there’s always an element of trust. (I trust most of the ones outside of the Eyes countries more than my home ISP, though. )
I personally think VPNs are mostly a waste of money
For “privacy” yes, almost entirely.
If your VPN isn’t routing to your home network so you can safely access selfhosted applications then you’re basically just sharing your traffic with a total stranger and trusting them not to run telemetry etc.
It depends who you trust more, your isp or your vpn provider. Isps are not known for doing right by their clients
You also have to trust your vpns isp.
Soooo how to split the packets up between 3 VPNs to make each providers piece useless?
You’re about 15% of the way to re-inventing Tor.