from Hacker News

2023 Paid VPN Relationship and Corporate VPN Ownership Map

by askura on 8/30/23, 4:10 PM with 96 comments

• by beauHD on 8/30/23, 4:55 PM

  > However, the worst case situation is that they lie about not tracking users and then they get hit with a LEO request they bow down to.

  That's within reason though. A VPN is another ISP afterall, so they have to 'bow down' to law enforcement requests. What LEAs can get depends on how zero knowledge the VPN setup is. OVPN[0] for example has been 'court tested' and Mullvad had nothing to give to authorities[1] since they don't collect it in the first place (apart from payment metadata).

  I'm not affiliated with OVPN or Mullvad, just a happy paying customer.

  [0] https://www.ovpn.com/en/blog/ovpn-wins-court-order

  [1] https://mullvad.net/en/blog/2023/4/20/mullvad-vpn-was-subjec...

• by minimalist on 8/30/23, 4:43 PM

  This is good! I will use this as a reference to share with friends and colleagues who ask me about XYZ VPN.

  I think something that is missing in the network of connections is Mozilla VPN. From what I understand, they are just a re-brand of Mullvad.

  There are other providers not listed, but finding a good VPN provider is kind of like finding a good watering hole--you don't want to spread the word too widely, else bad-actors come and pollute it.

  I didn't realize how many media companies own VPN companies.

• by askura on 8/30/23, 4:11 PM

  An update to the 2022 VPN affiliate relationship map. A handy reference for who is owned by who - including their status or whether they're actually part of a bigger corporation.

  The reference article for the map itself with key updates & findings: https://blog.windscribe.com/the-vpn-relationship-map-2023/

• by acheong08 on 8/30/23, 4:30 PM

  Used to be a customer of ExpressVPN but after the acquisition, it no longer worked properly in China. Mullvad somehow survives despite their server IP ranges being public

• by qwertox on 8/30/23, 5:24 PM

  While the no-logs policies of many of these providers is mentioned in their EULAs, there's never a mention of paid access to NetFlow data, which can be used to link public flows to the IP addresses of users.

  Is this a thing? I recall hearing about it around two years ago.

  Something along the lines of "ISPs Give 'Netflow Data' To Third Parties, Who Sell It Without User Awareness Or Consent" [0] or "How Data Brokers Sell Access to the Backbone of the Internet" [1]

  [0] https://old.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/pbdvp3/isps_give_n...

  [1] https://www.vice.com/en/article/jg84yy/data-brokers-netflow-...

• by infogulch on 8/30/23, 4:48 PM

  Very interesting! I'm curious why there is there is a typical relationship between vpn companies and media companies, by common subsidiary ownership or otherwise. I don't really follow the logic here, is it just because the media company can promote their partnered vpn? Or is there some other reason?

• by clsec on 8/30/23, 5:37 PM

  I'm surprised that no one has said anything about the fact that this is put out by a VPN company!

  I also could not find their name on the map. It doesn't mean that it's not there, I just couldn't find them. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

  The only thing I find a VPN useful for is torrenting w/o your ISP knowing. In my case, I use Surfshark for torrenting so that Comcast can't send me any of those pesky letters.

• by Ms-J on 8/30/23, 11:11 PM

  Direct link to the full map: https://kumu.io/sobeyharker/vpn-relationships#vpn-company-re...

  Also, does anyone know of a privacy conscious VPN provider that currently supports port forwarding? One of the only provider's I know of right now is ovpn.com and I cannot vouch for their privacy practices.

• by unforgivenpasta on 8/31/23, 1:42 PM

  Looks like Njalla's VPN[1] is missing, I'm not sure if they have their own servers but it seems more than likely

  [1] https://njal.la/vpn/

• by mantra2 on 8/30/23, 5:33 PM

  Happy to see my VPN of choice, IVPN, out there with no affiliations coming out of it.

• by yieldcrv on 8/30/23, 5:12 PM

  I think at best this can just help some people break through their cult-like fealty to whichever VPN provider their favorite trusted youtuber happened to introduce them to

  because the VPN concept has limitations. It doesn't matter if the favorite VPN has proof of stonewalling a court case at some point in time, any other point in time it can be undermined and you wouldn't know until its too late....

  it relies purely on trust and your use case. but if your use case ever expands to something law enforcement would be interested in, the VPN concept relies on too much trust

• by KomoD on 8/30/23, 5:17 PM

  Another one that can be thrown in is Namecheap's VPN which is whitelabel "wlvpn"

  and speedtest vpn == ipvanish

  mozilla/firefox vpn == mullvad

• by tamimio on 8/30/23, 9:13 PM

  There are other good vpns not listed in there, which is good, so they remain that way.

• by TheCaptain4815 on 8/30/23, 5:15 PM

  Aren’t VPNs much less useful unless they’re proven no-log VPN?

  I remember going down the rabbit hole and people online were skeptical unless the company had a proven FBI raid with no logs taken, haha.

• by ecmascript on 8/30/23, 4:50 PM

  I'm getting a cert error, anyone else?

• by szundi on 8/30/23, 4:41 PM

  How does my grandma do her own research under these circumstances?

• by candiddevmike on 8/30/23, 4:43 PM

  Anyone want to tl;dr what the best one is? The map doesn't load for me and the full map isn't the greatest thing to navigate... Would much prefer just text.

• by j3th9n on 8/30/23, 4:24 PM

  Can you do the same for politicians?

• by the_third_wave on 8/31/23, 10:52 PM

  I just had a look at the map to see what they say about a few well-known VPN providers like Mullvad and Express VPN. In the description for the latter the mapmakers claim that people like Ben Shapiro and Candace Ownens (two conservative commentators, one an orthodox Jew, the other a black woman of Nigerian/Caribbean descent) are "far-right misinformation specialists" which means I have to take the rest of their claims with a sizeable amount of salt as being biased and ideologically tainted. Stupid really since it certainly makes sense to expose the snake-oil salesmen peddling VPNs.

• by cisasteelersfan on 8/30/23, 5:17 PM

  Why would I even want to use a VPN in the first place?