Comment on Do you ever think that maybe all VPN services are actually secretly owned/funded by governments and that they are only giving you a false illusion of privacy?

ilinamorato@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

Generally speaking, governments aren’t that good at keeping secrets at scale. Government-run VPNs would require a lot of people doing coordinated work; data center employees, ISPs, people passing themselves off as independent auditors, legal teams, marketing teams, and more. The more people you add, the less likely it is to be kept a secret. And all of this across multiple VPN companies (because there’s no guarantee that the person you want to surveil is using the one you own) and internationally (many VPNs are based in or have major operations in multiple countries).

Now, is it possible that the NSA has an undisclosed financial stake in one or more VPNs and has secretly inserted a backdoor? Sure, anything is possible. But is that more likely them just buying up Ring doorbell footage or doing large data analysis on social media activity? Or installing rootkits on your smartphone firmware? Or just good old fashioned LoJack?

If they have reason to investigate you, they’re going to probably get everything anyway. No reason to make it easy for them by not using a VPN.

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