I’m just skeptical of the idea that someone behind a no logs VPN wouldn’t be able to be identified under any circumstance. You’re telling me the company wouldn’t hand over logs to the police if it involved a major terrorist attack or huge hack and the user was hiding behind a no logs VPN?
It depends on the company. A lot of companies will tell authorities to pound sand when they come asking for logs. Some companies (I believe one fairly recently, but the name escapes me) say they don’t keep logs or talk to cops, but then when the federales come knocking they go “Oh yeah, here’s all the logs on user_X”.
If you take the steps to keep yourself from being identified even while on a VPN, then the logs matter even less. By trusting a VPN/S company to not log all your data you create a single point of failure, should they be compromised.
You are right to be sceptical
It’s certainly possible to create a VPN server with no logs, or with a very short log expiration period. The logs are unlikely to have any value to the company, and it’s a lot easier to respond to a subpoena with “we don’t have logs” versus arguing about what’s there and producing it (or not) or whatever.
That being said, it’s very reasonable to be skeptical about promises you can’t verify. They might log, they might not, they might start logging for certain customers after being asked/ordered to.
Also, let’s not pretend that the logs make any difference re crime or terrorism - we know exactly who hijacked the planes for 9/11, and it didn’t bring back any of the dead people. Often, people who do horrible things absolutely expect to be caught or killed in the process of what they’re doing and they don’t care. Often, they do their bad acts because they want attention, so they don’t use no-log VPN’s, they post to social media using their real names so the world will know about their crimes and motivation.
The “what about the terrorists” thing is bullshit. As are promises/expectations that people you’ve never met are going to take risks to keep you out of trouble/prison.
Yes they keep logs, yes they will comply with authorities instead of going to jail for a mere user, yes they sell your ‘invisible’ activities to marketing companies. Been proven time and again, if you want a no logs VPN you better have made it yourself.
Theres at least couple of companies that have proved in court that they indeed do not have any kind of logs they could hand over to police even if they wanted to.
They all keep logs. There is no way around it other than creating your own.
Any company who says they don’t are liars. When push comes to shove they will turn you in.
Some claim to not keep logs…
They may, or may not do this (no way to tell).
That being said, there is ways of tracking via browser profiling.
On a simple level - you use Chrome to login to your personal Gmail. You use same browser to do something dodgy… To work out who it is, they need to see “who was using Chrome, with this exact OS, extensions etc at a similar time” - which could link to your Gmail account, and in turn you - no need to know your IP address.
I imagine by my brief knowledge that logs do exist… Another story completely is that the company who owns the service chooses to share those logs
A lot of companies say they don’t but they do. Snapchat tried to say they don’t keep messages in their early days till the authorities came knocking. It’s either companies keep logs so that criminal activity can be stopped or don’t do business in the United States. That’s the ultimatum companies typically receive.
if you’re on this sub and actually care that much, set up ipsec at home. you won’t exactly get 5 9’s of availability but still lol
From my knowledge every VPN provider keeps some kind of logs it doesn’t necessarily have to be on what websites you’re visiting it could be something like what county you’re connecting to and what time you connected to that vpn .
You will have to read the Terms and Conditions and the legal stuff if u wanna know what logs they are keeping, but even then who really knows.
Imagine spoofing non-anonymous activity
NordVPN don’t keep logs. I read an article about that where the government want information but they had no logs
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Hi, can you tell me please what would be those steps that would keep you non-identifiable while using a VPN?
Yeah companies like PureVPN and HideMyAss said that they dont have logs but when court ordered to hand over the logs they had indeed logged everything.
But then theres companies that have proved in court they indeed do not have any logs they could hand over. At least PIA proved in court that they indeed do not have logs. ExpressVPN servers were seized by turkish police because they didnt believe they dont have logs. And indeed they did not have any logs.
NordVPN have been audited twice by third parties and both times confirmed that they indeed do not keep any logs.
So be picky when you choose your VPN provider.
At least PIA proved in court that they dont have any logs that they could hand to police.
And turkish police seized ExpressVPN servers in hopes of finding user logs but found nothing.
NordVPN have been audited twice by third party and proved they dont keep logs.
There really are some companies that have proven their no-logs policy to be true.
But i agree with you that if the no-logs claim hasnt been tested then its probly bullshit.
The VPN software itself needs state tracking to do its job or the connection wouldn’t work. Some form of logging would also be needed to track down connection issues or support would get bombarded with calls. The best any vendor can say is they don’t do _additional_ logging. Their peering agreements would have requirements too. Frankly, just the act of using a VPN is a form of self-selection, much like having obvious security cameras hanging outside your house.
Yeah, that sounds about right.