OrionsMask [he/him,any]

Written by Brian Heater made me laugh.

I didn’t realise that port forwarding was so intertwined with CSAM. :/ I just know it’s required for torrenting. I actually used to use Mullvad and PIA but moved away from both because they did things that made them look sketchy/cooperated with authorities.

I’d like to think I’d never be in a position to be on the receiving end of a wiretap, but noted, you never know. I do think that two VPNs might be a bit overkill to assuage my own paranoia though… You’ve sufficiently put me off Windscribe at the very least lmao. I’ll look for a VPN not in a 14 eyes country and since you evidently trust Mullvad, I’ll look into it again too and see if I can make do. Thanks for your insight!

Thanks for the reply. That’s a fair point, but when the time comes to be forced, they may have nothing to provide because of that ideological commitment, no? Windscribe in particular boasts a no logging policy, so what do they have to offer really when push comes to shove? It’s been tested as well, one of their servers in Ukraine was seized by local authorities and not only did they self-report the seizure a week later, apparently nothing came of the seizure apart from a few leaked usernames. Am I being naive in thinking this is a demonstration of their claims?

I don’t want to get too specific about my use cases for obvious reasons, but I live in the UK and I’m sure you’ve heard that our privacy is slowly being completely hollowed out by legislation. Plus the government has been steadily criminalising several forms of protest, to the point that I worry that even having history on a site like this may one day be an issue. Basically I’m trying to take greater steps to protect my privacy (and services like port forwarding are useful too).

Sorry for messaging on a month-old thread but you seem like you know what you’re talking about. Choosing a solid VPN seems like a minefield between paid sponsorships and reviews, location of headquarters, potential ties to intelligence agencies, privacy features, prices, etc. etc. etc.

I wanted to get your thoughts on Windscribe as a potential all round good VPN. They talk a real solid game in their blog posts and seem to be very ideologically driven, and they tick all the right boxes… except that they are headquartered in Canada. Do you have any thoughts about them? Would you recommend steering clear or do you think they’re solid?

Many thanks!

deleted by creator

This sounds like it was written in 2003. In 2022, in my experience, it’s just as difficult to make friends online as it is anywhere else. No one here is my friend, for example. We just post in the same space. When I used to post on Reddit, which I did for years and years, no one there was my friend either. I check a few of those boxes but communities online are so bloated with hundreds, thousands of people, that it often doesn’t feel like there’s room for another weird, disabled, chronically ill, queer, and/or unusual person. The most you get - if you’re lucky - is a positive reaction to something you post, maybe some commiseration that someone out there feels the same way, as you said. But then that interaction finishes, that person goes away.

Who is this guy? I want to read more bangers.