VPNReviewz.com Announces New Chart Displaying VPN Provider Jurisdictions, Protocols, and More
Undisclosed Location, South America (PRWEB) October 11, 2013 -- Over the last few weeks the VPNReviewz editors say they have been inundated by a slew of readers asking if their VPN provider was, or had, cooperated, or colluded,with the NSA and GCHQ. Senior Editor Michael Maxstead says that while they can't answer the individual readers questions directly, “We think a 'VPN Jurisdictional Chart' will help them know if their VPN provider has a higher probability of being a provider that has cooperated with the NSA , or GCHQ, using this new chart.” “We can't say for absolute sure,” he explains, “who has, or hasn't, colluded, or cooperated, with the NSA. The Snowden documents couldn't reveal that much, either.”
In their post “Announcement: VPN Jurisdiction Report & Chart Coming Soon” the editor said that a report published by the Guardian claims that the NSA may have obtained “back doors” and “master” encryption keys, and that they had, at the very least, broken SSL encryption and HTTPS security protocols. The article also directly names the program being used for gathering the “back doors” and “master keys” as “Bullrun” and is linked to the more massive, “PRISM” spying program, but the names of possible collaborators weren't included in the leaked documents.
“The news of the spying agencies, the NSA and the GCHQ, breaking HTTPS and SSL, should be a big deal. They are the two most common forms of privacy on the internet, and billions of dollars every day flow through SSL or HTTPS pipes,” Maxstead said. He also asserts that the agencies “are continuing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on their continued efforts to break even more protocols...” The Guardian article confirms that in excess of $250 million dollars p/year is the agency's budget for a single program.
“We may not be able to tell our readers who has, and who has not, catered to the NSA, or the GCHQ. But, we can tell the VPNReviewz.com readers which jurisdiction each of the providers answers to, and under what conditions they will answer governmental inquiries, and let them decide who they will elect to trust with their business...” He says the table will have jurisdiction, if logs are kept/logging data, conditions of surrendering data, (if applicable,) and a few other minor things about the providers.
The whole chart should be completed and live by the end of the month, “except for periodic updates, or adding VPNs and related data updates,” he says, then continues “Publishing date will be on the 30th of October, so we can get as many VPN providers on the chart as possible.”
Michael Maxstead, VPNReviewz, http://vpnreviewz.com/, +1 (202) 683-7481, [email protected]
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