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Google is Big Brother


spud the mackem

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I closed my Google Account about 6 weeks ago, because of P.C. complications and started using Yahoo, which is o.k. then I decided to open up another Google Account using a different log in name and password, and now I've found that almost everything I've done on Yahoo including coming to U.M. has been recorded by Google. I find this pretty scary that they are doing this, where have the Privacy Policies gone,once they have your real name and address they can track you anywhere on the internet.

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We even tried changing our IP address, they will always track you. As long as they do not know where I live I am not too worried.

I blame yahoo here for allowing google to get your info.

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We even tried changing our IP address, they will always track you. As long as they do not know where I live I am not too worried.

I blame yahoo here for allowing google to get your info.

Good one Free, at least you can move your home , not even M.I 5 can find you ,heh. The problem is that Yahoo isn't as good as Google for blocking attacks,I'm using Spam Fighter at the moment which seems to be solving unwanted e-mails etc. plus Norton.
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I always tell people that its not just the goverment that collects our data. Its everyone, phone companies, Google etc.

I use a VPN service because of this. It is also great security against hackers and such :tu:

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I deleted my gmail account, wish I had never signed up for it.

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what is this.. hidemyass i keep on hearing about now and then???

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what is this.. hidemyass i keep on hearing about now and then???

It's a VPN service, I have used it in the past. I don't think it's 100% anonymous either, I bet they keep logs or something....

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It's a VPN service, I have used it in the past. I don't think it's 100% anonymous either, I bet they keep logs or something....

They probably do. Try using Tor. That's the best it gets.

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what is this.. hidemyass i keep on hearing about now and then???

I use Private Internet Access. Its like the same thing except they swear that they dont keep logs( which means they dont sell your info and if the feds want your history they cant get it simply because it gets thrown out and not collected) unlike Hide My Ass. Im not doing anything illegal but its a nice feature, and its cheaper then Hide My Ass.

Edited by spartan max2
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They probably do. Try using Tor. That's the best it gets.

I have downloaded Tor recently and I love it..

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I use Private Internet Access. Its like the same thing except they swear that they dont keep logs( which means they dont sell your info and if the feds want your history they cant get it simply because it gets thrown out and not collected) unlike Hide My Ass. Im not doing anything illegal but its a nice feature, and its cheaper then Hide My Ass.

Hi Spartan, they all swear they don't have activity loggers but it is just a marketing gimmick. At the very least they have to store the mapped IP addresses because they have to comply with the internet laws in their own countries. If they are charging you more with this claim, you might want to consider buying another cheaper and faster VPN in a country that is closer to your physical location. I apologize if I sound patronizing in any way (I assure you that is really not my intention :)) but I have tried at least a dozen VPNs in the past few years so I know all about their bogus claims. Even after joining this website, in the past couple of years, I have switched at least four different VPNs from four different countries. When I joined this website I had a VPN from Sweden, a couple of months later I switched to Romania. Owing to the distance between my country and the Western Europe, the lag was too much and I knew they were not giving me the perfect anonymity that they were promising, despite the liberal internet laws in the Western Europe. I was so tired of the lag that I had to switch twice to other cheaper and faster VPNs that were physically located in the countries that were closer to mine, although, they neither affirmed nor denied activity logging, but I wasn't concerned about it much anyway because I knew every VPN has to log activities or at least has to store the mapped IP addresses of their users. I am on a VPN 24x7. I live in a country that has very strict internet regulations, because of that I am forced to hire VPN services from other countries.

VPNs do give their users anonymity and hide their actual IP addresses but only as long as the users do not violate any of the internet laws in the country of the VPN provider. If any of their laws is violated, then a local court order issued to the VPN provider is enough to compromise the user's anonymity. I am yet to come across any system that gives their users perfect anonymity and security. Behind the veil of "anonymity" some people do feel "invincible" but it is only a psychological thing. I am not saying it's you but some people do.

And those who are using Tor browser also need to be very careful:

http://www.howtogeek...ous-and-secure/

http://arstechnica.c...mail-passwords/

http://raided4tor.cryto.net/

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Hi Spartan, they all swear they don't have activity loggers but it is just a marketing gimmick. At the very least they have to store the mapped IP addresses because they have to comply with the internet laws in their own countries. If they are charging you more with this claim, you might want to consider buying another cheaper and faster VPN in a country that is closer to your physical location. I apologize if I sound patronizing in any way (I assure you that is really not my intention :)) but I have tried at least a dozen VPNs in the past few years so I know all about their bogus claims. Even after joining this website, in the past couple of years, I have switched at least four different VPNs from four different countries. When I joined this website I had a VPN from Sweden, a couple of months later I switched to Romania. Owing to the distance between my country and the Western Europe, the lag was too much and I knew they were not giving me the perfect anonymity that they were promising, despite the liberal internet laws in the Western Europe. I was so tired of the lag that I had to switch twice to other cheaper and faster VPNs that were physically located in the countries that were closer to mine, although, they neither affirmed nor denied activity logging, but I wasn't concerned about it much anyway because I knew every VPN has to log activities or at least has to store the mapped IP addresses of their users. I am on a VPN 24x7. I live in a country that has very strict internet regulations, because of that I am forced to hire VPN services from other countries.

VPNs do give their users anonymity and hide their actual IP addresses but only as long as the users do not violate any of the internet laws in the country of the VPN provider. If any of their laws is violated, then a local court order issued to the VPN provider is enough to compromise the user's anonymity. I am yet to come across any system that gives their users perfect anonymity and security. Behind the veil of "anonymity" some people do feel "invincible" but it is only a psychological thing. I am not saying it's you but some people do.

And those who are using Tor browser also need to be very careful:

http://www.howtogeek...ous-and-secure/

http://arstechnica.c...mail-passwords/

http://raided4tor.cryto.net/

The U.S law dosent force data logs. Unlike the E.U who does.

Private internet access is based in the U.S. Sure i take their promise with a grain of salt but as the laws are right now they are not forced to.

:tu:

Edited by spartan max2
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the age of surveillance is coming

in the pupil of 1000 eyes

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the age of surveillance is coming

in the pupil of 1000 eyes

...Its been here for a very long time.
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The U.S law dosent force data logs. Unlike the E.U who does.

Private internet access is based in the U.S. Sure i take their promise with a grain of salt but as the laws are right now they are not forced to.

:tu:

Yes, you should definitely take everything they say with a grain of salt. I am doubtful especially after reading their terms of services: https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/pages/terms-of-service/

They have stipulated there some rules under the heading "Conduct" and then under the heading "Breach" they have mentioned that failure to comply with their Terms of Service could result in one of a few actions, and among those they have mentioned:

* Disclosure of such information to law enforcement authorities as deemed reasonably necessary.

Have you asked them how they are able to do this if they do not keep tabs on at least some of their users' activities or store them somewhere for at least some period time until they decide what action is to be taken?

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Yes, you should definitely take everything they say with a grain of salt. I am doubtful especially after reading their terms of services: https://www.privatei...rms-of-service/

They have stipulated there some rules under the heading "Conduct" and then under the heading "Breach" they have mentioned that failure to comply with their Terms of Service could result in one of a few actions, and among those they have mentioned:

Have you asked them how they are able to do this if they do not keep tabs on at least some of their users' activities or store them somewhere for at least some period time until they decide what action is to be taken?

It is their code of conducts ? They have to cover their ass legally so of course they say that lol. That is not something they are hiding, they make it clear that they will comply with authorities, they give them whatever they have but they claim to not store it in the first place so they have none thing to give.

How do you expect them to word that in their code of conduct?

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It is their code of conducts ? They have to cover their ass legally so of course they say that lol. That is not something they are hiding, they make it clear that they will comply with authorities, they give them whatever they have but they claim to not store it in the first place so they have none thing to give.

How do you expect them to word that in their code of conduct?

So you are saying that all the rules that are mentioned on your VPNs terms of service (also in the below quote) are only for show and none of them are enforced and its users can get away with anything even with illegal activities?

CONDUCT

You agree to comply with all applicable laws and regulations in connection with use of this service. You must also agree that you nor any other user that you have provided access to will not engage in any of the following activities:

  • Sending or receiving unsolicited and/or commercial emails, promotional materials, “junk mail,” “spam,” “chain letters,” or “pyramid schemes”;
  • Exploiting, possessing, producing, receiving, transporting, or distributing any illegal content, including but not limited to any sexually explicit depiction of children;
  • Uploading, possessing, receiving, transporting, or distributing any copyrighted, trademark, or patented content which you do not own or lack written consent or a license from the copyright owner;
  • Forging headers or otherwise manipulating e-mail identifiers in order to mask or mislead the origins of certain content;
  • Interfering with the service to any other user, client, host or network which reduces the quality of service for other clients and users;
  • Using the service to engage in Denial-of-service (“DOS”) attacks to any third-parties or to Privateinternetaccess.com;
  • Accessing data, systems or networks including attempts to probe scan or test for vulnerabilities of a system or network or to breach security or authentication measures without written consent from the owner of the system or network;
  • Using this service to transmit any material (by email, uploading, posting, or otherwise) that threatens or encourages bodily harm, injury or destruction of property, defames one or more third parties, or promotes any act of cruelty to animals; or
  • Accessing the service to violate any laws at the local, state and federal level in the United States of America or the country/territory in which you reside.

..........

.............

BREACH

PrivateInternetAccess.com abides by a ZERO TOLERANCE policy relating to any activity which breaches or violates our terms and conditions.

Along with the ZERO TOLERANCE policy, Clients who materially breach the terms and conditions will have their account removed without any refund. Additionally, Client understands that PrivateInternetAccess.com expressly reserves the right to hold the Client or any third-party using the service on Client’s behalf responsible for any and all financial damages and losses which may be incurred arising out of said breach or breaches, including, but not limited to attorneys fees, fees for expert witnesses, court costs, and other charges.

Subscriber understands that Privateinternetaccess.com reserves the right in its sole discretion to enforce breaches of this Agreement. Failure to comply with the present Terms of Service constitutes a material breach of the Agreement, and may result in one or more of these following actions:

  • Issuance of a warning;
  • Immediate, temporary, or permanent revocation of access to Privateinternetaccess.com with no refund;
  • Legal actions against you for reimbursement of any costs incurred via indemnity resulting from a breach;
  • Independent legal action by Privateinternetaccess.com as a result of a breach; or
  • Disclosure of such information to law enforcement authorities as deemed reasonably necessary.

https://www.privatei...rms-of-service/

If that is what you are implying, Spartan, It can give wrong message to readers. It seems not only a practical implausibility that any VPN in the world would allow their users to violate the laws of its own country but to discuss something like this is also bordering the violation of UM rules here, and maybe we should refrain from discussing this.

Nobody gets away with anything ever. If not on Google, a user's activities are always recorded somewhere else. If you were a VPN provider you would definitely want to keep tabs on your clients' activities to know if they are breaking the laws of your country to keep yourself out of trouble, wouldn't you?

And if I you weren't implying that, then please clarify.

Edited by XingWi
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So you are saying that all the rules that are mentioned on your VPNs terms of service (also in the below quote) are only for show and none of them are enforced and its users can get away with anything even with illegal activities?

https://www.privatei...rms-of-service/

If that is what you are implying, Spartan, It can give wrong message to readers. It seems not only a practical implausibility that any VPN in the world would allow their users to violate the laws of its own country but to discuss something like this is also bordering the violation of UM rules here, and maybe we should refrain from discussing this.

Nobody gets away with anything ever. If not on Google, a user's activities are always recorded somewhere else. If you were a VPN provider you would definitely want to keep tabs on your clients' activities to know if they are breaking the laws of your country to keep yourself out of trouble, wouldn't you?

And if I you weren't implying that, then please clarify.

Once again in the U.S companies are not forced to have to collect a certain amount of data. That is in the E.U.

If you have ever bought anything or worked for anyone then you will of experienced all the steps products and companies go through to make sure they are not liable. All companies do this its no surprise. Tor even has liability clauses. A company is not going to condone criminal behavior. Im not condoning criminal behavior.

Internet service providers do not even go after torrents unless pressed by entertainment industry groups. Why? because its bad for business, It makes your customers mad and your Comcast internet service is not part of the entertainment industry. Comcast also has liability clauses. A VPN is no different, if the feds come around they will assist by giving all the data they have on hand(which should be none), like the warrant says.

In this code of conduct it does not say anywhere that it collects your data. If so it would have to say for how much time it typically holds it for. It says it will disclose it. Like they advertise if the authorities get a warrant and what your stuff they will comply, but since they dont store stuff they dont really have anything to give.

This started because you said they data collect. In the U.S it is perfectly legal for a company not to store data. So when thats what they advertise it is possible thats what they do. And if someones data got handed away word spreads fast just like when it happen with Hide My Ass.(because that is U.K based in the E.U)

A company obviously covers its liability...

Edited by spartan max2
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Look what my scan found the other day

BRjsSxM.jpg

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So google is a terrible "reality" television program that none ever watched? :whistle:

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Once again in the U.S companies are not forced to have to collect a certain amount of data. That is in the E.U.

If you have ever bought anything or worked for anyone then you will of experienced all the steps products and companies go through to make sure they are not liable. All companies do this its no surprise. Tor even has liability clauses. A company is not going to condone criminal behavior. Im not condoning criminal behavior.

Internet service providers do not even go after torrents unless pressed by entertainment industry groups. Why? because its bad for business, It makes your customers mad and your Comcast internet service is not part of the entertainment industry. Comcast also has liability clauses. A VPN is no different, if the feds come around they will assist by giving all the data they have on hand(which should be none), like the warrant says.

In this code of conduct it does not say anywhere that it collects your data. If so it would have to say for how much time it typically holds it for. It says it will disclose it. Like they advertise if the authorities get a warrant and what your stuff they will comply, but since they dont store stuff they dont really have anything to give.

This started because you said they data collect. In the U.S it is perfectly legal for a company not to store data. So when thats what they advertise it is possible thats what they do. And if someones data got handed away word spreads fast just like when it happen with Hide My Ass.(because that is U.K based in the E.U)

A company obviously covers its liability...

First, relax dude :) there is no need to take offense because I never said that you are condoning criminal activities, I just said: you are inadvertently implying that one can get away with criminal activities using certain VPN services, when in real practical world it never happens.

The following are your own words:

I use Private Internet Access. Its like the same thing except they swear that they dont keep logs( which means they dont sell your info and if the feds want your history they cant get it simply because it gets thrown out and not collected) unlike Hide My Ass. Im not doing anything illegal but its a nice feature, and its cheaper then Hide My Ass.

See, your words exactly. How is anyone supposed to interpret that? This did not start because I said they log data, instead, my first post in this thread in response to the above quote of yours was because you were implying certain things that I know do not exist in the real practical world and I wanted to give some balance to this discussion. Looking at your posts I am getting the impression you are a computer professional or at least have got good formal training in the field, you also seem very intelligent, so maybe it is your optimism that is leading you to have good faith in certain things, I don’t know. Well I too have a history in the field, but my perspective has evolved differently. I have experience with penetration testing and planning and securing against real world criminal minds that has put me in a position to look closer at the darker aspects of real world situations.

Second, I also never said they are forced to log user activities everywhere in the world. I said they have to log the activity or at the very least they have to store the mapped IP address list. And this second alternative would be for the VPNs in countries where they are not mandated to store the user's activity. These were my words:

they all swear they don't have activity loggers but it is just a marketing gimmick. At the very least they have to store the mapped IP addresses

….

because I knew every VPN has to log activities or at least has to store the mapped IP addresses of their users

The main argument against data retention law is that it places too much burden on ISPs and VPNs, storing the huge amount of data, which does not apply to storing the small mapped IP addresses list. So unless they wish to face the terrorism charges themselves for their 'terrorist' clients' activities there is no reason they wouldn't want to store the list of VPN-issued IP addresses mapping the external IP addresses of their clients.

When your VPN says they are logging no data you are ready to believe them but when they are themselves saying that they are monitoring their users' activities and logging the data until they decide what action needs to be taken against the violators (like it is apparent in their terms of service), you do not believe them and call it a deceptive maneuver ?!? How do you know where they are lying and where they are not? Why are you accepting only a fraction of their statements as truth while rejecting the others as lies? What makes you so sure they are not duping their clients?

When saying "if someones data got handed away word spreads fast" you are overlooking other possible scenarios and outcomes like:

1. No violations took place so far (this is the least possible but still possible)

2. No serious crimes took place yet, but only minor violations and the VPN providers handled them at their own level by terminating the membership of the violators.

3. They have made a deal with the feds that if a serious crime takes place they would hand over the information and in return the feds would not disclose that the VPN gave them the information, and instead would find alternate ways to prosecute the criminal in the court, rendering the information given by the VPN unproducible in the court. This would be a symbiotic approach and would benefit both the VPN providers and the feds.

In the third possibility, the public would never know when someone's data got handed over to feds. Given that NSA would allow a service like this to operate on the American soil without aggressively targeting it, it should make anyone highly skeptical of their claims. So yes, when any VPN provider says it logs no data at all, I am forced to believe it is just a marketing gimmick.

I am not trying to swerve your faith in something. It is perfectly natural for people to disagree in matters like these, I would just appreciate if people were a bit careful in wording certain things in public forums which can give thrill seeking wannabe black hats and other cyber criminals the wrong impression that they can get away with anything. I hope you do understand my position.

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Look what my scan found the other day

*snip*

That`s interessting. One the one hand your feel spyed by 2 google cookies but on the other hand you puplished

in your profile a pic of you, your DOB, your location, a hotmail and a yahoo contact and now in addition a screenshot

of your desctop, displaying the browser and software you are using including TeamViewer (hacker friendly), your interests and

as the cherry on the top, your Windows user/loggin name. That`s what I call naive and asymmetric percipience.

Edited by toast
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And that is why I don't use Google anymore. I use "DuckDuckGo" which is a search engine that doesn't track you. My mom told me about it.

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