A new report uncovers the troubling ties between top VPN services like ExpressVPN and the Israeli security state, raising alarms about how much control Israel’s Unit 8200 has over your online privacy.

“Kape Technologies is a major player in the online privacy world, one of the three giants that collectively control the market. It owns many of the world’s top VPNs, including ExpressVPN, CyberGhost, Private Internet Access, ZenMate, Intego Antivirus, and a host of tech websites that promote its products. Kape brands can be seen sponsoring a wide array of public figures, such as Tucker Carlson, Angry Video Game Nerd, Drew Gooden, Lex Fridman, Cody Ko, Uncle Roger, and Ben Shapiro.”

“(Kape Technologies) It also bought a host of VPN review sites, such as vpnMentor and Wizcase – platforms that purport to supply readers with expert information about which VPN would be best for them. vpnMentor insists that this considerable conflict of interest does not affect their ratings.”

What do you think of all this?

    • @refalo@programming.dev
      6•2 months ago

      Not using javascript is like a huge beacon of light screaming just how unique you really are. There are several methods for fingerprinting you without JS, or even without CSS/HTML.

      And the number of people not using JS being very small, it doesn’t take as many bits of information to uniquely identify you.

      • @unrushed233
        3•2 months ago

        And basically 99% of the modern web doesn’t work without JS. I don’t know why there are still so many people running around and saying “disAblE jAvAscrIpT!!!”, yeah like how the fuck am I supposed to use the web??? At that point, I could also just delete my web browser, it would literally have the exact same effect.

        • @refalo@programming.dev
          6•2 months ago

          I think there’s mainly two usecases:

          • the “weird” people who don’t visit any mainstream sites and live under a rock

          • people who disable JS by default but are always adding exceptions for sites that need it

          • @unrushed233
            3•2 months ago

            I tried the second approach for some time, but using NoScript became really annoying, since I never knew which scripts are necessary, and which are used for tracking or some other bullshit. It was always trial and error, and just felt tedious and unnecessary. I wish NoScript would have a built in whitelist of scripts that are known to be necessary for websites to function, this would avoid breakages and make it much more comfortable to use.