PIA and Freenode joining forces | Hacker News Reader

PIA and Freenode joining forces

freenode.net

117 pointsblibble35 comments

I wonder if this is a sign that freenode is returning to their old ways http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/01/29/buy_a_piece_of_net/

I don't think it will sink to what it was when lilo still lived. I find it funny that article calls him "professional online beggar", because he was way worse than that. Not that the network was better handled after his disappearance though.

Thanks for that! After all, it's not properly a comment thread about freenode until a newly registered account turns up to piss on our founder's grave.

I didn't know lilo was no longer with us. That sucks...

I'd piss off on your founder's grave using my 14-year old account on freenode, but that would just get me k-lined.

Well, no. All your old opers left because money from donations keeps disappearing. Your new opers probably don't even know how to apply a k-line and rely on that supybot you have to administer the network. I'm safe.

Makes me feel a tad better for my yearlong PIA subscription :)

Interesting. I have a lot of trust in PIA for now.

I think they're one of the better VPN companies but they're under US jurisdiction, which makes them vulnerable to NSLs and other forms of government surveillance. Yes they don't log, so they can't be subpoena'd for past information but they can be compelled to provide ongoing interception.

I'd be interested to know however whether the US government can intercept traffic to/from:

- Servers located in the USA but operated by VPN companies incorporated and staffed outside the USA.

- Servers located outside the USA but operated by VPN companies incorporated or staffed inside the USA.

It seems to me that as long as you're using a US-based VPN server, there's always the risk the cloud or transit provider can be compelled to intercept traffic regardless of the owner's jurisdiction.

The question of how well protected non-American servers operated by Americans are still seems to be unanswered too. Microsoft seems to be winning their case against handing over overseas data[0] but Google seems to be losing[1].

[0]: https://secure.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2017/01/mi...

[1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...

Happily, the freenode non-profit is not under US jurisdiction so we don't even have that problem.

I have no idea how exactly it affects PIA though.

> - Servers located in the USA but operated by VPN companies incorporated and staffed outside the USA.

Not terrorism/other serious crimes, but Megaupload had the same constellation (they had some US colocated servers), and it will unfortunately likely end with Kim Dotcom being deported to the US. So yes, such a service constellation may very well lead to deportations to the US as soon as some bought-off or incompetent US judge/DA gets his rubberstamp.

The massive outreach of the US (not just this, but also that their citizenship is bound to paying taxes, even abroad - leading to the massive ... called FATCA) is something that really angers me. But hey, it's difficult to argue with a country that might send four dozen Tomahawks based on the current Fox News programming. (Obviously sarcastic, but the "the US regularly abuses its foreign power" still stands)

I don't think this really affects VPNs though. Megaupload is a criminal case which the US appears to have substantial evidence supporting. I still think it's an overreach but what crime can the US accuse a foreign VPN operator of, that would lead to a successful extradition request?

Accessing child pornography. Participating in terrorism messaging boards. Commercial copyright infringement. It's easy to imagine a crime.

You need to pick your battles. Not being tapped by the NSA is a pretty high bar, where certainly for me, I just don't want my ISP or sites I visit to have the data.

I totally understand it's not a concern for everyone but given the choice between otherwise equal services, wouldn't you choose the one that isn't in US jurisdiction?

Not particularly, as the ones under US jurisdiction are possibly better protected by US law. I don't trust the vast majority of other countries to stand up to the US.

I feel like I should always shout-out Freedome on these things. Run by F-Secure, who have an excellent pedigree, and the client software is good on Mac and iPhone.

Freedome logs your IP address, which kinda kills it from a privacy perspective. It also seems to make unreasonable claims about its effectiveness and incentivises people to spam social media.

Source: https://thatoneprivacysite.net/vpn-comparison-chart/

"Purchased by" is a clickbait lie.

Please can we use the actual title of the actual blog post.

Edit: Thanks!

Do you believe that freenode wasn't "purchased"? The details are a bit light but that certainly sounds like what happened -- PIA now "owns" the non-profit entity freenode (and christel scored a job out of it).

There is a significant distinction between "company X hires open source person Y and allows them to spend some of their time on project Z" and "company X now owns project Z".

Wild speculation based on "I think it sounds like that" isn't actually constructive.

I've had the blog post updated to say "allied with" rather than "joining the family of" in the hopes that people will actually read the words going forwards rather than jumping to conclusions.

Maybe, if the words were actually informative, there'd be less jumping to conclusion.

As it stands, the blog post just isn't very transparent. It mentions PIA "provid[ing] us with opportunities and resources going forward, including an operating budget", and that it is "now officially part of the PIA family".

So you have money changing hands, and property changing hands. That doesn't sound like a sale, it's what it is.

Unfortunately, it's rather thin on substance regarding future intentions. But I guess it could indeed make sense purely as a pro-bono project with a bit of a PR windfall for PIA.

Legally allied is a bit vague, no?

> There is a significant distinction between "company X hires open source person Y and allows them to spend some of their time on project Z" and "company X now owns project Z".

I completely agree. The former doesn't generally result in a press release and/or public announcement that includes phrases such as "... will continue to operate as a not-for-profit entity under the same management, with the same principles, ...".

Personally, I don't care one way or the other whether this was a "purchase" or a "merger" or "alliance" or whatever you want to call it. I have been a freenode user (and, if memory serves, an "occasional financial supporter") since (probably) shortly after it became freenode and I expect that I will continue to be a freenode user in the future (unless something major happens to change that).

Vaguely worded announcements and a lack of detail, however, tend to cause things like "wild speculation" and "jumping to conclusions".

Ok, title changed from "freenode IRC network purchased by VPN company PIA".

Submitters: Please use the original title unless it is misleading or linkbait, as https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html asks.

it is misleading, it's hard to read the post as anything other than the announcement of an acquisition, once you remove the corporate waffle

I understand that reaction and share the dislike of corpspeak. But since someone involved with the project is disputing that interpretation, we should stick to what the post actually says.

Shouldn't we then also ask said person to clarify exactly how the interpretation is incorrect?

EDIT: Nevermind, seems that was done below.

freenode is such a dumpster fire. Well, it's always been a dumpster fire, but since a ton of opers resigned because it wasn't clear what was happening with the donations, it's just getting worse and worse. Let's see what comes from this.

This post is the truth, freenode always has been really poorly managed from its inception, its amazing it remains so popular.

During the javascript irc flooding attacks a while back, efnet took 1 day to patch their servers, rizon took 3, freenode took 7 months (of nonstop netsplits and network breakage)

PIA has already supported Freenode for a long time.

In return, Freenode has consistently sabotaged the Tor service so that the only way to connect safely is with a VPN.

tor was being used for password brute force attacks and required significant infrastructure fixing to make it work safely.

It's now fixed.

If you continue to have problems, please file a support ticket rather than throwing around unfounded accusations of sabotage.

How was it fixed, if you happen to know?

Rewriting a bunch of stuff to achieve a combination of less information leakage and better rate limiting, I think.

I did briefly attempt to understand the relevant chunk of C code, but my eyes crossed and I developed a headache.

So sorry if that's a bit vague.

>Freenode has consistently sabotaged the Tor service

No. Some idiots decided to brute force passwords via tor. They finally fixed it after a few years or so.

I feel there could conflict of interest. Also it's unclear how now sponsored server are related or unrelated withing legal frameworks to the fact that the author has role in PIA.

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