Author Topic: VPN's and Snakeoil........according to spotflux  (Read 4408 times)


Offline Slacker

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Re: VPN's and Snakeoil........according to spotflux
« Reply #1 on: January 27, 2014, 02:34:43 PM »
Here's something I can tell you WHY you should not use this company.

1. They are in the USA!
2. The offer a Free VPN service.

Now does anyone know why 1 & 2 mean this could be a problem? Because this is know as a Red Flag for what could be a HONEY POT!

Never ever trust using a Free VPN!

Hi bipolarbuddhist, nice looking article but remember too, Spotflux is selling a service, so like any business out there, it helps to make the competition bad, so that you look better for your business.

bipolarbuddhist, do you work for or have any relation to SpotFlux, or have you used their service?

There are some things I can see that have some valid issues, but I also see some marketing hype. Also if Spotflux knows what they are doing, I'd like to know what OpenVPN files they provide to the end-user for their service. Knowing what a service provides tells you if they know what they're doing.

These are things I read on their site and they're just BS marketing hype!

Example #1 – Cookie Based Tracking

The next time you visit that website without a VPN they will now know that you are the same person that visited earlier that day even though your IP address was different.

My reply to the above is, well don't log back in some place not on your VPN, after all why would you do this if you're using a VPN? This is really a stupid point!

Snake Oil Concoction #2 – VPNs Save You Bandwidth

Many VPN providers claim to save the user bandwidth based on the built in compression algorithms of various VPN protocols such as the commonly used OpenVPN.

I personally have never seen any VPN company make these kind of claims and I've seen a lot of VPN companies out there around the world, so I don't buy into this, because not everyone does this, and I question what the amount of the 'MANY' providers they're talking about. I mean let's get real here, Spotflux has gone out personally and check out how many VPN providers around the world to make this determination?

Snake Oil Concoction #3 – Your VPN Provider is Safe because they don’t keep logs

The fact of the matter is that ALL VPN providers have to log SOME things, the important thing to figure out is WHAT are they logging and HOW are those logs used.

This it total BS, no company can with 100% certainty tell you how another company manages their IT infrastructure. So having these so called logs, if there is any type of so called logging, we as geeks know that certainly there could be various type of logs going on, but that is also has nothing to do with recording an IP either.

Hmm lets see now /var/log/messages, dmesg, /var/log/syslog these record my IP address? LMAO

Also logging based on the servers, through a hosting company or any other methods, this so called Snake Oil this is being sold as is just grabbing at straws, because you can  never say that 100% this is always the situation with everyone.

Snake Oil Concoction #4 – Your VPN Provider is “safer” because it doesn’t operate in the USA

This is true to a point, but you can't simply say there are not countries that are not safer, because there are some countries safer than the USA.

Snake Oil Concoction #5 – Your VPN provides you  ”Wifi Protection”

If the VPN server you just connected to is insecure or compromised.

IF is the BIG word here, and who is really going to know if it's insecure or compromised? This gets back to the quality of service you are using.
« Last Edit: January 27, 2014, 02:41:19 PM by Slacker »

Offline bipolarbuddhist

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Re: VPN's and Snakeoil........according to spotflux
« Reply #2 on: January 28, 2014, 09:10:50 AM »
Hey Slacker, thanks for the very detailed reply. I appreciate the time it took you to both read and respond to the article.
I definitely don't work or have any affiliations with spot fluxes. I did not realize they were the ones selling

Offline Slacker

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Re: VPN's and Snakeoil........according to spotflux
« Reply #3 on: January 28, 2014, 10:31:51 AM »
Here are some highlights I found out about them:

1. They told me you have to use their client in order to use their service, this is not a good idea, especially if they are not willing to show the source code. But if they allowed you to use their service like BolehVPN does without the use of their client and keep the source code closed, then I don't see this as a problem because you have a choice in how you connect, otherwise being forced into this, their software could have a backdoor in it you'll never know.

2. They don't even support Linux, this is stupid, since OpenVPN is a cross platform application that works in Linux too. To me this shows their lack of experience.

Trying to figure out good VPN providers from the bad is not easy with a lack of experience and this Spotflux has more CONS going for it then PROS.

By the way I don't say any of this because I use BolehVPN, there are a lot of good providers out there, and this is not one of them!

IMHO STAY AWAY FROM THEM! :(
« Last Edit: January 28, 2014, 10:33:31 AM by Slacker »