We understand that servers located in US territory are subject to US surveillance laws, regardless of who legally owns them. What about IPVanish servers located in other countries? Which jurisdiction do they fall under? In general, the laws of the country the server is physically located in are the ones that apply to the server. We believe the odds of a foreigner getting into trouble for violating some local law are lower than for a citizen violating the same law. Legal JurisdictionĪside from choosing a VPN Service like ExpressVPN that is located in a privacy-friendly jurisdiction, we recommend against using a VPN based in your home country. We generally recommend that you choose a VPN Service that is located in a privacy-friendly country, which the USA is not. The NSA conducts warrantless Internet surveillance, and various laws can compel VPN services based in the USA to provide logs of the activities of their users, regardless of what company policy might be.Īlso, as shown by Edward Snowden, US intelligence agencies routinely hack telecommunications and computing systems in the USA to facilitate their spying. As you are probably aware, the US government conducts massive amounts of surveillance of Internet activities.

StackPath, LLC, the parent company of IPVanish, is based in the USA. VPN Services aren’t truly Anonymous because they can read your messages and know where they came from: No one can read the messages that pass between your computer and the VPN server except you and the VPN. It provides privacy and security by encrypting messages to and from your computer and passing them through a VPN tunnel that outsiders can’t break into. VPN DiagramĪ VPN can provide Privacy and Security, but can’t offer Anonymity. VPNs provide this security by using strong encryption and a VPN Tunneling Protocol to protect communications between your computer and the VPN servers. Security – This is the ability to prevent others from reading the messages that pass back and forth between your computer and the VPN service. They can see that you are connected to the VPN, but not the contents of your messages, or what sites you visit through the VPN. By using a VPN Service, you prevent your ISP and anyone spying on your Internet connection from seeing your personal data. Privacy – This is the ability to control who gets to see your personal data. In the context of VPNs, if no one can associate a message you send with the IP Address of your computer, the message is anonymous. Let’s define our terms before getting into the details.Īnonymity – This is the situation where no one can tell that you sent a message. This is the area where IPVanish has some questions to answer. IPVanish advertises that its network is secure and gives you complete anonymity and privacy online.

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