VPN Services That Take Your Anonymity Seriously
If I were a governmental entity - I'd go ahead and set up my very own honeypot VPN provider. I'd then log everything - whilst providing exceptional service - and play the long game - collect as much data from people who self-select themselves as requiring large amounts of anonymity (the paranoid/people who can't access Hulu overseas/criminals/terrorists).<p>I'd wait a few years and then use said data to slowly infiltrate various groups - looking to grab the big fish that are hopefully well separated from the VPN service and then take them down quietly.<p>Hell - I might even turn a nice little profit on the side.<p>Reality check: if your credit card details are visible to a third party - you're not anonymous.<p>Note: I don't actually believe the above to actually be the case in reality - but one must remember that stuff like Room 641A weren't that long ago (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A</a>).<p>This is an example of where worst case thinking, despite its negative reputation, can help protect oneself from falling prey to the faulty assumptions that bring down complex systems (Will the generators kick in on time? What if the VPN provider is already compromised? Did we double check that after cleaning the safety valves - we didn't block any of them?).