Police Seize Two 'Perfect Privacy' VPN Servers (torrentfreak.com)

An anonymous reader writes from a report via TorrentFreak: VPN provider Perfect Privacy has informed its customers that two of its servers had been seized by the police in Rotterdam, Netherlands. Torrent Freak reports: "The authorities went directly to the hosting company I3D and the VPN provider itself wasn't contacted by law enforcement. 'Currently we have no further information since the responsible law enforcement agency did not get in touch with us directly, we were merely informed by our hoster,' Perfect Privacy says. Despite losing control over two servers, Perfect Privacy assures its customers that no personally identifiable data is present on the seized hardware. Like many other VPNs, the company maintains a strict no-logging policy. 'Since we are not logging any data there is currently no reason to believe that any user data was compromised,' the VPN provider says. 'When the Dutch police contact us with a subpoena, we work with them in a professional manner and ensure their request and our responses are in compliance with the Dutch law,' I3D informs us. 'We think with the affected customer as well, for example by making temporary capacity available so the customer does not suffer extended downtime during the investigation.'"

Comments

log

[bugs2squash]

There was no logging before the machines were captured. It's probably turned on now

Re:log

[TheGratefulNet]

I don't follow; if the server is returned, it will be wiped and reloaded.

any isp would do that.

so what's the issue? the police can't just put it back on the air again. if they do, its fraud (not that any cop cares about breaking laws, these days...)

what I don't understand is: what gives the police the right to grab a whole server, when its only 1 customer they are after?

that's huge over-reach.

some day, we need to take control of our world and stop the authoritarians who seem to think all property belongs to THEM instead of the actual owners.

Re:log

[Anonymous Coward]

But, the police apparently have the power to seize servers without warrant.

So, they could have done that before, 3 months ago. Then, they turned on logging (and a rootkit to hide what they'd done).

Now. 3 months later, they seize it because it's been logging what they wanted.

If you're using a VPN provider in a country where police can seize servers, without warrant, and the VPN provider isn't physically present to know about it until afterwards, then all bets are off - anything can happen.

Re:log

[Dunbal]

I don't follow; if the server is returned, it will be wiped and reloaded. any isp would do that.

Except these servers are being hosted by a 3rd party. One that could be coerced into NOT doing that (authorities are getting good at this "guilt by association" thing), or the actual hardware itself could have been modified. The 3rd party is just a host, they are absolutely not obligated to comply with any "privacy" deals that Perfect Privacy may have promised to its customers. If you want to do something right you have to do it yourself. I seem to remember hearing that somewhere.

Re:log

[bill_mcgonigle]

There was no logging before the machines were captured. It's probably turned on now

We're assuming Perfect Privacy doesn't have cryptographically-secure control over its devops? That would be quite an indictment of a VPN provider.