IPvanish. Please refresh my memory.

OmniNegro

I did some remedial research for someone and cannot recall the evidence against them. Here is what I typed up before I figured the best way to help was to simply ask here.

So I did some remedial searching to ensure I was recalling correctly.
https://www.reddit.com/r/usenet/comments/2e2aen/usenetserver_new_vpn_service/
https://www.wlvpn.com/serverList.xml
https://www.wlvpn.com/cp/login
You can follow those links, and see how I came to each of them in sequence, but all you will see is that UsenetServer uses IPvanish as their VPN provider.

The part where it gets difficult to determine what they do and do not use is their own site and the shills that most VPNs hire. Usually if you make your own site to sell your service, you would put "No Logs" in every single page to attract customers. But take a look at their home page.
https://www.ipvanish.com/

Not one single word about logs. Sure some of the review sites say they do not log, but many make no mention of this, and some even comment on how they "changed" to not logging. I do not know if you can believe them or not, and I am not out to cruicify them. They may well me honest about it. But the wording of their privacy policy does make me wonder.
https://www.ipvanish.com/privacy-policy.php

If they record nothing, then why would they have to specify that in accordance with laws they have to "remove" information if a child may be using the service and they are made aware of that? And that is indeed from the current 2015 version of the privacy policy.

However, I find it very hard to trust any company that had to change to not log at any point. That by definition means that at one point they did log.
http://www.vpnspblog.com/ipvanish-zero-log-policy/
Here is a direct quote.
April 15, 2014 By VPN
"Last week the European Court of Justice ruled that ISPs no longer need to log user data.  In response IPVanish has updated their terms of service and privacy policy to reflect their zero log policy."

Yet they claim to be a US company and thus would have no requirement to have logged anything in the first place, even if operating servers in Europe. PIA has servers worldwide without any such need, as do many other VPNs.

Here is a review claiming they are US based.
http://bestvpnprovider.co/ipvanish-review/
And another...
http://www.ipvanishreview.org/

And here is one that makes no mention of where the company is based, but also makes no mention of logging.
http://www.bestanonymousvpn.com/ipvanish/

And this particular one perplexes me even more as it says no logs, yet also says they keep timestamps and what IP you use. How could it if not logging?
http://www.vpnranks.com/ipvanish-review/

The honest truth is I could go on for hours and never have conclusive proof one way or another. VPNs are a shell game. PIA and AirVPN are the two VPNs I ever suggest. The former because it is so very inexpensive, and the latter simply because it is superior in every other way.

I strive for honesty above all else, so I will not tell you that they do log, nor that any VPN does not. I simply do not know. But the information I see suggests strongly that IPvanish did log, and is currently unclear about it. The choice is yours.

*End Quoted part*

Anyone have a clue what I should be telling the person who is currently using IPvanish? I know not to trust them, but I do not recall evidence. And without that I would be no better than the resident lunatic who hates all VPNs but PIA. Thanks in advance.

*Edit* in 2013 they freely admitted they logged.
"Logs keeping:No logs regarding user’s activity while
connected to the VPN. The only information collected from a VPN session
is: Timestamp (date and server time) of the connection, duration of the
connection, IP address used for the connection and bytes transferred.
Logs are regularly cycled."
http://starvpnreviews.com/ipvanish-vpn/

More to come. But I need to sleep some. Good night everyone.

OmniNegro

*Edit* Deleted post since Irryie edited his post that I was responding
to so much that this does not apply anymore. See the post below for my
revised comment with the updated quote.

OmniNegro

*Edit* Deleted post since Irryie edited his post that I was responding to so much that this does not apply anymore. See the post below for my revised comment with the updated quote.

robert_lazar

good investigating Omni. they claim not to log,? lol but they collect timestamps,duration and ip addresses? sounds fishy.

robert_lazar

that sounds a lot like what blackvpn does. he logs but claims not to log. same with our ol' buddy david cox and liquidvpn.

robert_lazar

hey Omni, me and catcher destroyed david cox so bad on reddit that he never came back and hasn't posted on reddit in well over one year. he was called out on his logging,lies,etc. im sure you remember his claims about a bank of America hack and dmca notices being the reasons he needed to log.

OmniNegro

First, the one article you use is wrong (http://www.vpnspblog.com/ipvanish-zero-log-policy/) ipvanish is not an ISP.

Second, ipvanish never had a requirement to log under EU requirement like is implied by them.

Third, I think you misread the context of their privacy policy some. For example, the 'child' thing is in reference to personal information to register on the site or purchase the service for which the child may have supplied personal information, not that they are logging that information in VPN activity use.

Fourth, do not confuse statements such as "we do not log user activity on the VPN", "we do not log period", or "zero logging" - with no logs at all. For either one of those, Timestamp of the connection to the service, duration of the connection (which is connection to the service), IP address used for the connection (to the service), and bytes transferred (which is via the connection to the service) - can still be logged and the statements of "we do not log user activity on the VPN", "we do not log period", or "zero logging" still be true because one deals with the connection to the service and the other deals with VPN activity on the service.

I will edit my responses to your post and remove the now invalid quotes.

I agree with all but your fourth position. Saying "zero logging" means no logging is used. But they do log. They may not log "activity" directly, but you cannot say that if for instance Google said they do not monitor user activity but only record when you accessed particular IPs and how much data is received and sent that they cannot correlate that into something nefarious.

You are a smart person, but in this case I think you are being too generous with what they could be doing that may well be harmless. We do not use a VPN because we have endless trust of private companies. We use it specifically to prevent others from being able to use data about our network usage against us.

We do not need to know that a person connecting to a particular VPN server and downloaded X bytes and uploaded X bytes. That is information, and information is money and power.

PIA does not record these details, nor does AirVPN, nor many other VPNs. The ones that do are the ones I advise people to avoid like the plague. You are quite free to disagree, and even to express that disagreement. In fact I welcome opposing positions so long as they are not from a certain lunatic focused on UFO nonsense. (No offense meant UBob. Just a joke. )

catcher749

This is how we know PIA doesn't log, because they make the distinction between traffic logs and actual use of the VPN (request logs).

robert_lazar

logs are any information a vpn saves,,,whether it is an ip address,duration,timestamp or amount of data used.

 blackvpn and ipvanish are frauds. both claim to not log but then they will tell you they  "DO" keep information. pathetic

robert_lazar

just renewed my subscription for another year of pia. well worth it.

OmniNegro

@Irryie. Thanks. I actually did know what they were saying and what they were not saying. I see that most VPNs actually do explain exactly what is recorded, and this one does. And frankly I do not give one single solitary expletive what legalese they choose to avoid a direct admission that they log.

But nonetheless others here may have needed the explanation, and for that I thank you again. Do not hold back on my account.