How one small American VPN company is trying to stand up for privacy
In recent months, I’ve started to take my own digital security much more seriously. I encrypt my e-mail when possible, I’ve moved away from Gmail, and I’ve become much more vigilant about using a VPN nearly all the time. Just as cryptographers and security researchers are auditing tools like TrueCrypt, I’ve started to kick the tires of the products that I rely upon on daily basis.
When I lived in Germany between 2010 and 2012, my wife and I paid $40 a year for a commercial VPN so we could continue to watch Hulu. But upon our return stateside, I kept paying for it anyway, for privacy-minded reasons. There are lots of VPNs out there, but the one I use is Private Internet Access (PIA).
Why PIA? No particular reason, really. I don’t remember exactly how I came to choose it, but I remember seeing it in a roundup of VPNs listed on TorrentFreak. I now use PIA nearly every day, almost all the time, and that got me wondering: how does the company respond to real-world legal requests? Has it ever been compelled to hand over user data? Were those users ever notified?
