From The Very Practical News (VPN) File...

Hong Kong saw a spike in downloads of VPN software designed to mask internet usage Thursday after Beijing signaled plans to usher in a new national security law that could tighten its grip... more

Facebook Tried to Buy Controversial Tool to Spy on iPhone Users, Court Filing Reveals

Over the last few years, Facebook has had a slew of privacy and security blunders and more details about one of them have come to light through a new court filing as the social media company is suing the spyware company NSO Group. It turns out Facebook tried to buy controversial government spyware to monitor iPhone and iPad users.

Reported by Motherboard, when Facebook was starting to build its spyware cloaked in a VPN product, Onavo Protect for iOS and Android, the social media company reached out to the controversial company NSO Group that creates spyware for government agencies...

Apple made Facebook remove Onavo Protect from the App Store in August of 2018.

Then in 2019 Facebook repackaged it as a “Research app” and tried to pay teens to sideload it on their devices.

The Research app was shut down as well and Facebook finally shutdown Onavo completely in February 2019. more

When VPN means Very Poor Network

Roughly 60 percent of the top free mobile VPN apps returned by Google Play Store and Apple Play Store searches are from developers based in China or with Chinese ownership, raising serious concerns about data privacy, a study published today has revealed.

"Our investigation uncovered that over half of the top free VPN apps either had Chinese ownership or were actually based in China, which has aggressively clamped down on VPN services over the past year and maintains an iron grip on the internet within its borders," said Simon Migliano, Head of Research at Metric Labs, a company that runs the Top10VPN portal.

"Furthermore, we found the majority of free VPN apps had little-to-no formal privacy protections and non-existent user support," Migliano said.

The expert says that 86 percent of the apps he analyzed had "unacceptable privacy policies." For example, some apps didn't say if they logged traffic, some apps appeared to use generic privacy policies that didn't even mention the term VPN, while some apps didn't feature a privacy policy at all. On top of this, other apps admitted in their policies to sharing data with third-parties, tracking users, and sending and sharing data with Chinese third-parties. more

Kevin's Spybuster Tip # 724 - Check out Outline.

The Good News, Bad News VPN Joke

In January this year, China announced a 14-month campaign to crack down on VPNs in a bid to tighten online surveillance
ahead of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China which opens in October....

Unlike individual users, multinational firms operating in China are still permitted to use VPNs in what amounts to something of a legal grey area, but it is likely that this usage will be restricted to software approved by the government, which will presumably have backdoors installed to allow eavesdropping, raising fears of an increase in industrial espionage activities. more

Security Director Alert: Site Seeing In China - Not All Sites Can Be Seen

Traveling to China? 

Need to connect with specific websites?

Check to see if you will be able to connect.

The New York Times is an example of one popular site which is blocked.

Fortunately, GreatFire.org has a work-around for this, and other helpful tips.

Check here for our 20 additional traveler's tips. ~Kevin