MasterCard and Visa Start Banning VPN Providers 353
Nyder sends this quote from TorrentFreak:
"Swedish payment service provider Payson received an email stating that VPN services are no longer allowed to accept Visa and MasterCard payments due to a recent policy change. ... The new policy went into effect on Monday, leaving customers with a two-day window to find a solution. While the email remains vague about why this drastic decision was taken, in a telephone call Payson confirmed that it was complying with an urgent requirement from Visa and MasterCard to stop accepting payments for VPN services. 'It means that U.S. companies are forcing non-American companies not to allow people to protest their privacy and be anonymous, and thus the NSA can spy even more.'"
Oddly, this comes alongside news that MasterCard has backed down on its financial blockade against WikiLeaks.
And thus it begins (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:And thus it begins (Score:4, Funny)
welcome bitcoin overlords, etc.
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Re:And thus it begins (Score:5, Funny)
A Beowulf cluster of Raspberry Pis running VPN Endpoints when not mining Bitcoins.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Boycott VISA MASTERCARD. Start using BITCOIN. (Score:5, Insightful)
Learn to use Bitcoin instead of VISA and MASTERCARD.
Sure. How do I buy bitcoins without using Visa or MasterCard (or Paypal)?
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Usually you use Local Bit Coins or any of the methods [localbitcoins.com]listed on this new user's guide [bitcoin.it].
Re:Boycott VISA MASTERCARD. Start using BITCOIN. (Score:5, Insightful)
Heh, that local bitcoins site is great. "Meet me outside my apartment building and hand me cash, and sure enough you'll get some bitcoins, I promise, pinky swear".
Anyone with any better advice?
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Uhhm, you _can_ verify that. Just whip out your phone and make sure the coins were sent before you give cash or buy from someone well trusted.
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Well, technically, banks do the same when you deposit money. And given their recent record of honesty, reliability and stability, I don't really see THAT much of a difference to be honest.
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The answer of course is no for obvious reasons. And those obvious reasons also apply when discussing exchanging currencies in banks vs some guy you arrange to meet in a parking lot or wherever.
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Sure. How do I buy bitcoins without using Visa or MasterCard (or Paypal)?
Use Discover.
Re:Boycott VISA MASTERCARD. Start using BITCOIN. (Score:5, Interesting)
I withdrew $500 in cash from my bank, went to Walmart and had a Moneygram sent to Bitinstant. Within an hour it was in my Mt Gox account, minus all the fixed and transaction fees (a somewhat hefty $25). Certainly inconvenient but the process is pretty straightforward once you understand how it works. YMMV.
Of course this doesn't consider what's involved in getting USD out of Mt. Gox which is ideally just the inverse. But I planned on spending the bitcoins so it wasn't a consideration.
Re:Boycott VISA MASTERCARD. Start using BITCOIN. (Score:5, Interesting)
That question is only relevant until I'm able to earn part of my salary directly in bitcoins.
Then it is already relevant to some people. I employ a graphic artist that lives in Karachi, Pakistan. Paypal doesn't work in Pakistan. I used to pay her with a quarterly wire transfer, but that ate up about 5% of her salary in fees. So now I pay her in bitcoins, and the transaction fees are less than 1%.
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Because we've paid for it in blood with the creation of unions and the labor movement. We also pay taxes from our earnings to support a much better infrastructure, social safety net and (full circle) pay for our industrial security complex war machine.
You are looking at this the wrong way...why don't the third world workers deserve to be paid more?
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The problem is if you want to buy or sell bitcoins for normal currencies, you need to go through exchanges and many governments are planning to regulate those exchanges to collect income and sales taxes. If companies are going to use bitcoins for trade, governments will likely tell companies trading within their territory to apply taxes to those bitcoin transactions too.
While governments may not control bitcoin directly, they do have control over entities trading using it within their territory.
Bitcoin may
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I would love to. Now how do I actually get the damn things?
I'm a fairly technical person, but I've spent hours dicking around on various trading exchanges and buying sites, but there are just *no* clear directions. Most of them tell me to go to a Walmart to get some tokens or a code or some shit. WTF? I thought this was supposed to be a purely online currency.
Until we have "I PayPal you X dollars/Euros/whatever, you give me Y bitcoins" this newfangled shit just ain't gonna catch on.
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I just use my bank's online money transfer system. I didn't have to go anywhere or physically buy anything.
Re: And thus it begins (Score:2)
This has nothing to do with the NSA. This is all about the so called content owners protecting copyright. And with this they are starting to win!
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Re: And thus it begins (Score:5, Insightful)
Nah, technology adapts far easier and quicker against them than at their favor. Visa and Mastercard are hardy the only ways in existence to exchange money and as they become more and more restrictive other options are sure to fill the void.
Right... it is ultimately to their detriment to adopt these policies.
They are creating a motivation and a market for other companies to replace them
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They have been winning for at least a hundred years. Remind yourself of how copyright started and look at where we are now.
They are persistent, they are skilled at what they do and they are most definitely winning.
Re: And thus it begins (Score:5, Insightful)
The whole "I read it in X, they say it on Y, so it must be true" fallacy stems from the misconception that "free press" means that the press tells the truth. While they MAY, unlike in countries where the ruling powers dictate what they may print, no law dictates that they MUST do so.
The press is still held in pretty high esteem in large portions of the population, mostly because of what they did in the past. The press actually earned that reputation. We did actually have some high quality reporters and a lot of very good journalists that critically analyzed events around the globe and tried to offer enough insight to give people the "other side" of what governments and "official" news outlets provide.
This gradually changed in the last two or so decades. News turned from information to entertainment, and content was replaced with opinion. The press ain't what it used to be. I'd love to peg it all on Fox News and how their sensationalist, opinion-heavy reporting "forced" everyone else to jump the bandwagon, but in the end, we're to blame. If we didn't want to get that kind of "news", they couldn't offer it.
People don't want information anymore. They don't want to form their opinion. They don't want to think. They want to choose the opinion they want to join. It's easier. It spares them the thinking. They can just parrot what your favorite news anchorman spills and feel intelligent for using big words (even though the words aren't theirs).
We're to blame. It's love to say "they are", but I can't help but feel responsible for it, too.
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Re:And thus it begins (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And thus it begins (Score:5, Insightful)
Outside source or not, we have a basic right to communicate over a secured connection, and so by extension the right to pay any legitimate company we like to provide said services to us.
But no, a world corporate duopoly Mastercard/Visa have decided that we no longer have that right. As citizens WE MUST revoke or at the very least impose hefty enough fines on these companies for abusing the privileges we gave them, by allowing them to sell their services into our respective countries. Arrogance, much.
Of course, those who organized this fiasco are the same ones who control our their politicians, so this basic and necessary wrist slapping will not occur, and so we continue our slide down the slippery slope...
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Would you care to cite a source for that? Viz : country name, and legal code reference to this asserted right being granted.
I'll not hold my breath while I'm waiting.
Re:And thus it begins (Score:4, Informative)
Here is the reference you asked for [wikipedia.org]. I can forgive you for not realizing you had this right, given how seriously US/UK some EU and commonwealth nation states are ignoring and openly pissing on basic human rights.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
A right to privacy is explicitly stated under Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.[14]
[14] United Nations. (1948). Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Retrieved October 7, 2006 from http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.htm [un.org]
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Re:And thus it begins (Score:4, Insightful)
And if you had read the linked articles, you would have seen the prior occurrence with wikileaks. Having both Visa & Mastercard not accept either the wikileaks donations or VPN payments at the same time seams suspicious.
"Seems suspicious"? It was already obvious that they take orders from Washington, in exchange for diplomatic support for their expansion into Russia and other markets.
It was already obvious that Visa and Mastercard are not neutral payment providers, and therefore not reliable as international payment infrastructure.
This just underscores even more that we need better payment infrastructure. The world can't afford to be dependent on these two companies for its economic traffic.
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VPN are used for often in Europe to access US service like Hulu, Netflix.
So such services are despised both by national security and national/big companies interests. I have always been amazed that a VPN service with entry point in the US with a decent bandwidth has been allowed to exist at all.
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Lucky me. (Score:5, Funny)
I provide my VPN to myself for free. ;)
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Too bad by running your own VPN on your own Internet connection, all privacy is gone. Everything can easily be tracked right back to you. Not saying that running your own VPN doesn't bring some serious advantages... but privacy is most definitely not one of them.
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They can see who he communicated with, they cant see WHAT he communicated. Thats the best you can possibly expect from public infrastructure.
But they can see that he has something to hide, which is probably enough to get a search warrant these days.
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But they can see that he has something to hide, which is probably enough to get a search warrant these days.
Yep. http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/06/21/1443204/use-tor-get-targeted-by-the-nsa [slashdot.org]
But I don't think a search warrant is needed these days... they'll just take what they want as they please. The government don't give a shit, they wiped their ass with the Bill of Rights and flushed it down the toilet a long time ago.
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I think you're getting privacy confused with anonymity.
You know a monopoly is present (Score:5, Insightful)
When it's impossible to boycot the bad guy...
Re:You know a monopoly is present (Score:5, Interesting)
What I really dislike about this is how it is a group of companies acting as a pack to instill their own laws/moral judgement on the world at large. Why do they get to decide which companies I deal with or not?
Re:You know a monopoly is present (Score:5, Insightful)
Because it's their network and no regulatory body has told them no. Doesn't make it right, but that's how it is until somebody steps in and says no.
Re: You know a monopoly is present (Score:3, Informative)
It's not really a private company decision. US financial control authorities merely disallow any money transaction company that flouts their political controls. It is not allowed to have a non US based credit card network.
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Oh whatever (Score:5, Insightful)
> 'It means that U.S. companies are forcing non-American companies not to allow people to protest their privacy and be anonymous, and thus the NSA can spy even more.'
That's rather bias. It also means that people are no longer able to circumvent geo locks on media content, avoiding the current media distribution models and laws. Some people are protecting their privacy, but I would guess the vast majority just want to watch Game of Thrones.
Re:Oh whatever (Score:5, Funny)
I would guess the vast majority just want to watch Game of Thrones.
This evil must be stopped at all costs to freedom and liberty!
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Game of Thrones' Lord Vaerys: The content of a man's letter is more valuable than the content of his purse.
Re:Oh whatever (Score:5, Informative)
They made it harder for non-Americans to pretend to be Americans and subscribe to things like netflix. Lots of people want to pay for content, content that is not available in their country or content that is much cheaper in the States so they get a VPN to pretend that they're somewhere else.
Re:Oh whatever (Score:5, Insightful)
That people pay VPN services to bypass geo locks means they have money to pay *something* to watch that content. Media companies should take note and offer more reasonable pricing for content globally. All they are accomplishing by getting Visa and Mastercard to collude with them is forcing people to use even less legal methods to get content.
"The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." - John Gilmore
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That people pay VPN services to bypass geo locks means they have money to pay *something* to watch that content. Media companies should take note and offer more reasonable pricing for content globally.
Yes.
All they are accomplishing by getting Visa and Mastercard to collude with them is forcing people to use even less legal methods to get content.
No. They are not forcing anyone to be less legal, that's probably your bias. They are removing one method, which may make some users not bother, some go a legal route, and some go another illegal route.
it is not illegal for me to route my connection through another country. but the thing is, they sell the same service globally but offer different things. if I pay for netflix I can watch it from any country I want. HOWEVER.. what country I watch it from greatly affects what shows they have on offer. this is because the copyright lobby is selling rights like it was 1984. this is of course makes buying netflix in certain areas bullshit - you get a lot less for your money.
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I've found books to be a great alternative...
Re:Oh whatever (Score:5, Informative)
I use a VPN service (VyprVPN). I'm a USian.
My primary reason for using it is that many "open" hotspots have filters. These filters often filter out content that is merely "politically inconvenient", usually to the Religious Right. Since a lot of the web filtering software has ties to these self-appointed censors, they tend to be very aggressive on what they filter.
VyprVPN allows me to access these sites even from behind this restrictive filtering.
Re:Oh, fuck off. (Score:4, Interesting)
You're crude and fail to understand simple arguments, and some key aspects of language and communication.
You have inferred an opposite point of view to your own from my statements.
This shows you see the world as black and white, and anyone's opinion as either with you entirely or against. This is simply not the case.
I do not have enough data to say anything more than what I guess. I could probably find some.
I am not willing to throw out anonymity and privacy for those who want to circumvent copyright.
The above is in bold so you can see I agree with you.
Ideally media companies would find another way to distribute content. One that suits the users who are prepared to pay for it and themselves.
I would bet that media companies protecting their current, quite flawed, distribution model is the motivation behind stopping payments. Not spying.
Furthermore, grow up.
US considered hostile (Score:5, Informative)
Don't use US services.
Re:US considered hostile (Score:5, Insightful)
A nation (or to be fair, its administration) that continually bullies its own people and citizens of other nations cannot expect to be treated as anything but a pariah. Trouble is, I don't see any other governments having the courage to stand up to the US.
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Already dropped by US based Usenet provider and web host for precisely this reason. It was getting tiresome having to deal with a host that bowed down to everything the US wanted even though I was doing nothing wrong in my country (or even frankly under US law either, but this isn't about law, it's about morals being imposed by companies outside of the law).
This is why... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is why we need a payment system that does NOT rely on PayPal, Visa, or MasterCard.
And I guess this is why the US Govt. is trying to shut down bitcoin so hard....
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This is why we need a payment system that does NOT rely on PayPal, Visa, or MasterCard.
American Express?
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Cash?
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If the US government was trying to shutdown Bitcoin - you'd have a point.
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Re:This is why... (Score:5, Funny)
And with enough energy and malice, I could burn the galaxy. Your point?
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With enough CPU power and malice, i could destroy Bitcoin in its current incarnation.
Which is why you are not given enough CPU power. It is distributed to prevent people from accumulating enough to destroy it. If you bought all of the world's top supercomputers, you would not have enough CPU power to "take over" bitcoin.
Also, you couldn't destroy bitcoin even if you did have over 50% of the horsepower, you could only invalidate your recent transactions, and prevent other transactions from being recorded. it would have to be out of sheer malice, because there is no way you could make it fi
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With enough CPU power and malice, i could destroy Bitcoin in its current incarnation.
But enough CPU power is not a fixed quantity; that is a number that keeps going up continuously, at a faster and faster rate.
The larger the bitcoin mining networks become, the larger that quantity, until it is so large, that it is no one entity could round up sufficient CPU power.
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BTC isn't the answer, it has too many serious flaws
no it doesn't.
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Yes it does, and they've been discussed a ton over the last couple years here.
The implementation will lead inevitably to deflation and the currency seizing up, assuming of course that the authorities don't crack down on it being used to transfer funds around the world without the normal paperwork.
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Hmm, maybe they should... (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmm, maybe they should rename their services. "Remote internet ISP services" or "SSL internet connection", or some other obfuscated name. They can't ban everything associated with the internet.
Re:Hmm, maybe they should... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, they can. That's why this is so scary. ISPs are VPN providers just waiting to happen. Every ISP that provides shell accounts can easily become someone's VPN provider, through no fault of their own.
First, they came for the VPN providers....
Use Amex? :) (Score:2)
Surely there are other forms of payment that are acceptable to this Swedish VPN provider? Vote with your feet.
Who knows if they're under pressure from the NSA or other bad actors...perhaps it's just related to CC fraud? In either case...see above.
Lo-Tek Solution (Score:2)
What's the big deal? Pay by check! What's a week or two to save your rights?
Re: (Score:2)
I wonder. There isn't any way to prevent them from cashing my check, is there?
I pay somebody by check, they deposit it to their bank, it goes through the international clearinghouse, gets paid by my bank, and get charged to my account.
The clearinghouse can't just decide not to pay checks drawn to iPredator, is there? It's a legally binding obligation.
Or if there was, it would be easy to get around it, right? iPredator could open a new account under the name "iPredator's Girlfriend" or something.
Re:Lo-Tek Solution? Perhaps ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Your cheque is an order to the bank to pay $X to Y. If your government outlaws Y, the bank cannot honour your order.
At the moment, banks have a smallish list of countries and companies that have been outlawed, and so the bank cannot pay tme anything. These are organizations/countries claimed to be in of support of terrorism. If the government in question can argue VPNs enable terrorism, they can add VPN companies to the list.
--dave
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Instead of having an anonymous pre-paid credit card that was purchased at a particular store but not tied to you individually, they now have an account number that identifies you as well as you can be identified.
Thanks to money laundering laws and things like Check21 where it's all done electronically, you might as well put your name on every IP packet. It would be easier to find you by your check than figure out which John Smith you are.
Pre-paid still gets processed by the issuer, so you need a processing
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What's the big deal? Pay by check! What's a week or two to save your rights?
Sorry, we dont accept personal cheques, especially from foreign banks.
You're still at the mercy of the bank who can choose to not to accept cheques.
Two thoughts. (Score:5, Insightful)
2) I make use of these usurious parasites' services because it lets me conveniently move my money from place to place without worrying about the security of either cash or my real bank accounts, and I can essentially do all my spending with one tidy itemized monthly bill. If I can no longer use Visa to purchase the goods and services I want, I no longer have a reason to use Visa at all.
And a bonus thought, for good measure - For those talking about the NSA or Bitcoin - This involves regional protection of content, a favor to Hollywood, nothing more and nothing less. At least direct your vitriol in the right direction, folks.
Re:Two thoughts. (Score:5, Interesting)
And a bonus thought, for good measure - For those talking about the NSA or Bitcoin - This involves regional protection of content, a favor to Hollywood, nothing more and nothing less. At least direct your vitriol in the right direction, folks.
This is a favor to Hollywood; last time it was a favour to Government so they could try to starve out Wikileaks. It's a question of control. With the current system, Visa can vritually control who you can and cannot buy goods and services from, putting them in the position of being able to exert de facto control over the economy.
A decentralized payment method (like cash, or bitcoin) puts the control in the owners of the money. Cash has too many historical roots to destroy, but its inherently limited in its ability to make large payments across wide geographical separation. Which is why bitcoin (and any other new, decentralized, electronic currency) is a threat to the existing system.
Censorship is live and well everywhere (Score:2)
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Call the WTO, the IMF, the marines! (Score:4, Funny)
This is a restriction of trade. If we can force people to buy tainted beef and GMO foods, surely we can beat this.
Very suspicious (Score:5, Interesting)
Does anyone else find this story very suspicious? I mean, VPN services are completely mainstream, widely used by business people. I bet that even MasterCard and Visa use them. And suddenly we're told there's a conspiracy to ban them. And the poster attributes this to the NSA wanting to spy on us. All based on completely anecdotal reports from one company that you've probably never heard of before.
I suspect the summary will turn out to be a complete misrepresentation, and the truth will be something far less evil and far less interesting than this post makes it out to be.
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I didn't know VPNs were a problem (Score:2)
alternatives? (Score:4, Insightful)
Hello,
Does the ban extend to VPS providers like Linode and Lowendbox (et al), or cloud services like Amazon AWS or Google Cloud which could host a VPN? If not, perhaps provisioning a VPN server is one of these is an alternative.
Credit card companies and payment processors might be less willing to suspend operations with Amazon or Google.
Regards,
Aryeh Goretsky
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The alternative to using a VPN is simply to rent a box (virtual or physical) in the US, then make your purchases from that box. Seeing as the endpoint as far as the merchant is concerned is in the US there is no real way to block it (well you could try playing whack-a-mole with "cloud" service providers and well, good luck with that.
It's the same as using freight forwarders, but a lot harder to bl
Request, and suggestion... (Score:5, Interesting)
I personally do not use a VPN service anymore, but have a request for anyone that does. I also request you post results here, in this thread, to share any response you may receive.
Please call your current VPN provider and ask them how to go about paying them for their services without using PayPal, Visa, Mastercard or AmEx. Just see what advice they give to you in order for you to continue using their services (if any).
I am curious as to how the providers themselves are responding to their customers. They may have already come up with a viable alternative payment method that has been kept out of the media.
Re:Request, and suggestion... (Score:5, Informative)
You can find a good rundown of privacy and payment options for a lot of popular VPN services here: http://torrentfreak.com/vpn-services-that-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2013-edition-130302/ [torrentfreak.com]
Basically, if you so choose, you can use a VPN service very anonymously.
Go to EU courts and have Visa/Mastercard banned! (Score:3)
Not all win for the USA (Score:2)
For those of us outside the USA who use US-based VPN providers to avoid data retention by our own countries, these VPN providers ensured our traffic was routed via the US and thus could be collected.
Thus, consequences of this are:
1. People in more oppressive states who were using VPNs are now more exposed (if the VPN was being paid for by credit card, even by someone outside that state)
2. If those VPNs were in the US, the NSA can no longer as readily monitor the communications of those people
Good or bad VPNs (Score:2)
How many people use their workplace computer during coffee/lunch breaks to make on-line purchases? And how many of these corporate intranets appear as VPNs to the outside world? That is; a gateway beyond which no IP or location data can be deduced. Are MasterCard and Visa willing to pass up such aa large chunk of business?
Not every VPN service is named TorrentFreak, iPredator or sets the IPv4 'evil' bit. Some smart people will set one up with a 'respectable' name and probably bypass the MasterCard/Visa ban
If they outlaw encryption ... (Score:3)
Of course, OUTLAWING it would incur a MASSIVE backlash from the population (insert legal challenge here).
By denying encryption FINANCIALLY, you achieve the same thing with SIGNIFICANTLY less opportunity for a legal challenge.
As Paul once said "He who can destroy a thing, controls that thing."
Translated referenced email (Score:3)
Following the link in TFA the email from Payson translates imperfectly but readably (via Google translate) to:
Payson when recently updated its policy on payments. 1 associated with this
examined your nemsida ocn then noticed that you verKsamnet unfortunately not
meets the requirements of Payson.
Payson when restrictions are against anonymization (including VPN services)
That when as a result decided to Payson unfortunately no longer can give your Customers
ability to fund the payment via their card (VISA or MasterCard).
Changes Will be done 2013-07-01 ocn then no longer possible for you to take
against this type of tranSactIOnS through Payson's integrated payment solution.
The restriction does not affect the rest of your insättningsmetedeL Payson ocn
possibility inieggad the Account implement tranSactIOnS Will not NOR to
affected by the change.
We apologize if this causes problems for you ocn are available to help you solve
This conflict with the policy wherever possible.
Sincerely,
Payson
Re:Bitcoin (Score:4, Insightful)
Bitcoin has no privacy, or complete transparency, depending on your viewpoint.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm sure the NSA logs every bitcoin transaction, but I somehow doubt the copyright cartel does, which I'm guessing is the point of these VPNs.
Re:Good For Them (Score:5, Insightful)
As somebody who used to live and work in China, I find this to be rather unfortunate. VPNs are neither good nor bad by any inherent reasoning, but what this means is that people in regions that have oppressive regimes are going to find it harder to get access to the web unfiltered as it's going to be harder and harder to fund the services.
Ultimately, if the US government has had any input in this, it's going to bite them on the ass. Well, it will bite them on the ass, regardless of causation.
Re:Good For Them (Score:5, Insightful)
It just looks like the gloves came off with the whole Snowden affair. They now know they can get away with pretty much anything and the propaganda machine will keep up appearances well enough for the masses to accept it, and as a result the two-faced "protecting the freedom" with all its problems like VPNs can be finally finished.
Re:"Right To Serve" (with your home ISP) related?? (Score:5, Interesting)
What "many" people want is irrelevant. What's important is what those with power want. Many people can be suppressed in a number of ways ranging from propaganda to intimidation, to control through financial means such as debt, to simply shooting them with a hellfire missile from a drone.
Ars technica had a very good article on a guy on their IRC channel who appears to have been Snowden back in 2000s. Back then he was quoted to state things like "leakers should be shot in the balls" and so on. Basically there will always be plenty of young men who will feel that it is patriotic to defend their country by working for the security apparatus. Most of them rarely if ever come in contact with full scale of it, and the reason why Snowden apparently got to the point where he felt he had to blow the whistle was because in his position of sysadmin he had far more access then any single analyst or operative and could judge the whole rather then a small part of the puzzle.
The result is that tyrants across the world easily stay in power on the back of such young men. When these young men occasionally become Snowdens, they are violently suppressed by those who came after them.