Your ISP farms and sells your data too.
replyMost VPNs are untrustworthy, but unlike ISPs, you can choose from any VPN provider in the world, not just the two or three that are local to you. And there are VPN providers in the world that have been proven not to retain data by audits + actual court cases where the court determined that the VPN provider did not have the data authorities were seeking. Do your research and choose a court-proven VPN, it's that simple.
Deutsche Telekom in Germany/EU farms and sells my data? Any sources?
replyYou probably won't find direct proof any more than you will find direct proof of any random VPN selling your data, it's just a given that commercial entities are liable to sell financially valuable data, and a list of all traffic, every website you visit and every service you use, tied to a specific identity is certainly financially valuable. Being in the EU doesn't change this; in fact the EU explicitly required that ISPs retain your identifying data with the Data Retention Directive, and though this was struck down after 8 years in court, many individual national governments immediately moved to impose similar requirements. I don't know if Germany was one of them but unless Germany has a specific privacy directive that goes beyond EU law I would see zero reason to place any trust in an ISP. In fact even if there was a law that's still not a reason to trust an ISP, because privacy laws are violated constantly; the most trustworthy source by far is a party acting opposite to the government, who has been investigated by the government and proven not to log the data that the government wants.
reply"EU explicitly required that ISPs retain your identifying data with the Data Retention Directive"
replyAnd then sells it?
What gives you confidence that they aren't? I have confidence my VPN doesn't sell my traffic not because I implicitly trust what they say, but because if they had logs the courts would have found them when trying to seize data themselves. What makes you trust your ISP so much? Faith in the human goodness of businesses to look out for the best interests of their customers, even if it means passing up an opportunity to make a larger profit? Faith in their words, or faith in toothless privacy laws that have been violated time and time again?
reply"What gives you confidence that they aren't?"
reply What gives you the confidence that Bigfoot does not exist?
What gives you the confidence we're not ruled by Reptile overlords?
What gives you the confidence we're not just in the Matrix and nothing matters?
What gives you the confidence you're not just a dream by a dog in Sicily?
What gives you the confidence I even exist and you're not talking to yourself?
It's a conspiracy theory to observe reality now? It is a known factor that ISPs in general sell data, even if there isn't smoking gun proof for every single individual ISP (...just as there isn't smoking gun proof for every individual VPN). If you want to take the piss, at least get it right -- you're denying the existence of one individual Bigfoot after 100 other specimens of the Bigfeetian species have been found and conclusively proven to exist. Jesus, the complete disregard for common sense and privacy of even the tech-inclined members of the general public never ceases to amaze me.
replyOnce again an adherent of the corrupt EU blindly defends the regime.
replyDoesnt't surprise me that they're counting on gullible, useful idiots defending "Chat Control" and eIDAS.
Even if it farms and only stores your data (which it does) without selling isn't good. YMMV between EU countries but I think even torrenting in Germany is way less safe than eg. in Poland where nobody bats an eye.
replyCould you please provide proof for such findings about eg. Proton and Mullvad?
replyI can easily pay for a VPN service with crypto anonymously. I can also use a VPN run by a company outside my country of residence and jurisdiction.
replyNeither of those is possible with my ISP.
Paying with crypto does something to deindentify you, but does nothing about your traffic. It's still being watched.
replyprepaid 5g sim cards and 5g modem.
replyYes and 5G provider knows your exact location while VPNs can be easily chained.
replySure, if you want to get crazy with it you put prepaid phone in another location, put it on your Tailscale VPN then proxy all traffic through the prepaid phone with something like: https://github.com/kost/revsocks
replyPhone doesn't even need data if you have access to wifi wherever you stash it.
VPN chaining easier though.
Whole idea of "put phone in location X" alone is much harder to implement than to buy 5, 10 or 100 VPN account or servers with crypto and setup how you like.
replyLike you need to physically be there, need ability to connect phone it to electricity and somehow maintain if it e.g reboots. And stay anonymous while doing so? I'd say that Hollywood kind of solution.
Make it a “tourist eSIM” for a good measure. Your phone will be in one country, your exit IP in another (because there usually use roaming).
replyThat said, you might still want to use a VPN on top of that, depending on what you’re doing.
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replyMost ISPs have invested big bucks in Deep Packet Inspection
replyThat just helps them classify the type of traffic. They're not breaking the encryption to see the actual content.
replyNow try saying that wearing some Russian or Chinese shoes.
reply> Almost all commercial VPN services farm and sell your data.
replyCitation needed.
I understand it's not up to your (or anyone's) level of belief, but I am in intimately familiar with their modus operandi.
replyFor everyone in the industry it is le secret de Polichinelle.
I think they don't sell their VPN data, because if that ever came out, that would destroy their business. Selling the data would be far too risky for them.
replyThats like saying there is no corruption in government because it would undermine public trust in it.
replyOf course there is, and to huge extent. They know they canget away with it, so they do.
My ISP is in a communist country, they sell other products like TV boxes, cameras, clouds and have ads/trackers on all of their products too.
replyShould I trust my ISP than Mullvad? LMFAO.