Announcement: 🚀 PIA Q2 2024 Transparency Report is now available!

Hello, r/PrivateInternetAccess community!

We’re thrilled to announce that the 2024 Q2 Transparency report for Private Internet Access is now available! Our commitment to providing privacy and security to all our users is rooted in transparency, and this report demonstrates that commitment.

https://preview.redd.it/xwi676k68ped1.png?width=1080&format=png&auto=webp&s=4465a311447b4014ac0fed16bac9cfdc074056cb

This report provides our users insights into how we operate our service and secure your data. You can find more insights into our service for the second quarter of 2024 on our blog here: ~https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/transparency-report-q2-2024~.

Great now let’s work on improving server speed and improving congestion because 30-50mbps isn’t fast enough

So if you receive a foreign notice, are you obliged to give the user information to them?

I use pia for years and right now my speed is dl over 400mb/sec

I have been considering the issue of speed. Let me explain. For some months now I have had an issue with PIA and Proton both being slower. Or at least testing slower. Then I have had Trend Micro VPN that began running at full rated speed. Over the years I have used and occasionally speed tested VPS that I use. There was alwats a lag in speed when compared to not usig a vpn. Usually VPN to VPN was comparable in lag and speed. With the recent experience with the two VPN services that I trust (PIA and Proton) vs Trend Micro, where Micro suddenly goes full speed. I consider that service to be broken or compromised. For the time being I use the two services that I trust.

Are you actually seeing a reduction in speed when it is requested in transit protocol? How do you know that? Can you now not stream video in HD? Will YouTube not deliver 4K when it is listed as an available format? What are you actually seeing?

What if the VPN uses aggregate data from their data center. This data could be telling them what average data looks like. They may not even be using their own data to make these data profile identifications. That kind of data must be commercially available all over the hardware conventions that service providers go to at least once per year. What if the average connection in the United States is 50 Mbps? My speed test on a good for the past three months has been sometimes on a good day 150. My actual speed is a multiple of this. I do not torrent or deal in files often enough to speak with any experience on server transfer speed to me. I am just a point and click end user. What I can say is that the recent activity that I have experienced is effecting three different VPS that I use regularly in a consistent and significant manner. I consider Trend Micro to be compromised for the time being. They have no transparency and a VPN should never operate at full connection rated speed.

Here is the conclusion that I have come to with Proton and PIA. The VPS knows who the speed testers are. The VPN knows that speed testers map the tests that they make. The VPN provider sets the service to respond with the most common test profile for the server that the user is connected to. The provision of a generic speed reduces the fingerprinting of the connection of the larger internet. The VPN would likely also have data on all of the top commercial servers that serve data on the internet. These servers provide that data to IT professionals so that equipment requesting data can interact in the proper way. The servers see X% of data requests and completed transfers with 50Mbps connection speed. The commercial server will SYN ACK with that as the first round of negotiation with the initial connection. This gets logged. The connection is stabilized and the log is no longer focused on the connection. The VPN says, ok it has been 90 seconds connected to Netflix. VPN will now make a 200Mbps request to the server. The server will make adjustment. VPN will accept and end user now has 4K. The protocol of throttling and logging initial connections helps cloud providers protect the Commercial server from malicious denial of service type attacks. The VPN adopts the 50Mbps initial connection to protect the user identities and prevent threat actors from using the service as a weapon.

If this does or does not make sense please respond. If I am full of shit it would be a god thing for me to consider further my assertion. Test the weakness of my conjecture. If you feel that this private idea of mine is convincing then it would be of assistance to know any details of your experience that you can share to help me understand what part of the elephant I have my hands on over here in the dark. So, good or bad I am open to feedback.

They don’t collect logs so they cannot give them anything.

What server location and what connection protocol r u using

Yes but after the notice/request from the government they start collecting user connection timestamps, connection logs for that particular user

Usually somewhere in US, sometimes Canada

I suppose, technically, a court could order them to begin collecting information. But, they physically cannot do so. A court order can’t make them collect logs any more than it can make me fly.

How can they collect on something they don’t have. There is no law that you must have logs unless it’s PCI or some other compliance.

What do you think what happens when PIA receives a legal request?

Nothing… They got nothing.