With the leaks of Panama papers about the extensive list of shell companies, it is still secured using the vpns from Panama?
I don't know how a breach in one company's systems can affect security of VPNs from that country? What exactly do you worry about?
You missed my point. Not sure about the security. These are shells companies. Don't you worry where are they from or who are the owner(s)?
therefore should one look into the country of incorporation with strong business registration regulations?
This issue is definitely a "two edged sword". As an example: the TrueCrypt forum was extremely successful for many years because those running it were beyond reach via strong anonymity. One of my personal assertions is that it came crashing down AFTER admin exposure. Once they had access to the individuals (admins) in charge, the attacks/pressures were too great to continue. Similarly, can you just imagine the enormous pressure upon an individual running a commercial VPN if the authorities want access to their members? Feel free to read all the nice legal jargon you want out of law books, but that Cinderella world isn't reality. Family members threatened, etc.... and suddenly or eventually they will cave in. You would too by the way! The other edge of the sword is you actually don't know who is running the VPN maybe. Do you trust a stranger, or would you rather trust someone you know but also "the man" knows them as well? Its definitely a two edged sword with liabilities to either edge. You might consider the vast majority of the members who post in the privacy section of Wilder's. Do they go offshore for their VPN's or do they just grab a USA based provider when a high security need is in play? You take a risk using either edge of the sword, but employing a partition of trust among providers mitigates most of the risk.
My recommendation: pick a VPN based somewhere that doesn't play readily with your government. If chaining VPNs, and using at least three, maybe pick a friendlier service for the second one. But always exit from at least neutral jurisdictions. And when it matters, add Tor using Whonix.
The way things are going in what used to be known as liberal democracies, there are or will be specific provisions to compel VPN providers to do logging. For instance, the UK's upcoming IP Bill compels "Communications Service Providers" (very widely defined but certainly including VPN providers) to put in backdoors without appeal or judicial oversight, if the UK feels like it. I'd say the same thing applies to the US. One might think that, absent the unlawful mass-surveillance and bulk equipment interference they are also doing, that warranted individual monitoring is a necessary and proportional thing to do. However, in the circumstances, to avoid the mass-surveillance stuff, a person who chose a VPN provider in a jurisdiction that could thumb its nose at what the UK thought, or one that actually obeyed the rule of law, would be a superior choice. Of course, that still leaves you with the risks associated with a provider who has been subverted in some other way, but at least they wouldn't be intrinsically friendly to your own government that has the power and uses it to operate outside the law, as well as cause you severe grief for false positives or because you say perfectly lawful things that they don't like. Again, this is not hypothetical - the UK LE and spooks have been caught monitoring privileged legal communication with a victim of torture with a case against the UK government, of illegal behaviour in infiltrating legal activist movements, and in monitoring complaints against the Met by the Lawrence family. The latest outrage being the admission in a case brought by Privacy International of keeping Bulk Personal Datasets of innocent people with no safeguards and making them available to all and sundry. Must be alright because they even have a TLA for it - BPD, it's so routine and unexceptional. Trust us, we're keeping you safe from trrrists and keeping your children safe. The Greater Good!
