Privacy.li - Facts please

Many members here harshly criticize Privacy.li as an anonymity/privacy web service provider.

For example

malwaretesting:

Caspian:

Reve_Etrange:

Genady Prishnikov:

So I had to ask:

Really, guys, I would like to hear as many specifics as possible. First hand experiences, not just hearsay.

I've been considering them as one of my first privacy choices, but before I make any decisions I'd like to hear what you have to say.

Thank you.

 

Just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in. Okay, one more post today since it's about Privacy.li.

What led you to Privacy.li to begin with? Was it Dr. Who's FAQ? Would it surprise you to know that Dr. Who himself has stopped recommending Privacy.li and has admitted it was a mistake? He was considering at one point putting something in his FAQ telling people to stay away, but he eventually settled on removing them from his FAQ.

So, why is Privacy.li still recommended in the FAQ? Because Privacy.li is hosting an old version of it where Privacy.li is still recommended. And they won't remove it. So, when you do a search for the FAQ on Google, the first site that pops up is Privacy.li, hosting an old version. Dr. Who has no recourse and no way to force Privacy.li to remove the old FAQ.

I'm too lazy right now to bring up links for you, but you should find some stuff on Google. I'll just summarize.

I was there first hand. I had plenty of dealings with Adem/Adminus, or whatever he calls himself now. He was confirmed to have stolen money from a few different people (probably a lot more that didn't talk), and his claim was that it was lost in the mail (or something like that), and there is nothing that he can do. He ripped off one woman for $2000. When confronted about this, he posted personal information (that only he knew) about the people he ripped off. He posted IP addresses, correspondences, names, and anything else he had to try to get the people to shut up. When confronted about this, he lied and claimed that the people posted information about themselves to try to discredit him.

If you were on alt.privacy any time in the last few years, it was demonstrated that he actually knew very little about security or running a service like this. Some of what he was doing seemed designed to run man in the middle attacks. He even had an offering of Tor with his service that was configured completely wrong.

He spammed alt.privacy.* relentlessly for years. And many believe that he is part of the reason these newsgroups are now a barren wasteland.

Basically, he's scum. I'll look for links if you don't believe me, but they're scattered, and it's late.

Addendum: I just googled "Doctor Who Security and Encryption FAQ" and the Privacy.li version was not the first hit. It was in the past, but I guess it's changed.

 

I second the statement by malwaretesting. Additionally, I have firsthand experience with the slandering by Adem/Adminus or any of his other zillions of aliases. Anyone he perceives as a threat to his economic model ends up on his forums.

It works like this: If you have some service that he thinks poses a threat to him, and he thinks he can get away with it, he will create a fake user and post some slanderous material about xyz being a honeypot or similar. Then if anyone asks for proof, that user will disappear, and conflicting posts will be deleted. At the end of the day, no proof will ever emerge. It is a forum specifically designed and administered to create fear, uncertainty, and disinformation as a selling tactic. Lots of claims, but never any proof, or exploits, or code, or demonstration of knowledge, or community contribution to security, which is how you would distinguish between FUD and fact and credibility.

I recall one time he copied the whole member list of a privacy forum, and then claimed they were all scammers and frausters, and to stay away from them! Just outrageous stuff.

 

Compare the official version of the FAQ to the privacy.li version to see how disgusting they are:

http://privacy.li/security_faq.htm

https://www.panta-rhei.eu.org/pantawiki/SecurityAndEncryptionFaq


Do a search for "privacy.li". You'll see in the official version, privacy.li is not mentioned. In the doctored (no pun intended) version on the Privacy.li site, you'll see that privacy.li is mentioned in the FAQ.

That alone should tell you how desperate they are.

 

And they stole their graphic designs from Zero Knowledge Systems. Specifically from some of their promotional flyers. I don't know what that means relevant to security, but graft of intellectual property isn't a good sign to me.

Edit: BAM. Proof of intellectual property theft.

Disclaimer: Personally i thought the zks logo kind of looked like the old xb logo. coincidence?!?! probably. but the stuff above, with malwaretesting's link is 100% ripoff, word for word.

 

I will third malewaretesting's post and Steve is also spot-on. There is nothing good - nothing - about privacy.li.

Here's an interesting thought: He was always calling others out as "honeypots". All the time. Almost protesting TOO loudly. He wrote some stinging anti-USA rants and is openly ant-semitic. Now, think about it, there's one of two possibilities that are worthy of consideration - 1) He really is a jerk, violently anti-American and anti-semitic. 2) OR, if the intelligence services were to setup a high-profile honeypot, that's exactly how they would do it. Think about it. To bring in private communications with radical Islamists, they would portray themselves as what? Yep - seriously anti-American and make it clear upfront they hate Israel and blame Jews for everything. Some militant groups/individuals would see all that and think, "Here's our kind of guy." Hmmmm.

The bottom line on this is that privacy.li has nothing to offer. The evidence you seek is in these posts (all the things malware and Steve mentioned can be verified). A good, hard Google search will give you what you want and a lot of it points right back to statements straight from the horse's mouth - from privacy.li themselves. Frankly, either they are total thieves and jerks or - they're something else and reeling in those who think privacy.li is like-minded. Either way, the best advice is stay far, far away.

 

Oh wow, I would have never thought of that. How disgusting though.

 

OK, let's leave ideological issues aside, from the technological point of view, how good is their Privacy Tunnel (SSH and VPN)?

Steve, any comments? Anyone?

 

Sorry guys, I have no knowledge of their services, I've never tried them. Of course, I've never tried haggis either. If anyone can show me their software or tech involved I can give some insight. Actually, give me a day or so and I'll talk to one of the metropipe guys about it, he should be able to tell me more.

 

Please do. Thanks in advance.

 

Ripping people off and posting their personal information, IP addresses, websites, etc. are not ideological differences. Posting an old version of Doctor Who's FAQ while simply changing the version number to the current version is not an ideological difference.

Racism, views on the US, etc. are ideological, and that's why I didn't mention them. I think they can be racist and hate the US and still provide a quality service. If I thought they provided a quality service, I could ignore these traits. If you think we're all against them because they're racist or hate the US, think again. I personally don't care about any of that.

But they're liars, thieves and con artists, and that really should be enough to dissuade anyone from signing up with them. And if you offend them, they could plaster your personal information anywhere. That's not a joke. They actually do that. They've done it numerous times. And every time they claim the person posted their own information to discredit them. That's not something I've heard that they do. I've seen them do it with my own eyes.

Here's a link to the woman who was ripped off (one of many): http://www.appleby.net/privacy.html

As an aside, I believe one of their customers was caught posting CP. I'm not sure about this, but I read it on alt.privacy a while back. I believe the name of the guy was Eggplant (aka Eggfart). Don't quote me on that though because I didn't investigate it, and I don't know how he was caught.

The guy who runs privacy.li, Georg Adem, is a known career criminal. The reason I can't provide one concise link to all of their shenanigans is because it's widely spread over probably hundreds or thousands of links (over many years). I remember there was one guy who put together many of the links in one concise post, but I can't find it right now. But any information that they have on you can and probably will end up in the hands of people you don't want it to. That could range anywhere from data mining to LEA involvement.

If you're seriously still considering signing up with them after this, go ahead and do it. Everything could work out for you, or you could end up in a nightmare. Some people just need to learn the hard way. I personally see no need to further evaluate the technical aspects of their service. It seems totally irrelevant. They failed the first step. We can't trust the people behind the service. Whatever service they do offer is almost guaranteed to only be used to serve their criminal activities. And as more people are warned away from them, they'll be able to focus more attention on the people who are hapless enough to sign up with them. Desperation is almost surely going to embolden them.

But it would still be interesting if someone could evaluate the technical merit of the service, whatever that's worth.

 

Here's some more information:

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.privacy/browse_thread/thread/372edfe81c0951ae

http://groups.google.com/group/alt....c25d076748/53d6c8079f746030?#53d6c8079f746030

After you read these, I have a few points to make. First, there's no such thing as anonymity with regards to paid privacy services. That goes double for a scam operation that pretends to be a privacy service. Make no mistake about it. Privacy.li is first and foremost a scam operation. Any service they provide to you will be completely secondary to this.

Also, the guy named Eggplant was only notable because he was one of privacy.li's most vocal supporters. If this is the same Eggplant, he was on alt.privacy for years attacking anyone who said anything negative about privacy.li. However, he's unlikely to be the only privacy.li "customer" to be busted. There has been some speculation that many of privacy.li users have been busted, which leads one to believe that law enforcement has free access to their servers.

Caveat emptor people. This type of thing shows the value of Tor. Don't take it for granted or assume it's going to be around forever. Support a quality product.

p.s. You're welcome.

 

For future reference:


** The Truth About Privacy.li **



Privacy.LIE sock puppet traveller/Eggplant pretends to argue with himself.

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.privacy/msg/31216dc836c9b7f6

Privacy.LIE outs one of their customers. Sort of.

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.privacy.anon-server/msg/558546787dbea60b?dmode=source

Privacy.LIE fails to ID yet another Tor node, about a week later.

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.privacy/msg/ea548e09d2de8558?dmode=source

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.privacy/msg/31fc61d49f980a06?dmode=source

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.privacy/msg/4dc7f83685450adb?dmode=source

Privacy.LIE's "security" is exposed.

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.privacy/browse_thread/thread/b79bfb855c3cdf10/570b6341770f8a78

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.privacy/msg/c61ababa5bf5f746?dmode=source

Privacy.LIE "fixes" their security issues.

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.privacy/browse_thread/thread/357ace4cfc6fe976/56cd101c25c5830b

The world's most recognized security expert dissects Privacy.LIE,

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/07/the_doghouse_pr.html

Privacy.LIE engages in nymhopping to defend themselves.

http://www.homelandstupidity.us/2005/07/09/privacyli-not-to-be-trusted/

Historical Privacy.LIE theft.

http://www.appleby.net/privacy.html

Privacy.LIE theft today.

http://forums.truecrypt.org/viewtopic.php?t=5893

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?p=981542

More informative Privacy.LIE links

http://www.maildropnet.com/scams.htm

http://www.appleby.net/netscam/currentscam.html

http://www.ptshamrock.com/shame.htm

http://www.privacyworld.com/scams.htm

http://www.gatago.com/alt/privacy/5568908.html

http://archive.mail-list.com/privacyworld/msg00212.html

http://www.newsbackup.com/about1061381.html

http://www.hyipdiscussion.com/due-diligence/7805-venture-resources-group-interesting.html

http://www.velocityreviews.com/forums/t366184-securstar-pimping-for-privacylie.html

http://www.privacy-consultants.com/ and then...
http://www.appleby.net/netscam/FPCscam.html


p.s. This thread can be used as future reference for anyone with questions about Privacy.li.

 

Thanks for the majority of those links, malwaretesting...interesting reading. My only comment is that alt.privacy flame wars are hardly conducive to understanding whether privacy software is effective (particularly when they are concerned with someone's sexual orientation, which is totally irrelevant to the quality of the software...)

 

I was just about to erase those links for the same reasons you mentioned. I'll erase them anyway from my post. Feel free to do the same in yours. It's not my place to judge others, and the truth is that I don't care about any of the stuff in the links you mentioned. The rest of the links are relevant though, so I'll keep them in my post. This set of links was put together by someone else, but I don't know who to give the credit to. I just copied them.

You should click the "edit" button to remove the links if you want. Interesting. I was 5 minutes late.

 

You don't have to be a radical anything to be anti-American government nowadays. It's in vogue. Hell, I live here and I'm not too content. They don't lose any points from me by being against Bush's policies. The US is easy to hate, and that's largely to do with the fact that they're bullies to the rest of the world.

As a matter of fact, I can't think of a damn thing the US has done right since Bush has been in office. Okay, I'm done with my off-topic rant now.

The fact is, a large portion of people in the market for privacy services will look at what privacy.li has to say and agree with it. And they're not radical anything. They're just tired of losing their freedoms and being spied on. From my perspective, the things they say are just a smart business decision. Many people who sign up with privacy.li are trying to avoid governmental snooping. When they read what privacy.li has to say, they may not fully agree but subconsciously, they will relate to them and feel more comfortable signing up with them.

I'm not sure who the anti-Jewish stuff is supposed to attract though. But the anti-American stuff will have them lining up around the block, especially in the US.

p.s. I'll eat my hat if privacy.li was in any way attempting to attract radical islamists. They're trying to attract normal, discontent Americans. They may also be trying to attract the American white supremacist market. Any way you look at it, Americans are who they're looking for. The rest of the world isn't afraid of Big Brother like Americans (and possibly British) are. No one ever said they were stupid. They're just crooks.

 

Thanks a lot for the info. I understand you have removed some links from your post, why? Please post them back, any info on Privacy.li is welcome. I want to collect as much information on them as possible. Thank you.

 

The links are still in Keller's post, unless he chooses to delete them. They had to do with sexual preference, and they're totally off-topic. They don't add to the discussion at all. And, as I've said, it's not my place to make those judgments.

 

Re: Privacy.lie - Facts please

Privacy.LIE is run by the famous offshore bank scammer Dr. Georg Adem A/K/A Adminus.

Privacy.LIE was dissected by the world's most recognized security expert, and so many others.

Privacy.LIE tried to out more than one victim of their insecure honeypot and other disservices. The courage of those that blew the whistle on their scams will not be forgotten.

Privacy.LIE lost most of the customers they had left in a recent child porn bust, including their #1 shill puppet pedophile traveler 66/Eggplant/GARY LAKEY.

Never listen to advice? Never learn from the mistakes of others? Some people just need to try it on their own. Have fun, because the Privacy.LIARS still accept new subscribers.

Privacy.LIE might be the snake-oil poster child, the slimy privacy services' Che Guevara, but they probably have other brands and have resellers, and they are far from the only liars. That's why Genady P. and others that pay attention and ask questions are so important.