Well, this is a transcendent level of evil: Facebook bought a VPN company and deployed it, in part, to spy on its competitor's users.
https://techcrunch.com/2024/03/26/facebook-secret-project-snooped-snapchat-user-traffic/
It's a reminder that VPNs have their own risks, beyond technical ones if operated incompetently -- namely, that you have to trust the VPN company itself.
UPDATED to reflect which users were being spied on.
@dangillmor The only thing a VPN does is move your traffic from your ISP's internet link to your VPN's internet link.
If you're in Russia or China, that's likely a good tradeoff. If you're trying to circumvent region blocks, your VPN could be in the country that's not blocked. But in most cases, it's not a net win... and in this case, it's a very big net loss.
@khleedril I don't see a single reference to mixer networks here. That said, a mixer network does provide a lot more anonymization assuming the nodes are not all operated by a single entity.
Remember that most people use VPNs to avoid the firewall from their ISP, or from a content provider. Only some people are trying to be fully anonymous.
Dan Gillmor
Peter Bindels
Khleedril