Mastodawn

There's no clear evidence but something I've long suspected is that users of VPNs and Tor (.onion) have less anonymity than they might imagine and potentially face greater scrutiny by NSA and Russia/PRC/Israel who have snooping tools we don't know exist. https://www.wired.com/story/using-a-vpn-may-subject-you-to-nsa-spying/

Using a VPN May Subject You to NSA Spying

US lawmakers are pressing Tulsi Gabbard to reveal whether using a VPN can strip Americans of their constitutional protections against warrantless surveillance.

WIRED

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katzenberger 13h ago

@newsguyusa

The specific concern mentioned is "strip Americans of their constitutional protections against warrantless surveillance".

Surveillance of all unsecured internet access that is lacking the protections of either a VPN or Tor, is the default today. One would be an absolute fool to believe in "constitutional protections".

It's 2026.

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Bryan Redeagle

13h ago

@newsguyusa I'm pretty sure most people that are very concerned with privacy are assuming they're under surveillance whether it's legal or not.

The anonymity bit is unlikely, but it all depends on their ability to decrypt traffic. And even then, the torrent of packets that would need to be handled is crazy.

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me_valentijn 13h ago

@newsguyusa
ExpressVPN is Israeli owned now. Don't use it, even when they pretty much offer it for free 🙄

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jchimene 13h ago

@newsguyusa

That looks like the Wyden canary story from a few days ago.

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Paul Dot X 12h ago

@newsguyusa honestly assume tailscale is in a similar spot

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Elon Muksis 🇺🇦 🇵🇸 🇪🇺12h ago

@newsguyusa There's also https://freenet.org/ and https://www.hyphanet.org/index.html

Freenet

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Perkele 10h ago

@bhasic @newsguyusa ooh interesting. Thanks for posting these

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FurballsNHairballs 12h ago

@newsguyusa
Always assume someone is monitoring.
Don't access sites that get you prison time, looking at pedophiles on Epsteins list.
🤔

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The Penguin of Evil 11h ago

@newsguyusa if you can observe enough endpoints then VPN traffic can be tied to sources. That I think is well understood. The NSA and their pals probably have capacity to do that. Content would be more challenging but usually less important

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Aria <3

10h ago

@newsguyusa The USA does not care about "constitutional protections" anymore, period. That ship has sailed.

And it's nothing new that a secure connection will stand out among insecure ones. But, it's good to spread awareness of that.

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Cleo 45s ago

@newsguyusa tor is an american government network based on i2p. If you're using tor for anonimity, you're an idiot. Just use i2p. Regarding vpns sounds more like a psyop attempt to sow distrust in the technology based off peoples lack of understanding in how it functions. If there was any inherent issues, the corporations using the tech would be targeted, and we would find out soon enough about any flaws. The issue comes down once more to general computer literacy.