Obscura’s First Independent Audit by Cure53

[ignoramous]

@anon57862721

The VPN industry is funded by so many questionable people so it’s not unreasonable to ask this of you to disclose. Obscura’s responses on the other thread absolutely do not inspire confidence and was corporate speak at best.

For others who may lack context:

This community has been bitten once before by a non-VPN service.

@epoberezkin

I’ll share what I think this framework could be in a week or two, but the sad conclusion is that at least from technology design point of view, right now there is not a single product that can be seen as truly private and secure, at least on some parameters, and all require some substantial changes, and everything is a trade off. If I were an independent reviewer, I would not be able to whole-heartedly recommend any of the existing communication solutions without some disclaimers, including the one we are building, and would only be able to explain pros/cons, and help the users make an informed choice based on their own circumstances.

While technical parameters I am applying to communication solutions are likely to be not relevant to the other product categories, the framework for assessing funding and governance models (the source of risks we are discussing here) would likely apply to all categories. In any case, it is much more complex than black/white vc/non-profit assessment that is often applied in privacy community.

It’s like when you are buying the car - you cannot just look at the body shape (which in this case would be non-profit/vc-funded), you have to also assess the engine (governance model and board composition) and transmission (control provisions that the investors or sponsors have, or expect, based on their origins).