Portals VPN (VPN which can’t spy) lifetime deal for USD $3/Mth @ Portals Network

16

Go to Deal

AssociatedLdanji on 16/04/2020 - 15:19 portals.network (141 clicks)
Last edited 16/04/2020 - 15:39 by 1 other user

Greetings everyone, next generation decentralized VPN (Portals) is offering special deal to get VPN for 3 USD /month for life:
- No matter which plan you choose, so you don’t have to subscribe for a 3+ years to get this price
- $3/m is valid for renewals as well, for your entire life

How Portals is different:
- instead of connecting to central VPN server, you’re being connected to one of many decentralized nodes (mostly - residential IPs)
- the nodes are being hosted by independent operators (mostly ordinary people sharing their home Internet to you)
- so contrary to centralized VPN, your traffic doesn’t go through company owned servers, but through different AND independent nodes
- this makes Portals better at a) privacy, as Portals cannot monitor your traffic even if they wanted to b) better at passing through Netflix blocking algorithms, which increasingly detect centralized VPN servers

As a fresh concept, it's still under heavy development/improvement, but in case something goes south they tend to extend service or offer some kind of promo/gift.

Supported systems: Android, MacOS.

Related Stores

portals.network

• 

  Tacooo on 16/04/2020 - 15:24

  +3

  as Portals cannot monitor your traffic even if they wanted to

  No, but any of the endpoint operators can.

  • 

    MasterScythe on 16/04/2020 - 15:39

    +3

    Precisely.

    They're charging fro TOR.

  • 

    Associateddanji @ portals.network on 16/04/2020 - 15:56

    Theoretically correct.

    In practice, it all comes down to minimising the risk.
    1. Operators know your IP, but they cannot identify you as a user (e.g. associate with email).
    2. When user connects, nodes are shuffled, so it's less likely your traffic will always go through same node.

    So if you need very high privacy (for something weird), use TOR (keep in mind that 70% or so cases are still being disclosed in few months).

• 

  incipient on 16/04/2020 - 15:24

  +4

  the nodes are being hosted by independent operators (mostly ordinary people sharing their home Internet to you)

  So you use my internet as an end point, someone downloads something illegal, and I get pinged for it? Noice.

  • 

    Associateddanji @ portals.network on 16/04/2020 - 15:35

    Your internet is not used, you use it.

    • 

      MasterScythe on 16/04/2020 - 16:01

      So where are these exit nodes located?
      Who approves them?
      Why are they chosen?
      Who checks they're not 'poisoned'?

      You have a lot of network security professionals on this site, so you will be bombarded with questions; just a heads up, lol.

      • 

        Associateddanji @ portals.network on 16/04/2020 - 16:33

        As for new product, this feedback and questions are perfect, I want to thank you for that. That's how we grow.

        Atm there's a very tight community of node providers.
        So as for now it all comes down to node provider reputation, although we're think of introducing some kind of supervisory software to node computers, which would either lock the computer while serving traffic, or some other means to decrease probability of 'poisoned' nodes.

        TOR is solving this issue with multi-hops, but this approach slows down the traffic (a lot), also exit node still can see the unencrypted traffic (yet it cannot see the originating IP directly, which is good).

        • 

          MasterScythe on 16/04/2020 - 16:43

          @danji: So it's safe to say, that as of right now, there's no guarantee that the NSA and CIA and ASIO and whomever aren't 'donating' to the MysteriumNetwork, and therefore can see your exit data?

          • 

            Associateddanji @ portals.network on 16/04/2020 - 16:46

            @MasterScythe: Correct, as with any other decentralized network (including TOR).

            Also keep in mind that only unencrypted exit data can be seen (most of services and websites encrypt data nowadays).

• 

  internet-stranger on 16/04/2020 - 15:24

  +3

  Hi, how does this increase privacy? All I can see is more risk of each "independent" endpoint scanning the traffic on their node.

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  Dexn on 16/04/2020 - 15:29

  Sounds like TOR to me… except that it's not free.

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  jugsy on 16/04/2020 - 15:29

  This is a terrible idea, please no one sign up to this.

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  Manny Calavera on 16/04/2020 - 15:31

  +2

  Isn’t this just TOR, but $3mo more?

  • 

    Associateddanji @ portals.network on 16/04/2020 - 15:40

    Good question.
    TOR is
    a) very slow, as it jumps trough multiple nodes (usually not needed unless you do something really weird)
    b) TOR nodes are hosted at known hosting providers (which support TOR), so the exit nodes are well known by Internet services
    c) when you use TOR, your traffic is seen as TOR traffic, and you get suspected automatically

    • 

      MasterScythe on 16/04/2020 - 15:59

      a) I disagree, since a large portion of Australia only has 25 or 50 Mbps internet, usually TOR can keep up as well as any off-shore VPN.
      b) That's only a half truth; the users are also exit nodes. And are you implying you're not hosting your exit nodes at known hosters? Who's hosting them then?
      c) Suspected for what? Tor's legal. And how is it an issue regardless, if your original connection is obfuscated?

      I really have two issues here;
      In your model, we're forced to trust that the exit node is safe. At least with 'the big boys' they've been independently audited by security advocates to prove their logs are /nul. We can't see that in your system.

      Also, how is your claim any different to a rented server from Mulvad or such?
      Your tool has the ability to select a country, so you MUST have a list of approved exit nodes; I just don't see the difference in practice.

      • 

        Associateddanji @ portals.network on 16/04/2020 - 16:21

        It's harder for me to discuss this topic online, as I'm affiliated, and cannot express my opinions or knowledge as facts as easily (i.e. I need to back everything officially). Still:

        I agree that TOR is safest if you want really bad-ass security (though not bullet-proof still see https://securelist.com/uncovering-tor-users-where-anonymity-… ).

        a) imho the speed of TOR is impacted more by the fact that a) they are doing multiple hops b) encrypting the traffic on each hop once again. Or are you saying that all the off-shore traffic is slow for you?
        b) TOR users are not exit nodes (nor relay nodes) by default. One has to very pro-actively host an exit node.
        c) I mean suspected by authorities. If they see that you're using TOR traffic (which can be identified easily), it's kinda like you'd be going with the mask in public (except in quarantine time :)

        Regarding centralized VPN: the issue here is that we (users) must trust them. Portals is trying to minimize that (still not 100% trustless but we're heading that way).
        https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/10/08/vpn_logs_helped_unm…
        https://restoreprivacy.com/vpn-logs-lies/

        All in all, with Portals we're trying to improve centralized VPN. TOR has its own use cases.

• 

  HomeAlone on 16/04/2020 - 15:32

  +2

  As a fresh concept

  Hola did this in 2013. Didn't turn out so great.

  • 

    miq on 16/04/2020 - 15:34

    Yup; this is just advertising spam. I don’t think OP even realises this is in Australian site - prices quoted are not in AUD.

  • 

    Associateddanji @ portals.network on 16/04/2020 - 15:36

    When you use Hola, you share your bandwidth, which is terrible for security, as mentioned by incipient.

• 

  Calran on 16/04/2020 - 15:42

  Who can run a node?
  What visibility of my traffic does each node have?
  Do you publish the node source code?
  Which operating systems do you support?

• 

  ninjabryan on 16/04/2020 - 15:52

  +1

  Just had a live chat session with 'Tom' on their website and got the below information

  • Portals is based in the US (Checked via their live chat)
  • Portals uses Mysterium.Network
    https://mysterium.network/
  • Portals goes back on their claim of being residential
    "Most of nodes are residential, or even cellular (i.e. people share bandwidth on their phones), also some on datacenters"

  Node source code and be found below

  https://github.com/mysteriumnetwork/node

  • 

    MasterScythe on 16/04/2020 - 16:08

    +2

    Right, so nothing stops the 9 eyes, or anyone at all really, renting some (or a shiz load!) of data to the Mysterium network, and boom, privacy gone, 'compromised' node.

    • 

      Associateddanji @ portals.network on 16/04/2020 - 16:42

      Theoretically possible.
      There's no 100% security/privacy/anonimity what comes down to Internet/computer security.