At least some of the information went offline, although it was visible in IoT search engine Shodan.io for 18 days.

One of the providers, UFO VPN, claimed that it couldn’t lock down its data quickly due to pandemic-related staff changes. It also maintained that the logs were only used for performance monitoring and were supposedly anonymized. CompariTech and VPNMentor say UFO’s claims are incorrect, though, pointing to sample data that mentions explicit names. As it stands, the zero-log claim is clearly untrue.

The incident underscores the problems with white label VPN services. It’s all too easy for some companies to rebrand services without being held to account for their claims. If you’re concerned about the privacy of your data, it may be better to stick to major brands.

It’s also particularly dangerous for Hong Kong. Critics of the government use VPNs precisely to avoid China’s surveillance and censorship. A data leak like this not only undermines the privacy of these VPNs, but risks making it easy for officials to crack down on dissidents. While it’s unclear how much of the info was made public, this could easily leave the VPN firms’ customers scrambling to switch providers and change login details.

Countries like China, Iran and Saudi Arabia have already restricted what their citizens can access and how they can communicate with one another on the internet. Russia’s project — nicknamed Runet — presumably follows suit and lets the government filter content through its own censors. Runet “would get ISPs and telcos to configure the internet within their borders as a gigantic intranet, just like a large corporation does,” Professor Alan Woodward, a computer scientist at the University of Surrey, said to the BBC. This type of infrastructure would even make it difficult for VPNs to access blocked content. With all that said, it’s difficult to tell just how successful this test was, or how far along Russia is in its goal to create its own Great Firewall.

Technologists have theorized about a “splinternet” for nearly 20 years. While certain governments have tried to control how their citizens communicate and what content they can access, the world wide web has yet to fracture into a multitude of closed-off national webs. But as superpowers like China and Russia learn to balkanized their infrastructure, more nations could follow, and the internet could look very different down the road.

The promo is only expected to last through December 2nd (aka Cyber Monday), so you’ll want to act quickly if you like the idea of using a VPN to protect your internet traffic.

TunnelBear isn’t necessarily the most advanced VPN available, but it is one of the easier-to-use examples with apps for virtually every major platform and a plain-language approach. The company also vows never to monitor activity and gets yearly independent security audits. While that doesn’t guarantee that the service will be completely bulletproof, it could be ideal if you’re a VPN rookie who wants some added security without much fuss.

The country had asked ten companies to link to the blacklist, but only one, Kaspersky, had agreed to comply (it’s a Russia-based provider and thus could face more consequences). The others, though, not only refused the demand but publicly stated that they would resist. NordVPN said the censorship would violate service agreements with customers, for example.

You could see this coming. Russian President Vladimir Putin recently signed a bill that would tighten control of local internet users and isolate the country, and that’s on top of existing measures that limit access to VPNs and the web at large. Still, it’s not great news for Russians who want to see the full internet. They’ll have to turn to smaller VPN providers that aren’t subject to blocks, and there’s no guarantee those options will last much longer.

Russian officials first submitted the measure back in December as a response to US cyber strategy following the 2016 presidential election. The bill drew fierce criticism from civil liberty groups and Russian citizens due to fears it would only increase government censorship. “Free Internet” rallies held in Moscow were some of the biggest the media had seen in years, according to NPR. A state-funded poll found that 52 percent of Russians disapprove of the bill.

Russia’s internet freedoms are already in a dismal state. The Russian government already blocks websites, limits the use of VPNs, and designates media outlets that receive foreign funding as “foreign agents.” Last year, a Russian court ruled that the nation could ban the encrypted messaging app Telegram. In its 2018 “Freedom on the Net” report, Freedom House classified Russia as “not free,” citing continuous efforts by lawmakers to restrict content and prevent Russians from keeping their online identities anonymous.

Warp takes the next step by encrypting your connection to CloudFlare’s servers and aims to reduce data use by caching and compressing content where possible. Using it as a VPN also masks all internet traffic on your phone, including the rest of your apps.

With Warp, Cloudflare promises to keep all the privacy protections that were in place with 1.1.1.1. The company promises never to sell your browsing data, use targeted advertising or ask for any personally identifiable information such as your name or email address in order to sign-up.

The VPN will operate on a freemium model, allowing customers to upgrade to Warp+ for faster performance with a “low monthly fee.” While Warp isn’t available to all 1.1.1.1. users yet, you can place your name on a waitlist in the app.

If you’re unfamiliar with VPNs, the service allows you to create a private connection with a remote server that will communicate with websites that you’re visiting. Instead of sending and receiving information over a public network where it could potentially be intercepted by a malicious actor, all of those exchanges are handled by the server. With an encrypted connection between your phone and the VPN server, your data is indecipherable to anyone trying to spy on your actions online.

Opera’s built-in VPN uses 256-bit encryption to protect data. It also obscure’s a user’s true location by connecting to servers located around the world. While the company didn’t specify what will be available for locations for its VPN, the beta version allowed users to select servers in America, Europe or Asia, or use a setting to automatically pick the best available connection. Opera is also promising not to keep logs of user activity, so it won’t retain any data in a way that might allow someone to identify an individual based on their online activity.