[liberationtech] OkayFreedom

[Amin Sabeti]

On 25 October 2012 21:26, hellekin <hellekin at cepheide.org> wrote:

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> On 10/25/2012 02:07 PM, micah anderson wrote:
> >
> > full disclosure: i'm with riseup (and consider myself
> > trustworthy!), and I know a lot of activists also have a high
> > degree of trust in the work we do at riseup, perhaps partially
> > because we've been around for 12 years and have a lot of history
> > with social movements.
> >
> *** History is how trust grows within networks. I completely agree
> with the importance of that factor in choosing to cooperate (use that
> network) or defect.
>
> >
> > Issues of trust
> >
> *** Many factors come into play when you have to make a choice: among
> them, ignorance, emulation, and necessity (or the feeling of it) can
> put a lot of people in danger. Cooperate-first is a common strategy
> that's rewarding when it works, and, in that case, can be devastating
> when it fails. But you can't avoid people "feeling lucky".
>
> How to raise awareness of relevant information in a noisy, saturated,
> but distributed environment, so that it reaches the right people when
> they need it?
>
> For example, one of the most visible resources on using VPN services
> does not mention Riseup[1].
>
> (the following are hints to evaluate the danger, not in any case a
> statement that the software is insecure.)
>
> Steganos Software, the maker of OkayFreedom, is a German company, and
> has been around since 1996.
>
> As a Microsoft Partner, Steganos makes software for running on
> Microsoft's proprietary operating system as administrator.
>
> The OkayFreedom proprietary client program is available for download
> on major (commercial) software providers.
>
> It allows to "invite friends" by providing their email address,
> Facebook or Twitter accounts, in order to get "bonus traffic"
> (otherwise limited to 1GB per month in the gratis version). So,
> there's an incentive to go viral in order to augment the transmission
> capacity, which can help explain its popularity.
> *If I understand correctly, actually the VPN is not free! am I right?*



>
> In case of the user's device is confiscated by the police, usage of
> the software is not deniable.
>
> (disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, so take the following with a mountain
> of salt.)
>
> Article 5.1 of the Terms of Service[1] seems to provide legal ground
> for Iran to sue Steganos Software, and forbid Iranians from further
> using the service, but that remains to be seen in a German court.
>
> The Terms of Service of OkayFreedom state that they restrict "the
> usage of OkayFreedom in any way that violates valid laws or
> regulations." It does not mention anything about jurisdiction, so the
> Iranian government could theoretically sue Steganos Software in
> Germany and eventually obtain some user data (email if transmitted) if
> so compelled by a German court of law--unlikely, but not excluded.
>
> In another point, users are held responsible for any damage they might
> cause to any third party while using the service: if Iran sues the
> company, and wins, the company can in turn sue its users according to
> the terms of their license agreement.
>
> How the company identifies the client for legal purpose, etc., remains
> unclear: it could be a unique client identifier, and what data is
> linked to that is unknown...
> **



> *I can say in worse scenario the Iranian government can obtain details of
> some users and it's possible because Germany and Iran has a good
> relationship! Therefore, this VPN is not a good option.*
>
> Regards,
>
> ==
> hk
>
> [1] http://en.flossmanuals.net/bypassing-censorship/ch025_what-is-vpn/
> [2] http://www.okayfreedom.com/tos/
>
> P.S.: I shamelessly say https://help.riseup.net/en/donate
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