Silk Road forums

Discussion => Security => Topic started by: meatwad on July 04, 2013, 02:50 pm

Title: Mastercard and Visa Start Banning VPN Providers !
Post by: meatwad on July 04, 2013, 02:50 pm
https://torrentfreak.com/mastercard-and-visa-start-banning-vpn-providers-130703/

"Following the introduction of restrictions against file-sharing services, Mastercard and Visa have reportedly started to take action against VPN providers. This week, Swedish payment provider Payson cut access to anonymizing services after being ordered to do so by the credit card companies. VPN provider iPredator is one of the affected customers and founder Peter Sunde says that they are considering legal action to get the service unblocked.

visa-mastercardPayment providers are increasingly taking action against sites and services that are linked to copyright infringement.

There’s an unwritten rule that Mastercard and Visa don’t accept file-hosting sites that have an affiliate program and PayPal has thrown out nearly all cyberlockers in recent months.

It now appears that these policies have carried over to VPN providers and other anonymizing services. Before the weekend customers of the popular Swedish payment service provider Payson received an email stating that VPN services are no longer allowed to accept Visa and Mastercard payments due to a recent policy change.

“Payson has restrictions against anonymization (including VPN services). As a result Payson can unfortunately no longer give your customers the option to finance payments via their cards (VISA or MasterCard),” the email states, adding that they still accept bank transfers as deposits.

The new policy went into effect on Monday, leaving customers with a two-day window to find a solution.

While the email remains vague about why this drastic decision was taken, in a telephone call Payson confirmed that it was complying with an urgent requirement from Visa and Mastercard to stop accepting payments for VPN services.

One of these customers is the iPredator VPN, launched by Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde and friends. Sunde tells TorrentFreak that he is baffled by the decision, which he believes may be an effort to prevent the public from covering their tracks online and preventing government spying.

“It means that US companies are forcing non-American companies not to allow people to protest their privacy and be anonymous, and thus the NSA can spy even more. It’s just INSANE,” Sunde says.

Sunde explains that iPredator will always have plenty of other payment options, but sees it as an outrage that Mastercard and Visa have apparently decided to ban a perfectly legal technology.

“For iPredator there are always other payment methods, like Bitcoin, but it’s insane to censor a totally legit system that is there to avoid censorship and surveillance,” Sunde says.

Despite these alternatives, Sunde is not going to stand idly by. He informs TorrentFreak that Ipredator considering taking legal action, citing the Wikileaks win against the credit card companies as a favorable precedent.

Ipredator is far from the only VPN provider that is affected by the policy change. Anonine, Mullvad, VPNTunnel, Privatvpn and several others are also using Payson’s services.

At this point it’s unclear why the two companies are taking a stand against anonymizing services. It seems likely that an industry or authority has been pushing for the policy change behind the scenes. However, with privacy high on the agenda with the PRISM scandal, the move comes at an odd time.

TorrentFreak has reached out to Mastercard and Visa but we have yet to hear back from the companies. We are not aware of any other payment service providers who have taken action against VPN providers, so the scope of the actions are unknown at this point.

Update July 4: Visa Europe told us that it “has not been involved in this matter in any way, and has not made any such stipulations to Payson or to any other organisation.” It is unclear whether the request could have come from another Visa office.

We have asked Payson to clarify the discrepancy and will update the article when we hear back from them.

Mastercard has not responded yet. "


WOW!  It seems that the US Gov't is determined to remove all options that we still have to remain anonymous.   Thoughts?
Title: Re: Mastercard and Visa Start Banning VPN Providers !
Post by: Jack N Hoff on July 04, 2013, 02:53 pm
Yeah.  I saw this the other day.  I guess my only thought is "good thing we have an anonymous way to process payments using the technology that is bitcoin." :)
Title: Re: Mastercard and Visa Start Banning VPN Providers !
Post by: GrimWaldo on July 04, 2013, 03:24 pm
Yea, this sounds fishy. Attacking the resource (money) to remove the threat.
Most surprising is VISA Europe's denial of knowledge. Somebody's lying...

However, with privacy high on the agenda with the PRISM scandal, the move comes at an odd time.
Perhaps they're not 2 seperate issues. Perhaps BigGov (NSA?) is directly pressuring the Inet payment processors. I'd be curious to know.

Thank goodness for Tor and BitCoin. Their open-source utility and robustness makes them difficult to target and attack... but I fear that they're next.
Title: Re: Mastercard and Visa Start Banning VPN Providers !
Post by: flashlight5 on July 04, 2013, 04:30 pm
who pays for their a*n*o*n*y*m*o*u*s VPN with a credit card?!

all right, there is anonymous cc as well, but still, the account is then linked to all other things purchased with that card.

still a dick move of those companies
Title: Re: Mastercard and Visa Start Banning VPN Providers !
Post by: HeatFireFlame on July 04, 2013, 05:33 pm
What a load of fucking shit, this agitates me so much it is unreal . Im almost sitting here at my computer fuming haha.
They really dont want anybody to be anonymous no matter what do they? Ohh you can use a VPN to protect your identity, Better block that. Wouldent want anybody having the least bit of privacy now would we?
Well Fuck you visa And Fuck you mastercard, Credit cards were already the biggest way to get traced anyway, So Fuck you, Nobody used your shitty cards to pay for their VPN anyway, and if they do well they deserve to get caught. Bless BTC's. Our saviour.

Thank fuck i can be anonymous on my own terms without having to use any of their shiity services.
We are the last of the mohicans my friends. The government is slowly but surely moving in on every single aspect of privacy that we could have. Phones messages email? Every ingle one is probably read, PRISM scratched the surface. They were doing this for years under different operations.And now they know that using anonymizing services via TOR etc is the last stand for us people who wish to remain anonymous and keep our privacy.
Fuck them. Fuck the government, The most corrupt hypocritical people alive.
Title: Re: Mastercard and Visa Start Banning VPN Providers !
Post by: P2P on July 04, 2013, 07:05 pm
So then start offering bitcoin and other secure ecurrency payments. No one can tell you not to accept those.

That said this will lose them a lot of business, but I believe visa and mastercard can block their services for whomever they choose. They're not government entities that have a duty to the people to provide credit card services. They are private companies who can pick and choose who they allow their service to go to, no? The twist is that they are in bed with the government, and therefore can carry out the will of the federales without the consequences that the government would normally face for doing such things.
Title: Re: Mastercard and Visa Start Banning VPN Providers !
Post by: flashlight5 on July 04, 2013, 08:08 pm
you guys are all talking about bitcoin like its ur new fetish.

but isn't it easy, to link one account to various purchases ? or do you ounce around your coins like in a pinball machine? I like coins, but try to avoid them if I can
Title: Re: Mastercard and Visa Start Banning VPN Providers !
Post by: Jack N Hoff on July 04, 2013, 10:34 pm
you guys are all talking about bitcoin like its ur new fetish.

but isn't it easy, to link one account to various purchases ? or do you ounce around your coins like in a pinball machine? I like coins, but try to avoid them if I can

Well, all of my coins come from SR.  They have pinballed all the fuck around to begin with.  Then if I'm doing anything with them that can be tied to me I wash them on my own into other wallets. 

My coins basically are pinballs. 8)