The Swedish VPN provider OVPN takes a different approach than most of its competitors. They rely on transparency instead of obfuscation.
History and choice of a name for OVPN
Tarnkappe.info: Hello, David Wibergh. Maybe you could just introduce yourself at the beginning of the interview. David Wibergh: Hey! I’m a self-taught programmer from Sweden. I live together with my girlfriend in Stockholm. Outside of work I’m a big fan of nature activities. Tarnkappe.info: How did OVPN actually come about? Why did you want to start your own VPN service? David Wibergh: Prior to starting OVPN, I used VPN services in order to uphold my integrity online. After college, I worked a bit as a programmer at an adtracking company. I was instantly horrified at the amount of information that they were able to gather from people’s actions online. It’s super easy for companies and governments to build up strong profiles on users in order to monetize them. The Edward Snowden revelations also occurred at this time. Since I had used VPN services, and then went on to work at the adtracking company, I understood that a very good first step to ensuring one’s integrity online is by using a VPN service. However, I also thought that existing VPN services had a lot to improve. There was next to no transparency, the same holding company owned several VPN providers without any disclosure, and the user experience wasn’t good at all. I believed that I could do it a lot better than the existing solutions.
No similarities with ovpn.to or OpenVPN
Tarnkappe.info: Why is your name so close to the software OpenVPN, which is used by many VPN providers? Isn’t that confusing? David Wibergh: I wanted a simple company name properly reflected the core product that the company offered. As we started only offering the service in Sweden and in Swedish, I discovered that ovpn.se was available. I took the decision then to name the company OVPN. Tarnkappe.info: What connections are there to the scene VPN provider ovpn.to, which is older than your company? David Wibergh: There are no connections. I didn’t know about ovpn.to when I started OVPN.Questions about the realization
Tarnkappe.info: The VPN market today is extremely hotly contested. With which characteristics do you try to distinguish yourself from the competition, especially since the price is rather in the middle of the range? What is your unique selling point? David Wibergh: OVPN has always been focused on privacy, transparency and security. We were the first VPN service to run our servers on RAM – even though providers now state that they were the first. We are the service to use if you use a VPN in order to protect yourself online. There are other providers out there that mainly focus on accessing streaming services, but that’s not our main focus. OVPN also unlocks streaming services, but our main priority is ensuring our customers privacy and security.Own DNS ad blocker scheduled for autumn
Tarnkappe.info: When will a DNS-Adblocker come, is that planned? David Wibergh: Our DNS ad blocker will be released this autumn.
So far, the authorities have not seized any servers from OVPN.
Tarnkappe.info: Have authorities ever confiscated servers? If so, on what grounds? David Wibergh: No, never. Tarnkappe.info: What do you think about VPN providers like Norton, Avira and now Mozilla, which originally covered a different business field? David Wibergh: I believe it’s beneficial since it increases the amount of users that use VPN services. It’s important for users to read their terms of service though to ensure they actually fulfill the users requirements in terms of privacy.We cannot answer any legal inquiries.
Tarnkappe.info: How do you know exactly how many devices a customer is currently using when you are not logging anything? For example, a maximum of four devices at the same time. David Wibergh: When a user connects to a VPN server, the VPN server sends an API request to our website to ensure the provided credentials are correct. If the credentials are correct, the API tells the VPN server to allow the user. To keep track of the number of connected devices, we increment the count of a numeric column on the user account. No information about the device nor VPN server is stored. This is detailed in our privacy policy. Tarnkappe.info: If you were to lose in court, what data could you possibly reveal? David Wibergh: We can not answer any court requests regarding which customer was historically allocated a specific IP address. As such, the court order that we’re currently fighting is useless as we do not have the requested information.
OVPN about Security
Tarnkappe.info: You write that your servers, which are located in the respective data centers, are individually isolated from the rest of the servers. There is no physical access from the outside because the interfaces are switched off. What happens if there is a technical defect in the server?
David Wibergh: If there is a technical defect, the server shuts down. If it is unable to boot due to some hardware error we ship a new server to the location.
Tarnkappe.info: Do you have a spare server in your closed racks, so that in case of a defect you only have to switch to server 2?
David Wibergh: Some data centers have multiple VPN servers already, such as Stockholm, where OVPN has 20 VPN servers. At other data centers, we only have one VPN server. In case that server would break down, it would take us a few days to ship a new VPN server to that location. For Germany, we have two VPN servers in Frankfurt and one in Erfurt.
Tarnkappe.info: Do you also work with Vlan’s in the IPv4 area?
David Wibergh: We do not allocate IPv4 subnets to any connected users.
Provider does not create any log files
Tarnkappe.info: You are always talking about the fact that the servers do not store logs. How does it look like with the switches you use? The Cisco switches use e.g. EtherAnalyzer and create connection data, which are stored. Do you have a solution for? David Wibergh: We don’t use those features on any of the switches. Tarnkappe.info: Since you also offer static IP addresses for users, their anonymity will be reduced because this fixed IP must be connected to the account, right? Do you have a solution on board to increase anonymity in this respect? David Wibergh: Users are allowed to switch their Public IPv4 addresses. That means that if we receive a court order regarding who had a specific IP address at a specific time, we can not answer as we are unsure since users can change their IP address. We can only answer requests regarding who has a specific Public IPv4 address right now. We do recommend users who purchase our Public IPv4 add-on to purchase it anonymously.
