u/Same-Pollution2542

Gabon has officially suspended major social media platforms “until further notice,” claiming it’s to fight misinformation and protect national stability. Almost immediately, reports showed a massive spike in VPN usage as people looked for ways around the restrictions.

Every time a government blocks access to platforms, the same thing happens:
People don’t stop using the internet, they just start using VPNs.

This is another reminder that online privacy and unrestricted access to information matter more than ever.

Just a day after the UK government announced its proposed social media ban for under-16s, several digital rights organizations have launched a new campaign called Stop Killing the Internet.

The campaign is backed by groups including Open Rights Group, Big Brother Watch, and Index on Censorship. They argue that policies like mandatory age verification and expanded online restrictions risk increasing surveillance, reducing privacy, and creating broader controls over internet access in the name of protecting children.

According to the organizers, the campaign isn't against child safety, it argues that there are better ways to protect young people without requiring invasive identity checks or undermining digital rights for everyone.

The movement is also calling for public support and has launched a petition urging the UK government to reconsider the proposed legislation

A Swedish media outlet just reported that a prominent tech figure connected to Mullvad allegedly donated millions of SEK to Örebropartiet, a controversial local political movement in Sweden associated with Markus Allard.
The story is now creating debate in privacy and tech circles, especially because Mullvad has long been viewed as one of the most trusted privacy-focused VPN companies.

Some people argue personal political donations should remain separate from the company itself, while others believe users have the right to know where influential tech leaders financially support political movements.

The article also raises broader questions around transparency, tech money in politics, and whether privacy-focused companies are held to a different ethical standard by their communities.

What do you think guys, should personal donations matter if the product itself remains solid?

Everyone keeps talking about AI stocks, but honestly cybersecurity might be one of the safest long-term bets out there right now.

This article from Insider Monkey says the VPN market alone could hit $182B by 2030, with over 1.75 billion people already using VPNs globally. That’s basically 1 out of 3 internet users.

And it’s not just “privacy nerds” anymore. Governments are pushing more surveillance, companies keep getting breached, public Wi-Fi is still a disaster, and ransomware groups are actively targeting VPN infrastructure itself. Just this month, CISA warned US agencies to urgently patch exploited VPN vulnerabilities tied to ransomware attacks.

What’s interesting is that cybersecurity demand is now coming from BOTH enterprises and normal consumers at the same time. Companies are spending billions because breaches are insanely expensive, while regular people are downloading VPNs because they don’t trust networks, ISPs, governments, or random apps anymore.

Feels like we’ve crossed the point where online privacy tools are “optional.” They’re slowly becoming basic internet hygiene, like antivirus used to be.

The surprising part imo is that people still only start caring after they get hacked, leaked, or locked out of an account.

Do you think VPNs and cybersecurity tools are becoming mainstream utilities now, or is this still a niche market inflated by fear?

A Chinese defense-linked company reportedly published, and then quickly deleted, a paper describing a system designed to detect and monitor VPN use on university campuses.

What stands out isn't that China wants to stop VPNs. Everyone already knew that. What stands out is that after years of censorship, blocking, and anti-circumvention efforts, they're apparently still developing new tools specifically to identify VPN traffic.

If VPNs weren't a problem, why keep investing in ways to detect them?

To me, this looks like another reminder that the battle between censorship and privacy tools is far from over. Every new detection method creates demand for better obfuscation and stealth technologies.

Ironically, a report about monitoring VPN users may be one of the strongest arguments for why VPNs remain important in the first place.

Telegram gets restricted and suddenly India sees 919k VPN downloads in a single day, ALMOST a million, that’s insane!!

Every time governments try to put walls around the internet, people just find another door.
Honestly, this feels like a reminder that users value privacy and open access way more than policymakers think.
VPNs aren't the problem, they're the workaround people choose when restrictions get in the way.

The internet routes around censorship, and VPNs are proof of it

A pretty alarming cybersecurity story is blowing up right now around something researchers are calling “FortiBleed.”

Apparently a leaked dataset may contain credentials and configs linked to more than 70,000 Fortinet / FortiGate devices across nearly 200 countries. Researchers claim the data includes VPN logins, admin credentials, internal configuration files, and in some cases even plaintext passwords.

What’s wild is that a lot of these devices are reportedly still exposed online. The leak is supposedly tied to a huge credential stuffing and brute-force operation targeting FortiGate infrastructure over a long period of time. Some reports mention over a billion login attempts against internet-facing systems before attackers started collecting configs and credentials from compromised devices.

HKCERT already published a warning saying organizations in Hong Kong could be affected, but honestly this looks global. Telecom companies, manufacturers, infrastructure providers, and government-related organizations are all being mentioned.

The whole thing is giving serious flashbacks to the old Fortinet SSL-VPN leaks from a few years ago, except this dataset sounds way bigger and more recent.

If your company still has internet-facing FortiGate appliances, now is probably a good time to rotate credentials, check logs, review admin accounts, and make sure nothing weird has been sitting inside the network unnoticed.

2026 really feels like the year perimeter devices became public enemy #1 again.

Just saw a new report from Darktrace about Hola VPN allegedly being abused for malware delivery and even cryptomining activity. Apparently some infected systems were downloading suspicious .exe files through Hola-related infrastructure, and in some cases devices ended up mining Monero in the background.

What’s wild is that Hola has been controversial for YEARS because of its peer-to-peer model where users basically become exit nodes for other people’s traffic. So your device can literally be used as part of someone else’s network.

And now security researchers are seeing traffic patterns linked to malware delivery, suspicious downloads, Tor activity, and crypto miners. That’s a pretty insane combo for something marketed as a “VPN.”

This is exactly why “free VPN” should instantly raise red flags. If you’re not paying for the product, there’s a decent chance YOU are the product.

People on Reddit have already been complaining about hidden miners and weird CPU spikes linked to Hola for months too.

Hackers from the ShinyHunters group are claiming they breached the Council of Europe and stole hundreds of gigabytes of sensitive employee data. According to reports, the leak allegedly includes HR files, payroll data, home addresses, salaries, tax info, bank details, and even medical records.
This is literally one of Europe’s biggest human rights organizations, and now employees could potentially face phishing attacks, fraud, identity theft, or blackmail if the leak is real. The Council of Europe hasn’t officially confirmed the breach yet.
Feels like every month there’s another “secure” European institution getting exposed while governments keep asking citizens for more personal data and stricter digital ID systems.

Instead of admitting age verification laws are easy to bypass and create huge privacy risks, they’re now talking about holding websites responsible if users access them through a VPN.

That logic is insane to me. Millions of normal people use VPNs every day for privacy, work, public Wi-Fi security, avoiding tracking, or just because they don’t want every company and ISP spying on them 24/7.

But governments keep pushing this narrative that if you use a VPN, you must be doing something shady. Feels like we’re slowly normalizing the idea that online privacy itself is suspicious behavior.

Total nonsense…

Apparently one of Russia’s biggest mobile providers, Beeline, just launched what they call a “white VPN” that lets people access services like Netflix, Spotify, Ticketmaster, and even some games again. The idea is basically: instead of people using random VPNs, the government/operator gives you an “approved” one. Like now the solution seems to be: “okay, you can use a VPN… but only OUR VPN.”

That completely defeats the entire point of VPNs for privacy imo. At that point it’s less a VPN and more like a controlled tunnel where authorities decide what’s allowed and what isn’t. Today it’s Netflix and Spotify. Tomorrow maybe only “approved” websites work.

And honestly this trend isn’t just about Russia anymore. The more countries push censorship, geo-blocking, internet restrictions, or platform bans, the more average people start relying on VPNs just to access basic services. But that also creates a huge opportunity for governments and even scammers to exploit the demand.

We’re slowly moving toward a split internet where access itself becomes permission-based...

I went down a rabbit hole on whether VPNs can get around IP bans, and the answer is basically yes... but not all VPNs are built the same.
A lot of people think any VPN will instantly solve the problem. In reality, if the VPN is using a small pool of servers, there's a decent chance those IPs have already been flagged or blocked too.

The key seems to be having:
- A huge server network (more fresh IPs to switch between)
- Obfuscated servers (so your traffic doesn't scream "HEY I'M USING A VPN")
- VPN providers that actively rotate and maintain their IPs

That's why some VPNs tend to work way better than others. For example, Proton VPN has a massive server network and offers obfuscation features, which gives you a lot more options if one IP gets blocked. From what I've seen, that's a big reason people have success with it compared to random budget VPNs.
Of course, it's kind of an endless cat-and-mouse game. Sites, games, and platforms are constantly getting better at spotting VPN traffic, while VPN providers are trying to stay one step ahead.

So the question isn't really "Can a VPN bypass an IP ban?". It's more like: "Can your VPN bypass this specific IP ban?" And the answer to that depends a lot on the provider.