Big Mama VPN tied to network which offers access to residential IP addresses.

Big Mama VPN tied to network which offers access to residential IP addresses.

  • u/lukmly013 💾 (lemmy.sdf.org)@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    53·
    5 days ago

    TL;DR: They used free VPN called Big Mama.

    From their FAQ: https://bigma.org/faq.html

    How is it possible to keep it free?
    The devices of our free VPN customers are used to create a secure peer-to-peer network that our commercial clients can use to securely route their traffic via various global endpoints. As a free client, you will likely not notice any impact on your resources as that happens. The data transferred in the background will be metered by your mobile operator according to your data plan.

    • vithigar@lemmy.caEnglish
      271·
      5 days ago

      So it’s literally up front and in their FAQ that they do this. So why is this a story?

    • modus@lemmy.worldEnglish
      8·
      5 days ago

      What does this mean? What use would “their clients” need access to your network? What are they routing to through your network and how does that help with efficiency?

      • fatalicus@lemmy.worldEnglish
        12·
        4 days ago

        IP addresses.

        Their commercial clients are doing things that give IPs bad reputation or banned from services, so they use this service to get access to home IPs to use.

          • Buffalobuffalo@reddthat.comEnglish
            2·
            3 days ago

            It would not shock me if companies like OpenAi would have used something like this so they could harvest large amounts of data without setting off usage limits. While sketchy not sure if this counts as scammy.

  • x00z@lemmy.worldEnglish
    25·
    5 days ago

    This is actually almost always the case with free VPNs.

    If you look at residential IP providers, they have MILLIONS of IPs available to them.

    • ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.netEnglish
      6·
      4 days ago

      That reminds me. There was a story about a cheater who sold tools for disrupting multiplayer games and it was pretty popular.

      Then he added a crypto miner in there which went undetected for a long time and then he ghost.

    • lukewarm_ozone@lemmy.todayEnglish
      142·
      5 days ago

      If you actually read the article, this is just a normal-ish (although peer-to-peer, which is interesting) free VPN, it isn’t actually oriented towards cheating. The funniest part is that if the article is to be believed, the “cheating” consists of simply increasing your ping. Which… you don’t really need a VPN for.