Are we evil?
Can CyberGhost be used abusively for illegal activities?
Can we commit crimes with a knife? Of course we can. Does this mean that we should give up on cutting bread? Of course it doesn't. However, CyberGhost VPN, as all the other similar services, is frequently accused of supporting criminal activities. Nothing can be further away from the truth, which is why we take this opportunity to highlight once more the following aspects:
CyberGhost VPN is a service with one purpose only: to increase the Internet safety, freedom and individuality - for all users equally. For private persons, for journalists and political activists, but also for those who frequently support the enforcement of Internet-related restrictions: companies (first of all those in the creation field), state authorities, army, secret services and political dignitaries. In the end, they all have something to gain from extra security, a private sphere and freedom, all possible due to an increased anonymity on the Internet. While, through CyberGhost VPN, the citizens take charge and make sure that their human rights are respected, this service also offers other people the possibility to carry out their attributions adequately, for, undoubtedly, these anonymity possibilities are also used by the criminal investigation authorities, the secret services and the army when carrying out check-ups. However, data security, unlimited private sphere and freedom to access all content elements on the Internet must not be reserved to selected groups. We believe that security, freedom and the private sphere of all Internet users is based on anonymity and, consequently, restricting these possibilities of anonymously accessing the network would eliminate the private sphere, freedom and security.
The fact that CyberGhost VPN can be theoretically used by criminal organizations as well shouldn't be a reason to discriminate the service. People, and not the instruments they use, commit the deeds in question - the criminals having, no doubt, greater possibilities to hide their identity than the law abiding citizens. To hide behind false identities, the criminals steal mobile telephones, forge documents, abusively use wireless Internet connections and, through fraudulently loaded programs, take over the control of an entire computer, which they later use to carry out their activities. In conclusion, the people with fraudulent intentions can surf the Internet anonymously at any given time: big and small criminals alike, but also repressive governments. If they have enough know-how, time and money, they don't even need a service like CyberGhost VPN.
On the other hand, the common people, who obey the law, benefit from more restricted means. The same situation is valid for the militants for civil rights, whistleblowers, activists for political rights in oppressed states and regions, environmentalists, journalists, supporters of human rights and all the other persons who get involved in such actions for themselves and for their fellow beings and who promote the interests of large groups of people. We have created CyberGhost VPN for them, to offer them the unrestricted and risk-free possibility to exert their right to freedom, to a private sphere and to an enhanced Internet security, so they can benefit from a better protection against criminals, so they can get involved in the political field without putting themselves at risk and to offer them freedom of movement in the social field.
This service also offers the secret services and the army the possibility to anonymously plan and apply strategies, and grants the police investigation authorities the freedom to act undercover and to efficiently investigate law-breakers.
Are there any numbers regarding the abusive usage of the CyberGhost network?
We have a statistics regarding the requests we have received so far from investigation authorities, individuals and companies. If we consider this figure to be a standard for the abusive usage, we must say that the illegal usage of the service is very low. For example, in 2008 we only received 32 requests to investigate crime suspects, 177 requests in 2009, and 99 last year (2010), all this taking into account that the number of users has increased almost four times, from 160,000 in 2008 to approximately 600,000 in 2010. Currently, CyberGhost VPN has over 900,000 account holders, and the number of crimes reported is still low. It is obvious that a very low percentage of our users commit crimes on the Internet.
The conclusion stands even if, instead of the number of requests received, we take as a standard the seriousness of the crimes committed by abusively using the service. Most of the requests report petty crimes, for example frauds in the merchandise field, a very low number of requests covering serious crimes, and none of them targeting terrorism acts.
I've got a suspicion concerning one of your users. Can I request for him/her to be checked up?
No. We are simply service providers. We are not outside of the legal system and we cannot ignore the legislation in force. If there is no data communication request issued by a court, if we did check up on that person, we would violate the legal provisions.
Nevertheless, even if there is a court request, we cannot identify a user of our network. The same mechanisms that offer protection to respectable citizens, journalists and other persons against data espionage and more serious deeds make it impossible for us to identify or track users suspected of having committed crimes using the connections we've made anonymous in other networks.
There is only the theoretical possibility to intercept them, based on a court order, to record the future surfing on a specific account (for example, to survey the activities of a terrorist cell). However, such operations require that, in addition to the court request, the relevant investigation authorities communicate us a connection IP or log-in data. In practice, this theoretical hypothesis is almost completely void of significance, and we have never used it.