FBI arrests a cyber stalker after ‘no-logs’ VPN provider shared user logs

FBI recently arrested a psycho cyber stalker with the help of a popular VPN service and this case apparently exposed the company’s lies about the “no logs” policy.

Taking down cyber stalkers and criminals is definitely a good thing, and the FBI has truly done a great job, but the VPN company whose first line of the privacy policy is “We Do Not monitor user activity nor do we keep any logs” has literally betrayed its customers’ trust.

A 24- year- old Massachusetts man, Ryan Lin, has been arrested in a cyberstalking case after one of the largest VPN providers. PureVPN helped the FBI with information that linked Lin to his alleged cyber-crimes.

Lin tormented his former-roommate, Jennifer Smith, for one and a half years after stealing credentials of online profiles from her unlocked MacBook, and other personal files, including photographs, from her iCloud and Google Drive accounts.

According to the affidavit, Lin released Smith’s personal details online, posted intimate photographs without her face suggesting they were of Smith, and emailed her private information to her contacts, including her family, relatives and colleagues.

Additionally, Lin allegedly posted fake profiles of her to websites “dedicated to prostitution, sexual fetishes, and other sexual encounters,” shared information about her medical background that she never shared with anyone, and sent “images that likely constitute child pornography” to her family and friends.

Lin often spoofed Smith’s identity to send bomb, death and rape threats to schools and lone individuals, which even tricked one of her friends into calling the police to her house.

To conduct all these illegal actions and hide his tracks, Lin used various privacy services like Proton Mail, VPN clients, and Tor, anonymized international text messaging services and offshore private e-mail providers.

The feds were able to recover some forensic artefacts from his work computer, even though he had been terminated and the OS had been reinstalled on the computer.

The FBI then managed to obtain logs from PureVPN, which linked Lin to the illegal campaigns against Smith and his other former roommates.

“Significantly, PureVPN was able to determine that their service was accessed by the same customer from the home Lin was living in at the time, and the software company where Lin was employed at the time.”

Lin faces up to 5 years in prison and up to 3 years of “supervised release,” according to the DoJ.