Got a phone call re: VPN use

VPN
1

Heya

I’m training some journalists form overseas on digital security including VPN use. Some come from countries where journalists are actively persecuted. In discussing with them why it’s important to use a VPN, one of them recounted the following story.

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- Individual travelled from West African Country X to US by way of Paris

-Individual attempts to buy VPN (which one, not sure) in US, for use in West African country X

-Each time individual tried to pay for VPN, “connection would break, and iphone would restart”

-After an attempt, phone rang, with a person asking in English (not native language of individual) if individual was named YY. Individual responded in the affirmative, and person on the phone asked him to report to a specific police station in NYC at a specified hour.

-Individual reports to police station and is questioned by the police regarding why is trying to use a VPN.

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Has anyone faced similar situation? How is this possible, what can be done to prevent?

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2

https://www.npr.org/2023/04/17/1170571626/fbi-arrests-2-on-charges-tied-to-chinese-outpost-in-new-york-city

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65305415

This or something like this?

3

If the journalists are from a respected company, their employer should go ahead and setup a VPS at their headquarter location (assuming it’s a safe country) to which he then should send out authentication details. VPN subscription services are not a safe option for this use case

4

This is story is kind of bull. Unless detailed info is provided no accurate investigation on this matter is possible

5

Keep in mind that VPN’s can be easily detected with tools such as https://ipapi.is/