The technology behind goldensVPN
Let's say you are sitting at home as you read this page. When you requested this page you have sent identifying information (your IP address) to our server. Along the way, this request was visible to anyone with the technical chops to look. In particular, your local ISP (or cable company) "sees" every bit of information that you send into and receive back out of the online world. The same goes if you are sending email, sharing files, or chatting via IM: it's all in "plaintext" geek-speak for unencrypted, plain as day transmission of information. In contrast, when you're securely running the goldensVPN service, we take that whole stream of data and push it through an encrypted "tunnel." This tunnel begins at your computer and extends all the way to our server farm in Amsterdam. Why Amsterdam? Well, Holland has some solid consumer privacy standards (particularly compared to the situation faced by many of our customers in countries such as Saudi Arabia, China, Iran. or the USA). Plus, Amsterdam is just a wonderful city and we never mind visiting our server farm to check up on things in person.
How secure is this tunnel? It's created and sustained using "strong" 2048 public key cryptographic algorithms. You don't need to trust us that this stuff works. We've chosen to use crypto code that is open source. That is, the technology behind goldens.com is not a secretive black box. Instead, it's code is available for anybody, anywhere in the world to look at and criticize. Via this opensource method, a thousand independent eyes confirm that the crypto magic works, and that there's no secret back doors built in to that some snoop somewhere can listen into your stuff.
Once you install these crypto libraries, the tunnel opens between your computer and our Amsterdam servers. From that point on, every bit of information you send to and receive from the internet is sent through this tunnel. When it hits our server, we strip off identifying information and pass it into plaintext internet. Data coming back at you comes through our server first, and then drops back into your tunnel and ends up at your computer. To the rest of the world, you look like you live in a server farm in Amsterdam - there's no way to backtrace your online shenanigans to your real-world life.
That's it. Zero hassle. Every internet-enabled program you use on your computer automatically works through your goldens.com tunnel. No special settings, no complications, no need to remember anything different as you go about your errands and such. Instant messaging, web browsing, file sharing, downloads, email, FTP... it's all the same as it ever was except it's rock-solid secure.
Our service is based on the highly-respected OpenVPN Codebase, and opensource project that has merged several of the leading trends in VPN technologies into one integrated architecture. If you'd like, you can compile the sourcecode for goldensVPN yourself - you need not trust us that it's got no backdoors. Our configuration settings for the connection are available for your review as well. Threre's nothing secret about our system, and we feel strongly this is the best way to create verifiable, real-world trust in security software. On the server side, our machines run cascading DHCP/NAT systems that dynamically strip identifying information out of the data stream. We never correlate packets with customers' in the near future, we'll be rolling out a system for independent verification of this procedure. Our hardware is all brand-new, best-in-class equipment that we own and manage ourselves in full - no outsourced stuff. There's no part of the goldensVPN system that we don't own, manage, control, and monitor in-house, 24-7, to ensure it stays secure, reliable, and fast as hell!
