About crackthe.net

crackthe.net is an independent measurement archive for VPN providers. It records what each provider's own server list says about its locations, measures the published endpoints from probes around the world, and keeps what the providers state as prices. Everything can be looked up and compared free of charge and without a login.

Who is behind crackthe.net

crackthe.net is founded and run by Alexander Bock. Alexander holds an M.Sc. in Computer Science and two GIAC certifications: GICSP (Global Industrial Cyber Security Professional) and GRID (GIAC Response and Industrial Defense).

His career spans two areas that directly shape this site:

• Cyber security: years of work defending industrial control systems, where sources, evidence and verifiability matter more than confident-sounding claims. That mindset shapes how data is collected, checked and presented here.
• Artificial intelligence: building and operating data and AI systems. This is what enables a small, independent site to collect and check more than a thousand server locations several times a day.

The site is made by someone who builds the measurement pipeline and reads the numbers, not by a marketing department. Alexander Bock is responsible for all content. Every page states the date of its figures, and every finding shows the replies it rests on. How the measurements work, and what they cannot show, is described in the method.

Qualifications

• M.Sc. Computer Science: academic degree in computer science
• GICSP: Global Industrial Cyber Security Professional (GIAC)
• GRID: GIAC Response and Industrial Defense (GIAC)

Both GIAC certifications can be verified in the public GIAC verification profile. The full professional background is on LinkedIn.

How crackthe.net works

Server locations come from the lists the providers themselves publish. Prices come from the providers' own pricing pages. The measurements are run through a public network of probes; which network announces a server's address comes from a public routing table. The data is collected automatically several times a day, and the date of each figure is shown on the page.

The figures and sentences on the data pages are put together from the collected data by fixed rules. The software and the explanatory texts were written with the help of AI. Before anything is published, the pipeline checks the result automatically, for example that no server address appears anywhere and that all totals add up, and stops the publication if a check fails. A finding that contradicts a provider's list is shown as an observation until a second day confirms it.

The site currently carries no advertising and no affiliate links. If such links are added later, they will be marked, and they will not influence which providers are listed, how they are ordered, or what the measurements say.

What crackthe.net is, and what it is not

crackthe.net is a measurement archive. It shows what providers state and what can be measured from outside, side by side. It is not a product test, gives no purchase recommendations and no security ratings. A location shown as compatible is not thereby confirmed, and a published server endpoint is not the address traffic leaves from.

All data is provided without guarantee. Errors in the underlying sources or in their processing cannot be ruled out. Providers and readers who find an error can report it using the contact details in the imprint; corrections are made on the live pages.

Contact

Postal address, telephone number and e-mail address are in the imprint. How personal data is handled is described in the privacy policy.