[vonquant]

Of course, the VPN could be the one doing the hijacking.

[pdimitar]

Well let's assume that he f.ex. has friends in several countries to whose VPN servers he has a direct unimpeded access (by IP, not hostname).

Would a trusted VPN help? Or would hijacking the traffic at the point of departure (his phone / the air) still manage to corrupt the payloads?

[Jon_Lowtek]

"So do you trust some shady foreign VPN provider more than your government approved ISP?" might return true from journalists in autocratic states that have a record of censorship, surveillance and imprisoning journalists.