Protect yourself from FireSheep with Amazon EC2 + OpenVPN for $0.50 a month
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Protect yourself from FireSheep with Amazon EC2 + OpenVPN for $0.50 a month
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Re: Protect yourself from FireSheep with Amazon EC2 + OpenVPN for $0.50 a month
#2I normally just do my tunneling with ssh -D. Is there an advantage of using SSH VPN instead of SSH as a SOCKS proxy?
Re: Protect yourself from FireSheep with Amazon EC2 + OpenVPN for $0.50 a month
#3Good timing - I just had this thought "in the shower" a day or two ago. I wouldn't utilize a VPN enough to make some of the more traditional providers cost-effective, so something along these lines is probably Just Right.
Re: Protect yourself from FireSheep with Amazon EC2 + OpenVPN for $0.50 a month
#4Why not just setup something like PFsense ( http://www.pfsense.org/ ) at home with OpenVPN configured?
Re: Protect yourself from FireSheep with Amazon EC2 + OpenVPN for $0.50 a month
#5It's worth noting that the quoted "$0.50 a month" only applies for the first year, after which it will cost $0.02 an hour or ~$15 a month.
Re: Protect yourself from FireSheep with Amazon EC2 + OpenVPN for $0.50 a month
#6I normally just do my tunneling with ssh -D. Is there an advantage of using SSH VPN instead of SSH as a SOCKS proxy?
I was wondering the same thing. The post went through all the steps to setup SSH VPN while SSH tunneling works pretty well and requires almost-zero config on the server…
OTOH I saw the value of using PPTP or L2TP-based VPN. It is supported on most systems by default. I set up one for iPhone because you cannot do SSH tunneling on it. On non-*nix systems there is usually no SSH installed by default. I opened my PPTP/L2TP VPN for friends running Windows.
It's also slightly easier to connect to PPTP/L2TP VPN with a single click on the menubar of OS X without installing any additional software.
Otherwise I stick with SSH tunneling with SOCKS proxy.
Could someone explain the benefits of SSH VPN please?
Re: Protect yourself from FireSheep with Amazon EC2 + OpenVPN for $0.50 a month
#7I normally just do my tunneling with ssh -D. Is there an advantage of using SSH VPN instead of SSH as a SOCKS proxy?
I was wondering the same thing. The post went through all the steps to setup SSH VPN while SSH tunneling works pretty well and requires almost-zero config on the server… OTOH I saw the value of using PPTP or L2TP-based VPN. It is supported on most systems by default. I set up one for iPhone because you cannot do SSH tunneling on it. On non-*nix systems there is usually no SSH installed by default. I opened my PPTP/L2…
SideStep basically automates ssh -D for you and sets up a local SOCKS proxy. However SOCKS proxies (and thus the current version of Sidestep) can only protect TCP traffic that supports SOCKS proxies. For example, you can't tunnel your DNS requests over a proxy (without tinkering with Firefox's about:config).
Also, since ssh -D is not a true VPN tunnel, your machine is exposed to the hostile network (if you don't have a firewall).
If you want complete privacy where ALL of your IP traffic is tunneled out, OpenVPN (or other tunneling layer 3 solution) is the way to go.
Re: Protect yourself from FireSheep with Amazon EC2 + OpenVPN for $0.50 a month
#8I normally just do my tunneling with ssh -D. Is there an advantage of using SSH VPN instead of SSH as a SOCKS proxy?
I've never used OpenVPN (and am not a network expert), but my guess is that it shims into your network stack somehow, so it's transparent to any application? Maybe, it's just a guess. Otherwise, it doesn't seem to make much sense.
I'm running a low-tech setup like this with sshd on my home router and PuTTY on my laptop, acting as a SOCKS proxy, and there are several applications that don't know how to talk to a SOCKS proxy. Luckily FF knows how to.
Re: Protect yourself from FireSheep with Amazon EC2 + OpenVPN for $0.50 a month
#9It's worth noting that the quoted "$0.50 a month" only applies for the first year, after which it will cost $0.02 an hour or ~$15 a month.
The amortized cost of a reserved instance is only $7.47 per month.
Re: Protect yourself from FireSheep with Amazon EC2 + OpenVPN for $0.50 a month
#10It's worth noting that the quoted "$0.50 a month" only applies for the first year, after which it will cost $0.02 an hour or ~$15 a month.
Seems like a perfect use case for EC2 on demand. Only run the VPN node when you are on an open wireless network and need the VPN security. Shut it down otherwise.
That would make it harder to run, but it would greatly reduce the cost. I'd pay $0.02 for an hour's worth of security while stopping off at a coffee shop.