If curious see also
Don't Use VPN Services (2016)
51–60 of 61 posts
Re: Don't Use VPN Services (2016)
#52I can't seem to find a reliable source, would AWS or Azure penalise you for using a VPN for torrenting? I've heard about accounts being terminated because of hosted seedboxes on VMs, but I'm not sure what would happen with a VPN + Torrent combination.
If the torrent traffic is over a vpn out of the datacenter you're fine. If the torrent traffic is going out of that vm (like a seedbox) then certain providers may ban you. Many do allow bittorrent because of things like syncthing though.
Those seeding public torrents are in trouble if they get an abuse complaint. Most providers don't like those and will boot you off real quick.
Re: Don't Use VPN Services (2016)
#53Unless you explicitly need speed, or they're your only option, why do people use VPNs for privacy over Tor? Do they provide any benefits other than being faster? I thought Tor was a much more secure option if privacy in particular is your objective.
TOR exit nodes are more likely to be flagged than VPN servers. Though even for accessing TOR, using a VPN is a good idea. If you're planning of doing stupid things like mailing in a bomb threat to delay your exams because you haven't studied enough and you're using TOR, the usage itself will point at you if you're the only person using it. Had they used a VPN to access TOR, they wouldn't have been caught that easily.…
> Kim was taken into custody on Monday—identified as one of the few Harvard wireless users who was also on Tor at the time. When interviewed by an FBI agent and an officer with the Harvard University Police Department that night, Kim admitted to sending the bomb threat emails and said that he acted alone.
Based on this it sounds like if he hadn't confessed he wouldn't have been caught. After all, it would still be on the prosecutors to prove he used tor to send the threat, instead of just using it out of paranoia or something.
Re: Don't Use VPN Services (2016)
#54Run it on Google yourself: https://gist.github.com/kordless/de9854c9334f00f4176fac8c0ca...
Re: Don't Use VPN Services (2016)
#55My main reason for using a proxy is to prevent my government from tracking and logging all my internet activity (when you look at the huge list of agencies the UK government has allowed access to that information you can see why). I skimmed through this article but I don't think it addressed this use case. Sure, my VPN could be tracking me, but I have much more trust in Mozilla than I do any other internety company.…
Congratulations, you're now being tracked by the government of whichever country your VPN is proxy'ing your data to.
And that government also certainly has much less legal restrictions on tracking you since you're probably not their citizen. Unless you VPN to a node in your own country, in which case, they're just tracking you at a different exit point.
Re: Don't Use VPN Services (2016)
#56I subscribed to ProtonVPN for more privacy and security when I travel and have to use hotel WiFi. I trust them. In general I don’t agree with the article.
Re: Don't Use VPN Services (2016)
#57My main reason for using a proxy is to prevent my government from tracking and logging all my internet activity (when you look at the huge list of agencies the UK government has allowed access to that information you can see why). I skimmed through this article but I don't think it addressed this use case. Sure, my VPN could be tracking me, but I have much more trust in Mozilla than I do any other internety company.…
Congratulations, you're now being tracked by the government of whichever country your VPN is proxy'ing your data to. And that government also certainly has much less legal restrictions on tracking you since you're probably not their citizen. Unless you VPN to a node in your own country, in which case, they're just tracking you at a different exit point.
As a US resideny, I'd rather have Sweden able to introspect my traffic rather than the US.
Re: Don't Use VPN Services (2016)
#58My main reason for using a proxy is to prevent my government from tracking and logging all my internet activity (when you look at the huge list of agencies the UK government has allowed access to that information you can see why). I skimmed through this article but I don't think it addressed this use case. Sure, my VPN could be tracking me, but I have much more trust in Mozilla than I do any other internety company.…
You are overlooking a jump that seems obvious to me and I have not seen anyone address before: if government intelligence agencies go to great lengths to spy on the world's internet traffic, why wouldn't they run, and promote, the top VPN companies themselves?
Therefore, shouldn't we expect at least some of the largest, cheapest, and most widely promoted VPNs to be secretly run by intelligence agencies?
Re: Don't Use VPN Services (2016)
#59In defence of the big VPN providers. 1) Why would you keep logs, when you could then be compelled to hand them over? 2) As setting up a VPN company is easy/cheap, you conversely have to spend a large pile of cash to advertize your way to the top. The only asset you really end up with is your name/reputation. Publicly burning a customer would be incredibly expensive. Adjusts tinfoil hat I think the point about VPN pro…
> 2) As setting up a VPN company is easy/cheap, you conversely have to spend a large pile of cash to advertize your way to the top.
Therefore, it seems to obvious that the VPN companies with the largest advertising budgets (perhaps even running a deficit) are run by intelligence agencies. They recoup their investment on the data harvested.
Re: Don't Use VPN Services (2016)
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are hosting providers you don't need to give out your real identity to use and would fight any attempts of getting the details they do have on you, to law enforcement or others. Obviously if you want to protect your identity, you need to do that at every level, if you're hosting your VPN somewhere, that includes from the platform you're hosting your VPN at.
> and would fight any attempts of getting the details they do have on you That sounds like one of those things that original article says "can never be verified". Correct me if I'm wrong.
You can definitely verify this by looking at court orders and more regarding the company in question.