VPN by Google One • Hacker News Board

Re: VPN by Google One

#111

Post by dzhiurgis » Fri, Oct 30, 2020, 3:01 AM UTC

sufehmi wrote: post #99

jeffbee wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Privacy enthusiasts often seem blind to this risk. I think it's quite likely that virtually all of these VPN providers are run by either state agencies or organized criminals. As the person who personally ran almost all Tor exits for a brief period in the early 2000's, I am here to tell you that if you cannot definitely identify the operator of your VPN or proxy service, then you probably should not use it.

THIS. I can not believe how many people just blindly recommend VPN like some silver bullet. Using untrustworthy VPN as a privacy solution is like jumping from the fire into the pavement 20 stories below.

Wonder if YouTube gonna allow advertising VPN's that seems most youtubers are pushing.

Re: VPN by Google One

#112

Post by iJohnDoe » Fri, Oct 30, 2020, 4:31 AM UTC

panarky wrote: post #105

NiceWayToDoIT wrote: post #20

What is next VPN by NSA ? :) "Don't worry we already know everything about you, it is easier this way" :)

I trust a VPN from Google far more than others, with the possible exception of a VPN I set up myself.

Google, is that you?

Re: VPN by Google One

#113

Post by iJohnDoe » Fri, Oct 30, 2020, 4:32 AM UTC

nabla9 wrote: post #19

Since this is service you pay for, and not paid by ads and Google says it will not track, log or sell activity it's probably fine.

Google, is that you?

Re: VPN by Google One

#114

Post by iJohnDoe » Fri, Oct 30, 2020, 4:33 AM UTC

traveler01 wrote: post #97

People use VPNs to run away from companies like Google...

Can’t upvote this enough.

Re: VPN by Google One

#115

Post by iJohnDoe » Fri, Oct 30, 2020, 4:34 AM UTC

xnx wrote: post #96

riyakhanna1983 wrote: post #78

I'm confused. If the product targets tech savvy customers, does Google not already know its reputation among the group?

I'm not sure the vocal Google hater comments are representative of tech savvy customers. It regularly ranks at the top of best-regarded brands lists.

Google, is that you?

Re: VPN by Google One

#116

Post by iJohnDoe » Fri, Oct 30, 2020, 4:40 AM UTC

You would have to be a complete idiot to use this. You might as well put a Google Nest camera in your bedroom and let Google and their contractors watch you. Oh, wait.

Re: VPN by Google One

#117

Post by laverya » Fri, Oct 30, 2020, 5:25 AM UTC

Tanath wrote: post #106

NiceWayToDoIT wrote: post #20

What is next VPN by NSA ? :) "Don't worry we already know everything about you, it is easier this way" :)

> What does the VPN log? > In order to provide peace of mind for our users that their activity is private from the VPN operator and from potential attackers, VPN by Google One does not log user activity on the network or other information that could reveal personally identifiable information about them. The following data is NOT logged by the VPN for a given user: ● Network traffic, including DNS ● IP addresses of th…

So if I'm reading that correctly, they DO log who's using which IP address at which time. Which makes sense for abuse tracking, but means this really isn't the service to use for torrents.

EDIT: actually, from the whitepaper [0] it sure looks like they don't even get that much - you authenticate with one set of servers and then get a token to pass to the VPN tunnel servers via 'RSA Blind Signing', and so the tunnel servers never know the account that they're proxying data for. That's actually pretty awesome, if the service as implemented matches the service as described.

0: https://www.gstatic.com/subscriptions/marketing_page/vpn/whi...

Re: VPN by Google One

#118

Post by codezero » Fri, Oct 30, 2020, 6:27 AM UTC

hwbehrens wrote: post #25

codezero wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$10/mo is way more expensive than most VPN offerings. I've been paying something around $2.50/mo for Private Internet Access for years now.

The $10 is for the entire services bundle (storage, support, etc). The VPN alone is $1.99.

Ah, thanks for the clarification! My bad.

Re: VPN by Google One

#119

Post by 0x008 » Fri, Oct 30, 2020, 7:18 AM UTC

Can somebody explain to me what the point of this is? You cannot pirate, since google certainly cooperates with legal entities, you cannot avoid tracking, well, because google.

So I am really interested in an answer here: Is there any beneficial use case for this?

They say it's security? How is this more secure than regular HTTPS? What do I gain by paying for this?

Re: VPN by Google One

#120

Post by lima » Fri, Oct 30, 2020, 10:15 AM UTC

jeffbee wrote: post #98

xnx wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's part of the attraction to me. I'd love my VPN activity to blend in with all the other activity (crawlers, etc.) coming from Google.

I seriously doubt that you'll get that benefit from this service. When I use the Google VPN on my Android, my outbound IP is part of a completely separate AS they dedicate to this purpose, not on AS15169 like all Google's own outbound traffic.

Which AS is it using instead, AS16591?