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Poor man's VPN (pay for only what you need)

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Re: Poor man's VPN (pay for only what you need)

#21

Post by Ansil849 »

_jal wrote: post #16
dinvlad wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, this reminded me of the situation right here in the US. The other day I couldn't place an online order at CVS because it was repeatedly "having technical difficulties". Turns out I had to unblock half a dozen (!) advertising domains in my Pihole (incl. the ones I've never heard of) to finally place an order. I don't know how to treat it as "I have a choice whether to do business with them" ;-) I guess the only…

> I guess the only way to protect my privacy in this case is to risk going to the physical store Never give them your phone number. They suckered me, and it took multiple calls to a very slow call center to get the text messages to stop. And I couldn't get them to just delete it - it had to be done as a number change. So my number is now 415.555.1212.

> Never give them your phone number.

Give them Jenny's number:

(your local area code) 867-5309

It works way more often than you'd think, and if no one has yet made a store loyalty account with the number, you can be the first and add to the movement :). Use this trick whenever you need a loyalty card to get a store discount.

Re: Poor man's VPN (pay for only what you need)

#22

Post by tzs »

azalemeth wrote: post #2

> Motivation: Lately due to GDPR many websites are blocking access in the EU. For me, I cannot order medicines back home via netmeds.com Blaming GDPR for this is a bit like blaming a lead mine for getting shot. Yes, it's involved but it's not the reason. It only seems to be certain large US websites that carte-blanch refuse to serve EU visitors over GDPR, mostly those with large, tendril-filled advertising networks t…

If a non-EU site finds itself subject to GDPR because of Article 3(2), they need to then worry about whether or not Article 27(2) applies to excuse them from Article 27(1). If not then they have to deal with the hassle and expense of hiring a representative in the Union.

If they are indifferent to EU visitors but happen to get enough of them that 27(2) won't excuse them from 27(1), then it may be worth blocking EU visitors to try to reduce the chances that 3(2) applies. Article 3(2) is somewhat objecting, relying on whether you intended or not to offer goods or services to people in the Union so blocking is a way to make your intent clear.

IP addresses are considered to be personal data under GDPR, so a site that is doing nothing other than serving content with no advertising or targeting but that has the default Apache logging enabled could end up with an Article 27 obligation.

Re: Poor man's VPN (pay for only what you need)

#23

Post by bccdee »

`ssh -qND localhost:8080 user@ip` sets up a SOCKS proxy at localhost:8080. In your browser connection settings (at least in Firefox) you can set it up to route your traffic through the connection. It's not as good as a proper VPN for prolonged use, but for a quick one-off, it'll do the job.

Re: Poor man's VPN (pay for only what you need)

#24

Post by dinvlad »

Ansil849 wrote: post #21
_jal wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I guess the only way to protect my privacy in this case is to risk going to the physical store Never give them your phone number. They suckered me, and it took multiple calls to a very slow call center to get the text messages to stop. And I couldn't get them to just delete it - it had to be done as a number change. So my number is now 415.555.1212.

> Never give them your phone number. Give them Jenny's number: (your local area code) 867-5309 It works way more often than you'd think, and if no one has yet made a store loyalty account with the number, you can be the first and add to the movement :). Use this trick whenever you need a loyalty card to get a store discount.

All jokes aside, this would obviously divulge order details and/or control to whomever owns that number :-) Easier to just block the damn number.

Re: Poor man's VPN (pay for only what you need)

#25

Post by danrochman »

aizatto wrote: post #9

Another cool tool to easily launch a VPN of your choice (WireGuard, OpenVPN, SSH) in a cloud provider. I tried it out before just to test it out, it's pretty cool. https://github.com/StreisandEffect/streisand

Looks like it was a cool project, but the last commit was 2 years ago. I’d suggest looking at Algo (https://github.com/trailofbits/algo), which is similar, but actively maintained.

Re: Poor man's VPN (pay for only what you need)

#26

Post by nefitty »

aizatto wrote: post #9

Another cool tool to easily launch a VPN of your choice (WireGuard, OpenVPN, SSH) in a cloud provider. I tried it out before just to test it out, it's pretty cool. https://github.com/StreisandEffect/streisand

Woah. I'm glad you revealed this to me before I stumbled into a year-long yak shaving session.

Re: Poor man's VPN (pay for only what you need)

#27

Post by dinvlad »

mindslight wrote: post #15
dinvlad wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, this reminded me of the situation right here in the US. The other day I couldn't place an online order at CVS because it was repeatedly "having technical difficulties". Turns out I had to unblock half a dozen (!) advertising domains in my Pihole (incl. the ones I've never heard of) to finally place an order. I don't know how to treat it as "I have a choice whether to do business with them" ;-) I guess the only…

I handle this pragmatically by using different VMs with assorted browsers, browser configs, and exit addresses. For the context of buying from CVS (realworld nym, heavy surveillance), I'm running NoScript and slowly enable domains until the site works. Doing this for some sites actually speeds them up considerably (eg Home Depot).

The problem is in this case, no amount of blocking will work, because the site was completely broken without those, at least for me :-) Though I can reduce the amount of divulged info for sure, but the very fact they're using them means my order details likely go to third-parties, and it's impossible to prevent that because it relies on that reporting in the chain of logic (i.e. order won't proceed until a successful response from the advertising APIs).

The only technical way around that I can think of is to implement Signal's and other's API proxies and let it return back fake info to the site. But I'm not that obsessed about this issue :-)

Another over-the-top way is to place the order directly against CVS APIs, using their cookies etc. Again, not worth spending time on..

Re: Poor man's VPN (pay for only what you need)

#28

Post by Ansil849 »

dinvlad wrote: post #24
Ansil849 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Never give them your phone number. Give them Jenny's number: (your local area code) 867-5309 It works way more often than you'd think, and if no one has yet made a store loyalty account with the number, you can be the first and add to the movement :). Use this trick whenever you need a loyalty card to get a store discount.

All jokes aside, this would obviously divulge order details and/or control to whomever owns that number :-) Easier to just block the damn number.

The use case I'm thinking of is when buying random sundries at the store, not ordering sensitive items.

Re: Poor man's VPN (pay for only what you need)

#29

Post by dinvlad »

Ansil849 wrote: post #28
dinvlad wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All jokes aside, this would obviously divulge order details and/or control to whomever owns that number :-) Easier to just block the damn number.

The use case I'm thinking of is when buying random sundries at the store, not ordering sensitive items.

Ah makes sense then! And would be pretty fun.

Re: Poor man's VPN (pay for only what you need)

#30

Post by smoyer »

syshum wrote: post #11
azalemeth wrote: post #2

> Motivation: Lately due to GDPR many websites are blocking access in the EU. For me, I cannot order medicines back home via netmeds.com Blaming GDPR for this is a bit like blaming a lead mine for getting shot. Yes, it's involved but it's not the reason. It only seems to be certain large US websites that carte-blanch refuse to serve EU visitors over GDPR, mostly those with large, tendril-filled advertising networks t…

Business and people will take the path of least resistance. If only a small part of my traffic / business comes from the EU yet I am going to incur huge costs, and have to fundamentally change the way my business runs to comply with GDPR guess what, the EU is getting blocked, as make not sense to do it. My current company does not really collect user info, does no business at all in the EU or is even consumer facing…

And circumventing that block violates the CCFA (at least here in the US) so instead of the GDPR turning me into a criminal, SO users who visit my site are the ones violating the law.
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