I don’t care for VPNs but I do want an adblocker. What are my options aside from using a public pihole dns or a vpn to a private dns server?
Tailscale + Pihole works well, https://tailscale.com/kb/1114/pi-hole/
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VPNs on iOS are a scam
101–110 of 260 posts
Re: VPNs on iOS are a scam
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think airplane mode is intended to comply with the rules for using the device on an airplane. That used to be no radios whatsoever (and device turned off during takeoff and landing). The rules on aircraft changed, so the feature was updated.
I suspect they wanted the feature changed because it gives them better data when tracking you and other nearby devices and that once the rules for airlines changed they figured they could get away with giving users a false sense of security, which is why the feature is still called "airplane mode" which the public understands to mean everything is disconnected even though that's no longer the case.
I'm glad I'm not this paranoid
Re: VPNs on iOS are a scam
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
At the same time that I was working at an ISP on a product that would let employees from various companies connect via dial up and VPN into their corporate networks (whose gateways were also on our network) several of my co-workers were using a VPN of their own to connect to their home networks, but not to access the resources on those home networks (although some did that too). They wanted to use the internet from t…
I don't doubt that, I was replying to this: > You are wrong on this, the private part indicates the privacy it provides not the destination. In your own recollection, what do you think "Virtual Private Network" stood for? Connecting private networks together, or privacy?
I took it to mean a private network connecting two end points, not necessarily connecting two private networks, just that the tunnel (the network between them) was virtual and secure so the traffic exchanged couldn't be eavesdropped on, or modified, by every random node as it passed though the untrusted internet.
I might have been influenced by the product we were selling though. These were dial up users on workstations looking to access their company's LAN so the idea of connecting two discrete private networks wouldn't have fit as well. There was also a lot of focus on the insecurity of passing traffic (even encrypted traffic) over the internet. We had companies paying us a premium to sign up for the service and host their gateway on our network so that the traffic between the users who dialed in and the company's own network never left the ISPs network (never reached the internet at large). I knew at the time it was marketing and that with a well encrypted connection it shouldn't matter if the traffic ever left our "cloud", but it could have helped to shape my view of the technology.
Clients ate that up too. The internet was scary to them. Being able to say that their employee will dial directly into our equipment, and that no packet would pass through a device we didn't operate until the moment it hits your company's gateway made a lot of companies feel better about letting workers remote in.
Re: VPNs on iOS are a scam
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
> You are wrong on this, the private part indicates the privacy it provides not the destination. I remember using VPNs long before, to my knowledge, people were using them in the way you describe, and I was always under the impression that the "P" in VPN meant "connecting private networks" together over the Internet. This document from 2001 agrees with me: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/windows/i.…
Yes, too bad about the downvotes but let me add on that and ask those who disagree what P stands for in WEP and WPA? lol. Wep is wired equivalent privacy.
A connection that does not provide privacy like a GRE tunnel for example is called a tunnel never a VPN or more and GRE specifically connects networks which are typically private.
You can also have VPN between two ASes on on the internet which are public networks. Wrong is wrong. Give me another argument to shoot down against VPNs lol.
The correct term for both private and non-private network tunnels is an overlay network (includes stuff like 6-in-4).
Re: VPNs on iOS are a scam
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
VPNs were used primarily by companies to allow secure access to their network from the outside. It doesn't surprise me that documents aimed at businesses running Windows servers would describe them in the context of that use case. It doesn't mean that was the entire point, or purpose. It's just one thing they were commonly used for.
> VPNs were used primarily by companies to allow secure access to their network from the outside. Yeah, that was the entire argument.
Well companies used VPNs that were not site to site, since the first ASAs and probably before then.
And even then it isn't like individuals did not VPN in the 90s at all.
Re: VPNs on iOS are a scam
#106Device-level VPNs are very useful for bypassing geographic restrictions, but I wouldn’t rely on them for hiding traffic from ISPs, unless you are in control of 100% of what your device does.
how good is wireguard at controlling this?
WireGuard can be used as a VPN (L3 transport) but it cannot address the shortcomings of an OS' implementation of the VPN APIs.
Re: VPNs on iOS are a scam
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
At the same time that I was working at an ISP on a product that would let employees from various companies connect via dial up and VPN into their corporate networks (whose gateways were also on our network) several of my co-workers were using a VPN of their own to connect to their home networks, but not to access the resources on those home networks (although some did that too). They wanted to use the internet from t…
I don't doubt that, I was replying to this: > You are wrong on this, the private part indicates the privacy it provides not the destination. In your own recollection, what do you think "Virtual Private Network" stood for? Connecting private networks together, or privacy?
It's not a question of recollection. Read the acronym carefully. It is virtual and it is a network. Not the destination but the tunnel itself is the network that is private. It was described as such from the start and in no networking context have I ever heard otherwise (correct me if wrong please).
Let's say you have an IPSec tunnel between a branch location and HQ site. The typical solution was GRE where you encapsulate it inside another IP packet that has public IPs only for the destination to decapsulate it. When VPNs came along they added privacy hence the name.
In networking you are not connecting two networks. You are interconnecting three networks! the branch would have its own subnet so would HQ but the VPN also would have its subnet all routed as separate networks. The tunnel network getting privacy because it traverses untrusted networks (back in the day it wasn't typically the interent but ATM, frame relay,T1,etc... "directly" between sites), that's where term cloud comes from FYI the untrusted magic ISP network in the sky.
Re: VPNs on iOS are a scam
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
> You are wrong on this, the private part indicates the privacy it provides not the destination. Sorry - that's just not the case, you're retconning VPN terminology. VPNs were originally implemented to replace dedicated WANs and dial-in access to private networks - they were not originally designed to provide privacy for individual access to the Internet. Heck, even the RFC for VPN terminology makes that clear (RFC 2…
No one ever called GRE or 6-in-4 a VPN, why is that!? Let me copy paste my other comment:
Read the acronym carefully. It is virtual and it is a network. Not the destination but the tunnel itself is the network that is private. It was described as such from the start and in no networking context have I ever heard otherwise (correct me if wrong please). Let's say you have an IPSec tunnel between a branch location and HQ site. The typical solution was GRE where you encapsulate it inside another IP packet that has public IPs only for the destination to decapsulate it. When VPNs came along they added privacy hence the name. In networking you are not connecting two networks. You are interconnecting three networks! the branch would have its own subnet so would HQ but the VPN also would have its subnet all routed as separate networks. The tunnel network getting privacy because it traverses untrusted networks (back in the day it wasn't typically the interent but ATM, frame relay,T1,etc... "directly" between sites), that's where term cloud comes from FYI the untrusted magic ISP network in the sky.
Re: VPNs on iOS are a scam
#109This how routing behavior has been on Mac OS for about 15 years now. Mac OS route selection always takes into account the source address of the IP packet in addition to the routes in the routing table. If a socket binds to a particular address, the Mac OS kernel will choose routes associated with the interface that address is on and ignore the others.
thankfully Windows does not do this. if i set interface metrics manually, and a lower metric interface becomes connected, all external traffic will immediately go through the new interface. Likewise, if i switch between wifi and cellular on an android device, all existing connections stop and must be refreshed. to wit, on both windows and android, youtube videos will continue to play, but things like HN or reddit wil…
> Likewise, if i switch between wifi and cellular on an android device...
On an Android (like on iOS), both WiFi and Cellular interfaces can be active at once. Apps (with appropriate permission) are free to bind to either.
> ...all existing connections stop and must be refreshed.
On network changes (in particular address changes), TCP connectivity may break. SCTP / QUIC / UDP (and UDP-based protocols like WireGuard and MoSH) should continue to work just fine.
Re: VPNs on iOS are a scam
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
I suspect they wanted the feature changed because it gives them better data when tracking you and other nearby devices and that once the rules for airlines changed they figured they could get away with giving users a false sense of security, which is why the feature is still called "airplane mode" which the public understands to mean everything is disconnected even though that's no longer the case.
I'm glad I'm not this paranoid
I think of it more as cynicism. I don't assume corporations act with our best interests in mind. I assume they will do whatever makes them the most money. Companies make a lot of money using the radios in our devices to track us.