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VPNs on iOS are a scam

michaelhorowitz.com

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Re: VPNs on iOS are a scam

#151

Post by _8j50 »

anyfoo wrote: post #116
_8j50 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 encaps…

This might be the most pedantic thread (on my part, too) I was ever part of. :) The earliest reference to VPN I can find in the RFCs, RFC2547, seems to call the "destination" (the network spanned by the tunnel) the VPN, not the tunnel itself: "If all the sites in a VPN are owned by the same enterprise, the VPN is a corporate "intranet". If the various sites in a VPN are owned by different enterprises, the VPN is an "…

If you show me GRE being called a VPN I will concede, and yeah very pedantic but it is good to learn through discourse as well I think.

Re: VPNs on iOS are a scam

#152

Post by raverbashing »

dahfizz wrote: post #150
raverbashing wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just replaced ISP tracking with VPN tracking And your "VPN in YouTube ads" surely does that

> You just replaced ISP tracking with VPN tracking. Yeah, that's the point. People have infinitely more choices for VPN providers than for ISPs. The VPN provider could be in another country. You can even run your own VPN on hosted infra.

> You can even run your own VPN on hosted infra

True. But we know very few people do that

Re: VPNs on iOS are a scam

#153

Post by buraktamturk »

raverbashing wrote: post #146
autoexec wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All they do is let you get onto the public, untrusted, internet through a different on-ramp. There is no point to them. Not true, at all. There are several good reasons to use VPNs to get a different on-ramp to the otherwise untrusted internet. - Avoid ISP tracking: Your ISP should see only traffic to and from the VPN. - Access content intended for those in other regions: Many sites and services only show certain c…

You just replaced ISP tracking with VPN tracking And your "VPN in YouTube ads" surely does that

I rather have my VPN track me than ISP does. For example, connection to Signal and Kakaotalk servers is used as an evidence of being a member of a terror organisation (!) in Turkey. Evidence is gathered by Ministry of Communications from the ISPs, whom they have to provide real-time connection data to the State including CGNAT records. With a VPN, it is almost impossible (depending on setup, i.e. NAT) to obtain such an evidence - especially for political purposes, even if the VPN provider willingly give logs, no way to prove that info is legit.

Re: VPNs on iOS are a scam

#154

Post by hnzix »

autoexec wrote: post #75
Aaargh20318 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> VPNs were always meant to carry internal traffic to a private network, not the public internet This. And the idea that these so called ‘VPN’ services somehow improve your security and privacy on the internet is laughable. All they do is let you get onto the public, untrusted, internet through a different on-ramp. There is no point to them. The internet is just as untrustworthy through a VPN service as it is through…

> All they do is let you get onto the public, untrusted, internet through a different on-ramp. There is no point to them. Not true, at all. There are several good reasons to use VPNs to get a different on-ramp to the otherwise untrusted internet. - Avoid ISP tracking: Your ISP should see only traffic to and from the VPN. - Access content intended for those in other regions: Many sites and services only show certain c…

Wouldn't a VPN also prevent traffic sniffing if you're connected via a public wi-fi point?

Re: VPNs on iOS are a scam

#155

Post by alanfranz »

I think the analysis has some good points, but the author is lacking a bit of networking skills, so I’m not sure how trustworthy this can be. Two yellow flags:

* vpn gateway address can be different from public vpn exit address. What is the surprising part?

* I don’t know what pings your “uncloaked” public ip address, but still, when using a vpn, you’re using your own ip address to connect to the gateway. So, there’s no real leak - it would be a leak if some packets went _through the vpn_ to 99.99.99.99, because an observer could spot the strange ip and determine it’s the uncloaked source address.

Anyway: who can tell what an iphone or ipad can do? You probably have an associated apple account, et cetera. If you trust such a device for total anonymity, you’re doing it wrong from the start. Pick a Linux laptop for that.

Re: VPNs on iOS are a scam

#156

Post by astrange »

hnzix wrote: post #154
autoexec wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All they do is let you get onto the public, untrusted, internet through a different on-ramp. There is no point to them. Not true, at all. There are several good reasons to use VPNs to get a different on-ramp to the otherwise untrusted internet. - Avoid ISP tracking: Your ISP should see only traffic to and from the VPN. - Access content intended for those in other regions: Many sites and services only show certain c…

Wouldn't a VPN also prevent traffic sniffing if you're connected via a public wi-fi point?

It would, but that’s already generally impossible thanks to everything being on HTTPS (including DNS).

Re: VPNs on iOS are a scam

#157

Post by sneak »

kogir wrote: post #5

I think Apple is transparent about Always on VPN (blocking traffic except over the tunnel) requiring provisioning using MDM tools. Apple Configurator is free and allows anyone to set this up. Any other VPN is just best effort. https://support.apple.com/guide/deployment/vpn-overview-depa...

Lockdown mode on iOS for high security will prohibit the use of provisioning profiles.

Re: VPNs on iOS are a scam

#158

Post by astrange »

anyfoo wrote: post #141
Maursault wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Private and privacy don't have the same meaning, and one does not imply the other. These two words have the same root and etymology. The adjective "private" is transformed into a noun using the abstract noun suffix, "cy," to become "privacy." These two words have the same word root dressed as different parts of speech.

Of course they have the same root and etymology. Of course they do not have the same meaning, look them up in the dictionary. A private parking spot is not a privacy parking spot.

This reminds me of the people who think public companies (traded on the stock market) are publicly owned (part of the government) and so want the First Amendment to apply to getting banned from Facebook.

Re: VPNs on iOS are a scam

#159

Post by sneak »

kogir wrote: post #5

I think Apple is transparent about Always on VPN (blocking traffic except over the tunnel) requiring provisioning using MDM tools. Apple Configurator is free and allows anyone to set this up. Any other VPN is just best effort. https://support.apple.com/guide/deployment/vpn-overview-depa...

That's not what transparent means.

Re: VPNs on iOS are a scam

#160

Post by astrange »

sneak wrote: post #157
kogir wrote: post #5

I think Apple is transparent about Always on VPN (blocking traffic except over the tunnel) requiring provisioning using MDM tools. Apple Configurator is free and allows anyone to set this up. Any other VPN is just best effort. https://support.apple.com/guide/deployment/vpn-overview-depa...

Lockdown mode on iOS for high security will prohibit the use of provisioning profiles.

Configuration profiles, not provisioning profiles. That just means you install them before locking it down.

Also, the supervision requirement for always on VPN is a stronger limitation than lockdown mode; you have to erase the phone to supervise it.

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