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Why You Should Start Using a VPN

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Re: Why You Should Start Using a VPN

#51

Post by cabacon »

racbart wrote: post #32

How about setting up your own VPN server on EC2 micro instance for $15/mo + bandwidth (or $127/y using reserved instance)?

I bet that works. Based on advice in an older HN thread about VPSes, I looked on lowendbox.com and found a Chicago VPS provider for $20/year for a 128M/5G VPS with 200GB/mo. of bandwidth. It seems to run OpenVPN just fine for when I've wanted to use it; I'm just using it when I'm on untrusted wifi, or to route around a network block.

I installed TunnelBlick on my mac to be the VPN client; it was a nice interface to setup for the client side, and handles things like DNS flushing automatically.

I'm also going to setup ssh servers on 80 and 443 for times when access to ports is restricted by the wifi provider.

Re: Why You Should Start Using a VPN

#52

Post by SnaKeZ »

olalonde wrote: post #16

Shameless plug: I've just spent the last few days figuring out how to correctly configure OpenVPN and pptpd on my Ubuntu servers + Android & OS X clients (it's a real pain in the ass). I'd be happy to install and configure those on your own server(s) for 5 BTC per install (I'm kind of short on money right now :(). If you want to give it a try by yourself, I recommend the following articles (doesn't seem that complica…

I use OpenVPN Server (with my WRT54GL router) and my Android Device(a Nexus One with CyanogenMod Nightly) connects correctly. The initial configuration was very hard for me (specially the certs) but i'm satisfied.

I have tried PPTP Server (simpler than Open VPN) but i avoid it because vulnerabilities.

Re: Why You Should Start Using a VPN

#53

Post by klearvue »

drtse4 wrote: post #5

I can't recommend enough the use of sshuttle: https://github.com/apenwarr/sshuttle Way better than a SSH tunnel (check the readme) and you don't need to have a VPN server on the remote server, just ssh access. Supports both Linux/OSX, been using it for nearly one year without issues.

+1 to this, it's like 'ssh -D' on steroids, very easy to set up and just an 'apt-get install sshuttle' away. Also allows easy DNS request forwarding.

Of course, OpenSSH itself provides VPN capability too without the need for sshuttle but it's harder to set up.

Re: Why You Should Start Using a VPN

#54

Post by Karunamon »

wccrawford wrote: post #49
belorn wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I trust a VPN provider more than a ISP. The reason is pretty simple, I trust a random company more than a 30-200 year old telecommunication company which has strong ties to government and content delivery networks. How many VPN's companies has deals with content networks? How many ISP has a content network deal? How many VPN's has has a past of cooperative with government surveillance? How many ISP has cooperated wit…

I think another reason to trust a VPN provider is that it's their reason to exist. If people find out that they're not really protecting their customers' privacy, they'll lose all their customers. ISPs, on the other hand, provide a different service and privacy is merely an additional consideration. It's not their main reason to exist.

privacy is merely an additional consideration

Not even that. Look into CALEA - a law which, summarized briefly, requires that ISP gear have backdoors for law enforcement packet capture.

There's a reason you don't see anonymous ISP's around in the USA; the laws as written explicitly prevent them from existing in any meaningful capacity.

Re: Why You Should Start Using a VPN

#56

Post by rotation1 »

muyuu wrote: post #43
rotation1 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is my big problem with wanting to use a VPN. The VPN account is directly tied to you by your payment details. Also most VPN services that claim to "not keep any logs whatsoever" are just a 3 page website with not much information. Maybe that's safer since they are low profile, or maybe it isn't? I honestly have no idea and I wish I did. It feels like your just trusting some random person to not mess with you.

Simple, pay with bitcoin. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade#Connectivity

Yes that or cash in the mail might be reasonable options for paying.

I guess my problem is more that you are trusting an overall unknown entity with your real ip, which is only one step away from your real info for someone who is able to compel that information from the VPN provider in the first place.

Re: Why You Should Start Using a VPN

#57

Post by pandakar »

Karunamon wrote: post #55

So on that note, are there any VPN providers that HN would recommend? Something preferably not based in the USA or any countries exceedingly friendly with the USA (so the UK, Sweden, etc are out)

I tried airvpn for a month, had a very good experience, and they are explicit about following EU privacy rules.

Re: Why You Should Start Using a VPN

#59

Post by jcr »

DanBC wrote: post #47
jcr wrote: post #31

It's sad to see the reasoning for using VPN's being so deeply mixed with bittorrent and similar things "worth hiding" according to some. There are actually many good reasons to use various forms of secure tunneling. Many ISP's serve requested pages from massive caches. Although provider caching can improve performance in some cases as well as reduce bandwidth costs for the ISP, it can often result in stale informatio…

> Another common speed/cost improvement for ISP's is serving degraded images from their cache -- by recompressing images (jpg) at a higher compression ratio, the file size is reduced at the expense of degrading the image quality. This is extremely common on mobile networks, but it is becoming more common with land-based providers. In most cases, you'll never notice, since you'll just assume it's a crappy image from t…

Dan, are you being cautious and making up those IP addresses, or those actual IP addresses?

I ask since 1.0.0.0/8 is APNIC and 1.2.3.0/24 is the APNIC "Debogon" project. For notes, a "bogon" is an supposedly unroutable address, or more accurately, an address that you shouldn't see in use.

Re: Why You Should Start Using a VPN

#60

Post by peterwwillis »

klearvue wrote: post #53
drtse4 wrote: post #5

I can't recommend enough the use of sshuttle: https://github.com/apenwarr/sshuttle Way better than a SSH tunnel (check the readme) and you don't need to have a VPN server on the remote server, just ssh access. Supports both Linux/OSX, been using it for nearly one year without issues.

+1 to this, it's like 'ssh -D' on steroids, very easy to set up and just an 'apt-get install sshuttle' away. Also allows easy DNS request forwarding. Of course, OpenSSH itself provides VPN capability too without the need for sshuttle but it's harder to set up.

I notice both you and drtse4 like the tool but only mention what it's advertised to do, and not anything specific about your experience using it over 'ssh -D'. How has using it changed how you would have used 'ssh -D' ?

I suppose the most practical purpose for sshuttle is for shell accounts on a box you don't own, if you need to do random transport-level stuff to remote hosts through an intermediary and you want to use a client on your local host. So basically NMap if your shell doesn't support it and you can't copy-and-run 3rd-party binaries. I'd be interested to see how well sshuttle performs under an intense NMap scan.

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