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Why You Should Start Using a VPN

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Re: Why You Should Start Using a VPN

#81

Post by maxerickson »

jcr wrote: post #74
maxerickson wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see 1.2.3.4 all the time. It is clearly Sprint (in the U.S., mobile connection) doing it. The urls have the same 'bmi' stuff mentioned above, apparently they are using a similar implementation.

I did a bit of searching and it seems a few different mobile carriers are doing this with the 1.2.3.0/24 range, but the important thing is they should not be doing it at all. It would break the Internet if everyone just used whatever address they felt like using.

Yeah, I'd prefer they weren't doing content aware stuff (if they cared it would probably be optional, so I'm not surprised that they are doing it poorly).

I was mostly trying to confirm that it was the carriers and not malware or whatever.

Re: Why You Should Start Using a VPN

#82

Post by olalonde »

joethompson wrote: post #30
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…

It should be noted that PPTP does have some serious vulnerabilities ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point-to-Point_Tunneling_Protoc... ) and should probably be avoided if security is your primary concern.

True but it's much easier to set up on server side as well as client side. I mainly use VPN to get around firewall of China so security isn't really an issue for me.

Re: Why You Should Start Using a VPN

#83

Post by klearvue »

peterwwillis wrote: post #78
klearvue wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a matter of convenience for me, substituting both (partially) OpenVPN and 'ssh -D'. I use 7 browsers (incl. 4 Firefox profiles) and a number of terminal tools that I often want to be seen coming from a specific server IP address from my /24 block - saves time configuring all of them individually to use SOCKS proxy or setting up OpenVPN on individual servers.

What are the commands you use? I personally think 'ssh -D 8081 host1', 'ssh -D 8082 host2', 'ssh -D 8083 host3' and configuring each browser for each port might be simpler, but maybe it's the learning curve of a new command throwing me off.

sudo sshuttle 0/0 --dns -H -r user@server:port

Re: Why You Should Start Using a VPN

#84

Post by sliverstorm »

debacle wrote: post #79

What is the benefit of using a VPN over something like SSH tunneling?

VPN is much more complete, and generally easy to use. 'ssh -L' sets up a single mapping. 'ssh -D' sets up a proxy on a port, and client software must be configured to use that proxy.

With a VPN, you simply connect, and you can access any services on any ports. Additionally, I think UDP is supported, which is a bit tricky with ssh tunneling.

Re: Why You Should Start Using a VPN

#85

Post by TheAmazingIdiot »

cabacon wrote: post #51
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 s…

I did similar as well.

The local community college blocks all sorts of websites with nannyware on the gateway. I tried changing DNS to googles: no change. I tried a few other things as well, no change. Looked for open proxies: "PROXY search prohibited".

What they didnt stop was looking for VPSes. I found one for 20$ a year as well. Loaded up immediately upon payment into a ubuntu 12.04 (rh, slackware, ubuntu, or debian: i dont care). I got a socks proxy running on its localhost, and then ssh tunnelled to the proxy. And there I went.

Re: Why You Should Start Using a VPN

#86

Post by DanBC »

jcr wrote: post #70
DanBC wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not making them up! It's what I see on the Chrome "status bar" (or whatever it's called now) and in the html. 1.2.3.8, 1.2.3.13, etc. I'm in a coffee shop at the moment, but when I get back I'll try and get a list of the IPs that are used. (The last digit is always quite small though.)

I wasn't entirely clear in my description of a "bogon" since the definition is a bit hazy. Some define it as unallocated address, and others define it as an address you shouldn't see in use. For example, if you get a packet supposedly from 192.168.1.1 (in private address space) on your public interface (i.e. has a public IP address), then some consider it a bogon. Address space that hasn't been allocated by any of th…

Thanks for the links!

This is T-Mobile mangling stuff. They do some other things which are annoying, but not Internet breaking. It's a sub-optimal Internet experience, but pretty handy for what I want to do.

Re: Why You Should Start Using a VPN

#87

Post by ohashi »

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 do exactly this. Great for traveling to China and other countries where you might be outright blocked or worried about people snooping. Of course it doubles over on coffee shops and any other shared network you don't trust the provider or neighbors.

Re: Why You Should Start Using a VPN

#88

Post by meritt »

w1ntermute wrote: post #39
icebraining wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It certainly doesn't make you safe, but if the threat is a fishing expedition trying to get a few hundred or thousand Torrenters, the fact that they'd need a court order from a different country/jurisdiction might be enough to get them to leave you alone.

And a seedbox would work just as well for this purpose, and will result in much higher upload/download speeds and, in the case of private trackers, save you the costs of owning/running a PC on 24/7 to seed back your downloads.

mmm. amazon micro free tier and rtorrent.

Re: Why You Should Start Using a VPN

#90

Post by shell0x »

snowwrestler wrote: post #69
corford wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Valid point but there's nothing stopping you setting up your own VPN (either on a small VM from someone like Linode or, if you're paranoid enough, a cheap 1U server bought off ebay and placed in a colo facility). For the single point of failure issue (which is also valid)... just setup two or more VPNs :) And, in an emergency, you can always fall back to the underlying connection.

Setting up your own VPN does not solve the traceability problem, unless you happen to find a colo facility that does business in face-to-face cash transactions only. If you use Linode to set up a VPN, Linode knows your personal and Linode IP, knows when you access their network, and knows your name and billing info. If compelling by warrant they will turn that over to law enforcement.

I setup an own VPN on a dedicated server, payed it prepaid and faked the customer data. This should be really hard to trace back to me.
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