VPN – Very Precarious Narrative

While there is plenty of nuance that VPN advertisements gloss over, this article is also simply verbose FUD. It shamelessly does the same exact thing that VPN ads do - attempt to replace one uninformed default option with another.

> The reality here is that your IP address is only a tiny piece of your trackable profile

Yes, a tiny piece you can never shake off besides with a tunnel ("VPN"). On this front, OP is effectively making the argument that surveillance by IP address is simply never done, even if all the other tracking signals are removed. This is doubtful.

> the location of a piece of large network equipment of your ISP, and not your location

Yeah which is still pretty damn indicative of my location, despite the "streams coming together" narrative. One less signal available to the surveillance advertisers is a good thing. One more feeling of "otherness" to an ad you're being forced to see is a great thing.

> The only secured [encrypted] channel here is the route between your machine and the VPN server

Yes, simply hiding your traffic from your ISP is itself a huge win. They don't spend millions on DPI gear without clear ROI.

Given that a vibrant market for VPNs provides for copious tunnel endpoints, and that common people imperfectly using VPNs still frustrates bad actors like banks and geofencers, I'll forgive the messaging. They're certainly more legitimate than pharmaceutical or political ads.

Logs are worth a lot of money to advertisers if your customers can't effectively avoid the process.

I thought with tor you still connect to a single gateway and all traffic is sent to that remote endpoint? Or is it done locally?

> Indeed here in Canada ISPs have frequently given subscriber contact information to copyright holders to issue warnings based on bittorrent usage without being legally required to.

Citation needed?

The “Notice and Notice” regime legally requires the ISP to pass along a notice from a copyright holder that believes your IP infringed their copyright by uploading their material. It does not permit the ISP to give subscriber information to the copyright holder directly unless ordered to do so by a court.

Here’s Michael Geist, Canadian lawyer, explaining the system and recent developments regarding ISPs seeking to make such information disclosures more difficult for copyright holders, not less

http://www.michaelgeist.ca/2018/09/notice-the-difference-sup...

> My Globe and Mail op-ed notes that the Canadian system for online infringement was formally established in 2012 and came into effect in 2015. The so-called “notice-and-notice” approach grants rights holders the ability to send notifications of alleged infringement to Internet providers, who are required by law to forward the notices to the relevant subscriber and to preserve the data in the event of future legal action. The system does not prevent rights holders from pursuing additional legal remedies, but Internet providers cannot reveal the identity of their subscribers without a court order.

> While the system has proven helpful in educating users on the boundaries of copyright, some rights holders have used it as a launching pad for further lawsuits. In fact, thousands of lawsuits have now been filed, with rights holders seeking to piggyback on the notice-and-notice system by obtaining the necessary subscriber information directly from Internet providers at no further cost.

> The question of costs lies at the heart of an important Supreme Court of Canada copyright ruling released on Friday. Voltage Pictures sought subscriber information from Rogers Communications for the purposes of pursuing individual lawsuits. When Rogers advised that it wanted compensation of $100 per hour for the costs associated with fulfilling the request, Voltage responded that Internet providers could not pass along their costs since the notice-and-notice system already required them to identify subscribers and preserve the data without compensation.

> The particular incident may have involved only a few hundred dollars, but the broader principle had the potential to dramatically alter the Canadian approach. If Internet providers were required to disclose subscriber information without passing along the costs, Canadian courts faced the prospect of an avalanche of lawsuits and Internet providers might be dissuaded from carefully ensuring that the privacy of their subscribers was properly protected.

> The Supreme Court understood the broader implications of the case, ruling that Internet providers can pass along the specific costs associated with subscriber disclosures beyond those required for the notice-and-notice system. Indeed, the court recognized the importance of accurate data to safeguard against reputational harm and wrongful lawsuits.

I use VPNs for one main reason: so that my ISP does not build a complete profile of me based on the sites I'm visiting. This can be mitigated to a certain extent by using a VPN. I do not expect to become anonymous or invisible on the internet all of a sudden, I just do not want the guy listening next to my front door to know everything about me.

In the US, where personal data is a free-for-all and everybody and their dog sells data about me to everyone else, this is important.

I agree with the author that VPNs should not be advertised as a complete security and privacy solution, but I disagree with his statement that they can actually do more harm than good.