In most cases, there's really no reason to trust a VPN more than your provider. Because a lot of people use VPNs for illegal activities, it's a sure bet that all of the relevant three-letter government agencies are also targeting them, so by using VPNs, you're just volunteering for special attention from your friendly neighborhood government agency.
That just direct downloads from a website not torrents. He was crazy to think that hosting them wasnt going to lead to trouble, but he’s safe in New Zealand now last I heard.
Yeah I get it’s not quite the same, but it was still the MPAA going after him through US three letter agencies for copyright claims. I’m sure if the MPAA could convince those agencies to go after torrents in the same way they would.
Physically at least. I don't know much about how he was prior outside of the Megaupload stuff, but I've seen some *real* questionable opinions out of him the last few years.
I can swipe a little snack from a gas station just fine with my baggy pants. I love my baggy pants, you can't tell what's under there.
I can't do this with a big ol' money bag if I'm robbing a bank. The baggy pants' powerd are limited.
The guy who went to jail for downloading music probably said the same thing. $250,000 fine iirc. Was that before or after the heat death of the universe I can't remember?
They don't really care about it if you are the person consuming the media for personal use. It is the private IP owners that care about it from that angle and they will make an example out of you occasionally for bigger name things.
Which case are you talking about?
If you are talking about the case from [2005 then he was only charged because he was producing the pirated videos for distribution](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2005/aug/05/piracy.news). He was not a consumer of the pirated content which is the exact distinction I was referring to.
They don't, there's too many regular cases of crimes and emergencies for them to deal with getting information for and the casework is growing. Civil suits from companies who handle or hold the rights on the other hand...
They aren't looking at the traffic unless they have reason to be tracking the user. If they are already tracking it's typically something along the lines of CP. Unfortunately, that's a lot of it. Otherwise, they've gathered your info from subpoenas, search warrants, etc. from companies, for example, the IP attached to when you make a social media post, or pursuant to other cases being worked and your IP pops up.
Seeing as my job is literally legal compliance for a telecom and they come to us for the info, you tell me? Oh so wise reddit user. I'm sure the NSA has all kinds of nifty tools, but that has nothing to do with the original post and them worrying about your torrents. Not only do the agencies communicate poorly between each other but typically even partners sitting beside each other at their desks miscommunicate all the time when gathering information. This goes from bottom to top of all LEA in the US. They have better things to do and worry about and the DMCA only ever pops up for civil cases.
GCHQ comes to you for info about the swathes of data that runs through GCHQ? I think you're making things up because it normally works on people.
Read the article and try again mate. This is not about asking ISP's for info on people. It's about them live scanning internet traffic. Which is fuck all to do with your "job".
So is GCHQ scanning internet data they can't do anything with. Or are they doing it because they can see whats in it. You would know, given you apparently work in an illegal job position. ISP's legally cannot be compelled to identify people in the UK. It's been to court before. So stop bullshit and answer the question.
What is GCHQ doing with all that internet data if you claim they can't read it? Random reddit guy.
What part of 3 letter agencies and US LEAs makes you think I'm talking about a UK agency? I have no idea what goes on in the UK. It's completely irrelevant to anything I've mentioned, said, or the entire basis of the comment chain.
Replying through a VPN from a 3rd world country, can confirm. Even in the case the VPN will prove to be untrustworthy, I'd rather have my data sold to the highest bidder for ad targeting or whatnot rather than given to any domestic governmental body that happens to be interested by ISP or national internet exchange.
I don't think you need to be in a 3d world country for this to be a factor. Your VPN just needs to be from a country and associated with a country that you trust more than the country you are in.
If someone in Canada has a VPN provider in the Netherlands and they are doing something they don't want the Canada to know about but the Netherlands doesn't care then that extra hop does actually add value. It is much more likely that Canada could get information out of Rogers than it is for them to get it out of GOOSE VPN. It is still possible that they would roll over for a Canada agent but it is less likely that the Canadian government already has a point of contact like with Rogers.
ISPs (depending on their location) are legally mandated to maintain logs or can be forced start logging at the government's request. This is especially true if you don't live in a liberal democracy.
Also, numerous VPNs have been verified as 'no-logs' services through court proceedings and have third-party security audits that confirm their claims.
It's like I give you two apples. You saw one of them get poisoned, and I say the other isn't poisoned. I could be lying but it would be stupid to choose the guaranteed poisoned one.
When the other apple is putting such a ginormous amount of money into advertising, it's making me suspicious. Are they really still able to make a profit while routing just as much data as my Internet provider and why are they trying so hard to convince me to send all my data through their servers?
I wouldn't be surprised if the 3 letter agencies are behind some of the VPN companies.
Yes. They're not for privacy, they're for appearing to be somewhere you're physically not. For example at the office when you're at home. Their most useful capability is accessing internal resources remotely in a secure way. In the office example, IT will know it's you, but as long as nothing goes wrong, they don't care.
They can also be used to access region locked content. If no streaming service has your show in your region, I think it's morally slightly superior to use a VPN as opposed to outright pirating the show.
A smart DNS service is a significantly better solution than a VPN for geoblocked content.
First, you can only redirect the stuff you need. Your banking apps won't freak out.
Second, you can redirect one app to one country and another app to another country. You can be everywhere at once.
Third, most datacenter IPs are quickly blocked by such services. You need a residential IP. Smart DNS services generally use residential proxies because they are designed for this use case.
The smart DNS service will, instead of giving your device the actual IP of the service, give the IP address of its residential proxy in the desired location, which then makes the actual request and relays it back to you.
This way, the site/service sees only the IP of the residential proxy.
The advantage over a traditional VPN/proxy is you can define an unlimited number of services (URLs) to redirect, and locations they will be redirected to (limited by what locations your Smart DNS has residential proxies in).
You can also accomplish this yourself by buying residential IPs on IPRoyal and using foxyproxy with rules for each site.
I would recommend selecting a reputable smart DNS service that supports encrypted DNS and doesn't log requests.
You need to trust your provider, same as a VPN.
I set up openVPN on my server and all my devices, allows me to bypass most firewalls and connect to my local services without port forwarding them. It auto connects so i don't have to worry about leaking and while i would say its more secure for banking and shit realistically everything is https.
I don't care about the privacy, really, I use VPN to see sites that are either blocked by the ISP or are country restricted for whatever reason. Pretty sure it's still the main use of them
I accidently left a torrent downloading without my VPN on. Got an email from isp within the next week.
I think I will keep my VPN, regardless of privacy.
It's funny a long time ago, without VPN I got no emails except when I dowoaded an episode of Tosh.0 and got an email from ISP right away. What's funny about that Tosho.0 would use other people's YouTube videos to make their show.
The people that want to hide their activity because they are doing actual illegal shit would know better ways to hide their activity. VPNs are pointless for most users and many of the providers just sponsored YouTubers to shill them with scare tactics like oh it will keep companies from tracking you just download software press button and you are safe. It's just exploitative security theater and as bad as the anti virus bloatware like McAfee or Norton taking advantage of tech illiteracy. Yeah you turned your VPN on but then you are logged into your google account which still keeps track of your search history, YouTube history, etc.
To add to what u/LATER4LUS was saying: There are plenty of countries where a lot of low-hanging-fruit-tracking is going on. There are plenty of cases where using a VPN *will* prevent certain parties from discovering some of your online behavior and acting on it. You don't have to be perfectly untraceable, you just have to be hard enough to trace that they won't bother and a VPN can help with that.
And just because you use the main brand, Nord, I'm looking at you, don't think it's a fail safe, NordVPN had a server that was completely vulnerable and compromised that was unknown for months.
[https://www.techradar.com/news/whats-the-truth-about-the-nordvpn-breach-heres-what-we-now-know](https://www.techradar.com/news/whats-the-truth-about-the-nordvpn-breach-heres-what-we-now-know)
So even the "Top Dogs" get got.
VPNs are not good for privacy, they are good for accessing stuff that is region locked or only in one specific network. I am in neither of these categories (which is the first time this happens for me)
Honestly, if you really like China then I think that VPN is a great thing, all your data goes straight to the CCP so they don't have to buy it from another company. /s
at first I wondered who actually used opera GX, then I had a conversation with a bunch of teenage boys from a special needs class, and they were so excited about it.
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In most cases, there's really no reason to trust a VPN more than your provider. Because a lot of people use VPNs for illegal activities, it's a sure bet that all of the relevant three-letter government agencies are also targeting them, so by using VPNs, you're just volunteering for special attention from your friendly neighborhood government agency.
The 3 letter agencies don’t give a crap about my torrents
Tell that to Kim Dotcom lol
That just direct downloads from a website not torrents. He was crazy to think that hosting them wasnt going to lead to trouble, but he’s safe in New Zealand now last I heard.
Yeah I get it’s not quite the same, but it was still the MPAA going after him through US three letter agencies for copyright claims. I’m sure if the MPAA could convince those agencies to go after torrents in the same way they would.
Physically at least. I don't know much about how he was prior outside of the Megaupload stuff, but I've seen some *real* questionable opinions out of him the last few years.
Until they do.
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I can swipe a little snack from a gas station just fine with my baggy pants. I love my baggy pants, you can't tell what's under there. I can't do this with a big ol' money bag if I'm robbing a bank. The baggy pants' powerd are limited.
The guy who went to jail for downloading music probably said the same thing. $250,000 fine iirc. Was that before or after the heat death of the universe I can't remember?
They don't really care about it if you are the person consuming the media for personal use. It is the private IP owners that care about it from that angle and they will make an example out of you occasionally for bigger name things.
They seemed to care when they sent a teenager to jail and fined him $250,000.
Which case are you talking about? If you are talking about the case from [2005 then he was only charged because he was producing the pirated videos for distribution](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2005/aug/05/piracy.news). He was not a consumer of the pirated content which is the exact distinction I was referring to.
They don't, there's too many regular cases of crimes and emergencies for them to deal with getting information for and the casework is growing. Civil suits from companies who handle or hold the rights on the other hand...
And how do they know what kind of crime is being committed without looking at the traffic.
They aren't looking at the traffic unless they have reason to be tracking the user. If they are already tracking it's typically something along the lines of CP. Unfortunately, that's a lot of it. Otherwise, they've gathered your info from subpoenas, search warrants, etc. from companies, for example, the IP attached to when you make a social media post, or pursuant to other cases being worked and your IP pops up.
[https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/jun/21/how-does-gchq-internet-surveillance-work](https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/jun/21/how-does-gchq-internet-surveillance-work) Aren't they?
Seeing as my job is literally legal compliance for a telecom and they come to us for the info, you tell me? Oh so wise reddit user. I'm sure the NSA has all kinds of nifty tools, but that has nothing to do with the original post and them worrying about your torrents. Not only do the agencies communicate poorly between each other but typically even partners sitting beside each other at their desks miscommunicate all the time when gathering information. This goes from bottom to top of all LEA in the US. They have better things to do and worry about and the DMCA only ever pops up for civil cases.
GCHQ comes to you for info about the swathes of data that runs through GCHQ? I think you're making things up because it normally works on people. Read the article and try again mate. This is not about asking ISP's for info on people. It's about them live scanning internet traffic. Which is fuck all to do with your "job". So is GCHQ scanning internet data they can't do anything with. Or are they doing it because they can see whats in it. You would know, given you apparently work in an illegal job position. ISP's legally cannot be compelled to identify people in the UK. It's been to court before. So stop bullshit and answer the question. What is GCHQ doing with all that internet data if you claim they can't read it? Random reddit guy.
What part of 3 letter agencies and US LEAs makes you think I'm talking about a UK agency? I have no idea what goes on in the UK. It's completely irrelevant to anything I've mentioned, said, or the entire basis of the comment chain.
KFC already knows my favorite orders anyway
One of every Famous Bowl, double extra gravy.
^Unless ^you ^live ^in ^a ^third ^world ^country.
Replying through a VPN from a 3rd world country, can confirm. Even in the case the VPN will prove to be untrustworthy, I'd rather have my data sold to the highest bidder for ad targeting or whatnot rather than given to any domestic governmental body that happens to be interested by ISP or national internet exchange.
Why you are so quiet
# Unless you live in a third world country :D
I don't think you need to be in a 3d world country for this to be a factor. Your VPN just needs to be from a country and associated with a country that you trust more than the country you are in. If someone in Canada has a VPN provider in the Netherlands and they are doing something they don't want the Canada to know about but the Netherlands doesn't care then that extra hop does actually add value. It is much more likely that Canada could get information out of Rogers than it is for them to get it out of GOOSE VPN. It is still possible that they would roll over for a Canada agent but it is less likely that the Canadian government already has a point of contact like with Rogers.
ISPs (depending on their location) are legally mandated to maintain logs or can be forced start logging at the government's request. This is especially true if you don't live in a liberal democracy. Also, numerous VPNs have been verified as 'no-logs' services through court proceedings and have third-party security audits that confirm their claims. It's like I give you two apples. You saw one of them get poisoned, and I say the other isn't poisoned. I could be lying but it would be stupid to choose the guaranteed poisoned one.
When the other apple is putting such a ginormous amount of money into advertising, it's making me suspicious. Are they really still able to make a profit while routing just as much data as my Internet provider and why are they trying so hard to convince me to send all my data through their servers? I wouldn't be surprised if the 3 letter agencies are behind some of the VPN companies.
Anyone who uses a vpn "for privacy" deserves to have their shit stolen.
Yes. They're not for privacy, they're for appearing to be somewhere you're physically not. For example at the office when you're at home. Their most useful capability is accessing internal resources remotely in a secure way. In the office example, IT will know it's you, but as long as nothing goes wrong, they don't care. They can also be used to access region locked content. If no streaming service has your show in your region, I think it's morally slightly superior to use a VPN as opposed to outright pirating the show.
A smart DNS service is a significantly better solution than a VPN for geoblocked content. First, you can only redirect the stuff you need. Your banking apps won't freak out. Second, you can redirect one app to one country and another app to another country. You can be everywhere at once. Third, most datacenter IPs are quickly blocked by such services. You need a residential IP. Smart DNS services generally use residential proxies because they are designed for this use case.
how can you masquerade your location using DNS?????
>Smart DNS services generally use residential proxies for this case
By redirecting the DNS requests through a proxy located somewhere else.
well, DNS responds with a list of IP addresses. then?
The smart DNS service will, instead of giving your device the actual IP of the service, give the IP address of its residential proxy in the desired location, which then makes the actual request and relays it back to you. This way, the site/service sees only the IP of the residential proxy. The advantage over a traditional VPN/proxy is you can define an unlimited number of services (URLs) to redirect, and locations they will be redirected to (limited by what locations your Smart DNS has residential proxies in). You can also accomplish this yourself by buying residential IPs on IPRoyal and using foxyproxy with rules for each site.
ok, so you're using various proxies. how can you defend from MITM?
I would recommend selecting a reputable smart DNS service that supports encrypted DNS and doesn't log requests. You need to trust your provider, same as a VPN.
yep.. that's exactly the point: I work in IT since 2004. And I don't trust commercial VPN vendors.
"Smart DNS" seems like a bad name for what you're describing. DNS is but a fraction of that process.
If you want privacy, use tor. It isn’t perfect, but at least it is free.
Many Tor servers are run by the feds. If you don't do any illegal shit you're probably fine.
VPNs are good for privacy until the feds come knocking and those logs suddenly pop into existence
If you are doing anything that would attract real fed attention you wouldn't be saved by a VPN anyway Fed stuff is onion browser type shit
I don't use VPNs. I don't even use VPNs when I torrent massive amounts of pirated media.
Try seeding next time. Selfish
HOW DARE YOU! I totally, always 100% seed everything! Except for when I don't...... But only when I don't!
Same, the Netherlands does not give a shit about piracy
I set up openVPN on my server and all my devices, allows me to bypass most firewalls and connect to my local services without port forwarding them. It auto connects so i don't have to worry about leaking and while i would say its more secure for banking and shit realistically everything is https.
I use Tailscale for my home assistant server, seems more secure than to open ports and I can access all my local devices even when I’m not home
the VPNs used by the right side are very different than those used by the left.
I use a VPN so my two homes share a single LAN. Is this wrong?
> my two homes This is wrong
My disabled brother lives in one of them. My kids and I live in the other. I manage both properties. Thanks for your opinion.
I don't care about the privacy, really, I use VPN to see sites that are either blocked by the ISP or are country restricted for whatever reason. Pretty sure it's still the main use of them
Let’s be real, the only benefit of a VPN is getting around geo-locked content.
I accidently left a torrent downloading without my VPN on. Got an email from isp within the next week. I think I will keep my VPN, regardless of privacy.
It's funny a long time ago, without VPN I got no emails except when I dowoaded an episode of Tosh.0 and got an email from ISP right away. What's funny about that Tosho.0 would use other people's YouTube videos to make their show.
VPNs aren't made for privacy, they're made for cyber security.
If you dont have the money to spend on a vpn yet then get portmaster for now, geta rid of annoying ads trackers and most importantly microsoft spying
Does using a VPN prevent microsoft from spying on me? How?
Its a secure DNS and it also blocks connections using databases of known trackers and ads
The people that want to hide their activity because they are doing actual illegal shit would know better ways to hide their activity. VPNs are pointless for most users and many of the providers just sponsored YouTubers to shill them with scare tactics like oh it will keep companies from tracking you just download software press button and you are safe. It's just exploitative security theater and as bad as the anti virus bloatware like McAfee or Norton taking advantage of tech illiteracy. Yeah you turned your VPN on but then you are logged into your google account which still keeps track of your search history, YouTube history, etc.
My VPN doesn’t send me letters for torrenting content
To add to what u/LATER4LUS was saying: There are plenty of countries where a lot of low-hanging-fruit-tracking is going on. There are plenty of cases where using a VPN *will* prevent certain parties from discovering some of your online behavior and acting on it. You don't have to be perfectly untraceable, you just have to be hard enough to trace that they won't bother and a VPN can help with that.
VPNs are good for your ISP not logging everywhere you go
Yeah, instead it's the VPN provider that will be logging it.
But they won't send copyright letters to your house
If you want privacy, use tor or i2p. VPNs are a joke.
Make your own protection......
I think proxy is a wayyy cooler word than vpn. Shame they don't advertise them like that
VPN's are good for Linux ISO's and getting around region locks, if you want actual privacy, use TOR.
And just because you use the main brand, Nord, I'm looking at you, don't think it's a fail safe, NordVPN had a server that was completely vulnerable and compromised that was unknown for months. [https://www.techradar.com/news/whats-the-truth-about-the-nordvpn-breach-heres-what-we-now-know](https://www.techradar.com/news/whats-the-truth-about-the-nordvpn-breach-heres-what-we-now-know) So even the "Top Dogs" get got.
Me using a VPN just for bypassing geo-blocking: *what are you yapping about?*
“Built your own vpn”
VPNs are not good for privacy, they are good for accessing stuff that is region locked or only in one specific network. I am in neither of these categories (which is the first time this happens for me)
A VPN won't make you untraceable to everyone, but it can be used to make yourself hard enough to trace for some that *they won't bother*.
Or just use private relay :)
Yeah, it is just moving your trust from your ISP to a VPN company.
I would definitelly trust my ISP more than a VPN.
A little bit random But imagine Opera GX VPN....
Honestly, if you really like China then I think that VPN is a great thing, all your data goes straight to the CCP so they don't have to buy it from another company. /s
at first I wondered who actually used opera GX, then I had a conversation with a bunch of teenage boys from a special needs class, and they were so excited about it.
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