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Instead of a VPN subscription, I'd recommend a self-managed VPN solution. One can easily fire one up thanks to Streisand (https://github.com/jlund/streisand htt
by akandiah 10y ago
Instead of a VPN subscription, I'd recommend a self-managed VPN solution. One can easily fire one up thanks to Streisand (https://github.com/jlund/streisand https://github.com/jlund/streisand)
- msh 10y agoWell, then you depend on your VPS company. Its important that you dont host any domains on the VPS you run the VPN on. Security might not be top priority at the VPS provider. All your requests come from the same IP address (and the VPN provider might very easily give out your private info). I think a VPN from a reputable provider (like f-secure) is better for most users.
- tiatia 10y ago"Its important that you dont host any domains on the VPS you run the VPN on." Why is that is I may ask? I have the impression that the great firewall blacks a lot of domains by default and they are allowed/blocked after a review after somebody tries to access them the first time. I may be paranoid but often I try to open an obscure site. It is blocked. I have to use a VPN. A few days later the site can be accessed. Why not use a VPN sever with a nice website that makes it look harmless?
- msh 10y agoI see three issues: - You might forget private whois and expose your identity. - There might be issues with the private whois that exposes your identity. - The contents of the website might expose you.
- pavel_lishin 10y agoYou could set up a box at home to route through.
- msh 10y agoNot if its your home connection you want to protect.
- pavel_lishin 10y agoTrue, but most of the advice given here seems to be about preventing MITM-type of attacks and general traffic sniffing
- wongarsu 10y agoIt depends on your goal. For privacy, a self-hosted VPN is a nightmare. To prevent sniffing and/or modification of content, a self-hosted VPN is great (your VPS company is less likely to target VPN traffic than a dedicated VPN provider). I think a reputable VPN provider offers the better tradeoff, but there are legitimate reasons for self-hosting a VPN.
- nowherecat 10y agocould you please explain why a self-hosted vpn is a nightmare for privacy? i am running a streisand server and the disk is fully encrypted
- vox_mollis 10y agoBecause you're moving the "exit" from your non-anonymous local ISP to your non-anonymous colo provider. If you want to hide your traffic or at least make your adversary work a little to determine who you are, shared VPN endpoints are better.
- philsnow 10y agoHow is that any different? ISPs don't let just anybody know who the subscriber is at a given IP (though if you do reverse lookups, many ISPs so leak a lot of locality information, so still a good idea to use some VPN instead of no VPN). My Streisand hosted on AWS looks to the outside like anybody else's Streisand hosted on AWS, doesn't it? Similarly, my f-secure egress looks like anybody else's f-secure egress, so what's the difference? I don't really know, I don't use a VPN. Really asking.
- vox_mollis 10y agoISPs don't let just anybody know who the subscriber is at a given IP They certainly let law enforcement and intelligence agencies know, often without a warrant. Please read my comment as if the threat model includes panopticon governments, not common skids running aircrack-ng.