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Home Network | | v ISP <---> Internet Home Network | | v ISP ---> Internet --> VPN <--> Internet Your ISP cannot

by rhz 10y ago

Home Network | | v ISP <---> Internet Home Network | | v ISP ---> Internet --> VPN <--> Internet Your ISP cannot see what you do on the internet when you use a VPN, except for the fact that you are connecting to a VPN. The VPN is connecting to the internet for you, and your ISP cannot see anything beyond your and your VPN sharing encrypted data. The point is its more than just an IP. Websites you connect to aren't actually sites you're connecting to, your VPN is connecting to them for you and sending you back what it sees, and so your real IP is hidden and, in theory, the encryption between the VPN and yourself makes it impossible for your ISP to see what it is you're doing online, it only sees garbled nonsense. But when your computer receives that garbled nonsense, it turns it into, for instance, data that will load into your browser and show you a site you don't want your ISP to know you are visiting. There is always the danger of your VPN/hosting provider handing over your actual IP and a list of all your traffic, neatly folded and ironed in a log, over to a company for money. This is why some people avoid free VPNs and others set up their own on a server.

geophile 10y ago
But "what [I] do on the internet" is available to anyone snooping the internet between the VPN and whatever website I'm going to. HTTP request headers carry a lot of information, e.g. https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/01/29/with-a-few-bits-of-data-researchers-identify-anonymous-people/?_r=0 https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/01/29/with-a-few-bits-of.... This is an arms race. If there is value in my data, surely someone is going to try to obtain it from the data flowing out of the VPN. No?
- rhz 10y ago
  You're not wrong at all. If you had an OpenVPN server running up in Canada that you set up yourself - you still have to worry about the connection that the VPN in Canada is making to the internet. _It_ connects to the internet through an ISP, too. One point of popular VPNs and overlay networks like Tor is that so many people do so many different things on the same IP that it becomes impossible to tell who's who from the thousands of people making outgoing connections from the same address, and the overlapping traffic is anonymizing in of itself. But yes no guarantee of privacy. Take into account that its better to have some security than no security at all. The argument you're making rings true, but I can say "Why have a lock on your door if someone can pick it and enter anyway?"
  - geophile 10y ago
    Of course, I will put a lock on my door. I was just trying to understand how many windows I had wide open.

by rhz 10y ago

geophile 10y ago

But "what [I] do on the internet" is available to anyone snooping the internet between the VPN and whatever website I'm going to. HTTP request headers carry a lot of information, e.g. https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/01/29/with-a-few-bits-of-data-researchers-identify-anonymous-people/?_r=0 https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/01/29/with-a-few-bits-of.... This is an arms race. If there is value in my data, surely someone is going to try to obtain it from the data flowing out of the VPN. No?

rhz 10y ago
You're not wrong at all. If you had an OpenVPN server running up in Canada that you set up yourself - you still have to worry about the connection that the VPN in Canada is making to the internet. _It_ connects to the internet through an ISP, too. One point of popular VPNs and overlay networks like Tor is that so many people do so many different things on the same IP that it becomes impossible to tell who's who from the thousands of people making outgoing connections from the same address, and the overlapping traffic is anonymizing in of itself. But yes no guarantee of privacy. Take into account that its better to have some security than no security at all. The argument you're making rings true, but I can say "Why have a lock on your door if someone can pick it and enter anyway?"
- geophile 10y ago
  Of course, I will put a lock on my door. I was just trying to understand how many windows I had wide open.