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I've spoken to some folks that worked in the VPN provider industry... many of them aren't the bastion of consumer protection they claim/are perceived to be. Wit

I've spoken to some folks that worked in the VPN provider industry... many of them aren't the bastion of consumer protection they claim/are perceived to be. With the exception of Tor (and even that has been found to have problems) I'm not sure "single-point" anything will really provide you with anonymity. I think it really comes down to your threat model though and what tradeoffs you're willing to accept for anonymity (e.g. captchas, performance, etc). I think the sweet spot for CloudFlare's offering is if you're in a country or service provider that takes liberties in overriding DNS responses.

vbezhenar 9y ago
Buy VPS and install your own VPN. It's much harder to spy on you in this setup and basically requires complicated targeted attack. I'm not sure if common networking setups for VPS record TCP connections, if they do, then VPS provider can record some important metainformation, but it's still not a lot. On the other side with VPN it's much easier to spy on every client.
- woofcat 9y ago
  Sure, however any warrant can get billing data from your hosting provider, or your credit card company will resolve directly to you.
  - floatboth 9y ago
    But if your VPS is in a country that's not very friendly to your country, getting data from the hosting provider won't be easy.
    - woofcat 9y ago
      Well seeing as all credit cards are basically subject to US law, you'd need to find a VPS that is going to accept say Bitcoin for server space. Perhaps one that is going to accept cash in the mail. Then hope that said provider is reputable enough to be up to date on their security, and honest enough not to just cave under pressure. Realistically the VPS solution fails simply because there is no obscuring of traffic. We all know that security through obscurity isn't real security. However if a VPN provider has 1,000 users using their IP block than any specific traffic is harder to isolate to one user. -- Presuming they are honest and not keeping logs. Running your own VPS means that all traffic is owned by you.
    - Cacti 9y ago
      I mean, if you’re trying to defend against a coordinate government attack, you’re boned anyway. They’ll just break into your house and install a sniffer, or arrest you, or make your life hell. That’s assuming they can’t just get into your home network through zero days, which an individual has no practical defense against.
bisby 9y ago
there's a huge difference between anonymity when someone is looking for you and anonymity in general. As you've mentioned, if someone wants to track you through Tor, that's still potentially possible. But that's a completely different ballgame than "My ISP wants to track every last website I visit so they can pair that with my address/billing info to sell to advertisers". I don't think my ISP is going to go through all the hoops to find my Tor exit node, just so they can sell that to advertisers. Passive onlookers can be untrustworthy too. The shades on my windows keep people from seeing me change, but if someone really wanted to see specifically me naked, they could probably enter my house and make the shades useless. I still consider the shades useful.

vbezhenar 9y ago

Buy VPS and install your own VPN. It's much harder to spy on you in this setup and basically requires complicated targeted attack. I'm not sure if common networking setups for VPS record TCP connections, if they do, then VPS provider can record some important metainformation, but it's still not a lot. On the other side with VPN it's much easier to spy on every client.

woofcat 9y ago
Sure, however any warrant can get billing data from your hosting provider, or your credit card company will resolve directly to you.
- floatboth 9y ago
  But if your VPS is in a country that's not very friendly to your country, getting data from the hosting provider won't be easy.
  - woofcat 9y ago
    Well seeing as all credit cards are basically subject to US law, you'd need to find a VPS that is going to accept say Bitcoin for server space. Perhaps one that is going to accept cash in the mail. Then hope that said provider is reputable enough to be up to date on their security, and honest enough not to just cave under pressure. Realistically the VPS solution fails simply because there is no obscuring of traffic. We all know that security through obscurity isn't real security. However if a VPN provider has 1,000 users using their IP block than any specific traffic is harder to isolate to one user. -- Presuming they are honest and not keeping logs. Running your own VPS means that all traffic is owned by you.
  - Cacti 9y ago
    I mean, if you’re trying to defend against a coordinate government attack, you’re boned anyway. They’ll just break into your house and install a sniffer, or arrest you, or make your life hell. That’s assuming they can’t just get into your home network through zero days, which an individual has no practical defense against.

bisby 9y ago

there's a huge difference between anonymity when someone is looking for you and anonymity in general. As you've mentioned, if someone wants to track you through Tor, that's still potentially possible. But that's a completely different ballgame than "My ISP wants to track every last website I visit so they can pair that with my address/billing info to sell to advertisers". I don't think my ISP is going to go through all the hoops to find my Tor exit node, just so they can sell that to advertisers. Passive onlookers can be untrustworthy too. The shades on my windows keep people from seeing me change, but if someone really wanted to see specifically me naked, they could probably enter my house and make the shades useless. I still consider the shades useful.