3 ms·

Because it moves the problem away from the local Wifi network to the VPN's exit point. If you use a VPN service, don't be surprised if the local equivalent of

by iuguy 16y ago

Because it moves the problem away from the local Wifi network to the VPN's exit point. If you use a VPN service, don't be surprised if the local equivalent of the NSA has a sniffer on the termination point. Lots of them do this with Tor, because lots of them use Tor. Your best hope as far as VPNs are concerned is to run your own, or an SSH-based SOCKS proxy. The best thing to do is for sites to use SSL for anything sensitive.

andreasklinger 16y ago
Security until an exitpoint provided by an security company is still better than Public Wifi. And (imho) if this is your corebusiness you should be better good in making sure there are no sniffers at your exit points. Regarding "own server" - to me this is similar to "own email server". The amount of people who don't have servers that are more secure than professionally hosted ones is big enough as a market.
- iuguy 16y ago
  Thanks for your comment. I understand where you're coming from, but that's an assumption. There's no actual assurance that someone's core business means that they may be more secure. As for the issue regarding sniffers, in the UK if the VPN termination is in the UK and they're providing a service, then under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers bill they may be considered an ISP, and would therefore be required to keep traffic logs. In other countries YMMV. Likewise, if the endpoint is being used for malicious activity targeted against the critical national infrastructure of country foo, the provider is not necessarily going to have the option to become aware of the interception of their exit traffic. With your own server it may or may not be more secure, and may or may not be intercepted at the endpoint, but providing you can reasonably configure it the only person that would attract state-level interception (over and above other local connections) would be you.
  - andreasklinger 16y ago
    Understand your point of view. Still. We trust companies doing Email, Storage, etc etc I am not "scared" of people who are able to do "state-level interception". People on the Airport or in Coffee Places with Firesheep annoy me.

by iuguy 16y ago

andreasklinger 16y ago

Security until an exitpoint provided by an security company is still better than Public Wifi. And (imho) if this is your corebusiness you should be better good in making sure there are no sniffers at your exit points. Regarding "own server" - to me this is similar to "own email server". The amount of people who don't have servers that are more secure than professionally hosted ones is big enough as a market.

iuguy 16y ago
Thanks for your comment. I understand where you're coming from, but that's an assumption. There's no actual assurance that someone's core business means that they may be more secure. As for the issue regarding sniffers, in the UK if the VPN termination is in the UK and they're providing a service, then under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers bill they may be considered an ISP, and would therefore be required to keep traffic logs. In other countries YMMV. Likewise, if the endpoint is being used for malicious activity targeted against the critical national infrastructure of country foo, the provider is not necessarily going to have the option to become aware of the interception of their exit traffic. With your own server it may or may not be more secure, and may or may not be intercepted at the endpoint, but providing you can reasonably configure it the only person that would attract state-level interception (over and above other local connections) would be you.
- andreasklinger 16y ago
  Understand your point of view. Still. We trust companies doing Email, Storage, etc etc I am not "scared" of people who are able to do "state-level interception". People on the Airport or in Coffee Places with Firesheep annoy me.