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Every time I read a post like this, I feel compelled to talk about the value proposition commercial VPNs provide. Commercial VPNs provide some level of plausibl

Every time I read a post like this, I feel compelled to talk about the value proposition commercial VPNs provide. Commercial VPNs provide some level of plausible deniability because multiple people’s traffic will be shared across a single IP. Building your own VPN or proxy does not provide this level of plausible deniability, as the only person ever having traffic coming from that IP is you.

aussieguy1234 6y ago
In addition, AWS has their account details
prashantr 6y ago
Depends on who you want to be anonymous from right? Would personal VPN's be a wrong tool to use even if the goal was to be anonymous only from ad-tech companies ?
- WildGreenLeave 6y ago
  From my understanding, yes. All that an ad-tech company like Google needs is associating your IP with your Google account once and they will know that all traffic from that IP address is yours. Especially when you are the only one using that IP address. Also, visiting a Google site is enough for Google to associate your account with your IP. This is all coming from my knowledge about networking and browsers. This doesn't mean it is proof that Google is actually doing this, but I would make no sense for them to not do this. Edit: typo
  - debian3 6y ago
    IP change, i thought they were using browser fingerprinting and cookies.
  - antonvs 6y ago
    With a proxy server on AWS, it's trivial to change your IP address regularly. That's not a complete solution but it would help. Another thing you can do if you're rolling your own anonymity solution is to run your browser in a container. That way whenever you start a new browser window, it doesn't inherit any state from your environment or previous browser sessions. Finally, using a proxy with built in privacy features helps. Privoxy is one example, although it's not being updated very often lately.
  - doopy1 6y ago
    IP is considered PII and is usually anonymized in ad tech. Ad targeting is typically around cookies and fingerprints.

aussieguy1234 6y ago

In addition, AWS has their account details

prashantr 6y ago

Depends on who you want to be anonymous from right? Would personal VPN's be a wrong tool to use even if the goal was to be anonymous only from ad-tech companies ?

WildGreenLeave 6y ago
From my understanding, yes. All that an ad-tech company like Google needs is associating your IP with your Google account once and they will know that all traffic from that IP address is yours. Especially when you are the only one using that IP address. Also, visiting a Google site is enough for Google to associate your account with your IP. This is all coming from my knowledge about networking and browsers. This doesn't mean it is proof that Google is actually doing this, but I would make no sense for them to not do this. Edit: typo
- debian3 6y ago
  IP change, i thought they were using browser fingerprinting and cookies.
- antonvs 6y ago
  With a proxy server on AWS, it's trivial to change your IP address regularly. That's not a complete solution but it would help. Another thing you can do if you're rolling your own anonymity solution is to run your browser in a container. That way whenever you start a new browser window, it doesn't inherit any state from your environment or previous browser sessions. Finally, using a proxy with built in privacy features helps. Privoxy is one example, although it's not being updated very often lately.
- doopy1 6y ago
  IP is considered PII and is usually anonymized in ad tech. Ad targeting is typically around cookies and fingerprints.