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armitron 4y ago
Dissidents should use Tor (best done in a RAM-only environment that’s not running on their own computer) and not fuck around with VPNs because it’s go to jail or worse. There are countless ways for someone, even an expert, to hang himself using a VPN.
imwillofficial 4y ago
Unfortunately, these days fingerprinting is pretty advanced, a VPN offers you almost no protection. Even tor, if not used very carefully.
bruce511 4y ago
That's one, but a bigger one is accessing out-of-region media. Most (all?) streaming services are geo-locked, and do not contain the same libraries in different markets (if they are available at all.) So VPNs are a common way of accessing streaming which would otherwise be unavailable. While this is "piracy of a sort", it does imply an actual paid subscription, albeit in the wrong territory. So its more-honest than the alternative (plex etc)
- raunak 4y ago
  Piggybacking off of this comment, I’d be very curious to know the HN sentiment on piracy as a whole Net good, net bad, somewhere in between?
  - bruce511 4y ago
    As one who makes a living selling software, I'm against piracy, and would prefer people to be honest. I prefer not to pirate myself if it's avoidable. That said, I'm aware my stuff is pirated, for various reasons, and I pretty much ignore that. Pirate users might turn into customers one day. I make minimal effort to prevent piracy, mostly to make sure the experience for paid users is as simple and streamlined as possible. I prefer to consume my media via paid channels, and that is easy and convenient (and cheap) to do (now) so that's much easier to do now than it was 20 years ago. My attitude to open source licensing is the same. I'll happily integrate MIT licensed material into commercial offerings, but I respect the rights of GPL authors, and I understand that is off the table. I believe authors have a right to choose the license they want, commercial, open or free, and it's up to me to respect that right.
  - nl 4y ago
    It's a mistake to think there is a general "HN sentiment" In general my view is "piracy bad, working around geo-blocks ok". Interestingly this roughly reflects the view of regulators in my jurisdiction[1]: > The Productivity Commission (PC) in December 2016 recommended that the Government make it easier for consumers to access legitimate copyright-protected content by: > amending the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth) to make clear that the circumvention of geo-blocking technology by consumers is not an infringement of copyright; and > avoiding international obligations that would prevent or ban consumers from circumventing geo-blocking technology. > the ACCC supported the PC’s recommendation, [1] https://incompetition.com.au/2017/12/blocking-geo-blocking/ https://incompetition.com.au/2017/12/blocking-geo-blocking/
wolrah 4y ago
> Suppose a dissident wants to publish information adverse to the government, there's a situation. In what case would a commercial VPN provider, which will have a payment path associated to you, be better than something like Tor for the sort of user who fears government retribution? Commercial VPN services are pretty much exclusively for doing things that annoy copyright holders. They're great for that, but for almost any other use case where one might want a VPN they're not the best choice.
- WHA8m 4y ago
  payment can be done anonymously through cash in the mail. Lot of services offer that. Nevertheless, it would be foolish to think a commercial VPN provider is enough to keep the three letter boys and girls away - or other sophisticated actors. I just hope it's enough to watch movies online...