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What exactly is "daft" about using a 3rd-party VPN service? Yes, you're trusting that service to protect your privacy, but why would you distrust them over, fo

What exactly is "daft" about using a 3rd-party VPN service? Yes, you're trusting that service to protect your privacy, but why would you distrust them over, for instance, your ISP or your government? If you live in Iran or something, trusting your own government over an ISP service in the US would be utterly stupid. The whole reason these services exist is to protect privacy; if they didn't do that, they wouldn't stay in business long. Of course, there's limits to how much they really can protect your privacy, but still there's been no evidence that any of the major services have not done so.

judge2020 4y ago
> If you live in Iran or something, trusting your own government over an ISP service in the US would be utterly stupid. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21071632 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21071632
bombcar 4y ago
It depends on your threat actors. If you’re trying to make sure dang can’t find where you’re posting from, a VPN is probably good enough - especially if you go through one outside the country. If you’re worried about committing crimes than a VPN is relatively pointless - it slows down the law a bit and some may be difficult to penetrate but if you keep using it they can be. And if you have a nation state you will want to layer things and almost certainly use tor.
- midoridensha 4y ago
  >It depends on your threat actors. This is my whole point. Most VPN customers aren't trying to commit high crimes, they're doing things like getting around region blocks (e.g. Netflix doesn't allow viewers in the USA to watch show X, but it is available for viewers in Canada for some stupid reason), torrenting (much safer legally if your traffic is going through a different country), or trying to obscure their IP address and/or location for some reason. Offhand, I'd say the region block thing is probably the #1 reason these days.
UncleEntity 4y ago
> What exactly is "daft" about using a 3rd-party VPN service? Generally speaking, when push comes to shove, their “no logs“ policy lets them turn over whatever information $law_enforcement_agency asks for. I have a super-cheap VPS which I setup wireguard on but that’s 100% to get around whatever safety filters the random free Wi-Fi networks I connect to throw up. One of them blocks YouTubes videos, not YouTube itself but just the videos — which actually makes it pretty speedy since I don’t have to compete with other YouTube watchers.
- DavideNL 4y ago
  > their “no logs“ policy lets them turn over whatever information $law_enforcement_agency asks for You're treating this as a "black and white" scenario, which is wrong in my opinion. There are also a few trustworthy VPN services which don't log, and do respect privacy. However, obviously they can be forced to log your connection, in case a government wants to solve some crime/threat. But this is just the same for VPS providers, so there's no advantage there.
- midoridensha 4y ago
  >Generally speaking, when push comes to shove, their “no logs“ policy lets them turn over whatever information $law_enforcement_agency asks for. Not really, no. No company is required to cooperate with law enforcement from foreign countries. So if you're trying to hide activity from government X, and you use a VPN in country Y, you don't have much to worry about. A US-based VPN, for instance, is going to laugh at demands from the Chinese police for their logs. Similarly, a Hong Kong-based VPN is going to laugh at demands from American police.

judge2020 4y ago

> If you live in Iran or something, trusting your own government over an ISP service in the US would be utterly stupid. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21071632 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21071632

bombcar 4y ago

It depends on your threat actors. If you’re trying to make sure dang can’t find where you’re posting from, a VPN is probably good enough - especially if you go through one outside the country. If you’re worried about committing crimes than a VPN is relatively pointless - it slows down the law a bit and some may be difficult to penetrate but if you keep using it they can be. And if you have a nation state you will want to layer things and almost certainly use tor.

midoridensha 4y ago
>It depends on your threat actors. This is my whole point. Most VPN customers aren't trying to commit high crimes, they're doing things like getting around region blocks (e.g. Netflix doesn't allow viewers in the USA to watch show X, but it is available for viewers in Canada for some stupid reason), torrenting (much safer legally if your traffic is going through a different country), or trying to obscure their IP address and/or location for some reason. Offhand, I'd say the region block thing is probably the #1 reason these days.

UncleEntity 4y ago

> What exactly is "daft" about using a 3rd-party VPN service? Generally speaking, when push comes to shove, their “no logs“ policy lets them turn over whatever information $law_enforcement_agency asks for. I have a super-cheap VPS which I setup wireguard on but that’s 100% to get around whatever safety filters the random free Wi-Fi networks I connect to throw up. One of them blocks YouTubes videos, not YouTube itself but just the videos — which actually makes it pretty speedy since I don’t have to compete with other YouTube watchers.

DavideNL 4y ago
> their “no logs“ policy lets them turn over whatever information $law_enforcement_agency asks for You're treating this as a "black and white" scenario, which is wrong in my opinion. There are also a few trustworthy VPN services which don't log, and do respect privacy. However, obviously they can be forced to log your connection, in case a government wants to solve some crime/threat. But this is just the same for VPS providers, so there's no advantage there.
midoridensha 4y ago
>Generally speaking, when push comes to shove, their “no logs“ policy lets them turn over whatever information $law_enforcement_agency asks for. Not really, no. No company is required to cooperate with law enforcement from foreign countries. So if you're trying to hide activity from government X, and you use a VPN in country Y, you don't have much to worry about. A US-based VPN, for instance, is going to laugh at demands from the Chinese police for their logs. Similarly, a Hong Kong-based VPN is going to laugh at demands from American police.