6 ms·
VPNs are not snake oil. They transfer the trust of your internet activity from a place of low-trust, your ISP, to a place of high-trust, ideally a trustworthy V
by Cider9986 6mo ago
VPNs are not snake oil. They transfer the trust of your internet activity from a place of low-trust, your ISP, to a place of high-trust, ideally a trustworthy VPN like Mullvad, IVPN, or Proton. Among other benefits. If you don't like your ISP creating a profile of you and selling it to target ads to you, you should use a VPN.
>Should I use a VPN?
Yes, almost certainly. A VPN has many advantages, including:
1. Hiding your traffic from only your Internet Service Provider.
2. Hiding your downloads (such as torrents) from your ISP and anti-piracy organizations.
3. Hiding your IP from third-party websites and services, helping you blend in and preventing IP based tracking.
4. Allowing you to bypass geo-restrictions on certain content.
(https://www.privacyguides.org/en/basics/vpn-overview/ https://www.privacyguides.org/en/basics/vpn-overview/)
- jesterson 6mo ago> place of low-trust, your ISP, to a place of high-trust, ideally a trustworthy VPN like Mullvad This is highly subjective statement. Almost all commercial VPN services farm and sell your data. Just by that, my ISP is definitely high trust point while any commercial VPN is a low trust.
- sfdlkj3jk342a 6mo agoI can easily pay for a VPN service with crypto anonymously. I can also use a VPN run by a company outside my country of residence and jurisdiction. Neither of those is possible with my ISP.
- dakolli 6mo agoprepaid 5g sim cards and 5g modem.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- SXX 6mo agoYes and 5G provider knows your exact location while VPNs can be easily chained.
- dakolli 6mo agoSure, if you want to get crazy with it you put prepaid phone in another location, put it on your Tailscale VPN then proxy all traffic through the prepaid phone with something like: https://github.com/kost/revsocks https://github.com/kost/revsocks Phone doesn't even need data if you have access to wifi wherever you stash it. VPN chaining easier though.
- SXX 6mo agoWhole idea of "put phone in location X" alone is much harder to implement than to buy 5, 10 or 100 VPN account or servers with crypto and setup how you like. Like you need to physically be there, need ability to connect phone it to electricity and somehow maintain if it e.g reboots. And stay anonymous while doing so? I'd say that Hollywood kind of solution.
- notpushkin 6mo agoMake it a “tourist eSIM” for a good measure. Your phone will be in one country, your exit IP in another (because there usually use roaming). That said, you might still want to use a VPN on top of that, depending on what you’re doing.
- jesterson 6mo agoPaying with crypto does something to deindentify you, but does nothing about your traffic. It's still being watched.
- applfanboysbgon 6mo agoYour ISP farms and sells your data too. Most VPNs are untrustworthy, but unlike ISPs, you can choose from any VPN provider in the world, not just the two or three that are local to you. And there are VPN providers in the world that have been proven not to retain data by audits + actual court cases where the court determined that the VPN provider did not have the data authorities were seeking. Do your research and choose a court-proven VPN, it's that simple.
- KingOfCoders 6mo agoDeutsche Telekom in Germany/EU farms and sells my data? Any sources?
- applfanboysbgon 6mo agoYou probably won't find direct proof any more than you will find direct proof of any random VPN selling your data, it's just a given that commercial entities are liable to sell financially valuable data, and a list of all traffic, every website you visit and every service you use, tied to a specific identity is certainly financially valuable. Being in the EU doesn't change this; in fact the EU explicitly required that ISPs retain your identifying data with the Data Retention Directive, and though this was struck down after 8 years in court, many individual national governments immediately moved to impose similar requirements. I don't know if Germany was one of them but unless Germany has a specific privacy directive that goes beyond EU law I would see zero reason to place any trust in an ISP. In fact even if there was a law that's still not a reason to trust an ISP, because privacy laws are violated constantly; the most trustworthy source by far is a party acting opposite to the government, who has been investigated by the government and proven not to log the data that the government wants.
- KingOfCoders 6mo ago"EU explicitly required that ISPs retain your identifying data with the Data Retention Directive" And then sells it?
- jojobas 6mo agoNow try saying that wearing some Russian or Chinese shoes.
- faangguyindia 6mo agoMost ISPs have invested big bucks in Deep Packet Inspection
- sfdlkj3jk342a 6mo agoThat just helps them classify the type of traffic. They're not breaking the encryption to see the actual content.
- eipi10_hn 6mo agoMy ISP is in a communist country, they sell other products like TV boxes, cameras, clouds and have ads/trackers on all of their products too. Should I trust my ISP than Mullvad? LMFAO.
- jesterson 6mo agoThat’s your speculation, nothing more. Your provider is likely charging good prices for their services. VPN providers often charge unsustainable prices, if you factor in their expenses. Unsustainable if you just provide VPN services
- cubefox 6mo ago> Almost all commercial VPN services farm and sell your data. Citation needed.
- jesterson 6mo agoI understand it's not up to your (or anyone's) level of belief, but I am in intimately familiar with their modus operandi. For everyone in the industry it is le secret de Polichinelle.
- cubefox 6mo agoI think they don't sell their VPN data, because if that ever came out, that would destroy their business. Selling the data would be far too risky for them.
- jesterson 6mo agoThats like saying there is no corruption in government because it would undermine public trust in it. Of course there is, and to huge extent. They know they canget away with it, so they do.
- weezing 6mo agoCould you please provide proof for such findings about eg. Proton and Mullvad?
- bilalq 6mo agoUnfortunately, the largest and most well-marketed VPNs are, in fact, less trustworthy than your average ISP.
- asdfsa32 6mo agoExactly. Most ISP are subject to local laws at least; where a lot of these ISP are overseas in shady jurisdictions.
- SXX 6mo agoThis depends on your treat model. If what you worry about is massive collection of Linux ISOs that you download and distribute over P2P then probably shady VPN ISP is what you need.
- Slothrop99 6mo agoI'm a normal person who watches sports streams and maybe 2 years ago I downloaded a torrent of some art movie. My ISP is Comcast. How does your advice apply to me?
- majorchord 6mo agoThey don't know, they're just parroting what other people have shouted without evidence.
- bilalq 6mo agoWhat? This is something that's incredibly well documented at this point. Many VPN companies operate as arms of data broker and media companies or they resell data to them. Some of them didn't start out that way, but with the way acquisitions have played out, that's where we're at now. I replied in the parent comment if you're interested.
- bilalq 6mo agoUsing a VPN shifts your risk. Your local ISP can't see as much of your activity, but another company that probably has a business model of reselling your data to governments, intelligence agencies, and ad companies now can. If your concern is masking piracy, maybe that shift of risk is worthwhile, but you still want to avoid some of the more obvious bad actors[0]. You certainly should not have all your internet traffic going over a VPN all the time. If you're at all worried about being targeted for political speech or you're part of a targeted group, then you need to be more careful. This map is a bit outdated, but it does give some insight on who to avoid [1]. Ironically, Mullvad is one of the more trustworthy VPNs out there and still the one I'd recommend. [0]: https://www.koi.ai/blog/urban-vpn-browser-extension-ai-conversations-data-collection https://www.koi.ai/blog/urban-vpn-browser-extension-ai-conve... [1]: https://windscribe.com/blog/the-vpn-relationship-map/ https://windscribe.com/blog/the-vpn-relationship-map/
- wg0 6mo agoHow is private company (VPN) is more trustworthy than an other private company (ISP) and how do you expect them to protect your identity in face of determined state actors that are afer you? What power is in $2.99/month that it offers so much security? Why is that at least 40% of sponsorship to YouTube Creators seem to be from VPN industry? What is that they know and we don't know?
- eipi10_hn 6mo agoMullvad vs my ISP. One at least has open source software clients, and publishes audits from other 3rd-party audit organizations. The other open source... nothing. Their client apps have dozens of trackers inside. And it's a dream to see any of the ISPs in my county publish any 3rd-party audits. Their other products (going with the service) have trackers and personalized targeting ads inside. Yeah, in my 1 million alternate universes should I trust my ISP more.
- pretzel5297 6mo agoYou fundamentally misunderstand what privacy means if you're replying to someone stating using a VPN will help you avoid getting spied on by your ISP for commercial purposes with state actor based worries.
- nine_k 6mo agoSpecifically Mullvad operate completely stateless nodes, which was confirmed several times when law enforcement tried to access their logs. There are no logs. Mullvad are selling their location, with very good connectivity and with laws that strongly protect privacy. They are €5/mo, almost $6/mo, and likely acquire bandwidth very cheaply due to scale and likely peering agreements.
- yjftsjthsd-h 6mo ago> How is private company (VPN) is more trustworthy than an other private company (ISP) Well, my ISP sent me a nice letter saying they intend to monetize my metadata, and mullvad has demonstrated in court that they don't have user data to give up. > and how do you expect them to protect your identity in face of determined state actors that are afer you? That's moving the goalposts; your parent comment didn't say anything about determined state actors. And defending against commercial actors is useful even if it doesn't help against state actors. I tend to assume the NSA can compromise anything. I'd like to ensure only the NSA can compromise my stuff.
- BLKNSLVR 6mo agoMaking your traffic cross jurisdictional boundaries also adds a level of difficulty for tracking usage. Local law enforcement can tap a local ISP for their records, but it would take a scale more effort to then tap a non-local service provider for their records. Each additional level of difficulty adds a cost, and at some point those costs aren't worth the potential results. (assuming that the VPN provider doesn't just roll over due to an email inquiry, or isn't a front for very cooperative law enforcement).
- adgjlsfhk1 6mo agothe counterpoint is that making your traffic cross out of the US gives the NSA (by their ass backwards reading) permission to spy on you
- vintermann 6mo agoSeems a bit optimistic to think they actually care whether they have that permission or not.
- BLKNSLVR 6mo agoFair point, but I'm not sure if that was ever a boundary they wouldn't cross, but for 'a little while now' I'd say it doesn't matter. From outside the US I should be using a VPN end-point within the US, so that my browsing traffic doesn't hit the NSA - only my encrypted VPN traffic does.
- kyboren 6mo ago> my browsing traffic doesn't hit the NSA - only my encrypted VPN traffic does I mean, let's be real. All known US VPN servers and Tor exit nodes--and probably all US Tor relays regardless of exit policy--are going to be considered a totally legitimate "communications facility" target for the warrantless wiretapping system due to exactly the scenario you just posited. From that perspective you'd be better off using US residential proxies. Of course, while they'll never admit it in court, NSA just does whatever they want, laws be damned, and are almost certainly logging everything. So while such a scheme might theoretically hinder the introduction of evidence in a court case, it doesn't really matter; NSA is still gonna see your traffic and they're still gonna either drone strike you or "parallel construction" your ass, anyway.
- linkregister 6mo agoMarcus Hitchens (security researcher who blackholed the WannaCry ransomware domain) made a post on LinkedIn today comparing VPNs to snake oil. With regard to the way they're advertised in internet ads, they are. VPNs will not protect ordinary users from ad tracking or commercial data mining. They're marketed as a privacy tool when their privacy value is very limited. VPNs are useful for the reasons you mentioned.
- Itoldmyselfso 6mo agoIt can be a factual statement about the commercial VPN landscape at large, but an incorrect statement about many individual VPN providers. It lacks nuance as a statement.
- pixelesque 6mo ago> 4. Allowing you to bypass geo-restrictions on certain content. In theory, but as someone who uses Mullvad in the UK on a day-to-day basis on my personal laptops (not my phone) - I'm using it now, I'm afraid there's quite an additional downside I've found, in that because Mullvad's (at least UK, but also French and Dutch ones I've tried) exit IPs are known, many companies (Cloudflare, Akamai) at the very least know about them, and several sites block access when using Mullvad, returning 403s. Santander bank for example, I can't always (sometimes I can) connect to when using Mullvad, and sometimes have to turn it off, as I get 403 responses from the bank otherwise (using Firefox). Sometimes using IPv6 in the Mullvad settings gets around this, but more and more recently I've found it doesn't, so there sites where I'm having to stop using Mullvad to actually access sites. (I'm still a happy customer, and 1 to 3 are still true and why I use it otherwise).
- ThePowerOfFuet 6mo ago>Santander bank for example, I can't always (sometimes I can) connect to when using Mullvad, and sometimes have to turn it off, as I get 403 responses from the bank otherwise Rotating your VPN endpoint will resolve the issue. It might take two or three tries.
- ranger_danger 6mo agoWhat some people are doing instead are using proxy vendors that have millions of IPs around the world including residential.