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There is always a server that knows who you are. Whether it's an OpenVPN server hosted on an EC2 instance or a TOR entry node. Hosting you own VPN server seems

There is always a server that knows who you are. Whether it's an OpenVPN server hosted on an EC2 instance or a TOR entry node. Hosting you own VPN server seems overkill for this kind of use case. There are many trustworthy VPN providers that I'd recommend for use cases unrelated tor BitTorrent. A couple of years ago people recommended SwissVPN over and over to me, though I've never used it. I was a happy IPredator customer for quite some time. If you want to host your own VPN server (let's face it, servers are useful anyway), I'd recommend cloud providers other than Amazon. Iceland, Sweden and Germany are very friendly countries.

jdiez17 12y ago
> There is always a server that knows who you are. Whether it's a OpenVPN server hosted on an EC2 instance or a TOR entry node. There's a fundamental difference here. With EC2, you get a server that knows who you are and what you're saying (at least they know who you're talking with, if you use HTTPS). The TOR entry node only knows who you are, but knows nothing about who you're communicating with or what you're saying.
desdiv 12y ago
There is always a server that knows who you are. Whether it's an OpenVPN server hosted on an EC2 instance or a TOR entry node. Correction: the TOR entry node only knows the data came from you, but there's no way for it to know whether the data originated from you or not. For all it knows, you could be a relay and the data came from someone else.
- teamhappy 12y ago
  My bad, this is actually an important distinction.
beagle3 12y ago
Right, but the discussion is about anonymous VPN use. There's always a server that knows something - but using EC2 means it is extremely easy to tie to your identity through your credit card, shipping and billing addresses, etc. And Amazon is in bed with everyone VPN users might want to stay anonymous from - so EC2 is an exceptionally poor choice if you care about anonymity.

jdiez17 12y ago

> There is always a server that knows who you are. Whether it's a OpenVPN server hosted on an EC2 instance or a TOR entry node. There's a fundamental difference here. With EC2, you get a server that knows who you are and what you're saying (at least they know who you're talking with, if you use HTTPS). The TOR entry node only knows who you are, but knows nothing about who you're communicating with or what you're saying.

desdiv 12y ago

There is always a server that knows who you are. Whether it's an OpenVPN server hosted on an EC2 instance or a TOR entry node. Correction: the TOR entry node only knows the data came from you, but there's no way for it to know whether the data originated from you or not. For all it knows, you could be a relay and the data came from someone else.

teamhappy 12y ago
My bad, this is actually an important distinction.

beagle3 12y ago

Right, but the discussion is about anonymous VPN use. There's always a server that knows something - but using EC2 means it is extremely easy to tie to your identity through your credit card, shipping and billing addresses, etc. And Amazon is in bed with everyone VPN users might want to stay anonymous from - so EC2 is an exceptionally poor choice if you care about anonymity.