Why you shouldn't use a VPN

littleFeathers said:
keep the software up to date.
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Yea.... I mean, I upgraded to Windows 8.1 finally. I'm far too lazy to decontaminate Windows 10 or whatever that ugly new one is. lol
 
Bearcatz said:
Yea.... I mean, I upgraded to Windows 8.1 finally. I'm far too lazy to decontaminate Windows 10 or whatever that ugly new one is. lol
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yah, I'm not thrilled with Microsoft's direction on windows... however I quite running windows as my primary OS 20 years ago... my advice, is this, regardless of os preferences, in today's environment you really need to run a currently supported os.. if that vendor is moving in a direction you can't support, it might be time to look for alternatives if you can switch considering that some applications require a specific os/version.
 
I use a VPN mainly when traveling, I don't trust hotel networks or work or guest networks. The VPN bypasses their internal monitoring and can prevent issues on compromised networks. I run the VPN from a pocket router that is pretty locked down and won't even work if the tunnel is down, won't respond to a ping etc. The firewall only accepts traffic from the tunnel.

I run Pihole + Unbound at home (and on the road) and even then I notice that my provider will intercept and cache some DNS hits meant for top level DNS's. The only sure way to bypass their DNS is to route unbound through a tunnel.

I have other tools I use sometimes but mainly I don't like the idea of a simple, unmanaged, barely monitored network run by some local yahoo and open to almost anyone (aka Hotels).
 
If you're serious about privacy, the best approach is likely to use a temporary live distro and some cheap hardware like a pi, bought with cash ideally, on some open network like at a bookstore or someone's unsecured wifi.

You'll be too hard to track down by anyone other than a well funded government operation. At a minimum they'd need subpoenas for camera footage if it still even exists and is good enough for evidence.

Honestly though, protecting your privacy to this degree is likely unnecessary and more trouble than it's worth.
 
Sprint3473 said:
yah, I'm not thrilled with Microsoft's direction on windows... however I quite running windows as my primary OS 20 years ago... my advice, is this, regardless of os preferences, in today's environment you really need to run a currently supported os.. if that vendor is moving in a direction you can't support, it might be time to look for alternatives if you can switch considering that some applications require a specific os/version.
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I've talked about this in another thread. I have a nice little VM setup the way I like and spin up a fresh copy anytime I want some anonymity. Not windows, no saved logins, tracking cookies, favorites, etc. Fresh and clean every boot with just my settings and then delete it when I'm done. Using liveboot is easier but this is faster as I can have settings already configured including complex ones.
 
Honestly, overall the best use case for VPNs these days is phones.

Here, let's put your life and all of your most personal info on this piece of junk with no actual firewall, no IPS, no AV and pretend like that's fine.
 
Bearcatz said:
Honestly, overall the best use case for VPNs these days is phones.

Here, let's put your life and all of your most personal info on this piece of junk with no actual firewall, no IPS, no AV and pretend like that's fine.
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heh, maybe lets talk about apps and social media that have no respect for you privacy, and no vpn will fix that
 
Bearcatz said:
Honestly, overall the best use case for VPNs these days is phones.

Here, let's put your life and all of your most personal info on this piece of junk with no actual firewall, no IPS, no AV and pretend like that's fine.
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additionally, IOS does have a default firewall and is one of the more secure unlike Android phone choices, d. which is yah... like Swiss cheese
 
As a cyber security expert, I have an opinion or two about VPN services. Here's my thoughts;

They serve a pretty valuable purpose: hide the IP address that you use to connect to services on the internet. And that's about it. It doesn't necessarily hide you:

When your computer, phone, or device connects to the internet, it sends a lot of telemetry out into the wild. Windows checks for updates, Android and Apple devices also check for updates. Your email may check in. Your other applications may also check in. All of this combined to create a unique fingerprint of telemetry for your specific device. Your habits will certainly play a role, what you search for and how you search for it. What websites you typically go to. Things that peak your interest. Various different companies will receive the telemetry and simply log it, for the most part. Some may do some analytics. Unless a bad actor is able to hack into all of the different companies, they're not necessarily going to be able to track you. With the exception of your internet service provider. Legal entities are also able to submit subpoenas to your internet service provider, Google, Microsoft, any other service provider out there within their legal province. With all of this data they will be able to identify you as having used a VPN service at a specific date and time and they might be able to correlate this with whatever other activity they are investigating. So a VPN isn't necessarily going to protect you from the law, but it may offer some very limited protections from your internet service provider, public/shared Wi-Fi. But the VPN service itself may be able to log the same data, and they may also be subject to subpoenas/hacking.


I use a VPN service in my virtual machines that I use as sandboxes where I test malicious websites or analyze and play with malware. If I were to do any penetration testing it would likely not be from a VPN as I would have to agree to predefined rules of engagement in which my IP address would be known ahead of time. I do this simply to protect my internet connection from being directly attacked. Nothing more.


I also use a separate VPN service that is specifically designed to bond multiple internet connections into one increasing bandwidth, lowering latency, and providing hot-failover redundancy. It has the same side effect of hiding my IP address(s) but that is just a side effect.


Overall, VPN service providers are massively misrepresenting what a VPN can do. And I take issue with that. It is a tool, a just like any other tool you need to know how to use it properly. "A hammer can't build a house, but you can't build a house without a hammer"
 
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Sprint3473 said:
additionally, IOS does have a default firewall and is one of the more secure unlike Android phone choices, d. which is yah... like Swiss cheese
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Not that either one is drastically better than the other by default. However, it's literally impossible to make ios safer than android.

Either way, VPN'ing through something with IPS is better than a stock shitter without a lid.
 
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There is nothing wrong with VPNs, I bounce my internet through multiple VPNs and use multihop of the kind of people trying to trace me where to try, it would take them a month or so to actually trace me and by then I’m long gone so they keep me safe. They also protect my gaming from denial of service attacks, this is a real world problem in online gaming, players can’t win so they attack your router to boot you out of red dead online.
 
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