# Public Wifi to Anonymous VPN? **URL:** https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/public-wifi-to-anonymous-vpn/31065 **Category:** General **Created:** 2025-09-12T18:13:35Z **Posts:** 16 ## Post 1 by @User53 — 2025-09-12T18:13:35Z There are some VPN providers that offer anonymous accounts without any information and payed with XMR (Monero), for example Mullvad and IVPN. If you use the account from your home ip, they could find out who you are. But what would be if you create an anonymous account and use it only over a public wifi that cannot be tied to your real identity? Would this be leveraging privacy even more or do I made a mistake in thinking? If you are practicing this, you cold also discard your account every week or month (I think IVPN is better here because they over weekly plans) for increased anonymity. You also could combine this with Tor. Public Wifi → A. VPN → Tor → Destination --- ## Post 2 by @anon63378630 — 2025-09-12T18:15:48Z Just use Tor? --- ## Post 3 by @User53 — 2025-09-13T14:45:43Z if we assume that 33% percent of Tor relays are compromised in some way, then the likely hood of getting a compromised circuit is 3.59% (0.33^3) If you build 100 circuits, then the likelyhood of getting one compromised circuit is 95.1% --- ## Post 4 by @anon63378630 — 2025-09-13T14:46:34Z And? You should assume every exit is tampering with your traffic and ensure encryption to the endpoint is always used. That is irrelevant to your original question. --- ## Post 5 by @User53 — 2025-09-13T14:48:14Z And what? What are doing in a privacy forum when you don’t care about it? --- ## Post 6 by @User53 — 2025-09-13T14:54:13Z > [@anon63378630](#): > > You should assume every exit is tampering with your traffic and ensure encryption to the endpoint is always used. > That is irrelevant to your original question. The main purpose of Tor is not encryption, though the .onion self signed encryption modell is very based. The purpose is to hide to the destination who you are and hide from your ISP what your destination is. --- ## Post 7 by @anon63378630 — 2025-09-13T14:55:38Z I don’t see what that has to do with your question. If you’re using public Wi-Fi and exiting through Tor adding a VPN with an account/identifier into the mix has little benefit. --- ## Post 8 by @User53 — 2025-09-14T17:39:43Z > [@anon63378630](#): > > I don’t see what that has to do with your question. If you’re using public Wi-Fi and exiting through Tor adding a VPN with an account/identifier into the mix has little benefit. Tor only: 3 compromised relays for deanonymization VPN + Tor 3 compromised relays and a compromised VPN server for deanonymization Public Wifi + Anonymous VPN + Tor: 3 compromised releays and a compromized VPN, wouldn’t be sufficent for deanonymization --- ## Post 9 by @Encounter5729 — 2025-09-17T14:37:46Z > [@User53](#): > > f we assume that 33% percent of Tor relays are compromised in some wa Please backup this claim. > [@User53](#): > > If you use the account from your home ip, they could find out who you are. Not necessarily. This is a big misconception. Often, especially when your ISP doesn’t asign you a unique IP address, an IP will not map your precise location. --- ## Post 10 by @anon63378630 — 2025-09-17T15:01:54Z > [@Encounter5729](#): > > especially when your ISP doesn’t asign you a unique IP address they almost always still record all tuples with a timestamp tied to the account holder --- ## Post 11 by @Gnuclear — 2025-09-17T15:07:20Z Who was the first person/organization to spread the 1/3 claim? What data is it based on? --- ## Post 12 by @User53 — 2025-09-17T15:43:32Z > [@Encounter5729](#): > > Please backup this claim. ![](https://forum-uploads.privacyguidesusercontent.com/original/2X/c/ccaeffa25479976876f3295f8ce12dfc70175ca2.png) [The Hacker News](https://thehackernews.com/2021/05/over-25-of-tor-exit-relays-are-spying.html) ![](https://forum-uploads.privacyguidesusercontent.com/original/2X/4/498e98cec454e24b0ee48942ae313559bdbba584.jpeg) ### [Over 25% Of Tor Exit Relays Spied On Users’ Dark Web Activities](https://thehackernews.com/2021/05/over-25-of-tor-exit-relays-are-spying.html) Researcher Finds That Over 25% of Tor Exit Relays Are Snooping On Users ![](https://forum-uploads.privacyguidesusercontent.com/original/2X/f/f013eef183140708d2fc12d215a4296601fc0e51.png) [Hot for Security](https://www.bitdefender.com/en-us/blog/hotforsecurity/threat-actor-compromised-more-than-25-percent-of-tor-network-relays-research-shows) ![](https://forum-uploads.privacyguidesusercontent.com/optimized/2X/3/3375b450178a10fba0abe7bd3a1d50a85ff328da_2_690x388.jpeg) ### [Threat Actor Compromised More than 25 Percent of Tor Network Relays, Research…](https://www.bitdefender.com/en-us/blog/hotforsecurity/threat-actor-compromised-more-than-25-percent-of-tor-network-relays-research-shows) Unknown actors took control over a quarter of all Tor network relays to launch man-in-the-middle attacks, target bitcoin addresses and much more. And that are only the documented one, we can assume that the iceberg is a lot deeper then what we can see. > [@Encounter5729](#): > > Not necessarily. This is a big misconception. Often, especially when your ISP doesn’t asign you a unique IP address, an IP will not map your precise location. I assume that if any law enforcment agency, big private company or someone who pretend to be one of them and just use social enginerring can get to know the real name and adress that are tied to my IP adress --- ## Post 13 by @Encounter5729 — 2025-09-17T16:01:47Z > [@User53](#): > > ### [Over 25% Of Tor Exit Relays Spied On Users’ Dark Web Activities](https://thehackernews.com/2021/05/over-25-of-tor-exit-relays-are-spying.html) > > Researcher Finds That Over 25% of Tor Exit Relays Are Snooping On Users 25% of exit nodes being compromised is very different than 25% of ALL nodes. And article you linked are contradicting, but hackernews says " 27% of the entire Tor network exit capacity". > [@User53](#): > > I assume that if any law enforcment agency, big private company or someone who pretend to be one of them and just use social enginerring can get to know the real name and adress that are tied to my IP adress As I understand, multiple people might use the same IP .But yeah if you are LE you probably could. --- ## Post 14 by @User53 — 2025-09-17T16:57:47Z > [@Encounter5729](#): > > As I understand, multiple people might use the same IP .But yeah if you are LE you probably could. Perhaps multiple people the same wifi, but each ip must point to a specific network, otherwise it wouldn’t be sufficent for data transfer. Anyway if you use your home wifi its either your, or own of your friends or family members. The only exceptions would be public wifis where nobody can tell which people use it from the wifi data alone, especially if you randomize your MAC adress (default in GOS, Silverblue, and also Tails and Whonix as far as I know) --- ## Post 15 by @Factorial — 2025-09-18T01:33:51Z > [@User53](#): > > But what would be if you create an anonymous account and use it only over a public wifi that cannot be tied to your real identity? Would this be leveraging privacy even more or do I made a mistake in thinking? It depends. For one-off activities, conducted in a faraway location, using public wifi can provide an additional layer of security. But depending on the location and how you approach it, this layer can be strong or week. The proper usage of public wifi can kill an investigation, especially into one-time activity that happened months or years ago. Consider the following: - There are cameras everywhere, that track people with facial and gait recognition. - Your movements are likely tracked with your cell phone, and license-plate reading street cameras. - Public wifi logs MAC addresses - so you would need to randomize that the least. - Don’t forget the “classic” traces you leave behind - like footprints, fingerprints, DNA. - In a public setting, you open yourself up to LEA storming you and performing a cold-boot attack, similar to what happened to [Ross Ulbricht](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Ulbricht). - If you’re actually in the place with the public wifi, you also risk the chance of someone just looking at your screen, and reporting you if it looks suspicious. - Using a long-range antenna can mitigate some of the aforementioned risks. The [Hitchhiker’s Guide](https://anonymousplanet.org/guide/) contains a lot of useful information on using public wifi. The chances of a VPN getting deanonymized are far, far higher than Tor deanonymization. If your public wifi activity was uncovered, “they” (assuming a government in this case) would start an investigation and already know what general area you live in, provided the public wifi location was close. > [@User53](#): > > if we assume that 33% percent of Tor relays are compromised in some way, then the likely hood of getting a compromised circuit is 3.59% (0.33^3) > If you build 100 circuits, then the likelyhood of getting one compromised circuit is 95.1% That’s not how Tor works anymore due to guard nodes, which caps out the likelihood of getting de-anonymized circuits for each rotation period. Also all nodes are not weighted equally, relatively smaller nodes account for the majority of the bandwidth. See: [What are Entry Guards? | Tor Project | Support](https://support.torproject.org/about/entry-guards/) Also check out this post: [How probable a 3 compromised Tor relays? - #10 by Factorial](https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/how-probable-a-3-compromised-tor-relays/31104/10) But don’t get me wrong, despite its weakness, tor is still **very good,** just not invulnerable against certain adversaries. --- ## Post 16 by @User53 — 2025-09-21T19:27:08Z > [@Factorial](#): > > It depends. For one-off activities, conducted in a faraway location, How much distance should be there in your opinion? I dont think that I need to leave my city to get a sufficiently big anonymity set. > [@Factorial](#): > > There are cameras everywhere, that track people with facial and gait recognition. I live in the EU and as far as I know, its not legal here to use ai to create lists of who is where, its only legal to search for specific person if their is a warrant for them. And (as far as I know) AI CCTV is only used in places like airports and train stations and some other high risks places. > [@Factorial](#): > > Your movements are likely tracked with your cell phone I will use airplane mode to prevent triangulation. > [@Factorial](#): > > nd license-plate reading street cameras. They are also very uncommon where I live. And also I kan go ti the public wifi places with a bike or something else that doesn’t have a licence plate to prevent this. > [@Factorial](#): > > Public wifi logs MAC addresses - so you would need to randomize that the least. GrapheneOS will take care of it. > [@Factorial](#): > > Don’t forget the “classic” traces you leave behind - like footprints, fingerprints, DNA. If they dont show up on the same day to collect this inof, I think it will be cleaned away. > [@Factorial](#): > > In a public setting, you open yourself up to LEA storming you and performing a cold-boot attack, similar to what happened to [Ross Ulbricht](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Ulbricht). I will never leave a device unlocked in a public space, I don’t even do that at home, I always look everything when I go to the toilet or something like this. > [@Factorial](#): > > If you’re actually in the place with the public wifi, you also risk the chance of someone just looking at your screen, and reporting you if it looks suspicious. Yes, but there is nothing on my screen like “2kg of [illegal substance] on stock” or something like this. ANd I also would sit with my back to the wall so that nobody can walk behind me. > [@Factorial](#): > > Using a long-range antenna can mitigate some of the aforementioned risks. Than you for the tip. > [@Factorial](#): > > The chances of a VPN getting deanonymized are far, far higher than Tor deanonymization. If your public wifi activity was uncovered, “they” (assuming a government in this case) would start an investigation and already know what general area you live in, provided the public wifi location was close. I would combine the VPN with Tor.