You have to trust someone. Personally, I’d trust a VPN provider like mullvad/proton over a US based telecom company any day of the week. And besides, I’m already paying them stupid amounts of money for a service, fuck them if they think they are gonna make more profit off me by selling which porn sites I visit to the highest bidder.
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I use a VPN at home on my FireTV to watch geolocked content like BBC iPlayer and Netflix titles not available in the USA.
At work my office has bad cellular signals, but my employer has a wifi network available for personal devices. I don’t trust them so I only use it with VPN turned on.
Also use if I’m on a sketch wifi network at a local cafe etc.
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I just use a VPN for sailing the seven seas and collecting Linux ISOs.
I have setup my own WireGuard VPN to my home network to view those Linux ISOs with Jellyfin
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There are no guarantees for this.
Only with a court order they can be forced to hold logs.
If you download an image and they then go to the VPN provider, the VPN providers would have no logs for them.
At least if we assume they are not lying.
In important cases I would of course recommend Tor over VPN.
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Do you use the home VPN to sail the seas?
I’ll back up so I can ask my point more directly.
You said:
In response to:
And what I would like to know, assuming I am someone who has commited a copyright infraction while behind a VPN, what is this surprise that I’m going to experience?
Not going to try to convince you, but for me it makes it slightly more difficult for sites to track me. Obviously once you sign in that’s out the window, and while I’m not overly concerned about my ISP snooping on me, that is a threat some people consider.
It’s impossible to answer your question without knowing in wich counry you lived.
I use VPN on my phone for 2 reasons:
- I found a server with an IP that google doesn’t block. This lets me download youtube videos with newpipe and grayjay for offline listening/watching.
- Stealth mode lets me bypass network filtering so I can stream video/audio and use the Steam app.
Sorry for the late response and if my previous response came off as rude.
Anyone who thinks merely hiding their “home IP” behind a VPN is enough are in for a surprise.
What I was asking was: Please explain what you mean by this.
Update: Thanks for the replies. After reassessing my needs and threat model, I’ll try out a (paid) VPN service as much as I can as I can now see its benefits for me, while still acknowledging its not the “guarantee complete privacy” like so many deceptive other VPN providers try to market themselves.
Have a look at:
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Im Australia your ISP is required to keep your data for 2 years by the government, just saying.
The internet service provider I’m currently using logs my data; I know this because someone who works at the company told me so. And since I don’t want them to log other personal information, I use a VPN.
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Because privacy?
Are you really arguing with “I have nothing to hide” argument?
Seriously, why not use Google then or not caring about e2e encryption?
Your ISP sees literally everything you do online, I don’t know you but I trust more a serious VPN provider.
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There are many identifiers other than just the “home IP” which can compromise you. And it isn’t worth paying anywhere near what public VPN companies have you do, to merely hide “IP”. Public VPNs have utility outside of it however (like, anti-censorship, geo-location, snooping by ISP or Governments)… but just how public VPNs market the advantages of “hiding IP” borders on farce.
It’s like… once you understand the tech / service, you’d likely think they’re all deceptive. I like this tptacek quip:
Rotten Tomatoes works because (1) its audience generally trusts some (maybe even most) of the reviewers, and (2) some movies are good. I don’t see how Rotten Tomatoes for VPNs can work.
But more seriously,
I do not think signing up for a commercial VPN service is a good plan for improving your security or privacy, nor do I think using Tor Browser is particularly smart. This seems like a security checklist compiled by someone who has read a lot of popular writing about security, but hasn’t consulted very much with security people.
Public VPN providers may partner with ISPs for lower rates. They don’t exist in isolation. Though, I do get what you’re implying.
A petty shop thief is also a thief. A bank robber, too. So, is an executive who commits fraud. Besides, you’re violating the VPN provider’s terms of service very explicitly. It isn’t meant for whatever you’re using it for. If you do, then that’s up to you to hail mary it all the way. From experience, the feedback loop that comes from feeling “invincible” (due to VPNs or or proxies or whatever), is just that… a feeling. Not reality.
Given your harder stance against VPNs, curious what your thoughts are on staying anonymous online then. If you’re saying VPNs and Tor Browser aren’t smart, then what else is really left for browsing the internet?
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VPNs are not anonymity tools, so I don’t understand how it is relevant.
VPNs, especially “Privacy” ones, market what they can not (and do not) guarantee with just technology (ex). As tools for changing geo IP / “hiding” traffic from ISP / anti-censorship … it does work.
That’s security researcher Thomas Ptacek saying that, not me. I don’t know what he had in mind when he said “smart” but I think, and you’ll agree, that merely the Tor browser (for anonymity) on its own may not enough,[1] which is one reason why Whonix & Qubes OS exist. That said, there are levels to anonymity: Compartmentalization (for example: multiple devices / single-use accounts & single-use devices) is the only necessary condition, I’d reckon.
For WWW, better protocols is a start: iCloud Relay / Oblivious HTTP / ECH are solving for privacy concerns, for example, with cryptographic guarantees aka technology, and not pinkie promises (ex).
May be the browser is enough when using only the Onion websites. ↩︎
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Since I live in a region where the top 20 websites worldwide are blocked, I’m fed up with pop-up ads on my phone and ubiquitous trackers. I even hate mobile payments—I just want to use cash to prevent companies or organizations I don’t know from mapping my personal movements.