Poll: Investigatory Powers Bill or "Snoopers' Charter" has been approved
- Thread starter thebennyboy
- Start date
Not really. Only if you're using weak encryption and a simple preshared key (or you're not protecting your certs and keys appropriately). A properly configured VPN will not be "easy" to compromise by any stretch of the imagination. Until Quantum computing comes of age, it's likely to stay that way.
Some technologies essentially do MITM SSL "attacks" these days to function properly like WAN accellerators, but again, you need the certs/keys to do this.
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A VPN is sufficient though for normal people to protect their privacy, ISP's will not have logs of users internet activity and any website that is compromised will not be able to trace access back to the users real ip address.
I suppose if you're signing in to Gmail over a VPN, Google are still going to be able to tie your username and activity to the VPN IP. It depends if that bothers you or not.
There are always other search engines and mail services.
Are we talking VPN, proxy, or P2P routing here? I think these terms get thrown around and not properly understood...
Using a secure tunnel to connect to a server in some data center would not give you any anonymity, given that the server could be proven to be owned by you, and thus any web traffic coming from that box would be provably your web traffic.
So what are you guys meaning when you say VPN? Tor? Something else?
Using a secure tunnel to connect to a server in some data center would not give you any anonymity, given that the server could be proven to be owned by you, and thus any web traffic coming from that box would be provably your web traffic.
So what are you guys meaning when you say VPN? Tor? Something else?
We are primarily talking about commercial VPN services. You pay to be able to route your traffic through a selection of different servers over a VPN tunnel. This stops your ISP monitoring your web activity and prevents websites you access from tracing access back to you as hundreds of people use the same VPN server.
depends on the setup I imagine a lot of people are referring to shared VPNs i.e. The server all the outgoing requests come from will be many people utilising it. No way to tell who sent what in that situation afaik(assuming they're not logging).
Seems a bit overkill to set up your own server as unless you chose a country and company who won't play ball with the UK and actually know what they're doing security wise then it's pretty worthless. Guess you could always allow others to use it as well.
Seems a bit overkill to set up your own server as unless you chose a country and company who won't play ball with the UK and actually know what they're doing security wise then it's pretty worthless. Guess you could always allow others to use it as well.
It's not worthless at all, even a dedicated server stops your ISP logging your traffic and gives you anonymity to the operators of the websites your accessing. Yes law enforcement can trace the IP back to you if you're the only one using it as you are the registered owner, but that doesn't make it worthless by any means. It completely depends what you want from a VPN solution. Private servers have the advantages of not being blocked by Netflix.
With a private or dedicated VPN server when the authorities ask, "has this person been on x website" the ISP's answer is going to be "don't know".
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Soldato
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- 1 Mar 2010
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How the tables turn, eh?
Well, legally, General Data Protection Regulation is set to come in soonish (May 2018). If the government's manoeuvres are seen to be in breach, particularly when ISPs and other third parties get involved in this harvesting scheme, you can challenge them at the ECJ.
One of the main critiques of it was, according to the wiki, surprise, surprise, this:
Mutti Merkel clearly did not take kindly to being snooped on.
Our defence will no doubt centre around the core principle of sovereign liberty of 'But terrorism and orgasming ladies, so must spy'!However, even if you were to succeed, it could be overturned after 2019, depending on how hard our departure is and whether we do split from the ECJ's rulings on such matters. So I'd suggest to petition both at home and abroad, just in case.
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Ahh in that regards then no it's not worthless sorry.
Your ISP will say "don't know". The ISP being used by the server will see the traffice to those websites originating from that server.
Law enforcement pertinent to that ISP's country says, "Who owns this server?" If it's just one person (you), then you're royally boned. Only now you're wanted by law enforcement in the country hosing the server instead of your own.
Don't see how that helps.
Soldato
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- 1 Mar 2010
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- 6,316
Oh yeah! Show me your internets history!
Imagine the following Mexican standoff:
You're about to quit one of the listed services to join another one. Your interviewer can snoop on your shenans, and you can snoop on his... Then you meet! Hawkward!
A lot of what is illegal in the UK is not illegal in other countries. If you are doing something majorly and universally illegal that would attract the attention of the law enforcement agencies in the country your server is in then obviously it is not a solution that would be appropriate.
However if you are looking to be anonymous to the operators of the websites you visit, bypass ISP blocks, access foreign Netflix content and maintain privacy from Theresa May then it's a good solution.
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