# Everyone should use a VPN



## FlightsOfFancy (Dec 30, 2012)

Just do it;




for about $7 a month, your computer can have an encrypted SSL connection and total anonymity. This is very very crucial in places where wifi is shared (yes, packet sniffers can see ALL your unencrypted data in shared environments).

Oh yeah, and you could, in theory, evade US acts that require logs of your IP when in P2P because the hosting countries have no mandate to oblige them. Just saying..


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## blit (Dec 17, 2010)

I can think of at least 7 reasons why I shouldn't.


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## RobynC (Jun 10, 2011)

@Muck Fe

List 'em...


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## gammagon (Aug 8, 2012)

FlightsOfFancy said:


> for about $7 a month





Muck Fe said:


> I can think of at least 7 reasons why I shouldn't.


Lol.

I might later on.


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## Epherion (Aug 23, 2011)

or or.... you could use Tor, Freenet, Perfect Dark, JonDo, and if you cant, well... here you go:

proXPN VPN | Get your FREE proXPN VPN account now!


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## infinitewisdom (Jan 23, 2011)

I'll be honest.I do not know how VPN's work. Is it something like a proxy server? When I have searched for it in the past I found some VPN service providers. Can or do those service providers keep logs if located within the U.S? If they do store data, how long before they sell out to a larger IT firm who WILL sell our data to marketers, investigations firms, and Governments?


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## TranceMan (Aug 26, 2012)

infinitewisdom said:


> I'll be honest.I do not know how VPN's work. Is it something like a proxy server? When I have searched for it in the past I found some VPN service providers. Can or do those service providers keep logs if located within the U.S? If they do store data, how long before they sell out to a larger IT firm who WILL sell our data to marketers, investigations firms, and Governments?


A VPN and a proxy are not the same thing, as they are two very different methods of connecting to resources on the internet, but they are very similar in a way.

A VPN encrypts your data via a tunnel to your destination by connecting to a dedicated VPN server. While VPNs are hard to crack and you're better to use them with sensitive data, they certainly aren't invincible either. 

*For example:*
_User logs in to VPN server > User is authenticated to VPN server > VPN server establishes a link between user and server to create an encrypted tunnel > establishes links with IP/Web addresses (DNS) for browsing and connecting to other machines on the network we call the Internet._

Tor and Proxies don't protect your data, they just make it harder to track the original senders current internet address. With services like Tor, you will find yourself banned from many websites because of illicit things people have done, downloaded, posted, etc because these are public nodes users connect to. The same with browser-based proxies as well. Tor is in no way, shape, or form considered safe, nor is it a recommended option to keep yourself anonymous online.
*
For example:*
_User connects to proxy server > Unencrypted data passes through proxy > The proxy server now looks like the original sender._

I'd read this article.
Which VPN Service Providers Really Take Anonymity Seriously? | TorrentFreak

A majority of providers can't keep logs because of how much data is passed through and because by law, they are not required to keep logs. Especially VPN providers in the US.



> *BTguard*
> Response to Q1: “It’s technically unfeasible for us to maintain log files with the amount of connections we route,” BTguard explain. “We estimate the capacity needed to store log files would be 4TB per day.”
> 
> 
> Response to Q2: “The jurisdiction is Canada. Since we do not have log files, we have no information to share. We do not communicate with any third parties. The only event we would even communicate with a third party is if we received a court order. We would then be forced to notify them we have no information. This has not happened yet.”


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## bluekitdon (Dec 19, 2012)

Depends on what you are trying to accomplish. If you are connecting back to the office or home network over the Internet, then sure a VPN is a good idea, makes it seem like your computer is physically plugged into that network in a secure fashion. 

Down side is it looks like your computer is plugged into that network, so if your computer is infected with a virus then the virus may spread over that link, that's why a lot of places use something like logmein, Citrix, or remote desktop. If you are just concerned about people hacking your internet traffic, then it might be a good idea, but probably not as big of a deal as you might think. Most bank sites use an encrypted SSL connection anyway when you are logging in, so people will still have a lot of difficulty hacking the stream.


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## FlightsOfFancy (Dec 30, 2012)

Muck Fe said:


> I can think of at least 7 reasons why I shouldn't.


I seriously did not get the reference to 7 for the longest :shocked:

Well, I hope you don't do any suspicious downloading, some of which will cause you multiples of that in fines/lost ISP. 




Epherion said:


> or or.... you could use Tor, Freenet, Perfect Dark, JonDo, and if you cant, well... here you go:
> 
> proXPN VPN | Get your FREE proXPN VPN account now!


That's great for casual use, but they do not allow torrenting. I don't see why people who don't use torrents would get a VPN aside from paranoia of using unecrypted data. Intermediate to Expert users are using VPNs for this purpose (which explains the sharp rise in popularity).



bluekitdon said:


> Depends on what you are trying to accomplish. If you are connecting back to the office or home network over the Internet, then sure a VPN is a good idea, makes it seem like your computer is physically plugged into that network in a secure fashion.
> 
> Down side is it looks like your computer is plugged into that network, so if your computer is infected with a virus then the virus may spread over that link, that's why a lot of places use something like logmein, Citrix, or remote desktop. If you are just concerned about people hacking your internet traffic, then it might be a good idea, but probably not as big of a deal as you might think. Most bank sites use an encrypted SSL connection anyway when you are logging in, so people will still have a lot of difficulty hacking the stream.


Torrents are highly monitored. In fact, places like BayTSP has so many monitors that they are hired by places like the RIAA etc. I can safely say most people are doing torrenting or some type of P2P when they buy these, otherwise, as you said, it is quite moot. With regard to viruses; I don't use Windows or Mac outside of VM and only install linux software from trusted sources. I download a lot of avi/mp3 digital data. I am not aware as of yet if these are virus capable...I doubt they can be.


Overall, nothing will render you impervious. You are still connecting somewhere and that somewhere will know how to locate your computer. I am sure with a strong enough inquest, the government could force a trace of some sort. However, places like BayTSP and other torrent-mongers are not going to go through that much trouble unless you are a serious (and I mean, like the beacon of with an OC48 connection and supplying everyone with the latest view of an anticipated unreleased album) threat. 

And if you're doing something like child pornography, interpol will find and fry you quicker than anything (trust that they'd have no problem getting a trace from the ISP's ISP's ISP). But for the casual downloader/uploader with a regular connection, you're just someone to gloss over and go to the next easy target (the majority of P2Pers who do not use such protection).


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## TranceMan (Aug 26, 2012)

This is why I don't download from public trackers. Before Demonoid died, it was the only tracker I'd ever use and it didn't have a stupid download/seed ratio requirement. Every good torrent you saw on TPB originally came from Demonoid. Now that it's dead and gone, public trackers have been lacking in decent content (especially with seeders). Not only content which requires licensing, but free stuff too, like indie music and whatnot.


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## yet another intj (Feb 10, 2013)

Just use PeerBlock for P2P, it will keep you away from trouble.


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## Epherion (Aug 23, 2011)

FlightsOfFancy said:


> That's great for casual use, *but they do not allow torrenting*. I don't see why people who don't use torrents would get a VPN aside from paranoia of using unecrypted data. Intermediate to Expert users are using VPNs for this purpose (which explains the sharp rise in popularity).


Perfect Dark (P2P) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



> _*Perfect Dark*_ (パーフェクトダーク[SUP]?[/SUP]) is a peer-to-peer file-sharing (P2P) application from Japan designed for use with Microsoft Windows (not to be confused with the video game franchise _Perfect Dark_).
> 
> Perfect Dark uses RSA (1024-bit) and AES (128-bit) to encrypt data transmitted between peers. Exchanged keys are cached for efficiency.


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## FlightsOfFancy (Dec 30, 2012)

Epherion said:


> Perfect Dark (P2P) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


I'll look into that, but I think as of now all the good shit is on torrents (more accessible to most/tons of stuff and the protocol makes it easier to pause/resume without corruption while attaining data from multiple hosts).


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## tanstaafl28 (Sep 10, 2012)

How quickly will all these VPN's dictate massive (costly) increases in bandwidth?


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## Diogenes (Jun 30, 2011)

Epherion said:


> or or.... you could use Tor, Freenet, Perfect Dark, JonDo, and if you cant, well... here you go:
> 
> proXPN VPN | Get your FREE proXPN VPN account now!


Is freenet still slow as shit unless you have 10+ friends?
I haven't used it in years...


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## jackeyjoe (Oct 23, 2011)

tanstaafl28 said:


> How quickly will all these VPN's dictate massive (costly) increases in bandwidth?


Doubt it's going to make much of a difference, hardware prices are constantly decreasing, and the networks _should_ be getting cheaper to maintain as people switch over to fiber. It won't do any more damage than the popularity of streaming music or video...

As for the VPN's, I've been doing this for the last ~6 months out of necessity, I live on campus at a school, tons of stuff is blocked and to use the internet how I did before moving out(for games) I really needed one. Wouldn't recommend it going through one of the VPN providers though, they hammer speeds and pings pretty bad(if you are pretty tech savvy you could set up your own using a VPS, the only thing stopping me is the cost... they are dirt cheap in the US and europe but here in Australia they are a ton of money :sad


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## dabeshu (Jan 25, 2011)

I need to get with the program and purchase a viable one already.

I've gone through a few which were free and ended up not working out.

Anyone got anything in mind?


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## TranceMan (Aug 26, 2012)

jackeyjoe said:


> Doubt it's going to make much of a difference, hardware prices are constantly decreasing, and the networks _should_ be getting cheaper to maintain as people switch over to fiber. It won't do any more damage than the popularity of streaming music or video...


While yes, this is partially true, you have to remember that the internet wasn't as big 10 years ago as it is today. We have a lot more datacenters/routing facilities closer to people's location now than 10 years ago, which significantly increases the amount of bandwidth that our infrastructure has. 



> As for the VPN's, I've been doing this for the last ~6 months out of necessity, I live on campus at a school, tons of stuff is blocked and to use the internet how I did before moving out(for games) I really needed one. Wouldn't recommend it going through one of the VPN providers though, they hammer speeds and pings pretty bad(if you are pretty tech savvy you could set up your own using a VPS, the only thing stopping me is the cost... they are dirt cheap in the US and europe but here in Australia they are a ton of money :sad


You're lucky you can even get VPN to work. I have to log into an authentication server with a bunch of advanced Layer 7 applications that block certain web traffic and our firewall is ridiculously strict with what ports can be used (typically 80/443/444) before I can even begin browsing the web, and most stuff I need to study for related to Networking is considered "hacking/exploitation." It's really a shame how so few people can make social stigma and stereotyping into full blown paranoia to the point where it's unusable to anyone. We might as well not even have internet running to this facility with the amount of stuff they block here.


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## tanstaafl28 (Sep 10, 2012)

jackeyjoe said:


> Doubt it's going to make much of a difference, hardware prices are constantly decreasing, and the networks _should_ be getting cheaper to maintain as people switch over to fiber. It won't do any more damage than the popularity of streaming music or video...
> 
> As for the VPN's, I've been doing this for the last ~6 months out of necessity, I live on campus at a school, tons of stuff is blocked and to use the internet how I did before moving out(for games) I really needed one. Wouldn't recommend it going through one of the VPN providers though, they hammer speeds and pings pretty bad(if you are pretty tech savvy you could set up your own using a VPS, the only thing stopping me is the cost... they are dirt cheap in the US and europe but here in Australia they are a ton of money :sad



I haven't sniffed my own network lately, but my wife uses a VPN (she works from home) and I did catch my ISP throttling my network (in violation of their contract, and I believe some FCC regulations). Rollout of fiber to the curb is progressing at a snail's pace in the United States. It is well known that we're losing the battle to upgrade our infrastructure. It may be that internet over power lines will be developed faster than fiber, because the power lines are already in place.


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