<story><title>Don&apos;t use VPN services</title><url>https://gist.github.com/joepie91/5a9909939e6ce7d09e29</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>infodroid</author><text>This seems like bad advice because it doesn&amp;#x27;t address the legitimate need for keeping your browsing history private from overzealous, data-mining ISP&amp;#x27;s [1].&lt;p&gt;And even in the case of a known-hostile ISP that engages in invasive practices like supercookies or ad injection, it&amp;#x27;s unrealistic to ask users to set up and maintain their own VPS servers.&lt;p&gt;For the average internet user, a &amp;quot;glorified proxy&amp;quot; service that is hassle-free to set up is a simple and effective means of protection against such a menace.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;techcrunch.com&amp;#x2F;2017&amp;#x2F;03&amp;#x2F;29&amp;#x2F;everything-you-need-to-know-about-congress-decision-to-expose-your-data-to-internet-providers&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;techcrunch.com&amp;#x2F;2017&amp;#x2F;03&amp;#x2F;29&amp;#x2F;everything-you-need-to-kno...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>hug</author><text>It seems like bad advice because it is, frankly, just bad advice. Nearly all of his arguments fall down, even within his own post.&lt;p&gt;He says that VPN providers don&amp;#x27;t provide more security. They do, and he mentions this himself when it comes to the public wifi argument.&lt;p&gt;He says that VPN providers don&amp;#x27;t provide more encryption. They do. Another layer of transport encryption is another layer of transport encryption.[1]&lt;p&gt;He says that VPN providers don&amp;#x27;t provide more privacy. They do. Turns out a lot of networks do things like log DNS, which a decent VPN client can tunnel.[2]&lt;p&gt;He says there are two use cases for VPNs: There are a lot more.&lt;p&gt;He says that tunneling all of your traffic is a &lt;i&gt;worse&lt;/i&gt; case for obfuscating your identity to a third party service. It&amp;#x27;s not, or at least I can&amp;#x27;t imagine how it would be.&lt;p&gt;He says that instead of a VPN, you can use a VPS with a VPN: That&amp;#x27;s just a VPN. It does all of the same things, including being outsourced to a third-party provider, except you lose a ton of the functionality of a real VPN service like geographical redundancy and spread.&lt;p&gt;He asks why VPN services exist, if for any other purpose than stealing traffic or data, but fails to understand any way in which a VPN service could be useful.&lt;p&gt;The entire piece is just the opinions of someone who is failing to see that other people have significantly different use-cases and threat models than he does.&lt;p&gt;-&lt;p&gt;[1] Especially if you think of &amp;quot;local -&amp;gt; internet&amp;quot; as easier to intercept than &amp;quot;somewhere internet -&amp;gt; otherwhere internet&amp;quot;. Which it usually is. One involves something dumb simple like ARP poisoning. Another involves compromising a telco or the VPN provider itself, which is a teensy bit harder. All of this is even sillier if you consider the hostile-network scenario as well.&lt;p&gt;[2] Yes, you are offloading &amp;#x27;trust&amp;#x27; that the VPN provider doesn&amp;#x27;t &lt;i&gt;also&lt;/i&gt; log your DNS. There&amp;#x27;s more chance that they don&amp;#x27;t when they say they don&amp;#x27;t, than your corporate network doesn&amp;#x27;t when they say they do.</text></comment>
<story><title>Don&apos;t use VPN services</title><url>https://gist.github.com/joepie91/5a9909939e6ce7d09e29</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>infodroid</author><text>This seems like bad advice because it doesn&amp;#x27;t address the legitimate need for keeping your browsing history private from overzealous, data-mining ISP&amp;#x27;s [1].&lt;p&gt;And even in the case of a known-hostile ISP that engages in invasive practices like supercookies or ad injection, it&amp;#x27;s unrealistic to ask users to set up and maintain their own VPS servers.&lt;p&gt;For the average internet user, a &amp;quot;glorified proxy&amp;quot; service that is hassle-free to set up is a simple and effective means of protection against such a menace.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;techcrunch.com&amp;#x2F;2017&amp;#x2F;03&amp;#x2F;29&amp;#x2F;everything-you-need-to-know-about-congress-decision-to-expose-your-data-to-internet-providers&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;techcrunch.com&amp;#x2F;2017&amp;#x2F;03&amp;#x2F;29&amp;#x2F;everything-you-need-to-kno...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>__jal</author><text>It was addressed, indirectly, at the end - &amp;quot;You are on a known-hostile network&amp;quot;. In my case, one of my links is Comcast, a known-hostile network.&lt;p&gt;I agree it should have been much more prominent, because this is exactly why I use one, and why many folks I know use one.</text></comment>