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Comment by ransom1538 | Hacker News Reader

VPN question. If you take out a credit card and pay for a cloud solution (aws,etc) and run this software, isn't your identity clearly tracked back to you via your one exit ip? It seems if you want to use VPN services you would want to be in a pool of users with many exit nodes - and have deniability?

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Algo's stated goal is explicitly not to provide anonymity. It is to secure connections made on untrusted networks, e.g. while traveling. It will work for the use case being discussed w/r/t ISPs collecting and selling your usage info, too, because it's not about hiding who you are, it's about preventing your ISP from seeing the final destination of your requests.

It depends on your threat model. If you want anonymity, you'll have to take further steps. Self-hosting on a VPS that's linked to you protects you only from your ISP, which is enough if you're concerned about your ISP selling your traffic data. Of course, you'll need to trust your VPS' outbound ISP... but I think it's fairly reasonable to assume that consumer ISPs are more likely to sell your data than larger providers.

> I think it's fairly reasonable to assume that consumer ISPs are more likely to sell your data than larger providers.

Why? Most consumer ISPs are larger than data centre ISPs, if they're not the same company in a given region.

Because, in aggregate, random server traffic data is going to be less valuable/monetizabe than home use traffic, that can be linked to a specific person or household..

There are VPN services that let you pay in a way that can be anonymized -- like Bitcoin. You can take it one step further by using a VPN provider that does not reside in a country that is a member of Five Eyes (a spy alliance comprising of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK, and the US).

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