Comment by furyg3 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by furyg3 | Hacker News Reader

I posted this on another thread (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3913985), but I think it's relevant here...

I feel pretty double about VPN as a solution for masking my online activities. My reasons for using a VPN break down into these (related) categories:

1. Security. I don't trust this network at all, such as unsecured wifi in coffeeshop.

2. Access. This network has draconian restrictions I need to get around, such as corporate proxy servers or country firewalls.

3. Privacy. It's none of this network's business what I'm doing.

4. Legal. I don't want to get in trouble here. Especially when traveling where I don't know the laws, but increasingly in my own country. Hell, the courts in NL haven't figured out if TPB is legal, how should I know?

VPN can solve many of these problems most of the time... but always using a VPN means that I have a single point of failure for all four of these.

If my VPN provider is compromised, shady, or coerced to turn over my data, I'm sunk. In that way using various internet connections at home/work/coffeeshop/mobile may be better.

Valid point but there's nothing stopping you setting up your own VPN (either on a small VM from someone like Linode or, if you're paranoid enough, a cheap 1U server bought off ebay and placed in a colo facility).

For the single point of failure issue (which is also valid)... just setup two or more VPNs :) And, in an emergency, you can always fall back to the underlying connection.

Setting up your own VPN does not solve the traceability problem, unless you happen to find a colo facility that does business in face-to-face cash transactions only.

If you use Linode to set up a VPN, Linode knows your personal and Linode IP, knows when you access their network, and knows your name and billing info. If compelling by warrant they will turn that over to law enforcement.

Sorry, I didn't realise removing traceability was the goal. If you want that, you're better off with tor not a VPN.

I setup an own VPN on a dedicated server, payed it prepaid and faked the customer data. This should be really hard to trace back to me.

If your hosting company hasn't saved your access logs for the purchase. Otherwise you just added one step to the process.

Well, they probably log, but maybe you find an open or public wifi to join ;)

also they probably just log URLs and IPs, but not the POST requests.

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