Someone mentioned—correctly, I would imagine—that TikTok getting banned will/would drive sales/use of VPNs.
I realize there's been some news regarding one of the companies I'm about to mention, and I'm ignoring that for the sake of this post.
I highly recommend both Proton VPN and Mullvad. I have a paid subscription to both and I always will.
I run Proton on my router and Mullvad on my computer. The reason why applies in theory to any two VPNs that are not owned by the same parent company. In my case, Proton can see my actual IP address, and so they're aware of where my traffic is actually coming from. They are not, however, aware of the content of my traffic, because it's still encrypted by Mullvad. Contrariwise, Mullvad can see everything I'm doing, but they have no idea where any of it's actually coming from, because my connection to their server is from the Proton server that talks to my router. Unless there's something I'm unaware of, I'm as certain as anyone in my shoes reasonably can be, that both Proton and Mullvad are completely honest when they say that none of their VPN servers keep logs. If either of them are lying about that, I would be shocked. Let's just say for argument's sake, though, that the opposite is true instead, meaning that everything I do is being logged by both of them. Again: Proton knows where it's coming from but not what it is; Mullvad knows what it is but not where it's coming from. Unless I'm not understanding something, this would make historical analysis of both logs insufficient to correlate my traffic.
As a wannabe privacy advocate, I react negatively whenever anything that's not inherently illegal in my country nor should it be gets banned, just on principle. Having said that: if you're worried about the ban, don't buy a VPN to get around it. Buy two, along with a router specifically designed to run OpenWrt, and uninstall TikTok.
Thank you.
#VPN #TikTok #privacy #privacyMatters #infosec #security #uspol
Unus Nemo
in reply to Day Use X Mockin' Uh • •@Chris Wolff
When any VPN says they do not keep logs, they mean those logs they are not required to keep by law. Just like your ISP the VPNs are legally required to log certain information for a period of time. So that they can turn it over to Law Enforcement Agencies if served with a Subpoena.
Though this should not be a problem for most people.
Unus Nemo
Unknown parent • •@Chris Wolff
Heard it and read it before. I have also seen the tons of times that VPNs have turned over their mandated logs. It would personally make no difference to me. Though there are those that it might, such as an investigative reporter.
Just so we are 100% clear. I know what they say. I do not believe them. Just to clear that up. I have already mentioned that for the vast majority of us it just does not matter. I would just never refer a VPN to someone were it does matter.
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Unus Nemo
Unknown parent • •@Chris Wolff
I will also mention that VPNs were required far more before https became a standard on the web. Now most people just will not visit a site that does not use a secure protocol. To be fair I will mention a use case I do use. Which is when I setup a VPN of my own and let friends in to game 😀.
like this
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Unus Nemo
Unknown parent • •@Chris Wolff
That was actually what it was designed for.
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