So, what would be a really reliable VPN-provider?
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Good morning all ;D
My apologies if I post this in the wrong forum; I figured this would be the safest place to post it. Given all the latest news on privacy and matters, I do realize it is about time to use a VPN. For all I know, the whole world will be watching what I am doing, and I don't feel they need to :P
Finding a good VPN-provider appears a rather horrible exercise; yes, there are a 1001 VPN-providers, some with very beautiful websites, some with rather low prices, but when reading customer reviews often the speed is horrible, or customer service is absent/rude/blames the customer for errors (I do realize these reviews may be written by the 'web care team' of the competition ;D). When reading 'independent' reviews sometimes you are offered a referral link to that 'greatest provider in the test', but even without that: these 'independent' sites also need to make a living. Yes, part of it may come from ads on every page, but another part may perhaps also come from direct payment for that 'independent' review. It is difficult to find solid information.
Furthermore, some of these 'cheap' providers require you to buy a subscription for every connection you want to make, so, for example wife + me + her tablet = 3 subscriptions. Or they give you very limited bandwith, after which you have to buy expensive marginal bandwith. When cheap suddenly becomes expensive :-X
And then I've also read, and I don't know it this is true as I am not a specialist in this field, that some of the 'VPN'-technologies aren't 'really VPN', as Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) can still see what is going on.
So, it is all very confusing for me-noob ( ;D). A provider of financial services that I am considering using recommended c-r/y-p\t-o/h-i/p-p\i-e.com (I am not trolling: I added these symbols in between because I don't want their 'web care team' to get a google alert and then register here to comment that they are the greatest; I think adding these symbols sort of prevents this :P).
For noobs, they aren't very informative on how they work, and what they are telling me-noob has a hard time understanding ( :-). I do understand they use at least two chained VPN-servers, and this is supposed to be more secure than just one. Which I don't understand, since encryption = encryption, I thought. Why do you need double encryption in the first place? Furthermore, they also don't really show their amount of servers, where they are located, so I am still a little in the dark as to that.
And then I thought: I shall ask it in the PFS-forum; I trust all you extremely knowledgeable people way, way, way more than a vendor that is trying to sell his product to me.
So, if I could ask: what is a really reliable VPN-provider, with whom you will know that what is encrypted is really encrypted and not 'seeable' by DPI, who doesn't bullshit around with 'you've got to pay extra for every machine/gig/whatever', who has excellent customer support and who is located in a rather safe/privacy minded country?
Thank you very much for any help ;D,
Bye,
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I haven't used any such providers myself, but some of the people I talk to have, and the usual suspects are: StrongVPN, VyprVPN, or similar services.
In addition to the criteria you mentioned, you should also take note of the provider's logging policies. Some VPN providers will keep connection logs, others will not. Depending on how you intend to use the VPN, that may be a potential concern.
Here is a somewhat recent article about some providers and how they treat the subject:
http://torrentfreak.com/vpn-services-that-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2013-edition-130302/ -
Thank you very much for your reply, Jim, and sorry for the delay in answerring.
It appears there are so many VPN-providers out there that basically appear to be marketing companies only, some of them even saying 'we are in a 'privacy minded' country, and then it turns out their Ltd (company) is there, but the servers are…in the USA or Europe. So this remains a horror to find the right one.
Intermediate, for my wife, I have now setup OpenVPN on my PFS. It is of course rather slow speed (limited upload), I'll have to see if it works to her majesties satisfaction, otherwise I still have to continue my search (a monstruous search, it appears :-).
Thanks again ;D
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One thing to keep in mind about VPNs in general is that its not a download. The upload and download requirements usually turn out to be symetric and thus symetric connections on the server and the client work far better than the typical asymetric upload/download speeds usually offered.
Whats all this mean? The simple version is that the speed of the vpn will be limited to the LOWEST of either the client upload/download or the server upload/download speeds.
So, if you have 100 down 5 up connection on the server and 25 down and 2 up connection at the client, your vpn bandwidth will be limited to 2 both up and down.
fun right?
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As far as "who to trust?". No one.
If you have a friend in a country that doesn't share with whatever country you are in, send him a pfsense with openvpn box and pay him for bandwidth.I think playing mommy against daddy, politically speaking, is the only way to achieve privacy.
I think all the big vpn services are mangnets for people who interest the feds greatly and thus are fed magnets. -
If you have a friend in a country that doesn't share with whatever country you are in, send him a pfsense with openvpn box and pay him for bandwidth.
+1. None of the commercial services can be trusted.
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As far as "who to trust?". No one.
If you have a friend in a country that doesn't share with whatever country you are in, send him a pfsense with openvpn box and pay him for bandwidth.I think playing mommy against daddy, politically speaking, is the only way to achieve privacy.
I think all the big vpn services are mangnets for people who interest the feds greatly and thus are fed magnets.Thank you for your replies ;D
The above actually is a very nice idea. Unfortunately, I don't have such friends :-[
Yet, your idea made me think: suppose I rent a 'vps' or something like that in another country, and put OpenVPN on that, wouldn't that be an idea? (Is it possible?). Of course, then you are only replacing the problem, because 'they' can still see what you do.But suppose that you then rent yet another 'vps' in yet another country, put OpenVPN on that one too, and chain the 2?
As in:
Me -> OpenVPN-server (oVPNs) in Zimbabwe -> OpenVPN-server in Antarctica -> PFsense forum?That way, the first oVPNs can not see where I am going to, and the second one can not see where I am coming from. Unless, of course, they manage to get together and collaborate (if that is technically possible?).
Would this be an idea?
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Sure, why not… till the Antarctica packets freeze on the way. :D
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Yes - I like your idea. Get yourself a VPS in whichever country Edward Snowden ends up and install your vpn there.
(I'm not joking nearly as much as you might imagine) -
Yes - I like your idea. Get yourself a VPS in whichever country Edward Snowden ends up and install your vpn there.
(I'm not joking nearly as much as you might imagine)Its not about if your doing anything illegal, it just cost governments more money to decrypt your VPN traffic.
http://torrentfreak.com/mastercard-and-visa-start-banning-vpn-providers-130703/
We need some of the talented people within the Pfsense community to come up with a easy productive package to give users more control over whats passing through our network most important what are they slurping on etc.
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Yes - I like your idea. Get yourself a VPS in whichever country Edward Snowden ends up and install your vpn there.
(I'm not joking nearly as much as you might imagine);D
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Costing governments money these days doesn't matter much. They will just print as much as they need anyway.
What I like to "cost" them is cpu cycles and MEGAWATTS. You can't print nuclear reactors. -
Yes - I like your idea. Get yourself a VPS in whichever country Edward Snowden ends up and install your vpn there.
(I'm not joking nearly as much as you might imagine)Its not about if your doing anything illegal, it just cost governments more money to decrypt your VPN traffic.
http://torrentfreak.com/mastercard-and-visa-start-banning-vpn-providers-130703/
We need some of the talented people within the Pfsense community to come up with a easy productive package to give users more control over whats passing through our network most important what are they slurping on etc.
I agree. I am not doing anything illegal, but I do not like data being intercepted and stored 'for later use', given that those later 'uses' are bound not to be the most scientifically sound ones.
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Costing governments money these days doesn't matter much. They will just print as much as they need anyway.
What I like to "cost" them is cpu cycles and MEGAWATTS. You can't print nuclear reactors.;D
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Costing governments money these days doesn't matter much. They will just print as much as they need anyway.
What I like to "cost" them is cpu cycles and MEGAWATTS. You can't print nuclear reactors.To decrypt encrypted data cost time and a Tremendous amount of Processing ….. It is relevant. This is why they are attempting to discourage VPN use at the moment. If it becomes a increasing problem they will simply make it illegal to use or operate a VPN without a permit/license from your local government. Basically you will be paying a annual fee to your own government to decrypt your own data you encrypted and told they will never attempt to decrypt your private data connections. LMAO
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It only costs processing IF the government doesn't have full access to the unencrypted packets traversing the network of the VPN service supplier and I'd bet 99 times in 100, they get it as quick as they want it. In the USA the crime and law enforcement act makes it mandatory for anyone running a service with more than a certain number of users to build in law enforcement access (back door) on the providers dime. (Aint that a kick to the groin if your service is VPN)?
I'm honestly not sure how compliant providers are, but I don't trust VPNs unless I own it, installed it and am pretty much one of just a few using it.
http://paranoia.dubfire.net/2011/02/deconstructing-calea-hearing.html
That said, I think everyone should have 1 PRIVATE VPN somewhere at least and pfsense makes that easy (-:
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I'm honestly not sure how compliant providers are, but I don't trust VPNs unless I own it, installed it and am pretty much one of just a few using it.
http://paranoia.dubfire.net/2011/02/deconstructing-calea-hearing.html
That said, I think everyone should have 1 PRIVATE VPN somewhere at least and pfsense makes that easy (-:
Nice read ….. article over 2 years old, I wonder how far the government has pushed it so far?
When quantum computing arrives if it hasn't already, encryption will be no problem at all for world governments. The sad thing about it is quantum computing will never be available to the general public.
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You can't print nukes but you can put a remote data center where power is plentiful and cheap. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Data_Center
The Utah Data Center, also known as the Intelligence Community Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative Data Center,[1] is a data storage facility for the United States Intelligence Community that is designed to store extremely large amounts of data, on the scale of yottabytes..[2][3][4] Its purpose is to support the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative (CNCI), though its precise mission is classified.[5] The National Security Agency (NSA), which will lead operations at the facility, is the executive agent for the Director of National Intelligence.[6] It is located at Camp Williams, near Bluffdale, Utah, between Utah Lake and Great Salt Lake.
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Remember the old days? Specific individuals with a warrant and just a couple of names on the warrant and an actual judge who actually read the warrant for people who are actually suspected of something that is actually bad and not just shrimp net dragging style trolling…
Yes - I'm well aware of Utah...
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Remember the old days? Specific individuals with a warrant and just a couple of names on the warrant and an actual judge who actually read the warrant for people who are actually suspected of something that is actually bad and not just shrimp net dragging style trolling…
Yes - I'm well aware of Utah...
Just a couple of examples: NSA using intelligences data gathering to blackmail political figures to serve the Elite ….. or how about insider trading of the Financial Markets for profit.
Very dangerous times we are living in.
