VPN protection

NORD

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I was wondering what everyone uses for I.P. address protection when at home or on the go mine is NORDVPN.
Ironic it has my user name in it lol! but works damn good, I can be in Japan for all anyone knows.
If you don't have this bad boy or something similar I would suggest it.
I'm living in a hotel for a week so I got mine armed for these hackers trying to be funny on their computer names.
Who knows I'm not going to find out.
 


Racing? Working? (I don't expect an answer, wizards have big noses because they are nosey bastards, lol)

Mate I'm moving this to Security where you will likely get a more specialised level of support.

I will watch with interest.

Cheers

Wiz
 
I'm in a hotel due too family issues wish i was racing.
 
Oops :oops::( - I have just magicked a 3rd leg to kick myself up the arse.

Wiz
 
Thoughts are with you, mate...been there done that.

Stay cool, stay calm.

Absence can make the heart grow fonder.
 
First of all I'd just like to say that hackers aren't necessarily malicious or want to break into your computer. I personally use socks proxies or sometimes tor depending on the situation. Tor nodes tend to be blacklisted though.
 
good to know lol!
 
I personally don't believe of VPN service providers. How to be sure that the VPN provider doesn't monitoring your internet traffic?

I think that all VPN providers steal personal information from their clients "which protect". What they do with the information is a different topic.

As you know the Tor network is also compromised. You can not believe in this network at 100%.

My ultimate setup is different. I bought reliable and cheap Linux VPS from small provider like NextPointHost. I choose for operation system Ubuntu. Then on top, I installed OpenVPN and create my own VPN server.

In this way chance somebody to monitor my traffic is much lower, because hosting providers usually sell their VPS servers for hosting websites. Additionally, the encryption of VPN tunnel is under my control. The encryption doesn't depend of the VPN providers, which is the situation with NordVPN and all other VPN providers.

Last but not least the prices of Reliable Linux VPS are similar, sometimes even lower than prices of ready for use VPN tunnels.

In case you are very paranoid, you can setup tor which to pass thought your own VPN server.
 
Hey, I use NordVPN as well. They seem reliable and have some neat features for extra security. It's true that there really is no way to verify if a provider is monitoring your browsing habits or not, but I'm an optimist and I believe that if I'm paying money to a company they'll respect my privacy. And for what it's worth Nord has worked quite well when I needed it.
 
I just recently started using a VPN on tablets and I am wondering if I need one om this PC (running Linux Mate, Tina 19.2). What with Linux being so secure, I was hoping I wouldn't need to.
 
I just recently started using a VPN on tablets and I am wondering if I need one om this PC (running Linux Mate, Tina 19.2). What with Linux being so secure, I was hoping I wouldn't need to.
You don't "need to" at all. Some people choose to... but so far I never have, although I do think about it from time to time. There are pros and cons to everything, including VPN's. At the very least, I'd suggest holding off until you start getting more fluent with Linux, computers, and security in general.
 
The idea behind using a vpn.... is to try and ensure that the various 'authorities' only receive an altered ip address. For example if a pc user is downloading torrent files such as movies or tv shows, they would safeguard themselves by using a vpn.

The question is often asked 'which is the best vpn".......and that debate is still raging....and will continue to do so.

Personally I think the paid vpn's have a distinct advantage. The "free" vpn's stand accused of selling users information in order to help the fund the 'service' they provide.

If a user was using a vpn as a security measure when browsing seriously dubious sites, ....then I suppose the same would apply...their ip address would not be accessible to the owners of that dubious site.

It is also used by people in countries whose political masters deny them the right to access certain information. China stands as the most well known example with their great firewall of china......The Great Firewall of China (GFW) is the combination of legislative actions and technologies enforced by the People's Republic of China to regulate the Internet domestically. Its role in Internet censorship in China is to block access to selected foreign websites and to slow down cross-border internet traffic.
 
VPN are sometimes used as a technical response to a political problem. It's like using someone else ID when traveling to prevent people from knowing where you have been. If an authority wants to find you, they will contact the person that you borrowed the ID from and ask him who you are.

The real benefit for average people of using a VPN comes with mobile devices. You can safely connect your device to an unsafe hot spot, everything will be encrypted by the VPN itself.
The second most important benefit is the fact that the IP address that people see about you will be random or shared with many people, so it will be harder for someone willing to track you on the internet to actually do it. This is not an absolute security since there are many other ways to track you, but it helps.
 
Not suggesting anyone did so intentionally but I hate to see people get the impression that using VPN is about hiding from authorities. Any company making money from your personal business (and yes authorities that are trying desperately to catch criminals and do like to know where folks are) insinuate that VPN is for naughty people.
It's not so, that's the great minority.
Encryption is the word for today's security professional and the industry is so busy trying to teach it can't keep up. 70% of businesses are complaining about not having enough experienced IT security. Same for encryption though, it's implied that naughty people need it. Meanwhile your bank manager would stand in the lobby and beg customers to use VPN if he could get away with it. They're covered up with crime.
A case in point is asking someone to download a messenger to chat on instead of standard text, which is almost surely going to make it to *cough*'s (pardon me) or *gasp*'s (excuse me) server (cloud) as plain text for storage. And stuff.
Present that idea to the average citizen as end-to-end encryption and they mostly look at you like they might call said authorities on you any second.
People desperately need their communications encrypted. Because you can't shake a stick without hitting a criminal online these days, not that one is necessarily hiding from authorities.
All that said I've used Nord for years but don't like how they handled their data breach not long ago at all and then promptly got defensive when clients confronted them about it. Bad enough they didn't detect it for so long.
Not sure how to feel.
 
Did you change from Nord...or stay there ?>

oh !,.....and Welcome to linux.org !!!
 
Did you change from Nord...or stay there ?>
I still have an account but there are a couple of providers I'm watching. Nord claims to "have" a great many servers but they lease much of that, which is where the breach occurred. Just a thing to keep in mind.

Thanks!:)

Btw I just repeat what the guru's are yelling about... I like a couple in particular that are consistent but not sure about plugging any particular one. Some stand out though.
 
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I am using airvpn (around 4 - 5 years)....all appears to be smooth sailing the vast majority of the time.

I am constantly on the lookout for any sign that a vpn has sold the user information they collect. That will wipe them off my "possibles" list quicker than they can blink.
 
I am using airvpn (around 4 - 5 years)....all appears to be smooth sailing the vast majority of the time.

I am constantly on the lookout for any sign that a vpn has sold the user information they collect. That will wipe them off my "possibles" list quicker than they can blink.
Me too. That would be professional suicide on their part though, and I'd hate to be them if they violated a user agreement. They are under a microscope.
 
VPN's were developed for business originally, not for crime, or political activism, or whistleblowers. A VPN uses a public network (internet) and establishes a private network on top of the public network using an encrypted "tunneling" protocol. This lets remote users, like a bank branch office, communicate with the corporate computers and maintain their privacy and security. Before this technology, companies used a LOT of dedicated landline phone circuits... at great expense. So VPN's were good for the banks, but bad for the phone companies. :eek:o_O:D

As the folks above said, the ability to mask your true IP address with VPN's and proxies has had the "side benefit" of allowing a lot of activities to to be somewhat hidden... activities that might not be legal in all countries. And it has helped to protect identities of people who really do need protections. But this ability may be doomed. If you want to read a strong (but short) "anti-VPN" rant, check this out.

Bitcoin, the unbreakable cryptocurrency, is not so unbreakable after all (see here and here, for example). VPN's and proxies are not invincible either, as also being discussed above while I'm still typing this. The Tor Network is not invincible either. This is one of the reasons I've not really pursued any of these technologies... I haven't really felt that I've needed them myself, and I also don't want to be trapped in a false sense of security. But I am certainly a strong advocate for privacy and security for average, everyday people like us, not just for rich and powerful people and governments.

The battle over encryption is one of the greatest cat-and-mouse games at play today. Many teams want to make encryption stronger and ever more secure... and that is needed because other teams are constantly working to break it and hack it, both in the name of law enforcement and as a means to steal your money.

And here we are, caught in the middle. I like online banking and pay all my bills with it. But I am always reading technology news to consider whether I should reevaluate my use of it. It does indeed make me nervous, at times.

And don't even think about asking me for biometric security, like submitting a fingerprint or iris scan online.... I absolutely do not trust technology for that. In no way would I give Google or Apple my fingerprint just so I can check my email. Are you kidding me??? I can change a password, if it is compromised. If biometric data is ever compromised, then what?

Stepping down from my soapbox. Thanks for your attention. o_O:D

Cheers
 
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Me too. That would be professional suicide on their part though, and I'd hate to be them if they violated a user agreement. They are under a microscope.
Not really, it seems. Read this part from one of my links above. That links to this article. The company in question is still in business.
 

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