GMAIL free life?

[MT]

Still, I think we can defend from some bad guys out there. Investigating a VPN Tunnel right now....
Even if I know now I will never be 100% secure, it's very interesting to learn how the internet net works.
Thanks for all your posts I am learning a lot.

Well, perhaps reading up on privacy breaching organisations could benefit , such as CIA, 2017 vault7.
https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/cms/index.html

[hammy]

NordVPN or PIA

Based on what?

Price, streaming capability, speed and amount of endpoints.

[jmelson]

You are not immune to some of the nasty upstreams like Yahoo deciding to black hole you for 6 months however. Also your “home” IP address probably has a high risk rating with the RBLs which means you may suddenly get silently discarded by big providers like Google and Microsoft. Also you have to piddle around setting up domain keys now.

Although my IP address is in the message headers, they get a "last" IP from Charter's SMTP servers, and that is what most filters look at.  I DO have a problem with this, some mail lists reject mail from some of Charter's servers, some reject mail from gmail's servers.  So, I have to keep switching my outgoing mail server depending on who I'm sending to -- what a pain!

Jon

[jmelson]

I wonder how much fake data has to be sent for them to discard all data from the IP as fake. At some point, it would be better to just discard the data rather than spend resources trying to pick out anything that could possibly be real. Maybe it would be best combined with not actually using the service so they actually won't get any real data.

Well, the problem is, this is a "business model"!  The scheme is you get people to use your free black list service to identify spam-generating IP's.  Then, once well-established, they start blacklisting everything they can, and charging a RANSOM to get you off their blacklist.  So, it is in their interest to blacklist every IP that they spot sending even ONE spam message to their spamtrap IP.
The fact that about half of Charter/Spectrum's SMTP servers are listed on several blacklists at any one time indicates something is really wrong.  Charter has 26 million accounts, they are a really major ISP.

SourceForge, for instance, uses these predatory blacklists to reject mail from Charter's servers.

Jon

Jon

[Zucca]

Although my IP address is in the message headers, they get a "last" IP from Charter's SMTP servers, and that is what most filters look at.  I DO have a problem with this, some mail lists reject mail from some of Charter's servers, some reject mail from gmail's servers.  So, I have to keep switching my outgoing mail server depending on who I'm sending to -- what a pain!

Thanks jmelson, have you tried to "mask" your IP with a VPN Tunnel?

[jmelson]

Thanks jmelson, have you tried to "mask" your IP with a VPN Tunnel?

Doesn't work (I think).  I have to send mail to an SMTP host that will accept it and forward it on to the WAN.  You have to use SOMEBODY's real SMTP server to do that.  For Charter, I need to send it from inside their network with an IP they also recognize as inside.

So, the issue is not MY IP, it is the IP of Charter's outgoing SMTP servers.

Now, I'm sure I could find some other SMTP server to use, but I'd likely have to pay for that.  Since I am already paying Charter for this service, I shouldn't have to pay somebody else for it.

Jon

[cdev]

Look up "SPF" "DMARC", "DKIM" and implement them, and then get a TLS certificate for your domain for your server's FQDN - also make sure your machine is not an open relay, to get your ability to send outgoing email from your servers fixed.

[bd139]

DKIM is a dick to set up. This is one reason I contracted it out to fastmail here.

[olkipukki]

Nobody suggested AWS WorkMail?
https://aws.amazon.com/workmail/faqs/

$4 (+VAT) per 50GB, and if EU data storage a bit of your concern, you can choose Ireland as the endpoint.
Of course, you will need familiarise yourself with Amazon T&C...

If you never used AWS before and considering to setup own mail server (vpn, etc) you can get one year free micro instance and access to most of their services, plenty time to learn and decide if you relly want to do these things.

[bd139]

I wouldn’t use AWS for this. Way too complicated. Plus most of it is slightly different to other realities which means once you’re in you’re stuck.
 
(I have AWS cert for ref and this I speak only from experience)

[cdev]

People pay for information about you. Thats their real business model. They get you addicted and the more you share the more they make. In ten or twenty years that info on your health or views or relations may be very valuable to somebody.

[Mr. Scram]

Price, streaming capability, speed and amount of endpoints.

Honestly, none of those should be the prime reason to go for a VPN provider. Trustworthiness is the most important, but also the hardest to gauge.

[bd139]

I think using a VPN is more likely to cause problems. Firstly the exit point is a known surface area. If NSA and GCHQ aren't all over the VPN providers I'd be surprised. Secondly it doesn't protect you from side channel leaks like accidentally picking up a Google cookie somewhere while not connected to the VPN and then connecting to the VPN.

Maybe if we went back to Gopher and used Tor as the transport... then again can you really trust Tor exit points? Who are they run by? Who was Tor developed by? Hmm 

tl;dr: If you're going to do bad shit, do it offline.

[Mr. Scram]

I think using a VPN is more likely to cause problems. Firstly the exit point is a known surface area. If NSA and GCHQ aren't all over the VPN providers I'd be surprised. Secondly it doesn't protect you from side channel leaks like accidentally picking up a Google cookie somewhere while not connected to the VPN and then connecting to the VPN.

Maybe if we went back to Gopher and used Tor as the transport... then again can you really trust Tor exit points? Who are they run by? Who was Tor developed by? Hmm 

tl;dr: If you're going to do bad shit, do it offline.

You have to consider what you're protecting yourself against. If it's the NSA and the GCHQ then good luck, I guess. VPNs are mostly useful against people running the local network sniffing your data out and preventing the many websites you're visiting from getting a very specific IP address and other meta data. A VPN may very well make you both more vulnerable and interesting to the big boys, but it definitely helps against the smaller fries. Pick your poison.

[Zucca]

I agree with both of you Scam and bd139.

I know what happens in Germany if you download a copyright movie with torrent.
Some how the information goes (ISP?) in the hands of a law attorney.
This is a nasty and horrible law attorney which hire only evil jung lawyer people fresh from university who have the task to send long letters written in their language asking for money to avoid going to court. Horrible work, according to my german friend which is a lawyer, and after 1/2 years people quit that job.  1500€ Bill.
Either you hire an attorney to deal with them (example proving you were not at home at time/day) or they escalate... No police involved as I understood, God knows why.
Did not happen to me but a friend of mine. I don't need to download movies... I just do Software (with tons of virus/trojan in it)  and nobody cares about a SW in torrent. 99% download movies or music or nasty stuff.

Now a VPN I think will fix the problem to keep that nasty german law attorney away. (I am right now working in Mexico and believe me if your VPN tunnel come out in Mexico (for example) nobody give a shit if you download Matrix. Just looking at the cars on the road and how they drive this is the real land of freedom!)

I don't like my ISP is watching my traffic, that's all.

[bd139]

There are similar things at major ISPs here. They have content firewalls now that block major torrent sites.

If you don't go with the major ones you're fine. Plus they're better anyway for 10-20% more cost. Worth it.

But I'm not downloading anything here, honest! 

[Zucca]

bd139 I had to put my hand on my mouth to avoid a loud LOL in my open office. Thank you.

[rdl]

...
I know what happens in Germany if you download a copyright movie with torrent.
...

Just as an fyi.

Once you join a torrent. your IP address becomes known by every other computer that's also part of it. That's how torrents work. The big media companies, or someone working for them or just a scammer, can also join and discover the IP address of all participants. They then send letters to your ISP, who may or may not do something at their request.

I know years ago, comcast would inform you that they had received a letter of complaint but do nothing in return unless you had multiple "strikes" within a certain time frame. A proxy service is sufficient to solve this problem, at least for me, by hiding your IP address and is cheaper than a full VPN. Nevertheless, I am now considering changing to a full on VPN.

[Zucca]

Thanks got it, interesting. With pfSense it should be easy to create a LAN area where it goes to the internet only via a VPN tunnel. Here you will have your sand box to do the dirty jobs safely.
Scammers aka law attorneys are my concern since I don't need or touch Big Media material.

Rearding the shared IP, since it is a public IP I don't care too much. Definitely here the ISP has to play with and maybe get a cut of the "faked fine".

Interesting enough, on torrent pages the VPN ads are always there... :-)

[bd139]

There’s an easy way that works for me.

Give out your guest WiFi details to your kids friends and if anyone complains then you say it must have been one of them. Only problem is you become a known oasis in a land of used up data allocations so you have to chase them off with a stick occasionally.

This plays on the “IP address doesn’t correspond to an individual” concept.

[Zucca]

Your guests are draining 220-330GB/Months, that's why they love to come back at your home.
They fell safe because they can point to your IP/name, and you feel safe because you can finger point to them.

[bd139]

Exactly. It was the parasites, not me

[Bassman59]

There’s an easy way that works for me.

Give out your guest WiFi details to your kids friends and if anyone complains then you say it must have been one of them. Only problem is you become a known oasis in a land of used up data allocations so you have to chase them off with a stick occasionally.

Just change the name of that guest network every so often.

[Zucca]

Done with Fastmail and my private domain, for the trash/spam email I was inspired by Chuck Norris:



thanks again guys!