General > General Technical Chat
Using VPNs for "privacy" on forums, and forum spammers
ataradov:
Why though? What is the problem with having $300k boat and how that would affect a business?
I used to try to hide my identity, but over time I realized that there is more value for me in being consistent with names on the forum. If someone is really committed, they will find you no matter what.
The idea of a VPN is that it is an easy way to eliminate mass collection of information. If someone is targeting you specifically, VPN won't do anything.
peter-h:
In modern business culture, companies are highly political inside. A lot of people are crawling up the ladder and the process is lubricated by shafting others. Shafting a supplier is the safest thing there, so if you advertise an expensive hobby, that can be used against you. I know many people who are carefully anonymous on forums simply due to this.
Not a problem with a reasonable customer, but many customers aren't.
Then you get the issue of company social media policy. Many people flout these policies, and from time to time they vanish :) In fact this, or getting a new job at a company which is strict about it, is a big reason for people vanishing from forums.
I too don't really care much about privacy. For a start, anybody who writes more than a line or two will be identified across forums, by the use of language (not least because that is a fairly rare skill ;) ).
I still don't get this stuff about VPNs. They only conceal the IP. The other 30 or whatever items of data which the browser sends to the server will still be duly delivered. Some of these you can modify (browser agent etc) but some not and e.g. you could easily be using a laptop of a certain age which has an unusual size screen which immediately makes you 1 in 10k of users.
ataradov:
--- Quote from: peter-h on May 09, 2021, 08:13:30 pm ---They only conceal the IP. The other 30 or whatever items of data which the browser sends to the server will still be duly delivered.
--- End quote ---
It is fine. I don't mind if destination site can identify and track me. I'm likely to be logged in anyway. After all, they will still be able to track only the activity on their site.
The concern here is my ISP being able to track every single site I visit. And the danger is that if ISP does not like what I do, they have the power to cut off my internet access (which in the US sucks, since there are not too many alternatives). And this does not have to be anything illegal. Let's say they don't like that you watch too much YouTube and not enough of their own bullshit TV service.
If individual site cuts me off if they don't like what I do there, I mostly won't care.
David Hess:
--- Quote from: ataradov on May 09, 2021, 08:29:57 pm ---The concern here is my ISP being able to track every single site I visit. And the danger is that if ISP does not like what I do, they have the power to cut off my internet access (which in the US sucks, since there are not too many alternatives). And this does not have to be anything illegal. Let's say they don't like that you watch too much YouTube and not enough of their own bullshit TV service.
--- End quote ---
ISPs do more than that. When I had AT&T U-Verse, I was able to confirm that they were transparently proxying every protocol possible, leading to all kinds of bizarre connection problems. It was so bad that operating with a VPN to a point half way across the US yielded lower latency to any destination, including local ones on AT&T's own network. It also prevented AT&T from intercepting and substituting their own DNS results.
james_s:
I use a VPN whenever I'm at our cabin, we borrow WiFi from the neighbor (with permission) however it is not a very well secured connection so I use a router to uplink to their 5GHz WiFi as the WAN and then a VPN client runs on the router and feeds my 2.4G network. I also use a VPN on my laptop whenever I'm using a network that I don't own. It's almost no effort since I have the VPN anyway.
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