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Old 08-25-15, 09:53 AM   #14
AC_Hacker
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SDMCF View Post
...I have used a VPN service for working with one particular customer, but I am no expert.
I have been investigating and using a VPN service for about half a year now, and it is very interesting...

There is a technique called 'geo-location' by which content providers can serve up content tailored to your geographic location. Google uses this technique to an amazing extent, so if you are searching for 'hardware store' it will return information that prioritizes hardware stores in your locale. In that case it is benign.

It can also give you the illusion that you are searching the whole planet for information, when in fact your search field is actually more limited than you may assume. So, VIP services can allow you to choose your location in the world, so that from a server's point of view, you are actually where you have chosen to be. This can open up very promising possibilities if you have an interest in other parts of the world, and what are the cultural offerings, and for me, even more importantly, what is the news content that is available. Of course, if you are convinced that the news we get in the US is the best in the world, this would not be an attractive feature.

I have discovered that there is wonderful cultural content that is available from BBC, that is not available if your geo-location is not in the UK. And if you don't know this, the BBC content that is available through PBS is pre-filtered by BBC (what do they want US audiences to see) and also by PBS (what do they want US audiences to see), so we never see the amazing, rich, and sophisticated content that is daily fair in the UK. This has given me a glimpse into the impact of "free TV", and what a terrific price we pay for it in terms not only of the intentionally deadening effect of continual bombardment of commercial messages, but even more insidious, the invisible censorship wielded by commercial sponsors. If we really had a democratic government that was sensitive to the will of the people, this would not be our fate.

Additionally, as you surely know, VPN uses 'tunnels', which are constantly monitoring for intrusion (and will re-route themselves if intrusion attempts are detected), through which encrypted data flows. One result of this is that your true IP address is impossible to determine.

There are different ways to do VPN, and after some research I have determined that OpenVPN is te best from an ease of deployment perspective and from the perspective of the robustness of the encryption.

Since I have come to realize the extent to which corporations are tracking and recording all data pertaining to Internet behavior and exploiting that data in any way that can result in making money, and also the extent of government intrusion (Snowden revealed that corporations share their information with the government, so it's all the same), even though I am doing nothing wrong, the Constitution did grant me privacy rights, which I am determined to keep.

I also have several computers, and 'Internet devices', some of which are not capable of running a VPN service. So I have found that there are commercial routers which will provide VPN security to your entire network. The commercial VPN routers that use OpenVPN are few in number. A good commercial VPN router should have encryption in hardware, to support good bandwidth.

I have also discovered that certain DD-WRT and Tomato builds are custom firmwares can be installed on select routers. The result is a cheap and effective VPN router. So, I have a hobby of seeking out used routers (usually less than $10) from the 'selection list' and re-configuring them to be OpenVPN routers. I have discovered that since these routers were never meant for VPN use, they don't have hardware encryption. Rather they rely on the CPU to do the heavy lifting. So I am seeking used wireless routers with the highest CPU speed.

VPN processing can consume a lot of the CPU capacity of home routers, and if your Internet bandwidth is high, the homemade VPN router may not be able to keep up, unless your router has a hardware encryption capability. My best DD-WRT conversion is able to support 17 Mbps down, with no crypto chip.

There are certain lower-priced CPUs that do have crypto ability, like certain Atom, VIA, AMD, and ARM CPUs. A bit of sleuthing will tell you which.

There are some projects going on that I am following, wherein people are building their own VPN routers with crypto-enabled CPUs. There are some very small micro-ATX computer boards that perfectly fit the hardware bill. These projects are using pfSense rather than DD-WRT or Tomato.

A lot of people outside the US use VPNs to enable them to see NetFlix from the US, because NetFlix uses geo-location, too. Which means that there is NetFlix content that we don't have access to, either.

There may be some BT activity also, but I can't say for sure.

My favorite VPN service is PIA (Private Internet Access) which is only $40 a year, and they keep NO (zero) records.

Best,

-AC
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Last edited by AC_Hacker; 08-25-15 at 10:46 AM..
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