On 08/06/2015 09:45 AM, Bob Bernstein wrote:
I became curious about the recent vpn thread here, and went browsing around the 'net. I was staggered (well, not really, that's just an expression, right?) to see the huge number of ventures offering free vpn. I know what vpn is, and what it does, and out of curiosity I have in the past set it up here with one of the isp's I do business with, who of course does not charge for that service. Otoh I do not recall setting up a pptp connection to join his vpn. It was more like an ssh tunnel iirc. Is pptp a new twist on an old dog -- I haven't read the phrase "chap secrets" since the Good Old BBS dialup days! -- and, quite frankly, I'm wondering what market supports all these "free" vpn providers? It can't be all those day traders wanting to use the hotel wifi to make their millions safely. So, here goes (send all the kids out of the room); is this all a porn thing? One is reminded of what happened to Usenet... Ok...thx!
The only "free" vpn providers I know of are free in the same sense as, well, Debian. They depend upon donations by users and the help of business entities who benefit from the community knowing of their donations. We can and should question the motives of these providers, but the ones I'm familiar with are driven by political and social passions that are probably a little more elevated and interesting than serving the lotion and kleenex crowd.
Take a look, for instance, at riseup.net.As for the motivations of the users themselves -- that's sort of the point, isn't it? I use a VPN for every user account that comes from my premises, and every time I connect to a public access point. The reasons I do that are:
a) It's no business of my ISP or the host network I'm using currently where I'm going or what I'm doing. People who fear their governments' interest in their communications should also cast a watchful eye at business. There are forces in the business community who would like to "customize" the Internet for each user. I'm not interested in helping them provide me a "richer" experience.
b) The use of the VPN with its encryption plus tools like torbrowser may help keep my information -- and more importantly to me -- the information of those who communicate with me a little safer. Some of the people I exchange information with are in danger because they want simply to discuss ideas with people in other cultures. Expressing wild concepts like education for females, or the possibility of said females not being treated as though they were chattel can get you killed in some places. It may be a very interesting and important conversation to me, but it's do or die for some of them.
Using encrypted e-mail or something like torbrowser through a VPN is the minimum precaution people should take IMO just to protect their own privacy. When the lives of others are at stake these are not enough, and other precautions have to be taken as well. I could jump through all the hoops I wanted to, but using my ISP-provided e-mail account (even with encrypted contents and directed through a VPN) for communications with people at risk would be laughable. Using encrypted contents on an e-mail server that doesn't keep the messages after delivery which is hosted by the VPN provider or by a third trusted party who doesn't log IP addresses begins to improve the safety of the communicators.
But who knows, maybe free VPNs are just a scam by the folks who sell us lotion and tissues.
;-) Jape