Privacy/Security 101 for us numpties?

[TheFaQQer]

Using a VPN to keep you surfing habits private is not something people do so when you see people do it the first question to ask is why on earth are you doing that.

Rubbish - that used to be the case, but not any more. People are becoming more privacy conscious, and rightly so. One of the easiest ways to offer some protection is to use a VPN, and more people are using them now.

[TheFaQQer]

My one security thing is having lots of secure passwords - that said, I trust them to a third party provider.

I use PassPack which is free up to 100 passwords. You need a user name and password to log in, and then you also have a passphrase that they use as the hashing algorithm - so even if they get hacked and the data stolen, the hackers still need to hack each individual account with your passphrase to get to the actual password. There are more attractive hacking targets than something like that

I know there are others, but I was attracted to the idea of not having to install anything anywhere, apart from to stick an auto-login button on the toolbar in Firefox and Chromium for me. Sites that I think are pretty secure passwords / frequently used (e.g. email), I don't store in there.

[eek]

Rubbish - that used to be the case, but not any more. People are becoming more privacy conscious, and rightly so. One of the easiest ways to offer some protection is to use a VPN, and more people are using them now.

But a VPN doesn't change anything. It simply moves the point of snooping from point a to point b under a different ISP or country. It may just be me but I really can't see what legal benefits there are apart from getting round geographic restrictions to allow me to watch US telly and use Pandora instead of spotify.

[eek]

My one security thing is having lots of secure passwords - that said, I trust them to a third party provider.

I use PassPack which is free up to 100 passwords. You need a user name and password to log in, and then you also have a passphrase that they use as the hashing algorithm - so even if they get hacked and the data stolen, the hackers still need to hack each individual account with your passphrase to get to the actual password. There are more attractive hacking targets than something like that

I know there are others, but I was attracted to the idea of not having to install anything anywhere, apart from to stick an auto-login button on the toolbar in Firefox and Chromium for me. Sites that I think are pretty secure passwords / frequently used (e.g. email), I don't store in there.

What would happen if passpack disappeared from the net? How would you get into those websites then (not that I'm suggesting its likely to happen). Just looking at the potential risk.

[cojak]

And here's a website I've come across - it's American but still useful.

Online Privacy: Using the Internet Safely | Privacy Rights Clearinghouse

[TheFaQQer]

What would happen if passpack disappeared from the net? How would you get into those websites then (not that I'm suggesting its likely to happen). Just looking at the potential risk.

I'd use the password reset button on the places I log into.

You can download the passwords from Passpack as well, which I should really do and then keep them encrypted somewhere.

[TheFaQQer]

But a VPN doesn't change anything.

No - it changes everything, if used properly.

It simply moves the point of snooping from point a to point b under a different ISP or country.

Exactly. And if you move that point of snooping to somewhere that has a better privacy law, then you get better privacy protection.

[doodab]

The most obvious benefit of using a VPN to some other country is that it allows you to disguise your source IP address so your traffic appears to originate from elsewhere. Aside from circumventing geographic restrictions on streaming services the main reason you might want to do this is to prevent people tracing things back to you based on IP addresses appearing in server logs or on P2P networks. In many countries ISPs are obliged to keep track of who is assigned an IP address at a particular time and to hand this information over to the relevant authorities upon request, so having your traffic appear to come from a different source address provides a measure of protection.

As regards ISP snooping on my activity, I'm really not too worried about my ISP knowing I waste a lot of time on CUK & youporn, it makes little difference to me whether they have the potential to look at what I'm doing or some guy in Sweden does. If it came down to it I'd probably be less inclined to trust some foreign guy whose business model was predicated on facilitating dubious activities, although it's not as if either of them can look at any actual content because anything of import should be end to end encrypted anyway.

If you want to get paranoid have a google for cloudshield.

[d000hg]

If you torrent through a client through your normal connection, you should go back to school and learn how to use the internet

Making the claim that using proxies and hiding your usage from your ISP is the "proper" or "right" way to use the internet is just untrue.

Considering Wim has stated it is risky to the level of stupidity to put ANY of your data online, I wouldn't base a strategy on his advice.

[SimonMac]

Now the simplest way to make sure your broadband account is not in your own name, only fool proof way of not being convicted of torrenting