Alternative https://inv.tux.pizza/watch?v=pp-INfssWBo
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/mScd7BUo86o
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
If you’ve got something you’re that worried about keeping private, go home, and break everything with a computer chip, a radio/network. Because if it’s not listening now, it’s only an update away.
Why I just hand my browsing data over to my ISP (and so should you)
Why I let random websites have my unique location-specific identifier (and so should you)
Why would you hand your browsing data to the VPN company? It’s just moving the problem.
Didn’t watch the video, but… Traffic is often already encrypted with TLS or other encryption & you don’t have to use the ISP for DNS. This would cover a lot of the data you would be discussing. Instead if using these advertized commercial VPNs you are giving the data to those corporations instead which is hardly better in many cases—luckily most of your traffic is encrypted with TLS & you don’t have to use them for DNS …which takes us back to the previous statement for concerns.
There’s still value in VPNs for a several online activities (censorship, piracy, activism, etc.) & threat models to certain folks, but assuming the ISP is the bogeyman in most common scenarios for non-niche use cases is incorrect—but it isn’t how these commercial VPNs are selling themselves. If the ISPs possess the ability to break TLS encryption we’d have bigger issues to worry about & VPNs wouldn’t help. I would assume the video goes in this route but chooses the clickbait title for views.
Do ISP’s monitor or sell or pass on your data? Yes.
Do VPN’s? Depends on the VPN. Find one that doesn’t and can back that up with 3rd party audits and legal encounters.
So can a good VPN protect your privacy? No, not by themselves. A VPN is part of an overall toolkit to be as private as you personally would like to be. It can help protect your privacy, that’s all.
It’s really that simple.
3rd party audits and legal encounters
The problem I have with this is that audits or court cases do not prove that the server is only using that same exact code at the instant you are using it… changes to software are constantly made all the time, and they could all invalidate previous audits or presumptions of privacy or security.
Clickbait YouTuber is clickbait…
https://www.privacyguides.org/en/basics/vpn-overview/
Should I use a VPN?¶
Yes, almost certainly. A VPN has many advantages, including:
- Hiding your traffic from only your Internet Service Provider.
- Hiding your downloads (such as torrents) from your ISP and anti-piracy organizations.
- Hiding your IP from third-party websites and services, helping you blend in and preventing IP based tracking.
- Allowing you to bypass geo-restrictions on certain content.
VPNs can provide some of the same benefits Tor provides, such as hiding your IP from the websites you visit and geographically shifting your network traffic, and good VPN providers will not cooperate with e.g. legal authorities from oppressive regimes, especially if you choose a VPN provider outside your own jurisdiction.
VPNs cannot encrypt data outside the connection between your device and the VPN server. VPN providers can also see and modify your traffic the same way your ISP could, so there is still a level of trust you are placing in them. And there is no way to verify a VPN provider’s “no logging” policies in any way.
On a personal note, the common argument is VPN providers could be recording your traffic. But if you know for certain your ISP is recording your traffic and selling your data, which is most commercial ISPs in the West, then a VPN provider is a strict improvement. They may not be, but they’re not guaranteed to be. And your ISP is guaranteed to be.
A) as others have pointed out this is a rather shit video
B) I fucking hate the “and nor should you” trend. Fuck off with what I should or shouldn’t do, just give me the facts and I’ll decide for myself.
I don’t like the way it sounds, but I appreciate the honesty. Videos like this are always prescriptive, even if they present themselves as if they are a personal, “just for my needs” thing.
By the way, do you remember a video and Medium article posted by someone who was trying to convince us that big companies like Google aren’t really privacy invasive?
