10-30-2016, 04:54 PM
One thought about VPNs is that if I were the NSA, I'd want to tap all that traffic exiting the VPN server (at which point it is no longer protected by the VPN tunnel.
I'm not saying you shouldn't use VPN, and it hides your use from your ISP (which might be especially useful if using P2P or streaming video that is geolocked). But the agencies must focus on looking at what comes out of VPN servers. Some VPN services will now bounce your data around between their servers, so you connect to one in country A, and they pass it over to their server in country B. Like a VPN within a VPN. But like TOR, that does slow things up.
I think VPNs are excellent security in public places. I wouldn't log into my bank account from free coffee shop wifi without using a VPN!
I'm not saying you shouldn't use VPN, and it hides your use from your ISP (which might be especially useful if using P2P or streaming video that is geolocked). But the agencies must focus on looking at what comes out of VPN servers. Some VPN services will now bounce your data around between their servers, so you connect to one in country A, and they pass it over to their server in country B. Like a VPN within a VPN. But like TOR, that does slow things up.
I think VPNs are excellent security in public places. I wouldn't log into my bank account from free coffee shop wifi without using a VPN!