Strong OpenVPN - choosing a router

WiTopia is not a good trust, NEVER trust a VPN in the USA for doing P2P, BIG MISTAKE!

I mentioned to you before to check out Bolehn VPN...


P.S. My bad double post...

 

Dear DasFox,

As far as P2P is concerned, the privacy is not a issue. When you install a P2P software on your PC, you allow access to everyone to part of your PC, which is supposedly controlled by P2P. From this part a good hacker can/may/could take control of other parts of your PC.

Anyhow in conclusion, I don't use P2P as my needs are in Rock And Roll Music. For this I own every record, cassette and then CD of the same artist. These are about 400s of records, then cassettes and then CDs and they need my Music need excellently. I do divelge once a while in Classicals, Blues, Jazz.

Best regards,

KOR!

 

Well it wasn't a "mistake", since I'm not using them. And since they don't support P2P you couldn't make that mistake anyhow. They sound on the surface like a reputable company to me. I'm inclined not to trust the US vendors myself in general, but at the same time won't condemn them simply for being US based.

So am I okay using one based somewhere else (like for example Sweden), that uses US servers? Since those servers are located in the US, wouldn't they be at the mercy of US regulations regarding privacy anyway, thereby somewhat negating the fact that they're not US based anyway?

 

I just checked Bolehn VPN site. They claim they have servers in USA, Western Europe and Asia. Thus, like any VPN service if they operate in those countries, their records can be had by those governments under the Terroism and Privacy Laws.

If they say, otherwise then they are lying.

Best regards,

KOR!

 

Very well said, you took the words out of my mouth.

Best regards,

KOR!

 

Dear Luciddream,

I am not a security nut at all.

I have minimal security on my PC. I even own lifetime license to Sandboxie which allows me to use it on all my nine PCs at home. Bought it but never use it as it is always broken or I don't know how to properly use it.

However, I don't know much about P2P, but knowingly I wouldn't allow anyone let alone the whole world to have access to part of my computer. Again, I don't know much about P2P.

Best regards,

KOR!

 

Sercurity and Privacy are two seperate issues.

I don't use VPN for privacy. I use VPN for Skype and for security at transmitting data at public places. Therefore, I don't use VPN at home most of the time.

Best regards,

KOR!

 

Well the only part of my computer they would have access to would be the file I'm downloading at the time, which is running sandboxed and isolated from the rest of my computer.

I'm sure somebody that's really good, if properly motivated may be able to do something to screw me despite my measures in place, but it would be difficult. It's yet to happen (knock on wood).

As it almost always the case, uninformed end users are the biggest risk, not the products themselves. If used properly P2P can be pretty safe. I've never in my life been compromised using it. All attempted attacks have come from my browser. I'm willing to bet that's the case with almost everybody, but that isn't stopping people from continuing to use them.

I've heard that Skype presents some possible vectors to exploit as well. I don't use it and am as oblivious to how it works as you are with P2P probably, but I reckon you know how to tie it down to greatly minimize the risk. Same idea.

 

Agreed. I only fire Skype up when I am making those toll-free numbers. The new version of Skype is even tied to Facebook.

 

2 more things I do to tie it down are give it (UT) and it's output folder it's own partition, and pick a new port (between 49152 & 65535) every session.

I scan it with 4 things (Avira, Hitman Pro, MB & SAS) before moving it to my data partition. And adding a VPN would add another layer, that of anonymity.

I guess the only way we can truly, 100% be safe is a physical disconnect. Anything short of that and there's a chance, however slim, of being compromised. The goal is to be as secure as you can while still getting whatever functionality you need/want from your computer. And to me P2P is one of those wants.

I was entertaining the idea of paying for a file sharing site like Megaupload and eliminating this vector though. In fact I may start a thread in software/services asking for recommendations on such sites.

 

Your making generalizations with no facts to back up anything you're saying. The fact is, anything you do on a computer can be just as safe or just as unsafe and using P2P doesn't make it necessarily better or worse...

Please don't make generalizations without facts, you're just going to scare people unnecessarily.

I'm not condemning anyone because they are US based, you are missing the point here as to why you don't want to mess with the US based companies. The people aren't the problem, it's the big American movie and music companies and the USA government you need to be worried about, it will get you busted easier, because of the RIAA or MPAA, so ring any bells with those names, because it should.

Any VPN provider with servers in another country is under jurisdiction to some point or another...

Bolehn certainly does have servers around the world, but they are based in Malaysia, so it's going to be harder for someone to get busted with an offshore VPN, but I certainly would not recommend using an offshore VPN and then using a USA IP either...

Using USA IPs with an overseas provider will be safer then using USA IPs from a USA provider, of course it also depends on the cooperation and willingness of the overseas country that VPN provider is in as well...

I say if you can afford to avoid USA IPs then avoid it, no matter where the location is...

luciddream, you're also talking about all the security apps you use on Windows and security problems in general, if you really care to be safer start getting into Linux and doing all this under a Linux/Unix based system, because out the box with a lack of experience Linux is going to be a lot safer...

Distrowatch;
http://distrowatch.com/

Even with a high level of experience, I'd never get online anymore in Windows, there are just to many problems to overcome...

 

There's just too many things I use that won't work on other OS's, games and emulators mainly. I've hardened the crap out of XP Pro... maybe too much. It may have something to do with why I'm having trouble getting OpenVPN to work right now. I've made so many tweaks over time any one (or several) of them could be inhibiting me right now.

 

Standard security, common sense and no P2P. That's is the only security one needs, unless one is paranoid.

Best regards,

KOR!

 

It's called 'Dual Boot' run Unix/Linux online, stay offline in Windows...

Or use a VM if you can't live a day without Windows, hehe...