VPN keep no logs but are users anonymous?

Discussion in 'privacy technology' started by david banner, Dec 8, 2015.

  1. david banner

    david banner Registered Member

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  2. mirimir

    mirimir Registered Member

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    Bottom line, you never know what logs are being retained, or by whom. Even if VPN providers don't log, their hosting providers and/or ISPs may log. So it's prudent to assume that traffic is logged, and that logs are retained. A single VPN service doesn't provide anything like anonymity. Even a nested chain of three or four VPN services doesn't match Tor. But the risk profiles are different, so they complement each other.
     
  3. Joxx

    Joxx Registered Member

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    One question about Tor :
    is the signal encrypted/decrypted at my PC? Or can my ISP see the content (the site(s) I visited) and I'm only anonymous at the destination.
     
  4. mirimir

    mirimir Registered Member

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    @Joxx - Content is multiply encrypted between your PC and Tor entry guards. A layer of encryption gets removed at the entry guard, another at the middle relay, and the last (except for HTTPS or other end-to-end) at the exit node. Your ISP does see the Tor client negotiating a connection with the Tor network, but there's no user content in that. Your ISP knows what directory servers the client hits, and what entry guards it uses. But that's it.
     
  5. The Red Moon

    The Red Moon Registered Member

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    why do people wish to be totally anonymous on the web.
    What on earth have they do hide...?

    If anything using TOR or any other form of anonymity service makes you look more suspicious,especially to any surveillance.
     
  6. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    The what on earth have they to hide is the typical question to try and shame people for wanting privacy. I saw a blogger who said any time he hears that he asks the person for all his email passwords so he can peruse their email. Why not if they have nothing to hide. No one has yet to give him their passwords.
     
  7. mirimir

    mirimir Registered Member

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    Being gay in Saudi Arabia, for example. That's a capital offense. Or expressing displeasure with the Chinese government in the western provinces. Or dissing the king of Thailand. Or ...

    For me, it's mostly just pro bono work to help support people in such circumstances.
    For sure. I look suspicious as XXXX much of the time. But I could care less as long as "they" don't identify me. And indeed, it amuses me greatly that "they" may be wasting resources on me.
     
  8. Page42

    Page42 Registered Member

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    It's a troll question as far as I'm concerned.
     
  9. Joxx

    Joxx Registered Member

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  10. trott3r

    trott3r Registered Member

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    I dont agree it is a question that comes up frequently particularly in the UK from non techy people.
     
  11. mirimir

    mirimir Registered Member

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    It's arguably a question asked by people who don't empathize with those living under repressive regimes. And/or people who don't realize how repressive their own regime actually is. And trolls.
     
  12. marzametal

    marzametal Registered Member

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    There is always going to be some kind of logging, even if it is miniscule in size. There has to be, even for the purposes of diagnostics for networking, data storage etc... How can a data centre survive without conducting checks and storing details... it all comes down to how in-depth and strict the criteria was when the VPN decided to choose "that" data centre.

    ~Comments removed~
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 8, 2015
  13. caspian

    caspian Registered Member

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    If a person runs a VPN on their real machine and then runs a VM with another VPN, and then starts up the Tor Browser, I would assume that this would make traffic analysis much more difficult.
     
  14. mirimir

    mirimir Registered Member

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    Yep :thumb:
     
  15. caspian

    caspian Registered Member

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    There are a lot of reasons for various people around the world. And a lot of people are sick and tired of being tracked and having their personal data stored and sold and that sort of thing. So maybe another question might be, "why is it so important for people to spy on citizens and invade their space without their permission"? ...Another reason, too, is that it's kind of fun. Sort of a puzzle to play with.
     
  16. Palancar

    Palancar Registered Member

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    Hey, are you looking over my shoulder? LOL!
     
  17. caspian

    caspian Registered Member

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    Haha!... No, just simple enough for someone like me. I think it's pretty cool.
     
  18. imdb

    imdb Registered Member

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  19. deBoetie

    deBoetie Registered Member

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    GCHQ's "Optic Nerve" program collected images from Yahoo webcam sessions. Apparently some of the analysts were distressed by the prevalence of teenage "exposure". Nothing to hide?

    We are now entering an era where, apparently, according to Google's Schmidt, all our utterances will likely be algorithmically scanned for "hate speech". Anyone who knows about the perils of false positives will be pretty alarmed at this, and consider that anonymity is a really good idea.

    From a business point of view, it's my opinion that data protection authorities are negligent in failing to make all B2B communications encrypted, in transit and at rest. In addition, if their directors were fulfilling their fiduciary responsibilities to their shareholders, they would also anonomise their communications. For example, it's well known that with mass surveillance and data mining, you can pick up the patterns of communications that occur when there's merger and acquisition activities going on (and that's just with the metadata) - which, rather obviously, you want to be keeping private, because you do have something to hide from at least foreign state actors (they'll tip off their own companies or indulge in a little institutionalised insider dealing). Foreign state actors are inevitably involved given the extent of data sharing between the X-eyes, and spying is principally about economic information.
     
  20. mirimir

    mirimir Registered Member

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    One time, I asked a lawyer friend whether he encrypted email. He said no, because adversaries couldn't legally use anything that they managed to intercept. That seems naive, given the ease of parallel construction.
     
  21. Palancar

    Palancar Registered Member

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    Extending that some:

    Tell that to a victim of credit identity theft! "Bad guys" didn't legally use what they discovered either, but someone still has to clean up the mess it left all over their life. The legality of any of this is meaningless as a defense.
     
  22. mirimir

    mirimir Registered Member

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    Right. I once had my identity borrowed by an employee of a private mailbox business. But the owner caught it, and sent the relevant mail to me. It was easy to sort out, through "it's not me" letters.
     
  23. deBoetie

    deBoetie Registered Member

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    Legality and the rule of law seem to be disposable concepts, and beyond the nominal bad guys, we have shyster lawyers paid out of public money to make extraordinary interpretations of law (in secret of course) to claim that whatever the administration wants is "legal". So, for example, if I wanted redress for intellectual property theft, distributed in an uncontrolled way though the X-eyes, I've got real fun even getting standing, and fighting a court battle against people with limitless funds and the get-out-of-jail national security defence.
     
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