Comment on You probably don't need a VPN

mateomaui@reddthat.com ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

• GammaGames@beehaw.org ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  The opening sentence explained the reasoning behind the article sufficiently, this was mostly a response to VON marketing tactics:

  Virtual Private Networks, or VPNs, are popular services for (supposedly) increasing your security and privacy on the internet. They are often marketed as all-encompassing security tools, and something that you absolutely need to keep hackers at bay. However, many of the selling points for VPNs are exaggerated or just outright false.

  They’re not the only ones pointing this out, either. Tom Scott released a video on the topic a few years ago

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  • mateomaui@reddthat.com ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Your comment in no way negates my observation.

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    • GammaGames@beehaw.org ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I was simply adding information your comment had left out, it wasn’t negating information at all. So congrats on getting the point, not everyone is trying to argue 🎉

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      • mateomaui@reddthat.com ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        You may want to reconsider your phrasing then if you don’t want it to appear to be argumentative.

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  • adespoton@lemmy.ca ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    …and since then, Tom Scott took a NordVPN sponsorship. And possibly SurfShark too?

    He found that it was actually useful while in countries with questionable Internet access.

    Personally, I just host my own VPN, so no matter where I am, all my traffic exits from my home ISP. I figure they’re at least accountable to the same laws I am.

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    • _MusicJunkie@beehaw.org ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      But that’s the thing. When that Video was made, almost all of the advertising was focused on the same BS the article is disagreeing with.

      I remember lots of NordVPN ads by uninformed nontechnical creators just reading the provided script. Saying that Balaklava wearing hackers will steal your credit card data just by being in the same cafe as you, and only an expensive VPN subscription can protect you from that.

      This sort of advertising is what Tom Scott critizied back then. IIRC he even said that there are real use cases, but that you shouldn’t believe the fearmongering. Same as the article.

      The fearmongering advertising was the problem, not advertising the service itself.

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  • otter@lemmy.ca ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Yep, articles have different audiences.

    Sure one group might understand why a tool exists and use it effectively, but there are also companies over-selling their capabilities and people are using it for things it doesn’t help with.

    This article is for them, simple as that

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  • helenslunch@feddit.nl ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Tom Scott released a video on the topic a few years ago to explain why he never took a VPN sponsorship

    The opening scene of that video is from a VPN sponsorship he did.

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    • rallatsc@slrpnk.net ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      This is inaccurate, read the pinned comment on the video where he points out that the opening scene is entirely made up and isn’t about a real person.

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      • helenslunch@feddit.nl ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        I don’t understand. Of course it’s not about a real person, it’s about a VPN…

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• corbin@infosec.pub ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I don’t know if those useful features are the main reasons VPNs are used, though. There’s evidence they are used often for bypassing blocked sites (like VPN downloads jumping in Russia recently), most of the other advertised privacy and security benefits are questionable. Most of them don’t advertise torrenting/piracy because that’s a legal gray area.

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  • mateomaui@reddthat.com ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    My VPN advertises protected torrenting as a feature. Many do.

    And it’s pretty nondebatable that VPNs are advertised for getting around regional blocking for Netflix etc.

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    • adespoton@lemmy.ca ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Ironically, almost all the exit VPNs are owned by either China or Israel. With a few exceptions.

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      • mateomaui@reddthat.com ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        citation needed

        My VPN is headquartered in California, and actively removed their presence from Hong Kong once their security policy matched China’s, and removed themselves from Russia since that country was opposed to the zero logs policy.

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