[dba-Tech] Mozilla VPN for everyone.

[John Bartow]

By this account, we've both approached these things in a similar manner. 

Other than Facebook on which I mostly post satirical or cynical humor. If "da man" is going to come down on me for that, well, its nothing they couldn't watch me for a day and come up with anyway. 

A few years ago I started posting the old guy equivalent to "The 15 things girls post on Facebook list". I still need to get a photo pointing down at a of a bunch of ugly guy feet in a circle at the edge of the beach...

At least my nieces get a kick out of it.

-----Original Message-----
From: John Colby <jwcolby at gmail.com> 
Sent: Tuesday, October 30, 2018 4:36 PM
To: John Bartow <jbartow at winhaven.net>; Discussion of Hardware and Software issues <dba-tech at databaseadvisors.com>
Subject: Re: [dba-Tech] Mozilla VPN for everyone.

 >but the vast majority of people don't bother checking into anything anymore.

Of course you are correct.  However (I believe) the truth is that most of the VPNs strive for what they claim to be doing, assisting in reducing the public facing info available on a person.  And truth be told, anyone actively participating in Facebook, twitter and other such things is giving away all the personal stuff that a VPN is designed to hide.  For the "average" person I think this is all an exercise in futility for that exact reason, and an exercise in selling paranoia to make money.

As for me...

While a despise warrentless anything, I nevertheless hold a position of "I'm of no interest to the intelligence community". So while I acknowledge that such stuff goes on, and I don't like it on an ethical level, I don't particularly worry about being picked up in a sweep and charged with anything because I don't do bad stuff.

Which brings us to the "swept up and charged without valid reason".  I believe that happens as well.  It's kind of like being hit by a drunk driver.  It happens. But again I'm not living my life in fear of the "might could" mentality.

So I personally have just started (in the last year) started using a VPN.  I have reduced my facebook posts to a crawl, though what is already there already forms a valid outline of who I am. I don't do any of the other such things.  Which leaves web crawling and such.  Google and chrome are hellholes of such marketing intel gathering.  For me, getting a VPN up and running reduces that as far as possible and is my main focus in using a VPN.

I am working on getting my home router hooked up to the VPN I have selected.  Not a trivial task but doable.  Once that is done, all traffic from my home automatically goes through my VPN.

After that it is what to do and how convenient is it for my travel and personal devices "out there".  Phones, tablets on my personal wifi hotspot on my phone.  My laptop which I carry. Again this is really about marketing rather than criminal activities.  Just trying to reduce my footprint out there.  For that, the stuff from Firefox is another tool.


On 10/30/2018 2:44 PM, John Bartow wrote:
> Well, that kind of makes my point, if you think that but don't check it, you don't know. I know this most likely doesn't apply to any of the extremely intelligent people who subscribe to these lists but the vast majority of people don't bother checking into anything anymore. Or. Maybe worse yet, take advise from a quick spot on a television show.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: John Colby <jwcolby at gmail.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, October 30, 2018 10:28 AM
> To: Discussion of Hardware and Software issues 
> <dba-tech at databaseadvisors.com>; John Bartow <jbartow at winhaven.net>
> Subject: Re: [dba-Tech] Mozilla VPN for everyone.
>
> I think if your reason to exist is to hide a user's identity, then collecting information about said identity is going to be discovered and no one will use your service.  Even the CIA and NSA can't keep their secrets.  A VPN has to keep no logs and allow auditing to clearly demonstrate that fact.
>
>

--
John W. Colby