I recently received a threatening letter (actually an email) from my ISP about using Bit/Torrent and so I began to try to learn and understand about VPNs and related tools. I purchased a license from one VPN provider and if using a VPN stops people froms sending me these threatening letters. I think that using a VPN is a real good idea (providing they work as advertised). FYI, other Bit / Torrent sites have posted articles that recommend specific VPN products. I'm guessing that since this site (as well as TPB) does not seem to post any similar articles that it's probably not permitted here to discuss specific products or link to the web sites belonging to the developers of those products.
By the way, when I say "threatening letters", I should make it clear the letter didn't actually specifically threaten me with anything. But it did make it seem like I could get into trouble for using Bit/Torrent. Fortunately, I read an article that explained that if I used a VPN, I would not get any more of these kinds of letters. I'm not certain what the rules are in this forum for what can be discussed and what cannot be discussed and I see a number of links have been removed from posts. I figure the mods here do not want people to post links to commercial sites because that could be a form of advertising and it's a very slippery slope from someone discussing a commercial product and then providing a link to a site that sells that product and then spamming this forum with advertisements. It seems to me that is just common sense. I have begun to read the FAQ and learned quite a bit so far about what is allowed to be posted and what is not allowed. But I've only just begun to learn and I need to know more.
But I'd like to start by posting a Private Message I received from someone who seems to know what they are talking about and asking for your opinions as to the accuracy of this message. Perhaps later on, when I feel more confident that I know what is permitted and what is not permitted, I will ask for your opinions of other commercial products. But I joined a discussion about VPNs on another board and made it known that I wanted to understand just what a VPN is and what it can do for me and what it can't do.
I think I'm probably safe in saying that I received one of those letters from my ISP and it seriously scared me. I tried to learn as much as I could on my own about what was going on. Thank goodness I did not reply to the letter and I'm guessing that most everyone here knows that it's a bad idea to ever reply to any of those letters (Emails, actually) because that provides the bad guys with your identity and that is not a good thing to do. Anyway, one of the more knowledgeable people in that discussion sent me the following private message that contains advice on how to best protect my privacy. I changed it a little bit so no one could positively identify the sender. But here is what it said:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Don't let the bad guys into your machine. Protect it with a firewall. Use antivirus.
2. Don't send sensitive traffic in clear text. That means either use a VPN to cover all bases, or at least be aware of when you're communicating in the clear (when you use your banking site, there ought to be a little green lock icon in the address bar... that means it's using HTTPS rather than HTTP). Use PGP encryption for your email (the other party has to use it too, so it's a hassle).
3. When you visit "illegal.site.com", encryption will hide the nature of your activity but your IP address will still give you away. (Or optimistically, if you're fighting for freedom in an oppressive government). This is where the anonymous proxy comes in. It lets you masquerade as some other IP address. Now, this is of limited use. That other IP address has probably already been blacklisted as being sketchy. Or, that proxy may be secretly operated or monitored by hostile parties. So, that brings us to:
4. TOR is the ultimate anonymizer/proxy. It is slow. But it is effectively impenetrable. (web address removed).
5. Never us Facebook.
6. Never use mobile devices.
Note that even with all these solutions in mind, communications are only as secure as the data and the counterparty. Meaning, if you go to illegalstuff.com with your encrypted traffic and anonymized address, and then post some revealing facts about yourself, then people will be able to read those facts and they could use them against you. So do not reveal anything about yourself using clear text that you don't want the bad guys to be able to read.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm posting this PM here mostly in case anyone here has never heard of TOR. This fellow claims that TOR is the ultimate protection. I had never heard of it before. I removed the link to TOR. It is software that provides several functions. You can use Google to search for it and read about it if you want to. I decided to avoid using it because he seems to think it is so very slow. But what do you think? Is it worth using TOR (which I believe is freeware)? Or would it be better to purchase a license to a faster commercial product? My primary goal is to protect myself from problems associated with sharing files when using Bit / Torrent.
But I would also like to protect myself from ID theft as well as just making myself as anonymous as possible as a general precaution. I think it's a good idea to learn how to be as anonymous as possible. Although, at some point, there must be a point where the effort required to learn about these products and techniques outweigh the advantages of maintaining a high level of anonymity. Would anyone be able to point me to a general purpose thread that describes and/or recommends some of these products and/or techniques? Thank you.
I have begun to read the article linked to in post #46 above and I thank you for posting that link. But I still need to understand more about the nature of VPNs and related products so that I can figure out just how safe I am when using some of these products.
I have read about using "Private Windows" in Firefox and they have some use. But they don't seem to help make me anonymous from the site to which I am connecting. The information about "Private Windows" does contain info about how to stop any site from accessing or storing cookies on my machine and that is useful. But even when using my VPN and using a "Private Window" in Fire fox and blocking cookies too, I'm still not anonymous to the site to which I am connecting. So, I think I must be missing at least one important component or I must not understand at least one important component.
Spud17 edited Mar 22, 2016 05:24 am this post because:
Post split from the VPN thread and merged with this one. Stay on topic if you're replying to existing threads.
|
