Locking Down/Making Invisable Mac Products

[Ah Pook]

I know, asking these questions on an open forum can be counter intuitive.

That said, best VPN (Express, Proton...etc). Benefits of a VPN on a router? Are open source encryption apps worth it? Suggestions? Other ways to block surveillance, tracking, history...?

Not doing anything nefarious, just want to be left alone.

TIA

[ChadAmberg]

I know, asking these questions on an open forum can be counter intuitive.

That said, best VPN (Express, Proton...etc). Benefits of a VPN on a router? Are open source encryption apps worth it? Suggestions? Other ways to block surveillance, tracking, history...?

Not doing anything nefarious, just want to be left alone.

TIA

I like NordVPN. I have it set that if I'm not on my home wifi it activates on my laptop or phone. VPN on a router has always been iffy, a lot of sites block access if you're coming from a VPN gateway, so I want to be able to turn it on or off easily.

For encrypted files, I have a Veracrypt drive that I keep copies of important documents on. It's the next generation of Truecrypt.

[thedave1164]

not trying to be a smart ass, but every keystroke you make is out there forever in the ethernet, if someone wants to find it they will.
they are tracking everything, credit card/debit card use
bank transactions
cell phone use
your cell phone and other IoT devices are listening
they track what you watch on tv
where your car is serviced
where you buy fuel
when you go into stores, where you go in stores and what you buy
USPS mail is scanned, UPS and FedEX too

[bradbn4]

Key: VPN is just one step to make things secure.

Is VPN on a router more useful? Yes; not all devices can have the s/w installed

Can VPN be a Pain? Yes; some software like Amazon Prime detect your IP address is from a VPN "bank" and will prevent access to some of the content. Are free VPN's worth while? Yes, but not as much as you think. You just traded who tracks you from your ISP to your VPN provider.

To be more protected you need VPN, a good secure e-mail accounts, TOR style access. No "worth while" social media posts that can detect something more than your like of flavors in ice cream.

If you buy stuff and have it shipped to your address; that is another tracking item....

If you use a credit card; yet another tracking item.

If you have a unique h/w configuration for your computer - that info can finger print your hardware. (remember if you have network hardware it will have an MAC address; while not 100% unique it can pretty much nail down what machine you have.)

[battlemidget]

I advise against VPNs for non-pro use.

[Grant H.]

I advise against VPNs for non-pro use.

I'd really like to see you expound on this...

[bradbn4]

I use VPN's for work every day and for that it is well worth the overhead.
I would only consider free to use VPN for my laptop accessing open wifi - even then I would not want to use open wifi for anything business - or dealing with secure logon access. I would say commercial VPN would be my only real choice.

Most folks think VPN solves lots of security issues; nope - it pushes the security issue from the local ISP to the remote VPN servers.


Now if I had my own VPN setup between my remote laptop and a specific server at home; now that would provide a good layer of security. I have seen folks use this to tunnel in from point A to point B so they could watch a blocked site like YouTube.

[Grant H.]

I use VPN's for work every day and for that it is well worth the overhead.
I would only consider free to use VPN for my laptop accessing open wifi - even then I would not want to use open wifi for anything business - or dealing with secure logon access. I would say commercial VPN would be my only real choice.

Most folks think VPN solves lots of security issues; nope - it pushes the security issue from the local ISP to the remote VPN servers.


Now if I had my own VPN setup between my remote laptop and a specific server at home; now that would provide a good layer of security. I have seen folks use this to tunnel in from point A to point B so they could watch a blocked site like YouTube.

If you are interested in a VPN to your house, I would suggest looking at https://pivpn.io/

Cheap to get an RPI, easy to install/build, and it works great.

[arbol]

My understanding is that the best thing for internet privacy today is the TOR Project.

https://www.torproject.org/download/

What it does is bounce every request you make around 5 or more TOR servers, and finally it comes out on the other side.

It is NOT perfect, and the authorities, etc., have technology to fingerprint your browser, etc.

The authorities likely manage one or more TOR servers.

It's also slow, since it has to bounce your request around between multiple servers.

But, it is the best thing you can do when you are looking for internet privacy.