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Angry Jesus writes:
"The TorrentFreak news site just released their latest annual survey of VPN providers' privacy policies. The results are very encouraging: it seems that the idea that online privacy is important is becoming more widespread and the price is quite affordable, just a few dollars a month.
For nearly a year I've been using one of the VPN services on their list. Not so much for the anonymous bit-torrent capability, but rather to frustrate Big Data's attempts to track me. I typically use domestic USA end-points and switch between 10-20 of them during the course of the day. That is coupled with various privacy extensions to Firefox (blocking cookies, JavaScript, Flash, ads, cross-site includes, and randomizing my user-agent). So far, I've been quite happy with how it has worked out. Even if I can't protect myself from the NSA, I can protect myself from just about everyone else."
(Score: 1, Redundant) by GungnirSniper on Monday March 17 2014, @01:09AM
TorrentFreak is sponsored by Private Internet Access and BTGuard, as listed on the right side banners.
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(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Monday March 17 2014, @01:15AM
There are a total of 27 providers on the list, "several" of which are TorrentFreak sponsors.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Informative) by Fluffeh on Monday March 17 2014, @02:17AM
They did also publish a dirty list the other day (can't find the link from where I am at the moment though) but they do seem to get cranky when VPNs hand out information that they claim not to hand out. The last set of reviews similar to this that I saw also actually had each site sponsor listed clearly as such. They seem to be quite transparent about this sort of thing.
I personally don't see this as some sort of breach of trust on their part. They don't hide it and I think they give fair reviews to the various services.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Fluffeh on Monday March 17 2014, @08:26AM
This was the link I couldn't get to before [torrentfreak.com].
(Score: 4, Informative) by mrbluze on Monday March 17 2014, @01:22AM
A VPN is useful for a lot of things, but if it's privacy you want, then it is safer to assume you won't get it with a VPN. Your IP address is only the very beginning of where your privacy is breached. Using a tunnelled connection however means you can have just one enabled port on your router, which can take a few headaches away.. Provided your router isn't rooted already.
Do it yourself, 'cause no one else will do it yourself.
(Score: 1) by bugamn on Monday March 17 2014, @02:05AM
This. Is there a solution for the problem of e-mail metadata, for example?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Fluffeh on Monday March 17 2014, @02:13AM
You can always connect to an online email client only via a TOR connection I suppose - though of course, the powers that be will see TOR on your PC and BAM! You're a terrorist clearly. The other side is of course, if you forget to use TOR so much as once, and your IP is in the logs of said email provider - so no point in hiding after that.
I generally find meltmail to be a great way to hide my real email address - though I mainly use it for spam avoidance. You just go there, pop in your email address, say how long you want forwarding for (3,6,12 hours from memory) and they give you an alias generated one - and they at least claim - that the generated one will a) be completely destroyed after the period and b) that they don't keep logs of what happens in the meantime.
While I can't guarantee that they do either, I can certainly vouch that it doesn't generate spam to your mailbox. I use it all the time when making purchases online where I don't want an endless torrent of spam coming my way. For that at least I can say with surety that it works perfectly. That's not to say it wouldn't get caught up in some MDGB (meta-data-gathering-bullshit) but it's something at least.