Say I was watching phub would my isp log show up with the timestamp and device that it was on with a VPN on?
Thanks.
The ISP will see that you have connected to a VPN server, check out DNS leak though.
No, but VPN provider will.
WIth VPN you don’t hide yourself, you only move it one step further from you. And don’t believe in “…no logs kept…” fairy tales. If you believe in that and if you need that - don’t do it.
NO, VPN connection is encrypted
In so many words, no. (And wiser heads, please correct me if I’m wrong here…)
Without a VPN, your ISP can monitor your internet use, if they chose to do so. So they would be able to see what websites you browsed to, if not what content you actually viewed.
But with a VPN, your ISP will only see that you are connected through to a VPN service. They would not be able to see what pages you viewed, what sites you browsed, etc. All they would know is that you are using the internet. That’s it.
In my experience though, unless you’re talking about a business big enough to be their own ISP, they don’t worry about porn. If ISPs began policing porn they would kill themselves off. But if it is a corporate ISP, they may block VPN tunnells through their network altogether, making your VPN service unusable.
With a properly configured VPN, no, they can’t see what websites you visit. DNS leaks is the most common configuration error that would allow them to see.
What they still can see is the IP you’re connected to (which may be easily traceable to a specific VPN, and a graph of your up/down traffic over time. That graph would allow one to deduce a few things, especially video streaming, downloading large files, or two-way video chatting. But it wouldn’t reveal anything more about those activities like whether it was Netflix or Pornhub.
To complete the information here:
Using a VPN encrypts data yes, but if you are still using the ISP’s DNS servers your ISP can still see what sites you visited since the DNS requests are routed through their DNS Servers.
First layer of defense should be to obfuscate your requests, you can do this by using encrypted DNS services like: DnsCrypt via QUAD9, Cloudflare, etc.
good source is:
https://quad9.net/news/blog/dns-crypt-and-more-doh-support-live-via-dnscrypt/
To test your setup:
https://on.quad9.net/
if you choose to go the CloudFlare way:
https://one.one.one.one/help/
Completing this first layer of defense makes it unable to see what DNS requests you made.
Second layer of defense is to encrypt your actual data packets, using a VPN solves this.
Make sure to choose a VPN service that has actually proven to have a No-Logs Policy. NordVpn is one of them.
hope this helps.
Stay off your mom’s computer.
Https is also encrypted, it can still see what websites you are visiting
You’re assuming OP is American, or even from any Western nation. Plenty of countries will give you the death penalty or worse for viewing ‘lewd or offensive materials’.
OP: Use encrypted DNS (DoH, DoT) and verify it. Since Firefox removed draft esni support you’re out of luck without a VPN though (encrypted DNS and https sites will still leak domains to your ISP due to SNI). With a working VPN, you’ll be safe from your ISP assuming VPNs aren’t themselves illegal where you live.
TLDR: Use a VPN that covers IPv4 and IPv6, check for leaks. If that’s working ok you only have to worry about your VPN provider not your ISP.
This happens even if the DNS server is changed?
After getting busted 15 years ago using a Torrent stream, I had to sign an agreement with my ISP not to do it again. They also said I couldn’t use a VPN. Are they likely to bust me for a VPN (I will never download a torrent again) even though I’m guessing when I was downloading a movie, they got an email from the company who identified only my ISP? I can’t really risk losing my ISP since their the only one in my rural area. But I find it creepy they could access my Xbox when I called for speed improvements and they wanted to test my line with it. I don’t think they can watch me playing my games, but I don’t like that they can probably access my financial info. I have saved passwords for everything.
Https is application layer protocol, ip addresses works in network layer. Vpn encrypts the whole packet, and encapsulate it into ip address of vpn server where it gets decrypt.
Which countries would do that?
In so many words again, yes.
DNS does nothing at all to hide your internet activity. As an analogy, it’s like swapping out one English-to-French dictionary for a different one. You’re still translating into French, and everyone in France will still understand you. Swapping DNS servers just gives you the same information, but coming from a different place.
It’s illegal in most Muslim countries. Viewers can face a minimum of 10 years in prison and 300,000 dollar fine.
It’s also illegal in some African countries (many Islamic) and some Eastern European countries.
Iran may be the only country where the death penalty was the case.
DNS is more about protecting the contents, not the transaction itself. It is also meant to protect against humans, not computers.