I keep seeing that people recommend to use VPN, to “not get caught”. But can’t people track back your IP even if you’re using a VPN?
Surely there has got to be someway of knowing what sites someone visited. What if the government wants to know and the VPNs are not collaborating with them.
VPNs are not exclusively used for illegal purposes, there are several legal reasons to use them and owning one in itself is not suspicious. As for a safe VPN, you’ll need to do your own research and trust no one, not even members of this sub. The industry can unfortunately be shady, and once you get into this it will be very surprising how many shills there are anywhere regarding VPNs. thatoneprivacysite.net is a reliable and trustworthy guideline, but it is not a one stop shop. I do not want to discourage you with this information, because VPNs are a necessity in today’s world if you care about your privacy and have any expectation of it.
So find reputable providers that have a track record for not working with governments? Or a provider that has a clearly stated and proven no logs policy? Also yes vpns do hide your traffic. This does not make them a tool for illegal practices. They are a privacy and security measure first and foremost.
It all depends on what you are doing. A VPN provides privacy more than it provides security. A dedicated attacker could conceivably break your security with a VPN. For simple piracy, no one cares. Like /u/walugui says, it provides plausible deniability to your ISP, and the copyright trolls aren’t going to put the money into catching you unless you are acting on a large scale.
If you are doing things that require a higher level of security, a VPN is probably not the best choice. Something like TOR is probably better, but that is a whole new can of worms that I am not qualified to give advice on.
So to answer your question, if law enforcent catches your VPNs I.P. they will contact the VPN-provider and ask to hand out the user info to get your real I.P. and adress. If your VPN is trustworthy, they’ll keep no logs and you’re safe. If they aren’t, they will hand over the info.
As long as you stay away from the free VPNs, you won’t get caught. It’s important to consider the encryption protocols they use. To get a better sense of which VPNs prioritize safety and privacy, you might want to check out a comparison table on r/VPN.
No-logs policies are important to check too. Apart from checking whether the company has even passed it, check how many times has it been audited and when was the last one. The more, the merrier.
They are a solid 5/7.
They may be good enough but poor opsec will ruin any service’s protection.
How safe are crypto exchanges like coinbase
I know it’s not exclusive for illegal activities, but what if someone is doing an illegal activity, per say. Shouldn’t the government be able to locate that person? Isn’t VPN too easy of a tool to get away with anything?
That’s not the point I was asking. I meant to ask what would it take for the government or the ISP to take the data from a (user trusted) VPN provider?
I’ve used TOR before, and VPN too, but just for the sake of trying them. There are currently no strict regulations for online activities here in India. And I would say TOR is much better in giving privacy but there are a lot of factors (mainly on the local machine) it depends on.
The 5/7 reference did not get the love it deserved, I’m aware this is a years old comment.
Shouldn’t the government be able to locate that person? Isn’t VPN too easy of a tool to get away with anything?
The govt already has loads of tools, they have far too many ways to invade our lives. Better that tools (such as VPNs) exist to protect the billions of non-criminals even if they are abused by millions of criminals.
One could make the same argument about other things. For example, the govt needs a warrant to search your house. Does that not make it easy for criminals to get away with things ? Should we all give up that protection, in order to catch more criminals ? Let the police search your house at any time, for any reason ?
It depends on what you’re trying to do. If you’re just pirating movies or games or something, not even your ISP cares because they just want you to pay for their service, and they don’t really care what you do until they get a letter from some copyright troll - so this is why you’d want a good VPN. Copyright trolls are the only people who care, and a VPN, despite its simplicity, is enough to hide who you really are given that you’ve properly configured it and any programs that you wish to use with it.
/u/walugui pretty much explains it. And generally if people are using a VPN to hide illicit activity they get get caught because they aren’t careful and have bad opsec or they trusted a VPN connection that was not trustworthy. There have been many cases in the past where providers have turned over connection logs to help close cybercrime cases.
what would it take for the government or the ISP to take the data from a (user trusted) VPN provider?
A court order or warrant. Even then, a VPN provider might not be able to provide past data, the best they might be able to do is set a trap for the user’s future use of the VPN.
Idk what 5/7 is but I’m also 6/3 years late
I’m not saying that the government should search someone’s activities or data anytime. But as they need a warrant to search a house, they might have something similar for the online activities too. But can a VPN completely block out the government, or any law for that matter?
A VPN company can just not keep any info. So they aren’t disobeying the warrant or court order, they’re giving everything they have (which is nothing) to the govt.
Sure! Fisa Court where a warrant is given 98% of the time.