I’m looking to encrypt my traffic without a middle-man. I’ve used PIA and HideMyAss, but I just don’t like paying a company to handle my data. I know they don’t keep logs, but you never know. I thought about going with my own OpenVPN server but I heard that its easy to be tracked if you are the only one on the server. Or, if I’ll be fine with a normal VPN and I need to take off my tinfoil hat, please say so. Can someone help? BTW I (clearly) know next to nothing about VPNs but I would love to learn through experience.
totaly anonymous on the internet is simply not possible.
Having your own VPN server will not make you anonymous. It will protect you on public networks however.
If you're worried about people reading or manipulating the contents of you Web traffic then try to use https as much as possible, this won't prevent tracking or meta data collection and won't hide your ip from anyone.
If you want to use a VPN service then look for one you can trust, read reviews by people who have looked in to the privacy side of it and not just the performance. And read the terms of service and privacy statement yourself. A lot of VPN services are based in the US and these can generally be trusted as the US has no mandatory data retention laws and good consumer protection laws meaning that if they say they don't keep logs and won't hand out info to third parties they are legally obligated to follow through on those claims.
likenzee the tin foil ~ use public wifi or a neighbours network with a spoofed MAC address, through a VPN paid via bitcoins, no frills browser (lynx), all on run off a usb (running a linux distro) that you can dispose of easily.
... or dont use the internet.
You would have to be doing something pretty awful to warrant authorities to request logs from your VPN provider. Logs (if any) would probably just be start and end point ip addresses and not data anyway.
there will allways be a "man in the middle"
Well thats just a given in a physical sense, otherwise OP would have to physically connect himself to 'desired' locations. I was taking OP's 'middle man' as a metaphor for prying eyes.
if you want to be anonymous use internet cafes,
1) always create new 5min emails if you need them.
2) Never again use same types of writing. (be a man, woman, make sure you write as someone who doesn't really speak english etc)
3) Don't use same internet cafe
4) Wear a hat (different types if you can afford), and different color jackets / change your clothing styles. (fake hair if you want to)
and stuff like that... with this you don't need vpns or such... and it will make a lot of problems for agencies to actually track you.
If you want to be anonymous, don't be on the internet. Plain and simple. There is always a way to track you, and there will always be a server that is the "thing in the middle", that's how the entire internet works in the first place.
The internet works by middlemen talking and transferring data. You can't just connect directly to a server without going through someone, unless your physically plugging into that server. A vpn through a vpn is a really good way to make it difficult to track you, but your still going through someone else's servers.
Can't do it without the middle men. Get one you can "trust" and doesn't keep records.