was looking at Mullvad and Windscribe. Windscribe is in Canada though! Are VPNs based in Canada safe? Are any VPNs based in North America safe?
Yes. No. Perhaps.
It depends what the definition of “safe” means to you.
The safest are those located in the data center on the moon belonging to the company from Mars.
3 Likes
There was recently a big breach in the security of how vpn’s in total work that @THEkitchenSINK was telling me about.
Overall, no. Security, at least technologically, is a joke in the US. If canada has some provisions similar to gdpr in the EU, and I believe canada does, you’d still have to worry about the US.
If I have ever really needed a VPN I just tunnel through dns. I’ve only ever needed to do that about 3 times.
Dunno man. If its just for netflix and stuff then who cares. If its really about security do some research.
1 Like
The thing is, most VPNs rent out data centers outside their country and if you connect there, the country may be susceptible to government lawful requests for data. You can be vulnerable there if it is part of the five-eyes, nine-eyes or even fourteen-eyes governments.
EDIT: VPN is just a layer of protection and not THE magic bullet for anonymity or privacy. A wise man once said on the internet, its only the ones you trust that can truly betray you.
2 Likes
Que?
;3 do some researh
I know what it is. The question is, do you really know what you are talking about and you tried to use it in a real situation or are you just talking about it in theory without much understanding of the subject …
Because there is no sense in your statement in the context of OP.
- Tunneling through dns is very slow.
- Some ISPs are trying to block this.
- There is not much sense in practical application.
- It does not improve safety in any sense.
- No need to complicate the situation.
- It has nothing to do with the OP question.
- Does not eliminate security concerns from the OP question.
- How many commercial VPNs do you know that allow tunneling through dns.
- The loop paradox, intermediate point and end point may still be at risk and the fact that you send traffic through the dns tunnel does not change anything.
1 Like
Fun fact:
Some quite big ISP in Germany is not blocking DNS access after your contract expires/you refuse to pay.
It’s enough to browse the internet, but not enough to talk on voice on discord.
1 Like
This is nothing new. Some LTEs also have a rather relaxed approach to this. But what does this have to do with the heart of the matter … It does not solve the questions and does not dispose of the concerns that OP has.
PS
ISP should disconnect uplink hard if the customer does not pay / resign from providing services. Imho
This is the practice that we used at ISP where I worked for years.
My point was to look into gdpr-similar laws before going to a canada VPN. Yes I know dns tunneling isn’t fast, or secure (completely). Its mostly a last resort, and half a joke on my end.
Yes I’ve used it, but for ssh. I’m not always in need of facebook 
I think there was some shady agreement between US and CA, I’d personally go with ProtonVPN over anything else at this moment.
1 Like
And my question was not about “what it is”, but just what it means in the context of the OP question. Somehow I have no sense of humor when it comes to security.
And as for gdpr it is also a fiction in a nutshell. I see it every month … Don’t believe for a moment that it really protects you in some way when it comes to VPN. If we come to a place where multi-letter agencies enter the game, the law quite strongly ceases to apply.
And many countries outside the strict many eyes group are more than happy to do US favors. Remember the CIA prisons in the EU hosted by local agencies unlawfully and with a smile. If someone thinks that some VPN will be a challenge for them then they are wrong and gdpr will not change anything here.
1 Like
Oh hell no.
GDPR and similar prowisions are awesome when it comes to getting data from the company. Being able to have a federal request for all user data and logs concerning the user is exactly what I’d want with gdpr and a vpn.
Further, again, vpn penetration. Its supposedly possible now. So my other point is that a vpn in NA is pretty useless.
Also dns tunneling works securely but only for a while. Its not something you notice right away. So its secure as long as they don’t notice ;D
Proton is currently very popular among the social group in Eu who speaks Arabic. To the extent that when you use some proton servers in EU, Google sets Arabic as the primary language because the traffic is so high …
2 Likes
Depending on your needs, maybe this VPN solution, self-hosting it with a script to set it up and Wireshark rather than OpenVPN, would be good for you: https://blog.trailofbits.com/2016/12/12/meet-algo-the-vpn-that-works/
You wouldn’t have to trust some shady VPN company, only your ability to check an ansible script if you are paranoid about it doing anything funny. lol
holy cow that’s a lot of replies! I noticed Mullvad 0 countries listed, likely a bug in this here site. you guys are probably right doesn’t really matter. might as well go with the cheaper option.
i’m not trading the world’s most valuable cupcake recipe here but, i’m using it for a number of mundane things.
You can probably use this website to compare different VPN services that you might be interested but I’m not sure how frequently it’s updated but I think it might be useful either way