On Fri, 2017-11-03 at 20:33 -0300, George N. White III wrote: > On 3 November 2017 at 15:59, Patrick O'Callaghan <pocallaghan@xxxxxxxxx> > wrote: > > > On Fri, 2017-11-03 at 10:10 -0700, Rick Stevens wrote: > > > > Using a VPN all depends on how paranoid you are (or rather the OP's > > > father-in-law is). They certainly have their uses. > > > > They can also be simpler to set up than proxies, for the non-expert > > user, since they are focused on what the general public wants, or > > thinks it wants. > > > > Using a VPN may be telling the bad guys you have something worth > hiding. Bad guys and governments use a variety of information to decide > who merits close watching, so using VPN may bring extra scrutiny of > your activities. That's unclear. More and more people are using VPNs so it's becoming less noteworthy. > VPN can be circumvented if the endpoints aren't secure. Obviously security of endpoints is critical, and a VPN is no more a magic bullet than anything else. > VPN is certainly important if you know you are in a category that attracts > scrutiny, but many ordinary users may be better off maintaining a low > profile and focusing on basic safe practices like installing security > patches, avoiding insecure public wifi, etc. *All* public WiFi is insecure by definition since in general you don't know anything about who's running it. Whether or not that matters depends on your requirements. At a minimum, use application-layer security (HTTPS, SSH, TLS etc.) poc _______________________________________________ users mailing list -- users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe send an email to users-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
