FlyerTalk Forums - Help With A VPN

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Quote:

Originally Posted by kb9522 (Post 28953703)

You realize wireshark can sniff all packets coming across the (wired) network promiscuously (their word, not mine), right? All it takes is an ARP spoof to see all your packets.

Not all network cards are that slutty.

Quote:

Originally Posted by readywhenyouare (Post 28925353)

I follow several technology channels on YouTube and they all seem to heavily recommend using a VPN. I installed NordVPN as it was one of the recommended programs. But my internet connections seems to run a lot slower. Microsoft Outlook also seems to be having issues with it. It wants me to enter my password every time I open it now. Is there any way to resolve these issues or it is just the nature of a VPN?

For what it's worth, I've used EncryptMe (formerly Cloak) on all my iOS and Apple OS X devices for three years. $99/year, and that is what I have always paid. I'm not a super heavy user, but so far, so good. There have been issues just a couple of times, and emails to customer support are answered lightning-quick.

I have a subscription to VPN Unlimited and find (while on an overseas trip), that I cannot log into some common websites (hilton.con | spg.com etc) and get error messages such as this one:

Access Denied
You don't have permission to access "http://www3.hilton.com/en/index.html" on this server.
Reference #18.c863c617.1508563541.ce226c

Is this a common problem when connecting through a VPN?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Loren Pechtel (Post 28958169)

Not all network cards are that slutty.

I never pay for the prudish ones.

Quote:

Originally Posted by puchong (Post 28958287)

It's not uncommon to get extra scrutiny as black hats often use VPNs to mask where they really are--and thus webmasters see a lot of malicious traffic coming from VPN IPs.

Most of the time if you swap to a different server after clearing out your DNS cache and cookies you should be good.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LIH Prem (Post 28957324)

48Mbps on a gigabit link seems awfully slow, doesn't it? Have you compared the bandwidth without using your VPN server?

-David

With no VPN I can pull around 800-900Mbps. The majority of my streaming traffic (Netflix, Sling, etc.) goes that way (no VPN), but one part of my network is all via VPN.

Quote:

Originally Posted by kb9522 (Post 28956904)

VLANs? Sure, if you want to pay Cisco, Juniper, whoever a bunch of money for HW, then a bunch of more money to enable VLAN configuration in the software. And you still have to bridge them to get to the WAN. Someone could be on the other side and still sniff outgoing and incoming packets.

We are talking about things like hotel networks. Why would you use VPN if you were already on your network?

VLAN-capable hardware can be had for quite cheap. My $40 Netgear switch and $75 Ubiquiti router handle VLANs just fine.

As for your second question, some people use VPNs at home to bypass location restrictions (e.g., Netflix or the BBC iPlayer). Others want to evade ISP censorship (e.g., Great Firewall). And others think, mistakenly or not, that using a VPN will give them more privacy.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LIH Prem (Post 28957324)

With VPNs, I would imagine that there's a bigger performance penalty for having to communicate with the VPN server, rather than just communicating directly with the data server. The VPN server has to store and forward (and modify) all packets between you and the endpoint. However, by using your own VPN server on your own high speed LAN, that would reduce some, but not all of that extra overhead vs using a 3rd party VPN server.

48Mbps on a gigabit link seems awfully slow, doesn't it? Have you compared the bandwidth without using your VPN server?

-David

VPNs have significant encryption overhead. Some technologies can be easily offloaded to hardware and enable much faster speeds. Others can't/aren't, depending on the specific server and client you're using.

Quote:

Originally Posted by HDQDD (Post 28951695)

This statement is true if you are only using wired connections. Since this is a travel board, I'm going to hazard to say that most people here use Wifi while they're traveling.

I would never use an unsecured wifi network connection without a VPN. And pretty much all the free ones are unsecured. Even with a Psk, you can still see others traffic who are on the same network.

When connecting to public WiFi, do you first connect to WiFi, do the whole sign-in process, and then connect to your VPN?

Quote:

Originally Posted by joshwex90 (Post 28965751)

When connecting to public WiFi, do you first connect to WiFi, do the whole sign-in process, and then connect to your VPN?

You have to. You can't connect to a VPN without an internet connection. :)

Quote:

Originally Posted by kb9522 (Post 28956904)

Why would you use VPN if you were already on your network?

For me, two main reasons: A) I don't like being tracked by my ISP. B) I like to torrent files that "certain organizations" may have a problem with and are known to target users via their ISPs using their IP Addy.

Quote:

Originally Posted by PTravel (Post 28965895)

You have to. You can't connect to a VPN without an internet connection. :)

That's what I thought, but for those who are really paranoid, how do you justify any unsecured time?

Quote:

Originally Posted by joshwex90 (Post 28966701)

That's what I thought, but for those who are really paranoid, how do you justify any unsecured time?

Yes, background processes will start to connect to things before you establish the VPN connection. If that sort of thing is a problem, you can use a security-centric operating system, like Tails, that funnels everything through Tor by default.

Quote:

Originally Posted by joshwex90 (Post 28966701)

That's what I thought, but for those who are really paranoid, how do you justify any unsecured time?

I beleieve some VPN apps can block communication until a connection is established.

Quote:

Originally Posted by HDQDD (Post 28966359)

You probably shouldn't admit that you're comitting crimes.

You're talking about using some paid VPN service? You're not okay with your ISP "tracking" you, but you're okay with an unknown third party doing it?