[AusNOG] Data retention

Tue Oct 13 10:00:15 EST 2015

'privacy advocate' is a lofty term for people who just want to torrent
without wanting Dallas Buyers Club letters.

I'm not judging those people, but using a VPN in reaction to the data
retention laws for the most part belies the problem they are trying to
solve, and calling that 'Privacy' pollutes the term for people with more
legitimate causes.

In effect (unless you roll your own) it means you trust a cheap vpn
provider in a random country more than your own Gov't?  and if your VPN
provider of choice isn't already selling your data to data brokers, they
probably will be soon.

If you absolutely want privacy on the internet, then you need anonymity,
and for that I would recommend TOR rather than a vpn, or if you are really
paranoid, TOR over a VPN from Mcdonalds Wifi with a Linux ISO on a
thumbdrive from a disposable laptop, but then you're not downloading pirate
movies.

Lets agree on this list to call a spade a spade, and not concede moral high
ground to people who may not deserve it...

On 13 October 2015 at 09:22, Alex Samad - Yieldbroker <
Alex.Samad at yieldbroker.com> wrote:

> Most of my friends, mainly IT literate are thinking vpn. Not a good
> sampling for the general public.
>
>
>
> But you have pollie’s pushing VPN’s and legal (!)  avoidance
>
> http://scott-ludlam.greensmps.org.au/campaigns/stopdataretention#protect
>
>
>
> and I believe its quiet easy to setup routers now a days with VPN’s
>
>
>
> The above link even suggests VPN’s for phone. Hadn’t thought of that one!
>
>
>
> I’m think it’s going to be more than a fringe, maybe not an avalanche, but
> it would be interesting to track…
>
>
>
> A
>
>
>
> *From:* Geordie Guy [mailto:elomis at gmail.com]
> *Sent:* Monday, 12 October 2015 4:16 PM
> *To:* Damian Guppy <the.damo at gmail.com>
> *Cc:* Alex Samad - Yieldbroker <Alex.Samad at yieldbroker.com>;
> ausnog at lists.ausnog.net
> *Subject:* Re: [AusNOG] Data retention
>
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, Oct 12, 2015 at 4:06 PM, Damian Guppy <the.damo at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> What's your end goal? If it is to avoid the new datarention going into
> effect tomorrow, using a VPN isnt going to change what is being recorded on
> you. Dataretention is capturing Email headers on ISP (australian) email
> addresses, which a VPN wont change, and the IP assigned to your session
> when you connect (either via ADSL, NBN, 3/4G etc), which again, a VPN wont
> change.
>
>
>
> Few people are *just* using a VPN to avoid retention most are ensuring
> they don't use ISP email, and deploy other encryption heavily.  Done right
> (and it's not that difficult), the only audit trail you leave is quite
> boring - all data is from the same IP, to the same IP, and encrypted.
>
>
>
>
>
> VPN also introduces a lot of other issues such as latency and GEOIP
> breakages that it reduces the end user experience of the internet, so for
> most people, pumping all their data through an international VPN is going
> to make using the internet unjoyful.
>
>
>
> How are GEOIP breakages a bad thing? Most people using VPNs before data
> retention were doing it *explicitly to break* IP geolocation.  Latency is
> similarly not a drama, particularly in circumstances where people are using
> carriers that pick losers on a TCP port by TCP port basis and actually get
> a net experience improvement.
>
>
>
> The VPN from my phone transparently routes all my traffic via New
> Zealand.  I don't notice any difference.
>
>
>
>
>
> Then there is the whole issue of complication, what % of australian users
> have the technical ability to set up a VPN?
>
>
>
> The one I use on my phone processed a payment, took me to the App Store to
> download their client, I picked a country from a list of flags.  The
> experience was infinitely easier most other tasks I've performed this week.
> This is progressing in the same vein as everything else - there's money to
> be made if you present a compelling use case (would you like Netflix to
> think you're American?) and price it correctly (well Netflix will think
> you're American if you give me $3.95 a month and click here).
>
>
>
> I would put that in the single digit percentage, and then what % of thoes
> will actually set up a VPN? Again I would guess maybe 10% if you're lucky?
> So worst case maybe a 0.5% increase in international traffic? That's not
> even factoring in how much was international traffic to begin with which
> wouldnt increase international usage anyway, just change how its coming in.
>
>
>
>
>
> The idea that this is hampered by difficulty and poor experience is
> wrong.  It hasn't always been wrong, setting up a VPN was a new and hard
> thing for people not all that long ago, but the Internet has done what the
> Internet does and people have made it easy to set up with easy payment
> options.
>
>
>
>
>
> --Damian
>
>
>
> On Mon, Oct 12, 2015 at 7:14 AM, Alex Samad - Yieldbroker <
> Alex.Samad at yieldbroker.com> wrote:
>
> Hi
>
> I see a lot of privacy advocacy groups recommending using VPN out of
> australia. I wonder where can we see easily the change to from local
> traffic to international traffic.
>
> So I have friends who are thinking of just setting up a vpn to take all
> their traffic overseas including access to local sites, like smh commbank
> etc etc.
>
> My presumption we double up on Intl traffic outbound and then inbound !
>
> A
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