[AusNOG] Data retention

Tue Oct 13 11:18:53 EST 2015

Hi Eric,

On Tue, Oct 13, 2015 at 10:00 AM, Mister Pink <misterpink at gmail.com> wrote:

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

Correct. And people who want to avoid being injured or killed by a violent
ex-partner, people who want to avoid being the victim of burglary, people
who want to communicate with their friends and family including in an
intimate capacity without third parties reading it, people who work for or
own businesses that have confidentiality requirements, people with medical
conditions they don't want publicized including embarrassing ones,
people... well, you get the idea.

>
> 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.
>

I'm not sure how to react to that, I assume you're using "belies" to mean
discredit so to that I'd say

1) Yeah, that's the point
2) They don't solve a problem other than the one that Australian
bureaucrats are creepy and want to know everything about Australian
Internet users
3) Privacy is the principle that you have control over who knows what about
you, the legitimacy or illegitimacy of the cause is entirely besides the
point

>
> 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?
>

I trust a Russian teenager with a rack of Raspberry Pi connected to a $30
Jaycar solar charger more than I trust my government but YMMV obviously.

>  and if your VPN provider of choice isn't already selling your data to
> data brokers, they probably will be soon.
>

[Citation Needed]

>
> 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.
>

The answer will vary for each person depending on their needs. The large
swathe of use cases you left out of your first para where you scoffed at
all of this as a copyright infringement issue will all each have a
different mix of onion routing, vpn usage, non-Australian service
selection, dedicated private messaging apps etc. to mitigate the privacy
infringement.

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

Pass.  But thanks.  I'll remain on the side of the constitutional courts of
the Czech Republic, Germany, Romania and Slovakia each of whom found that
government surveillance of innocent people is not "moral".

G

>
>
> 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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>
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