[AusNOG] Data retention

Tue Oct 13 11:55:16 EST 2015

On 13 October 2015 at 10:00, 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.
>

This coming from somebody who has decided to hide their identity by
using a fake email address ....

> 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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