Who sees what?

esuhl

chrisw wrote: »

Is TOR onion router secure in terms of stopping ISPs, governments, etc seeing which web pages you visit? The blurb on it seems to think so.

From what I've read, it's vulnerable when running under Windows. Apparently the best way is to use the bootable ISO image (called Tails).

https://tails.boum.org/

I also read that browser profiling can leak your identity -- you might have a unique combination of add-ons, settings, etc. These sites run quick tests to determine how rare your browser set-up is.

https://panopticlick.eff.org/
https://amiunique.org

paddyrg

TOR, the network designed and still majority supported/maintained by the US Navy? That one? I can't see any way the NSA, GCHQ's good friends, would have any reach into that...

Free VPNs have recently shown in the tech press to have some severe limitations, including you acting as an exit node for others (with the bandwidth and legal issues that may create if your IP is involved in bad things), and add mentioned above, MITM is not a big challenge when there are so many unknowns along the way.

Your ISP may well override your DNS, if you don't already use theirs.

There is no real way to participate in the internet with perfect confidence that you're not leaving footprints. Every email, for instance, can leave a copy of itself on every SMTP hop from you to target. It's a postcard, not a couriered sealed package. Then to compound it, you have to cut yourself off from others who will forward your emails without understanding you don't want them to, etc. Other people will be a weak link, even if the technology is perfect (it isn't) and implemented perfectly (it isn't) by generous companies giving away resources (they aren't).

But, even simpler, if GCHQ and friends think your activity is of interest, and they can't verify for themselves for whatever reason, they will just have to ramp things up. They could spend £10M on an ultra cluster to break your 4096-bit key, or arrest you and hit you/threaten your family/whatever until you give then the password - but that wouldn't be necessary as your password would be too strong to remember and type every day, so your computer disc image would hold it in cache somewhere, or you'll use a cloud-based password manager... Or Google chrome to remember your passwords, so they can just ask.

Simply assume you are visible online and accept it, it'll save you a lot of stress

Strider590

kwikbreaks wrote: »

I must admit I was amazed at the Snowden revelations in regard to the extent of government snooping on its citizens and what the costs of that might be. In personal terms I'm not overly worried as I doubt they'd be especially interested in me. That said having just come across a free VPN service that seems to run at a reasonable speed I'll probably continue to use it and wonder now how much of my online activities will remain easily visible without recourse to accessing server logs of non-UK companies.

So here's the setup...
Using non-ISP DNS
Using Spotflux Chrome plugin as VPN

So who of these sees what (encrypted and plain text for both HTTPS and HTTP sessions)
DNS provider
VPN provider
ISP
GCHQ

I can make intelligent guesses but if somebody knows for sure I'd be interested.

Plus why don't MSE use HTTPS for their login?

No, just no, DO NOT USE FREE VPNs!!

Nothing is free, you don't know who is getting your data, paid for VPN services cost as little as £30 a year!

DNS changing is often pointless, as DNS lookup is done on port 53, most ISPs now hijack port 53 traffic to ensure you cannot bypass their filters.

The ONLY way is a paid for VPN service that doesn't keep user logs.

The thing witht he snooping, is they know they cannot stop anyone who is determined to remain private, BUT most people, most of the general public won't know how, won't be bothered and will just say "I've got nothing to hide".

These are the people they are targeting, it's not about "snooping" it's about knowing what the people are doing, what they are thinking and ultimately being able to control that through the media/etc. Firstly this is extremely valuable data to big business, secondly if you can get the stupid majority on side, then the voice of the minority will never be heard.

So take for example the whole internet filtering thing, the majority said "it won't affect me, so I don't care", the minority were fighting to stop it and were labelled by the media as pedo's/hackers/criminals, so the stupid majority became even more determined that filtering and censorship was a good thing.

The majority of people are plain stupid and true power comes from controlling them.

esuhl

Strider590 wrote: »

The majority of people are plain stupid and true power comes from controlling them.

Ha! Never has a truer word been spoken...

bluesnake

with a vpn, by default all of your browsing traffic will (should be) be hidden. A vpn built into the browser will probably only hide web pages, and your downloads, netfliks (think this has its own client software?), torrents etc will probably be open.

DNS queries will not be hidden, but many VPN providers do handle DNS queries, and provide leak protection.

Your ISP will (should) see your VPN ip address only.

A few issues:
the vpn software only connects to one nic on your computer, so if you loose your wifi connection, and the laptop reverts to cable (or vice versa) the newly established connection is not protected.

Should your isp disrupt the VPN, then there is no VPN and your PC could leak all. Some clients do have built in kill switches, but many are are not instantaneous. A workaround is here: https://www.bestvpn.com/blog/10218/build-your-own-vpn-kill-switch-in-windows-comodo/

Another workaround is to buy a router that will encrypt, rather than your PC. The is will make the whole households traffic encrypted.

Some sites do not like some foreign ip addresses. I've even been blocked browsing MSE from some countries on some exit points.

Also on boot, before the vpn software is up and running and has verified itself, you computer may have already contacted various organizations for updates etc and generated logs.

Babbawah

Some really interesting misconceptions here.

I've been into 'pooters' since the ZX 80 that me & my dad soldered together in a kind of child v's father bonding session.

I reckon I'd already heard of 'ECHELON' way before that defining moment.

You folk should read Peter Wright's book Spycatcher.

Read it & weep, they listen into everything. Nothing is secure.

robatwork

There's a lot of inherent arrogance in people imagining the "powers that be" have the interest or manpower to snoop on them. What are you doing that is so questionable that you want to hide it?

Let's face it, nobody cares if you visit pornhub occasionally.

Posting pics of your kids online that you don't want strangers to see? Well don't post them then.

Looking up how to make bombs?

bluesnake

robatwork wrote: »

There's a lot of inherent arrogance in people imagining the "powers that be" have the interest or manpower to snoop on them. What are you doing that is so questionable that you want to hide it?

Let's face it, nobody cares if you visit pornhub occasionally.

Posting pics of your kids online that you don't want strangers to see? Well don't post them then.

Looking up how to make bombs?

For me, it not 'the man' that worries me, but film pricing inequality/blocking and 5 or 7 year log memory saved by your isp. Why should some European members be able to see some stuff and others not? One only has to read https://torrentfreak.com/ and think that many troubles could be avoided for very little.

I hate surfing youtube to find a country restriction has blocked me. If you are one of the unfortunate few, then many of these court case on Torrentfreak can go on for years. Your kids could have finished high school and university, still have their antiquated history following them.

However I do believe the electronic correspondence should be given the same rights and protection as the postal ones.

Just opt out and carry on calmly

onomatopoeia99

bluesnake wrote: »

I hate surfing youtube to find a country restriction has blocked me.

If the artist hasn't licensed their intellectual property for distribution in your country then you should accept that fact - it's the producer of the original content or their representative that gets to decide where it is made available, it's not a human right to have access to all intellectual property that you want.

I think the licensing models used in the audio-visual industry are nuts, but they are what they are and I respect the copyright holder's rights to control to whom they grant licenses That's nothing to do with snooping thought, .

esuhl

onomatopoeia99 wrote: »

If the artist hasn't licensed their intellectual property for distribution in your country then you should accept that fact...

Either that or accept the fact that the Internet was never designed to have internal borders and use a free, legal unblocking tool like this one:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/youtube-unblocker/