Defend yourself against ISP tracking in an Trump-era free-for-all

Re: Tor will be even slower than a VPN

This is one of many reasons for us to wean ourselves off of Google.

We will have to use DuckDuckGo, which has outsourced much of their search infrastructure to Bing (try parallel searches and you will see that they match).

Our traffic to non-Tor-friendly sites should be the exception, not the rule. They do not observe the consensus.

What's a consensus?

http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/tor-security-android-and-desktop-linux

Re: Ensure your *router* is doing your VPNing ...

The trouble with VPNs is they ironically deanonymise you. Effectively making your traffic stick out like a sore dick. You can use usage patterns to make educated guesses as to whom a traffic belongs to. Or simply go after the VPN provider. A company inherently has less rights than a person does so using a VPN could inadvertantly make you easier to track and open up the possibility of more data about you being uncovered since the network they need to sniff to get the goods doesnt belong to you.

Unless everyone uses a VPN its not a great way to hide yourself.

Re: DNSCrypt

+1 for DNSCrypt

Re: Hmm

So advertisers will have to adopt the TV approach whereby they push adverts for Saga holidays/funeral costs to sites used by OAPs, baby cough medicine on mums.net etc.

I just wish companies wake up and realise web advertising often harms their business/reputation rather than driving customers to them.

Re: StartPage and ixquick proxy

Since scripts are disabled and most sites won't work without them, Startpage only really secures your searches etc. But they're EU based and safer than DuckDuckGo, whose Yahoo partnership is unacceptable considering they let hackers in and bypassed their own security teams just to please US Govt Inc!

They would need a CA installed on your systems to accept the fake certificates it generates for the sites you visit. I wouldn't be surprised if an ISP attempted that, as part of the contract rules...

Re: I think the battle has been lost

Or use some other person's computer and let them get bombarded with the porn ads later on.

Re: I think the battle has been lost

I don't surf the internet!

*Cough*

Oh wait...

Fuck!

Re: Good ideas, but...

"For some levels of security clearance you will be asked if you have ever browsed via VPN (they will almost certainly know the answer beforehand) and if you have they don't like it."

Really? I would have though that knowing how to protect your privacy and security (more so when using dodgy "free wifi" on the move) would be a definite advantage for someone they don't want leaking information or being blackmailed.

Re: Is this true?

Well, you might not mind if they only know the domain. But the joy comes with the definition of ICRs (speaking from the UK - and haha, there is no definition). If they know the domain, and the exact time of the connection, they can shifty off and demand further info for the "Internet Connection Record" from the domain in question for your IP, e.g. from the HTTPS log - which will have the page, url parameters etc all sat in there.

And because they can, I expect this will all be automated, queue the following (wild speculation) web service conversation:

Random gov department > ISP : Give me domains accessed in the last 24 hours of citizens in the range 1 - 500,000

Random gov department > Common Domains A-X : Give me the page and parameters and anything else you've got

Ta dah, HTTPS is now pointless for any domains under the jurisdiction of Random gov Department (so probably all sites within 5-Eyes countries).

vs. using a VPN. Exactly the same as above for VPN providers within 5 Eyes states, but a VPN company who sticks fingers up to 5-Eyes authorities will mean you will only get that info handed over if you are an actual person of interest and Random gov Department are really motivated - as opposed to me: a person. I think for a democracy to function properly, and to avoid some nut job getting a list of people who disagree with them (who may or may not be May), lists/categories of people/opinions should not be accumulated.

Re: Is this true?

"I'd even be willing to fork over money to my ISP if they would, internally, VPN any of the traffic I _did_ send through them."

If your ISP does the VPN for you, that means they see all your traffic in clear and the can monetize that information (which is the point of the article).

To be effective, VPN must start at your computer (or at the gate of your house).

Re: What is metadata, exactly?

With HTTPS, your ISP will know:

* A computer with the IP address they assigned to your endpoint did a DNS lookup for "en.wikipedia.org"

* That computer then connected to port 443 of the IP address returned from the DNS query.

* The amount of data that was exchanged between the two and the amount of time it took.

But that's pretty much all they get with HTTPS; the rest of the connection info, including the requested URI, is encrypted.

Re: What is metadata, exactly?

"Doesn't that text get sent to the ISP, in plain? Similarly for Goggle searches, eBay searches, etc?"

StartPage has a user option that by default sends your search request as an HTTPS request as a POST rather than a GET. The POST method sends the search parameters as a block of encrypted data - not as part of the request URL.

Re: you're probably waaay too late

Then they just "accidentally" send a gas that dazes you for long enough to slip up. Remember, the bad guys only have to be lucky ONCE.

Oh, and that wide brim? Useless against ground-level cameras.

Re: Tor

I sort of agree. For the most part though the deanonymising methods are largely theoretical. Most people caught doing dodgy stuff on Tor were caught using offline means or just solid policework.

As long as you have no daft compulsions, delusions of grandeur and you know hownto harden a browser, Tor is still pretty solid.

Re: You literally are a number, not a free person.

"[...] the only people who care are the scumbag ad-men."

Democratic governments often deliberately tie their own hands with checks and balances in areas of collecting personal data. They are well aware that a future government could misuse that collated data to winkle out anyone who might oppose their ideology. It has happened in the past - consider Godwin's Law invoked.

Defending ....

There is another significant benefit in using a properly configured Startpage - you get the unfiltered Internet search you requested rather than the Google "filter bubble" - it's well explained on the Startpage, er homepage.

gives me perfect results (same as Google)

Wow, Google giving perfect results? That's a new one. Google is giving what they think you are looking for, not what you are looking for.

Do a simple comparison: sign off Google/Facebook/whatever, clear cookies, data and storage, search for the same term in Google vs. Duck and see for yourself.