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Privacy (collected references)
4wd:
I'm surprised they didn't mention ProtonVPN.-Deozaan (July 08, 2018, 05:46 PM)
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Regarding their comment in Features:
In addition to strong technical security, ProtonVPN also benefits from strong legal protection. Because we are based in Switzerland, ProtonVPN is protected by some of the world's strongest privacy laws and remains outside of US and EU jurisdiction. This means that unlike VPN providers based in a fourteen eyes country, we cannot be coerced into spying on our users.
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A possible view from the other side of the coin: It doesn’t matter how many eyes you have
If you believe Wikipediaw:
Further intelligence sharing collaborations
As spelled out by Privacy International, there are a number of issue-specific intelligence agreements that include some or all the above nations and numerous others, such as:
* An area specific sharing amongst the 41 nations that formed the allied coalition in Afghanistan;
* A shared effort of the Five Eyes nations in "focused cooperation" on computer network exploitation with Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Turkey;
* Club of Bernew: 17 members including primarily European States; the US is not a member;
* The Counterterrorist Group: a wider membership than the 17 European States that make up the Club of Bernew, and includes the US;
* NATO Special Committee: made up of the heads of the security services of NATO's 28 member countries;
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If they want you bad enough I doubt whether a VPN provider anywhere is going to stop them.
IainB:
Sorry, I hadn't been intending to suggest that this thread topic could usefully provide coincidentally relevant:
(a) details of/for a fully comprehensive coverage of VPNs (though directions to same could be useful), or
(b)comprehensive reviews of VPN Pros/Cons or "Which are the best/most trustworthy/etc. VPNs, and why?" (though directions to same could be useful).
Methinks those would probably be pretty extensive subject/topic areas or discussion threads in their own right! :o
What could perhaps be more useful/relevant for inclusion in this thread are (and please say if you have other suggestions) our experiences/knowledge of those DNS/VPN methods/tools that meet the criteria of (say) being variously able to meet three criteria (and please suggest any other important criteria that I may have missed):
* Effective: e.g., most likely to be certainly able to meet the requirements for the necessary improvement in a personal user's internet privacy/security;
* Available and non-proprietary: e.g., in the public domain;
* $FREE: (or low cost) to use.
There are four such tools that immediately come to mind (and I feel sure there could be more listed or pointed to by other DCF members):
* DNSCrypt: e.g., Simple DNSCrypt <https://www.simplednscrypt.org/>
SpoilerNotes as at: 2018-07-09
Simple DNSCrypt
Simple DNSCrypt is a simple management tool to configure dnscrypt-proxy on windows based systems.
Status
New version based on dnscrypt-proxy 2.0.15
Getting Started
Prerequisites
At least one system with Windows 7 SP1 and the installation of. NET Framework 4.6.1 is currently required.
You also will need: Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2017 x64 or x86
Installing
To install Simple DNSCrypt use the latest (stable) MSI packages: x86 or x64.
(NB: I could not get the X64 version to work properly, but the X86 version seems to work just fine.)
* SoftEther VPNClient (VPNGate): <http://www.softether-download.com/en.aspx?product=softether>
SpoilerNotes as at: 2018-07-09
SoftEther VPN Client (Ver 4.27, Build 9668, beta)
softether-vpnclient-v4.27-9668-beta-2018.05.29-windows-x86_x64-intel.exe (42.96 MB)
Release Date: 2018-05-29 <Latest Build>
What's new (ChangeLog)
Languages: English, Japanese, Simplified Chinese
OS: Windows, CPU: Intel (x86 and x64)
(Windows 98 / 98 SE / ME / NT 4.0 SP6a / 2000 SP4 / XP SP2, SP3 / Vista SP1, SP2 / 7 SP1 / 8 / 8.1 / 10 / Server 2003 SP2 / Server 2008 SP1, SP2 / Hyper-V Server 2008 / Server 2008 R2 SP1 / Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 / Server 2012 / Hyper-V Server 2012 / Server 2012 R2 / Hyper-V Server 2012 R2 / Server 2016)
* Freegate: <http://dit-inc.us/freegate.html>
SpoilerNotes as at: 2018-07-09
Freegate is an anti-censorship software for secure and fast Internet access. It was developed and maintained by Dynamic Internet Technology Inc. (DIT), a pioneer in censorship-circumvention operation.
* users access web sites overseas as fast as their local ones;
* requires no installation or change in system setting;
* a single executable file on a Windows platform.
Freegate works by tapping into an anti-censorship backbone, DynaWeb, DIT's P2P-like proxy network system.
Freegate's anti-censorship capability is further enhanced by a new, unique encryption and compression algorithm in the versions of 6.33 and above.
* Tor: <https://www.torproject.org/>
SpoilerNotes as at: 2018-07-09
What is Tor?
Tor is free software and an open network that helps you defend against traffic analysis, a form of network surveillance that threatens personal freedom and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security.
Why Anonymity Matters
Tor protects you by bouncing your communications around a distributed network of relays run by volunteers all around the world: it prevents somebody watching your Internet connection from learning what sites you visit, and it prevents the sites you visit from learning your physical location.
Though I have reviewed DNSCrypt and SoftEther VPNClient elsewhere on the DC Forum, my knowledge/understanding of the area of Privacy and alternative Privacy/Security tools (e.g., Tor) is necessarily limited to my personal experience and exposure to use of such tools. In regards to this discussion thread, I suspect that the collective experience of DCF members could comprise a "Brainstrust" which could contribute a great deal more than I might be able to on my own. Therefore any assistance in developing this thread could be most welcome.
IainB:
For clarification, I have added this to the post I made above regarding the AddictiveTips article:
EDIT 2018-07-09:
NB: TRUST is a key issue here. There is a caveat that many organisations in the business of providing $PAID-for VPN services seem to tend to conceal - not all the VPN providers are actually operating a trustworthy service, from the user's perspective, such that your logged VPN activity data could be made available to government or other authorities, through legal or other compulsion (even corruption/informal agreement).
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Also, please note that this is probably a True statement:
If they want you bad enough I doubt whether a VPN provider anywhere is going to stop them.
-4wd (July 08, 2018, 10:25 PM)
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YannickDa:
There's a solution implementing VPN, independant DNS, Proxy, WebMail, VoIP, Cloud and your own surveillance cams.
It's called "eniKma", it's french and seems to be very reliable.
Privacy (collected references)
Try Google Translate this page to learn more about it...
IainB:
@YannickDa: I'm not absolutely sure, but it seems from the Enikma website and introductory video that the Enikma box is a proprietary "black box" (hardware) approach to the encryption of 2-way traffic between the User PC (Client) and the proprietary designated Enikma VPN DNS node, where the Enikma box provides a WiFi Access Point for devices in range of that Enikma box.
Thus the user's ISP is just acting as a passthrough node to the encrypted traffic, so there can be no "man-in-the-middle" attacks.
The communication path would seem to be:
Client<-->Enikma box<-->modem/router<-->ISP DNS<-->designated Enikma VPN DNS node
- and where the traffic between the two points Enikma box<-->designated Enikma VPN DNS node is encrypted.
This is actually quite simple, but seems to have been obfuscated in the website and details.
It would also seem to be a deliberate lock-in and rather kludgy/"overheady" alternative to the use of the public domain DNSCrypt software, which does the same thing (but more efficiently) except that:
(a) there is no obligation with DNSCrypt to have a given and/or proprietary VPN, because DNSCrypt is $FREE and works with any OpenDNS node, so the user is free to choose (not locked-in to) any VPN, and
(b) DNSCrypt encrypts traffic all the way from/to the Client (whereas Client Xmit/Receive is in clear with the Enikma box, potentially leaving some room for man-in-the-middle attacks).
If I have it correctly then, I am surprised that Enikma are apparently allowed under local consumer protection laws to get away with such misleading/obfuscated and lock-in practices, and the fact that they are misleading would be no accident - which would seem to be unethical - so I personally wouldn't touch them with a bargepole.
...Never trust it when they use smoke and mirrors.
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