497

Novel attack against virtually all VPN apps neuters their entire purpose(arstechnica.com)

posted
by
Avatar
jeffw@lemmy.world
in
Avatar
technology@lemmy.world
134 comments
hidereport
Sort:
HotTopControversialNewOld
You are viewing a single thread.
View all comments
Avatar
BorgDrone@lemmy.one
3 points

(…) the entire purpose and selling point of VPNs, which is to encapsulate incoming and outgoing Internet traffic in an encrypted tunnel and to cloak the user’s IP address.

No. That is not the entire point of a VPN. That’s just what a few shady companies are claiming to scam uninformed users into paying for a useless service. The entire point of a VPN is to join a private network (i.e. a network that is not part of the Internet) over the public internet, such as connecting to your company network from home. Hence the name ‘virtual private network’.

There are very little, if any, benefits to using a VPN service to browse the public internet.

permalink
report
reply
Avatar
the_third@feddit.de
31 points
*
Deleted by creator
permalink
report
parent
reply
Avatar
mako@lemmy.today
22 points

There are very little, if any, benefits to using a VPN service to browse the public internet.

This is why it’s often best to just avoid the comments completely

permalink
report
parent
reply
Avatar
Passerby6497@lemmy.world
18 points

There are very little, if any, benefits to using a VPN service to browse the public internet.

I’ve run into issues multiple times where a site doesn’t load until I turn on my VPN with an endpoint in the EU

permalink
report
parent
reply
Avatar
desktop_user@lemmy.blahaj.zone
16 points

There are very little, if any, benefits to using a VPN service to browse the public internet.

accessing services that are blocked in your region.

permalink
report
parent
reply
Avatar
lurch (he/him)@sh.itjust.works
-2 points

that works, but a regular SOCKS proxy should do. for HTTP even a HTTP proxy. many VPN providers offer them too, btw… may help with mitigating this attack vector.

permalink
report
parent
reply
Avatar
vext01@lemmy.sdf.org
2 points

Come to think of it, why do they even call this use case a VPN? I’d call that a proxy.

permalink
report
parent
reply

Technology

!technology@lemmy.world

Create post

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

Community stats

  • 15K

    Monthly active users

  • 13K

    Posts

  • 568K

    Comments

Community moderators