So I’m pretty recent to the high seas but I’ve seen a few posts now about “stop relying on your VPN” and “people that think VPNs will protect them are naive” and so on.
So since I believe knowledge is our greatest weapon/tool/super-power, can we get some answers regarding what exactly the doomsayers are getting at? ELI5 why VPNs wouldn’t protect your anonymity.
Is it about logging? The country your end-point is in? Something more technical?
Ultimately I’d like to be fully armed in order to keep making the best choices for my fledgling ship as it navigates the vast, stormy seas.
The NSA doesn’t need to break AES-256 to deanonymize you. But not trying to spook anyone, just inform.
NSA can’t break AES-256 and no it can’t deanonymize if you use it correctly.
Ok, well they have access to supercomputers that can probably crack a target password 99% of the time. Unless you use a like 100-character password for everything you are probably not totally safe. And using it correctly is incredibly difficult, if not impossible in practice. They have found zero day exploits for Tails OS and deanonymized (very, very bad) criminals doing pretty much everything they could to stay anonymous, at least 5 years ago that we know of. So while your claim might apply to somebody pirating the latest HBO series, I can guarantee you the NSA knows everything about you and what you’re doing. They just don’t care, yet.