Virtual Private Networks (VPN) are a wonderful tool for protecting your privacy online. When you use one (and they are often very reasonably priced) the websites you visit will only see the IP address of the VPN service, and not yours at home or work.
Common uses include:
- general privacy when researching gray area topics
- posting comments and forum involvement
- using the VPN’s country as a mask for your own – to perhaps open a USA iTunes account, or bypass Chinese government firewalls
Now, VPNs are only beneficial if you can trust them. Governments can easily connect your activities to a VPN service you are using – but can they get to you via the VPN company?
Ultimately you can’t trust anyone else. Ultimately the only way would be to run your own VPN. If that is beyond your capabilities, try this:
- have a netbook that is only used for VPN activity, ever, from new. And buy it with cash
- use free Gmail or Outlook accounts that are only ever accessed via VPN
- only ever use your netbook/VPN combo at internet cafes or public access points like McDonalds
- make sure there are other people accessing the web at the same time, from that same location
That’s pretty extreme. If you just wish to protect yourself at a 99% level, there are numerous VPN companies that are almost certainly trustworthy. A list of some VPN services, along with their responses to questions regarding your anonymity is over at Torrent Freak.
IMO, if the government were to acquire or start up their own VPN service, so that they could catch out those who seem to be avoiding scrutiny, there are two ways they would most likely achieve that:
1. Have a high-profile service with a lot of clients. The sort that Australian consumers would use to get access to iTunes in the USA or whatever
2. Have a service that is known and trusted by people who frequent discussion boards that focus on anonymity and black hat online practices. Hackers, basically.
So using a little known VPN that doesn’t promote themselves to hackers would be the way to go.
