The TGOP just decided to let the ISP’s do whatever they want with your info
http://www.npr.org/2017/03/28/521831393/congress-overturns-internet-privacy-regulation
I have already signed up for a VPN (though these Good guys!) and I’m going to be installing HTTPS everywhere in my browsers. I’m keeping my VPN running all the time unless I need to play a game (since Steam don’t like VPNs).
I look forward to someone buying and publishing the browsing histories of the politicians that voted for this.
I live in the Americas also.
A more interesting question might be whether or not the average person will let the ISPs sell their info. And how those who don’t confront them.
What would “not letting the ISPs sell [our] info” look like? They squat on top of our essential infrastructure like a tick, waiting for that one time we get lazy to suck up our private information, and thanks to our fuckery of a congress they have infinite lawyers. What really concerns me is that this gives them access to sell information gathered not only through our browsing history, but through our internet of things.
I’ve been using a vpn for about a year. I wonder how this is
Reddit and Twitter are already on it. Though I’m pretty sure the pricks in Congress are exempt from this…for “security reasons”.
As long as companies make more money, it’s all good!!
Depending on the VPN company, they may try to raise it. I pay a yearly fee so I end up getting a free month. The only issue I’ve run into is when I want to play a Steam game. They don’t like VPN’s due to the ability to bypass region locks.
I’m trying to calm down enough to send a fax to my representative that isn’t loaded with expletives, formally requesting a copy of her browsing history for the last year. After all, she was fine with her ISP having it, so why can’t I?
I plan on sending that fax every day.
(gotta love it when Wired relies on “fake news” style headlines)
When you use our language you get our conventions as well [quote=“ficuswhisperer, post:8, topic:97909”]
gotta love it when Wired relies on “fake news” style headlines
[/quote]
That ship sailed long ago
I don’t know if this is typical demand, a spike, or if it’s complete BS designed to encourage subscriptions – but I tried a free VPN last night and was something like 2,813th in the queue to be able to access stuff.
I immediately uninstalled.
I would avoid the “Free” VPNs. You will probably get hit with ads in their client or like you ran into, there is a queue. I was paying $6 a month for PIA (got in through a Reddit promo), but switched to the yearly subscription for $40 a year. I get a free month and I don’t have to worry about the subscription running out for some reason (at least for a year). Never had any issues with it and they have clients for Windows, Linux and Mac. They also have apps for iOS and Android so you are pretty well covered.
Would you mind saying which one that was? Was that the queue to become a customer and activate your account, or the queue to use the Internet at that moment? Either way, it sounds completely unusable.
Well, we do know what trusting corporations to handle this looks like - misplaced idealism. Unless they are given strong incentives not to betray their customer’s trust, they intend to do precisely that. So it has to be made unprofitable. Even one-fifth of cable companies’ customers laying siege to them for a few weeks will probably do it - and/or go after the companies jockeying to buy the data. If it’s too dangerous for them profit from, they will need to rethink their strategy.
Or, if people try nothing, that’s what they probably get. Hey, maybe taking back control will get easier if we wait a few more decades…
Don’t worry, if you’re poor the FCC has your back by ensuring that you’ll never have your browsing history tracked.
Because you won’t be able to afford it.
That was CyberGhost. And it was a queue to access the internet through it after I’d installed it, so presumably that would have happened every time it wanted to connect.
How is the speed vs. a non-VPN connection?
Is there some way to set this stuff up at a router level so it just protects the whole home network/wifi/etc. without having to convince other folks in the house to set it up on multiple devices too?
Some of the sites are slow when it comes to things like torrents, but overall, I have never noticed any issues with speed. If you go to their site, they have an area that shows all of connections they have, how many servers they have there and the max speed. So if you connect to something and it’s slow, you can disconnect and switch to another site. The only bad thing is if you play Steam, it doesn’t like VPNs. Same thing with Netflix so if you want to do one of those two things, you would have disconnect from the VPN.
One thing to keep in mind: this doesn’t actually change anything. ISPs could already do what they want with your info.
The executive order just cancels a new law that hadn’t actually taken effect yet, which would have required ISPs to ask before collecting & selling your personal data.
Ugh, I’m on Steam quite a lot (and Battle.net even more, lately). Sounds like a pain.
