73 lines
4.6 KiB
HTML
73 lines
4.6 KiB
HTML
|
<p>As of late I've been seeing a lot of renewed interest for internet privacy,
|
||
|
|
particularly regarding certain social media platforms. This is, of course, not
|
||
|
|
something new. This is a struggle that's been going on for years, as you can
|
||
|
|
find even within my own blog post history there are several articles referring
|
||
|
|
to the matter, and it's an issue older than my own posts. Yet what I find
|
||
|
|
baffling is the method being proposed: the use of a VPN.</p>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<p>The purpose of a VPN is (at least for common 'privacy' usage) to hide one's
|
||
|
|
IP address. In this sense, many people simply use VPNs as a substitute for TOR
|
||
|
|
or I2P, but with a better connection and often the ability to choose the country
|
||
|
|
your VPN is located in. If you're using a VPN simply to connect to a web service
|
||
|
|
and avoid country content blocking, then a VPN is definitely a useful tool. But
|
||
|
|
if your purpose is to protect your IP address for privacy reasons, then a VPN is
|
||
|
|
practically useless especially when we're talking about social media
|
||
|
|
surveillance. If you're trying to stop Facebook, Google, or any other company
|
||
|
|
from tracking your online activity, a VPN is quite pointless. There are a few
|
||
|
|
different reasons why this is.</p>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<p>Firstly, if you're using a VPN to log into your Google or Facebook account,
|
||
|
|
then they already know who you are whether or not they know your IP address.
|
||
|
|
They have associated you with the content of your profile, and can track you
|
||
|
|
that way. Sure, they may not know the exact town you live in from your IP
|
||
|
|
address, but they do know (with more precision) from your profile and the
|
||
|
|
content you give them. Therefore, by logging into one of these accounts, you've
|
||
|
|
rendered your efforts to remain anonymous completely futile.</p>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<p>Secondly, and basing off of the previous assumption, once you've logged into
|
||
|
|
an account, or if you have cookies enabled, then you can be tracked all across
|
||
|
|
the web. It doesn't matter that you're sharing a VPN IP address with thousands
|
||
|
|
of other people, because you have a unique string that's being sent to their
|
||
|
|
servers every time you connect that identifies you uniquely. If you log into
|
||
|
|
your Google account, the Google server will store a cookie on your computer that
|
||
|
|
uniquely identifies you. This is normally used to facilitate things like
|
||
|
|
automatic logins the next time you visit the site. However, when you visit
|
||
|
|
another site that may have a Google login available, or if the page uses Google
|
||
|
|
fonts, these servers can ask for your cookies and see whether or not you have
|
||
|
|
that unique identifier, and therefore know identify you uniquely.</p>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<p>Thirdly, regardless of whether you log in to a social media account or not, a
|
||
|
|
website may still identify you by what is called your <em>digital
|
||
|
|
fingerprint</em>. Essentially, when you connect to a website, the server can
|
||
|
|
discover many characteristics about your system, and although none of these
|
||
|
|
might be unique in itself, together they can form a profile that is much more
|
||
|
|
likely to be unique to a single user, and therefore be useful for
|
||
|
|
identification. Some example of characteristics that can be found are such as
|
||
|
|
screen resolution, operating system, architecture, web engine, etc. And since
|
||
|
|
these characteristics tend to remain mostly the same, it is a reliable manner to
|
||
|
|
track someone online. There are also some websites, like
|
||
|
|
AmIUnique,<sup><a href="#r1" >[1]</a></sup> which can show you the kind of data
|
||
|
|
from your system which a web server has access to, and how unique these
|
||
|
|
characteristics are (although based on their own collection, which is a skewed
|
||
|
|
statistic).</p>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<p>On the other hand, the reason why IP address is not a reliable means of
|
||
|
|
tracking someone's activity is, not only because VPNs and other alternatives
|
||
|
|
(e.g. TOR or I2P) are available, but also simply because this will change even
|
||
|
|
if you move, change your provider, commute to work (i.e. use a different
|
||
|
|
network), or simply leave your router off for a given amount of time (normally
|
||
|
|
24 hours) for your ISP to designate you a new dynamic IP address. Companies like
|
||
|
|
Google and Facebook know this, so it's not reliable. The days when people would
|
||
|
|
almost always connect from the IP address are long gone.</p>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<p>If your interest is in protecting your privacy then a VPN is not worth it, as
|
||
|
|
it's practically useless. Instead, try looking at addons for your browser that
|
||
|
|
spoof your online fingerprint and delete the cookies stored on your computer.
|
||
|
|
But perhaps more importantly, don't use your social media accounts (e.g. Google
|
||
|
|
or Facebook) to connect to any other site than that social media site.</p>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<h2>References</h2>
|
||
|
|
<ol class="refs" >
|
||
|
|
<li><a href="https://www.amiunique.org/fp" >AmIUnique Website</a></li>
|
||
|
|
</ol>
|