SwiftOnSecurity

VPNs are not “possibly safer” vs “nothing.” They are ”pay money to someone you let watch everything you do“ vs ”not feeling like a hacker.“

If you don’t know if you need a VPN, guess what, you don’t. Do I need a Ilizarov apparatus? Well I have no fucking idea, so probably not.

It’s so easy to prescribe medicine to solve problems. Congratulations, you’re a doctor and your foot fracture patient is now shooting heroin

“Just pick a good VPN” is like telling thirsty people to “go to a store and drink clear liquid.” They drank bleach, but at least you helped.

“Well it’s not my fault they didn’t know about chemical safety.”

Hey, feel free to link to the Executive Leadership Team page on the website of the VPN you suggest people use. And their postal address.

You’re trying to be anonymous by sending your name and money and internet traffic to anonymous nobodies. Like, do you understand.

Hey everybody I discovered this free encrypted VPN tunnel built-in to all web browsers it’s called HTTPS and it’s free. Incredible.

Apparently when you use this HTTPS VPN, everything you send over it can’t be viewed by your ISP. It uses some math thing called encryption.

I found out all Google searches, Amazon purchases, and Pornhub usernames are already protected by this free VPN called HTTPS. No credit card

The solution to privacy isn’t 0.05% of ISP users trying to opt-out of the net by paying $8/month to someone promising to fix their problems.

MANY people seem to be confused: HTTPS protects the full URL and page content. The only thing it doesn’t protect is the domain name.

Everybody hates you now and all your nerd cred is gone because you’re not following the narrative. Unsubscribe.

Not all problems are solved by paying for products. It's intellectually lazy.

Telling people to use a tool that promises protection during risky behavior, likely increasing risky behavior, without actually exempting users from consequences performed under that illusion, is professional malpractice. Full stop.https://twitter.com/x0rz/status/979053652680814592 …

Note that without lots of money to subscribe to every commercial VPN in existence to test them, this list is of course entirely incomplete.

Your hands are ziptied together behind your back as you hang from a rope, upside down in a middle eastern blacksite getting your face chewed off by dogs purposely kept underfed by the guards, but the VPN company said you were anonymous at least.

I mean, sure, mainstream vetted VPN services largely do what they promise - obfuscating connection history, geographic limitation bypass, and avoiding BitTorrent DMCA complaints, but you’re trading one demon for another, even less predictable. It’s mostly recreational placebo.

Instead of a VPN, to actually improve your life try spending your money on an SSD or Windows 10 or toilet bowl cleaner. Clorox with bleach let it sit 20 minutes.

UPDATE: I have a new recommended article on VPN use by consumers. VPNs require an incredible amount of trust and that means DUE DILIGENCE on the actual companies and products. This is an incredibly contemplative piece of consumer journalism and research.https://twitter.com/runasand/status/989983734995865605 …

I respect Runa immensively and the fact this guide has the New York Times’ information security apparatus, who deal with securely operating overseas against Nation-State Actors And Transnational Criminal Networks, not as cosplay, lends this an incredibly authoritative voice.

The modern internet environment for consumers is rife with websites of no technical acumen offering “qualified advice” on products, which is rarely anything more than spending a few hours reading product pages and arranging the highest kickbacks. VPNs are acutely impacted by this

Additionally, this review does something that is very rare and laudable: It tells the reader they may not need this product at all. Many privacy guides are written under a completely false premise of being universally applicable. In reality it’s an incredibly complicated gradient

Also, yes my tweets are screenshotted in the article, and I hate to be all royal and stuff, but that stopped mattering to me a long time ago. What am I going to do, get more followers? Why? For what? They screenshotted them to help make a point in a funny and memorable way.

The naïve assumption is of course that once a human reaches a certain amount of wealth or power they are satisfied. But humans aren’t built that way and become even more deranged, minds damaged from a singular focus on more hits of affluence. Luckily I really honestly don’t care

I wish I knew how to quit this hell website