Pretty much my thoughts entirely. The only benefit I can see is the ability to spoof your geolocation to get round restrictions on streaming services.
I connect to my workplace VPN when I’m overseas specifically so that iplayer and other stuff works 🤣 All traffic to/from most websites is running over https anyway. Sent from my iPhone On Tue, 1 Oct 2024 at 09:27, Terry Coles <d-...@hadrian-way.co.uk> wrote: > OK. A slightly tongue-in-cheek question, but I'd like to know what > people think. > > I am fully familiar with the use of a VPN in a corporate setting, and as > many of you will know, I've implemented a VPN at the Wimborne Model > Town. However, the benefits of those use cases are clear; a network of > devices in a remote location may be secured much more effectively than > simply by using passwords, etc, and the traffic to and from the network > is encrypted. The result; the remote network is private (hence the name). > > However, I've always looked upon the commercial offerings of VPN > services with a pinch of salt. AFAICT, the only private part of the > network that they create is the provider's own servers, so the only > benefits that I can see are being able to spoof your IP address and > having encrypted data to and from your device. On the other hand, the > user is granting permissions and privileges to the provider that may be > exploited by them, thus reducing security, not improving it. > > The reason for this query is that we use Bitdefender antivirus on our > phones and tablets and this app also includes a VPN service. My wife > tried to enable 'Web protection' on her IPadOS tablet and got the > response that VPN had to be enabled to do this. On my Android devices, > I do not have to do this (in fact, VPN is a separate install). > > I'd be interested to hear your comments. > > -- > Terry Coles > > > -- > Next meeting: Online, Jitsi, Tuesday, 2024-10-01 20:00 > Check to whom you are replying > Meetings, mailing list, IRC, ... https://dorset.lug.org.uk > New thread, don't hijack: mailto:dorset@mailman.lug.org.uk > -- Next meeting: Online, Jitsi, Tuesday, 2024-10-01 20:00 Check to whom you are replying Meetings, mailing list, IRC, ... https://dorset.lug.org.uk New thread, don't hijack: mailto:dorset@mailman.lug.org.uk
