Hey there is something I am not really understanding and I came in hope that anyone could clarify this for me.
I read alot that people were saying you cannot trust a VPN service, because they will just rat you out and they do keep logs for feds etc. And they claim that it is much better to set up your own VPS and tunnle to that server (via VPN). However, now they connect basically through that server to the internet. Let’s say they do something illegal via their VPN and the Server IP now gets exposed/tracked. Now the police could go and ask the provider of that server (e.g. DigitalOcean, AWS) who owns the VPS with that IP address. Even though they will be no logs on that machine, everything will still point to them.
That is accurate. There is no advantage unless they managed to pay for that server anonymously. There is a major disadvantage, however, in that there is no “herd” to hide in.
“logs” of sufficient detail to connect one user to a specific act on a shared IP Address/random port number VPN server is an urban legend.
The idea that a company collects that level of information across hundreds or thousands of servers spread around the world is silly. Anyone suggesting it doesn’t understand the scope of the problem.
You’re nuts if you think they don’t take logs. How do you think they troubleshoot issues? It’s just DNS queries there isnt much resources required to log that.
Probably not easily. There might be some companies accessible over TOR or the “dark web” that sell VPSes and take payment in crypto, but I doubt this is what most people want.
Just broadly, what people should want from a VPN provider is some statement of no logs and that it is well known and has a lot of users.
Someone running their own VPN on a rented server is basically defeated by Netflow as “they” can see all traffic that comes in and goes out. It would be easy to tell that IP ABC is now the same as XYZ as there is only one user. This becomes more difficult if there are 200 users on one server.
Yeah, so basically companies which are moste likely also criminals, who would rent it out… So as a consumer of that server you couldn’t really trust the machine.
What do you mean by netflow? Do you mean Internet Provider logs or do you mean logs of from a hostimg company like AWS?
It doesn’t matter if someone is doing something illegal or not. People are allowed to use a VPN whenever they’d like, and they’re allowed to ask questions. Especially in a VPN subreddit
Get off your high horse and stop gatekeeping ICT and Security. You should be encouraging curious people like him, not shutting them down with your snarky comments.