• Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    3 hours ago

    I don’t know how effective VPNs are over a public WiFi network, but I do know it stopped Spectrum from sending me “you are downloading copyrighted material, stop it” emails once I started using one. Fuck Spectrum, I don’t have them anymore, but that seems like a good enough reason to keep using one in certain circumstances.

    • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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      13 minutes ago

      They need to advertise a legitimate use for their service.

      If they don’t have a threat from public wifi or other security concerns to remedy, then the only purpose for their service is to bypass region limits and block infringement notices. They would be considered complicit in such infringement.

      That their service also hinders efforts to stop pirates needs to be an “unintended” and “unavoidable” side effect.

    • r00ty@kbin.life
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      2 hours ago

      On public WiFi I just vpn into my home network. The issue with public WiFi is that it can be sniffed by anyone in range since there is generally no encryption.

      Although pretty much everything we do is over tls these days, and DoH helps protect against even dns sniffing. There’s still at least some risk to working in the clear over a public WiFi network. At least in information gathering, what bank you use, etc.

      But, there’s no real benefit in using a paid vpn over one you own unless you’re downloading illegal content, want to watch another Netflix region, or are in a country with heavy Internet monitoring/filtering.

        • OneMeaningManyNames@lemmy.ml
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          23 minutes ago

          Possibly the domain is visible with a traffic monitoring tool. Everything else is between you and the bank via HTTPS. Having said that, whatever is not over https is visible to whoever sits on the same network as yourself.