108
The truth about VPNs?
(lemmy.dbzer0.com)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 20 Jun 2023
108 points (98.2% liked)
Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ
54390 readers
200 users here now
⚓ Dedicated to the discussion of digital piracy, including ethical problems and legal advancements.
Rules • Full Version
1. Posts must be related to the discussion of digital piracy
2. Don't request invites, trade, sell, or self-promote
3. Don't request or link to specific pirated titles, including DMs
4. Don't submit low-quality posts, be entitled, or harass others
Loot, Pillage, & Plunder
📜 c/Piracy Wiki (Community Edition):
💰 Please help cover server costs.
 |
 |
|---|---|
| Ko-fi | Liberapay |
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
Every site on earth has been using https for multiple years. The only thing that is visible to your ISP has been the server's address for a while. VPNs just got encrypt that as well, but that's about it.
And yet, if you use a cheapo VPN with a well-known address (shared IP) sites like Amazon, or even Wikia will block you. Why? If most of your information is 'private' anyways, why go through the step of preventing a potential customer/user just because of their IP?
Because in reality, even such a minor thing as a dinky $3/month VPN is a huge headache for people trying to farm relevant information from you. Public Cookies, Basic Telemetry, and really any sort of ad-relevant data is pretty much publically available to any interested party, and even the simplest VPNs screw that up to a large degree.
People don't go out of their way to spend a couple of bucks on a VPN and reserved IP because they think they're gonna defeat the CIA or become a Net Ghost, they do it to get around region locks, IP bans, localized pricing (and yes to pirate their favorite movies/video games).
This isn't why. They refuse service because a large part of DDoS, scam and generally unlawful trafic comes from VPNs (because the criminals are the ones interested in masking their true IP, for police evasion). If your site has a payment form, it is financial suicide to not block common VPN IPs because carders will use it to test their ill-acquired cards. If your site has a way to make a request that cost a lots of resources, you want to block VPN IPs because otherwise your site gets DoSed to hell and back by anyone who has a problem with you. The collateral damage of blocking people who deny you one data point to track them is completely acceptable to these businesses.