VPN Providers Are LYING To Your Face! ft. Techlore

if there is a single worst piece of

advice on how to protect your online

privacy

it'll be without a doubt using a vpn i

can't even count how many times i've

seen this advice

all over the internet how do i stop

google from tracking me

how do i buy weed online anonymously

how to not get caught watching porn in

your mom's basement

hey vsauce michael here this advice

honestly so bad it's borderline

malicious or just plain

stupid people who follow up on it end up

with a false sense of security at best

or even in a worse situation than

without a vpn at worst

system breach

how could they find us vpns are so

prevalent nowadays yet they have never

been so unnecessary

the market is incredibly saturated with

vpn providers

and vpn ads are so common right now

there are more

youtube sponsorship deals for vpns than

there ever were for squarespace

i don't have a problem with people

promoting vpns or trying to make money

with

vpn affiliate links i have a problem

with how vpns are being sold to people

and how damaging this marketing practice

actually

is i've done a few videos on this topic

already

especially when comparing vpns with tor

but in this video

i want to bust some of the most common

and damaging myths about vpns

and to do that i brought in henry to

help us out on this mission

meet henry europe's favorite fast and

friendly

professional vacuum cleaner

no no no no no not that henry this henry

from the tech for youtube channel yes

it's happening

an epic collab on with the video now you

can still use a vpn if you want to

but do so for the right reasons and with

the right expectations

i use vpns also but i do it knowing

their limitations

and adjusting my behavior accordingly

vpns certainly do have their

use cases but none of them involve

wearing an anonymous mask

everybody knows you wear a mask to serve

the dark web

myth number one vpns make you anonymous

the most common and deceptive claim i've

seen is using a vpn makes you instantly

anonymous

let me phrase it this way how can you

claim to be anonymous

if there is a group of people you've

never seen that knows who you are

where you are and what you're doing

online you see many vpn providers make

big claims about hiding your ip address

which is supposed to make it impossible

for someone to see your traffic or know

your true ip address

except for the vpn provider they get to

see your ip address

and what servers you request if edward

snowden used a vpn to leak the nsa

documents he'd get caught before he even

thought about stealing the documents

yet very few vpn providers are actually

honest about the fact they are your

single point of failure

you're paying for with your money or

data or both

and those that are make broad marketing

claims about no logs policy which

doesn't actually mean anything

because every network operator keeps

some logs for at least

some period of time that's like private

instant messaging apps claiming they

have no

metadata policy that's impossible some

basic information about your request

has to travel through their servers and

you'll never have a chance to find out

what they actually

keep and for how long unless they are

kind enough to disclose that information

in plain english

somewhere in their privacy policies even

if your vpn provider does everything

right

and they delete all the logs immediately

from their records

even then you are still entitled to have

no expectations of anonymity

using a vpn you're only rerouting your

traffic through a single entity

advanced observers like big isp

companies

google amazon or your government can

easily correlate the timings between you

making a connection to a vpn server with

that server making a connection to a

website you want to see

vpn technology does nothing to mitigate

these correlation attacks

anonymity with vpns is technologically

impossible next myth vpn should be

combined with tor

take it away henry this is another

common myth that's also

frequently marketed by vpns themselves

as either being

tor compatible or going as far as

including tor into the vpn itself

combining tor over a vpn is useful to

hide tor usage from an isp

or circumventing censorship of the tor

network but

tor bridges also does this without

reliance on a vpn's

single point of failure and payment

trail as for vpn over tor

this will help correlate all of your

traffic to a single vpn's ip address

and break the tor anonymity model also

making it a hard thing

to recommend the reality is if you don't

know what you're doing

you should probably not combine tor with

a vpn

the complexity of this is pretty

thorough and there are several

configurations with different pros and

cons

which you shouldn't bother with unless

you absolutely need to and you know what

you're doing

tor itself is a great tool that will

more than protect almost every threat

model and a vpn

doesn't need to be part of that equation

this also applies to vpns that offer

tor over vpn just don't use it just use

the vpn when using a vpn

and just use tor when you're using tor

both myself and the hated one made a

video

comparing tor to vpns over on my channel

next myth vpns encrypt your traffic this

myth you will endlessly hear

and it's that vpns encrypt your traffic

and not just using any encryption

it's military-grade encryption but guess

what

it's not 2004 anymore during my service

in the

united states at congress i took the

initiative and

creating the internet almost everything

today

is encrypted by default you can thank

edward snowden for this

when he revealed the secret documents

about nsa surveillance

and when everybody freaked out as a

result and started encrypted everything

your wifi network is encrypted

and almost every website you visit is

encrypted with https

transport layer encryption is a standard

for today's

apps and connections and for those that

aren't encrypted

vpn encryption is not gonna change

anything why because vpns

don't just encrypt your traffic they

also decrypt your traffic

so when your packets leave a vpn server

they lose all the shiny military grade

protection you were duped to pay for

if you want to protect your traffic

don't go to an unencrypted website

next myth using a vpn protects your

identity another one for you henry

this myth comes as a result of the

constant bombardment of false marketing

performed by vpn companies

claiming to make you anonymous hide your

identity promise immediate privacy and

security and

more the reality is the two main things

a vpn does is hide your ip address from

the sites you visit

and encrypts your traffic within its

tunnel which the last myth covered

limitations with even this really the

main thing that's happening is you're

shifting trust from your internet

service provider to the vpn company

this in combination with a lot of other

precautions

which are talked about in our becoming

anonymous guide and go incognito

privacy tools io and the hated ones

channel also covers this

all of these tips can help protect your

identity but

just downloading a vpn to your system

and expecting it to somehow magically

protect your identity

is a complete joke it's just not that

simple and anyone claiming instant

anonymity and privacy through a product

is lying to you next myth vpns make you

private as soon as i say vpn encryption

is redundant there are gonna be comments

about how vpns make your traffic

invisible

to your internet service provider and

the government and people say this

because indeed your isp doesn't

immediately see what domains you visit

and domains don't immediately see your

ip address but vpns only address

a single issue in a massive pile of

problems

with mass surveillance your isp or the

government

have several options to figure out what

websites you connect to with your vpn

including aforementioned correlation

attacks tracking scripts on websites and

inside apps

tracking your device identifiers or

browser fingerprint

or they can just go to the vpn provider

and ask for your data many vpn servers

or providers reside in jurisdictions

where a law enforcement or

private entities can request access and

vpns have to comply

or they just comply willingly virtual

private networks

weren't designed for privacy they

weren't even designed for consumer use

vpns were designed for businesses to

have secure communication between remote

offices and workers

back in the day when most traffic on the

internet was not encrypted

because all vpn providers inherently see

your ip address

and know what connections you make you

just have to blindly trust them with

your data the same way you trust your

isp

and it's not just your vpn provider you

have to delegate trust with your data to

it's an undisclosed amount of third

parties most vpns are renting their

servers from

it's up to their privacy policies

whether they log your activity or not

newsflash most providers are logging

next myth using a vpn stops facebook

from tracking you

perhaps the dumbest myth on this list is

that using a vpn prevents an

x company from tracking you the reality

is using a vpn

changes nothing when you face advanced

trackers

tracker is gonna track your ip address

that vpns so

viciously protect is only one out of

hundreds or even

thousands of data points that can be

used to identify

and track you your device ids account

ids

social media accounts cookies cache

hardware configuration

software configuration system version

screen resolution

battery life keystroke patterns camera

microphone bluetooth cellular wi-fi

credit card contacts metadata

data collection is still happening with

or without a vpn

next myth vpn height zero location

challenging the previous myth's top

position in dumbness

it's often touted that using a vpn hides

your location from ben shapiro

and as much as i wish that was true wet

ass keyword

it's not ipaddress is only one metric

for tracking someone's location and not

a very precise one

all radio signals can be used to track

your location

including bluetooth cellular and gps

none of which using a vpn does anything

with but hey

you might object i use a vpn on my

laptop and there is no gps or sim card

and i can disable bluetooth sure you can

but if you are using your laptop

anywhere

near your phone there are techniques

that can link your devices and determine

they both belong to you

unless you have an app on your phone

with facebook sdk in it

this facebook sdk can track your gps or

cellular connection

radiating from your phone now you open

up your laptop and browse a website with

facebook's tracking script embedded that

tracking script can use

microphones and speakers on your devices

to notably communicate information to

each other and link your vpn laptop with

your phone that is

active gps or cellular connection thus

not only can

facebook correlate your identity from

your phone with your browser activity on

your laptop

they can also get your location in real

time and figure out

you are a user of a vpn service for the

majority of use cases

you can replace a paid or untransformed

the vpn service for a completely free

and open source and actually anonymous

tor network

definitely check out taclor's video

comparing vpns with tor

ram featured as well again i still find

use cases for a vpn where torque doesn't

suffice

and that is streaming hd video online

gaming and torrenting

big thanks to henry from teclor for

collaborating on this video

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thank you for watching