Privacy

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Can a VPN read my traffic to know what I'm doing? (lemmy.autism.place)

submitted 1 month ago by ASDraptor@lemmy.autism.place to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

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https://torrentfreak.com/italy-approves-piracy-shield-vpn-dns-proposal-risk-of-prison-for-isps-intact-241001/

As title. Italy is decided to pass a law that basically creates a chinese-type firewall in the country. The question is simple: even if I'm not doing anything illegal, my VPN provider will have to know what am I doing to report it in case it's illegal, or face jail.

So how could my traffic remain private in this scenario?

Can a VPN provider with no logs policy be held accountable of anything? Can it actually know what I'm doing?

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[–] HelixDab2@lemm.ee 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I'm curious how hard it would be for a typical user to chain VPNs together so that my traffic went sequentially through VPNs. In theory it seems like VPN #1 would know that it was connected to my home and VPN #2, so it couldn't tell where data was originating. VPN #2 could see the site that was being accessed and VPN #1, but not me.

I have no idea if it actually works this way in practice through.

[–] shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

What you are describing is the tor network.

You connect to a guard node which knows who you are
The Guard node connects to a middle relay node, and that middle relay only knows who the Guard is, but does not know who you are.
If you are going to the standard internet, the relay node connects to an exit node, which knows who the relay operator is, but does not know who the guard node is and does not know who you are.
The exit node connects to Facebook, Google, Amazon, etc. and only knows that the traffic goes back to the relay node when Amazon or whatever it responds. And then the entire thing goes in reverse back to you.

Now, if you are going to a hidden service and not out to the standard internet, it does this process twice and so you get six hops in between yourself and the hidden service instead of the three to the standard internet.