Using a VPN or tor? Well, obviously you are a criminal!

[Elixer]

The newly approved rule change by the U.S. Supreme Court will allow FBI to search and seize any computer around the world, found to be using privacy tools like VPN or Tor. The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday quietly approved a rule change to Rule No.41, that would allow a federal magistrate judge to issue a search and seizure warrant for any target using anonymity software like Tor to browse the internet.

Rule 41 will become a law in December if the U.S. Congress doesnt take any legislative action against it. As said in our previous article, the new ruling bestows enormous powers to FBI to be able to search computers remotely—even if the bureau doesn’t know where that computer is located—if a user has anonymity software installed on it.

The rule changes, which the FBI said were necessary to combat cyber crime, come amid escalating tensions between the intelligence community and technology and privacy advocates, and just a day after the U.S. House of Representatives advanced a bill that would require the government to obtain a probable cause warrant from a judge before seizing data stored with tech companies such as Facebook, Google, and Dropbox.

http://www.techworm.net/2016/05/tor-vpn-users-labeled-criminals-hacked-spied-fbi-new-law.html

In theory, they could attack your router/machine, pipe everything to one of their servers, and data mine the hell out of it.

 

[Zodiark1593]

With proper implementation of TOR and VPNs, this changes nothing on the technical side. If the user knows what he/she is doing, the government will be none the wiser anyway unless we get the Clipper Chip Redux.

It would probably be more effective to add Coffee Shop Hotspots in on that list of what makes one a target too.

 

[John Connor]

and seize any computer around the world

Right....

Hey Iran! We come for your servers!

 

[stockwiz]

In the end I believe it does more good than harm to weed out the anonymous people. It really can prevent predators from going after underage people on services like younow by making it difficult to actually set up accounts on instagram, twitter, etc. anonymously. Even then it's really easy to get full names and addresses without an account because the lax moderation the site has. I'm surprised they've gone this long without more scrutiny, such as completely locking people not logged in from viewing any profile, things of that sort.

Most other people who try to anonymously create social media accounts are trying to spam with them, which is also very annoying and if they can stop spammers before they get a foothold, great.

I have PIA for torrenting because I know the government doesn't care about torrenting, and just out of pure curiously of trying it for a year. After the year is up I'll probably stop using it. It's becoming harder and harder to find stuff to torrent anyways, and I have pretty much everything I want.

I used to be a big privacy advocate but I guess my opinion has moderated.. if you really want privacy you're not going to find it on the internet.. basically if you want to use social media you should be who you say you are. It benefits more people than it hurts the few percent that want to try to be completely anonymous for whatever reason...

What are your legitimate uses for a VPN? I'm just curious.

 

[techne]

In the end I believe it does more good than harm to weed out the anonymous people.

(...)

It's becoming harder and harder to find stuff to torrent anyways, and I have pretty much everything I want.

(...)

What are your legitimate uses for a VPN? I'm just curious.

I don't use a VPN, but I'm guilty anyway: I haven't learned (yet) to love Big Brother.

 

[Chiefcrowe]

Well one legit use of VPN is if you are working or using your computer in an insecure location/traveling, and doing banking or something else like that. You also want to make sure all of your traffic is in a secure tunnel on a possible insecure wifi network so your logins, etc. will be much less likely to be intercepted.

 

[Bart*Simpson]

What are your legitimate uses for a VPN? I'm just curious.

Helping to topple a tyrannical government is one use I can think of.

 

[Captante]

Well one legit use of VPN is if you are working or using your computer in an insecure location/traveling, and doing banking or something else like that. You also want to make sure all of your traffic is in a secure tunnel on a possible insecure wifi network so your logins, etc. will be much less likely to be intercepted.

We have a winner! :thumbsup:

I'd think this would be obvious but apparently I'm giving some of our fellow AT'ers too much credit.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Right....

Hey Iran! We come for your servers!

They've done it before. Ex: Megaupload. The US government is too damn powerful. It's ridiculous that they have jurisdiction over the whole world like that and how obsessed they are with controlling the people. Though I imagine some countries may be harder to seize stuff from than others. Maybe it's time for people to start hosting stuff in Syria. Do they even have internet there? :awe:

I also wonder if this law will apply to people who setup their own private VPN, ex: at their home so they can VPN to it from anywhere.

 

[BirdDad]

I'm using PIA to protect my intellectual property from hackers and soon will have it between my modem and router thus protecting my daughters against predators.

 

[DigDog]

honestly i always saw it that way - that if you used a private network, you were more likely to be targeted *because* 'more likely to be committing crime.

 

[BirdDad]

I forgot, I do all my banking online-so that is important to me as well.

 

[John Connor]

I'm using PIA to protect my intellectual property from hackers and soon will have it between my modem and router thus protecting my daughters against predators.

A VPN isn't going to prevent "predators." That involves parenting, computer control and lock down.

How many social networks do they use? Do they use chat rooms? A VPN isn't going to do anything to prevent them from using these Internet websites and Apps.

A VPN does two and only two things:

1) Masks your location.

2) Encrypts your IP traffic.

But there are many aspects to it all. Do you trust the exit server? Is port forwarding on for the VPN? If so, game over. Your IP address is exposed. Is WebRTC turned on in your browsers? If so game over. https://www.browserleaks.com/webrtc#webrtc-disable

A VPN is a must need for open WIFI hotspots. Some VPN providers offer their own VPN App for a smartphone.

 

[angelaandrea]

i think vpn is batter than tor because easily access to vpn and our data is secured by the vpn but i think is not use both are technologies only criminal we can use for legal things such as i am belong to usa and go to vacation other country and i am also student i have online library access id and passwords but that's time i can not brows my library resources or submission project that's time i will stuck but due to i will use vpn and access to my desire page and submit my classes project or get books by help the vpn...

 

[mauiblue]

Well I'm not a criminal and I want privacy. Since getting my new android phone (lost the previous one a month ago) I decided I wanted more privacy on the new phone. Then I remembered using a Tor and Anonymizer years ago. I just set up my new nordVPN subscription (including Tor) on both phone and laptop a day ago and things are working smoothly. There are some slowness on browsing but that is okay with me.

 

[John Connor]

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=tor+fbi

 

[mauiblue]

Thanks John C. for the heads up. But if you use Tor in conjunction with a VPN connection wouldn't that have more privacy?

Sent from my HTC6545LVW using Tapatalk

 

[mauiblue]

I notice a few things since using VPN and Tor:

If you don't run scripts, some website content will not work
Google search is always running a verification before you can get to the searches you run
Sometimes Google will not even show you the results of your searches
A few websites like this forum will block you from viewing the website and block the ip address

I'm fine with most of these issues. I just muddle through and I know I will figure out what I need to do in order to utilize Tor and the VPN service to its fullest potential.