VPNs haven't been useful since 2002

[VulcanWerks]

I saw that video earlier and found it "too depressing" to share...  on it's own... I'm glad you found a use for it!

I no longer care to even debate with the "who cares? whatever" crowd.  I figure, "Well, you were told." and leave it there.

I see your point.

I don’t debate it either.

But, I think it’s more due to my own realization. Do I love it? Not really. I’m also a cynic/realist/some adjective who sees that “privacy” died a long long time ago.

Even if they didn’t scrape my data, they know what my license plate is. So they know where I live. They know when I bought my house and how. They know where I work. They know what other cars I own. They know my SSN, can access bank records, brokerage statements and tie basically anything financially to me directly for the last many years.

None of that needed to be scraped from encrypted transmissions. With all of the information I listed you could easily build on that and paint a pretty detailed and complete picture of someone’s life. That’s before “club cards” at the grocery store, memberships, etc.

What the tech side of it gives is real-time intelligence and the ability to source insane amounts of data that could be used for so many purposes at scale - massive sample sets taken collectively.

We haven’t touched on satellite capability or good old fashioned tiny cameras or microphones. “Combat Zones that See” is an example:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combat_Zones_That_See

TLDR: Privacy died a long time ago as it pertains to you and the government. If they want to figure something out about you, they will. Will that’s not joyous to me, it does leave me realizing my measures are really to combat the common cyber criminal - not to create *absolute* privacy.

[pianopraze]

I saw that video earlier and found it "too depressing" to share...  on it's own... I'm glad you found a use for it!

I no longer care to even debate with the "who cares? whatever" crowd.  I figure, "Well, you were told." and leave it there.

I don’t try to explain to anyone.

Too much information to convey and clashes with their perceptions of reality to point it will create cognitive dissonance and confusion and be dismissed as impossible.

Yes your government is evil starter pack: Mk Ultra, Tuskegee experiments, Northwoods, Gulf of Tonkin…

Yes pchychic is real, and your government has used it operationally for decades. Sun streak

Lehto’s videos are great for explaining civil asset forfeiture and more. Many of his videos could make threads. Listen to almost all of his videos for a long time.

[Kenzo]

I have VPN , Private Internet Access . I tryed to look from their site do they write about this TunnelVision vulnerability but cant find anything , which makes me feel unsecure

If PIA wont sort this out , i might cancel my subscription, i dont much use it anyway.....not sure why because i am paying it

[Maxmars]

Since this flaw in networking has been known to have existed since 2002... I'm sure they wont be talking about it anytime soon.

Still, I'm not too worried about script kiddies and techno-nerds as much as I am the surprise in store when they apply all that harvested data about me to some algorithm somewhere... and then I will wish privacy was a 'real' thing in the 'virtual' world.  Trust me, social scoring is based upon something other than 'base stats.'

[VulcanWerks]

Since this flaw in networking has been known to have existed since 2002... I'm sure they wont be talking about it anytime soon.

Still, I'm not too worried about script kiddies and techno-nerds as much as I am the surprise in store when they apply all that harvested data about me to some algorithm somewhere... and then I will wish privacy was a 'real' thing in the 'virtual' world.  Trust me, social scoring is based upon something other than 'base stats.'

Oh for sure it is based on other factors. Though I’m not certain what you mean by “base stats”.

Social credit already exists IMO. You just don’t see it. Things that come to mind for me regarding your social credit score:
- What bank you use
- What credit cards you use
- Gun ownership
- What you pay in taxes
- Union/non-union/corporate monkey/self-employed
- What vehicles you own
- Zip code you live in
- Social Media engagement
- What school you went to
- What car(s) you have
- Energy consumption
- What you eat
- Criminal history
- Legal action history

Data can be found for all of this pretty easily and aggregated.

Example - do you bank with JPM and carry an AMEX? Higher scores than banking at the local CU and paying cash for everything. The former is more transparent than the latter.

Or, does the PUD show you use a ton of electricity and burn through huge amounts of NatGas? Or does it show you have solar have a certain amount of self-sufficiency and use minimal gas? The latter gets a higher score.

I’m making these examples up to illustrate that whether we are informed of it or not we have many ways that an SCS could already be implemented.

There’s also “debanking”, or Broker-Dealers firing clients “just because”… which I have a hunch is heavily related to a shadow set of review criteria that very much looks like a social credit score.

[Maxmars]

Just a note to include some related VPN news...

From Infopacktes.com: Windows Fix Breaks Some VPNs
 

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That leaves affected users three main choices. One is to manually uninstall the update. Given it fixes security problems known to be under exploitation, that's not ideal to say the least. (Source: malwarebytes.com)

Another option is to try a different VPN provider. That's also not simple as there's no word yet on exactly which VPN services are and are not affected, or whether there's a clear pattern such as the specific technologies each uses.

The third solution is to stop using a VPN altogether. That's also not ideal given most people who use a VPN do so for a specific reason.

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[Maxmars]

It took a while to find, but other internet sources are covering this vulnerability now...

Why Your VPN May Not Be As Secure As It Claims

Fairly well explained... just another source for your edification.
 

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Virtual private networking (VPN) companies market their services as a way to prevent anyone from snooping on your Internet usage. But new research suggests this is a dangerous assumption when connecting to a VPN via an untrusted network, because attackers on the same network could force a target’s traffic off of the protection provided by their VPN without triggering any alerts to the user.

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[FlyingClayDisk]

...
Well, at least I can narrow down who can beat all of my encryption :|.

...

Not "All".  Certainly most, but not "all". 

Some encryption cannot be broken; it's impossible.  It's very difficult to use, and labor intensive, but it cannot be broken.  Never has, and never will be, no matter how massive the 'compute' resources they throw at it.  The only vulnerability with it is when people get lazy and try to reuse things which have already been used once.

The 'intelligence' giants don't like to admit this, but it's true.

[Maxmars]

There are a lot of misconceptions and misapprehensions about encryption "invulnerability."

People rarely go the extra step in their imaginations and presume that if I send a 'secret' message to someone it 'needs' to be encrypted...  that may not be necessary.

I may also speak in a cryptic manner... while you may understand the message content, you may not understand the message meaning.  Messages can be layered in allegory, metaphor, double entendre, and numerous exceedingly subtle ways.  You many not be aware that my point of contact and I have 'understandings' that go beyond the mere linguistics.  Now multiply that with using multiple languages simultaneously, or referring to object external to the communication which might have an altered meaning, etc.

Cryptography is not merely a matter of codes... its a matter of encoding.

There are some encryption forms that will never be broken except by the creator and his target... you kind of have to think sideways to get past it.  Most technical writers marvel at the numerous and almost musical way things can be encrypted... but that's just the data... the math.  There's more to human communications than math.

[FlyingClayDisk]

There are a lot of misconceptions and misapprehensions about encryption "invulnerability."

People rarely go the extra step in their imaginations and presume that if I send a 'secret' message to someone it 'needs' to be encrypted...  that may not be necessary.

I may also speak in a cryptic manner... while you may understand the message content, you may not understand the message meaning.  Messages can be layered in allegory, metaphor, double entendre, and numerous exceedingly subtle ways.  You many not be aware that my point of contact and I have 'understandings' that go beyond the mere linguistics.  Now multiply that with using multiple languages simultaneously, or referring to object external to the communication which might have an altered meaning, etc.

Cryptography is not merely a matter of codes... its a matter of encoding.

There are some encryption forms that will never be broken except by the creator and his target... you kind of have to think sideways to get past it.  Most technical writers marvel at the numerous and almost musical way things can be encrypted... but that's just the data... the math.  There's more to human communications than math.

Numbers stations are a good example of unbreakable codes.  Uniform blocks of numbers repeated over and over.  Random number changes at periodic intervals, then one number will change which equates to where to look up the location of the message in a subsequent string of blocks.  Then blocks of numbers, and more blocks of numbers.  There's no way to tell even how long a message is.  And by keeping message lengths uniform, no forensic pattern analysis can be performed (mathematical or otherwise).  It's just impossible to break.  A "1" in position #2 of a block of (5) might mean a <space>.  A "1" in the 2nd position of an identical (5) digit block might mean "G".  A "1" in the 2nd position of a 3rd block of (5) digits might be an instruction to look at the 2nd letter in on the cover of the Bible which is an "O".  And the next message is completely different with blocks of (5) random digits which are all meaningless and to be discarded.  There's just no way to crack something like that.  Plus, a digit could refer to a word

21379 21379 21379 21379 21300 21300 21300 21379 21379 21379 21379...on and on, 24 x 7 x 365 for decades on end.  Some have been on the air for 30+ years, just non-stop numbers.

It's really fascinating study when you look into it.  I spent a lot of time back in the 2000's listening to endless strings of numbers and studying the CONET project research publications.

Numbers stations are still out there too, which is a testament to their unbreakable security.