Sorry to interrupt the speculation, but I've just made the perfect purchase and I wanted to share the good news
TorGuard (anonymous VPN) accepts Darkcoin!!TorGuard is a well known VPN provider. They don't keep logs and support all protocols. They have integrated CoinPayments and now support DRK (and a bunch of other altcoins).
I was trying different services lately, but after seeing this, my decision was made. I have signed up to their service and paid with Darkcoin! I hated to see a few coins go, but it is also great to be able use them and show support. The price for their Anonymous VPN service is 5 USD per month if you pay annually.
This forum is sponsored by TorGuard's biggest competitor, Private Internet Access. Many of us asked them to accept Darkcoin recently and they didn't listen. We now have our alternative
If you also want to sign up, please consider using my referral link:
https://torguard.net/aff.php?aff=806Also, for a 20% disccount, use this coupon code when checking out: vpncoupons
bump and buy
I'm wondering if using such a service can be detected by my ISP or the guv causing my household to become a target? I would love to do this just for the principle of the thing but because I'm easily rattled and anxious, I don't want to invite anyone to pick on me ;P (stupid but true). So does anyone know if this makes me a target in any way? Thanks!
Once you're a target, nothing will save you:
http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/39788/how-can-you-be-caught-using-private-vpn-when-theres-no-logs-about-who-you-areThat's a very good way to look at it Tungfa. Perhaps by getting a VPN you're inviting attention to yourself... I know lots of guys at work that have a VPN so they can watch BBC iPlayer etc, you think there's enough numbers?
Ignition, you're actually talking to Tante (the other of our lovely ladies here in the DRK forum).
I'm quite dubious about using a commercial VPN service too. I'd expect what Tante is saying would carry some weight. The vast teams of spooks and cybertrawlers within the guv 3 letter agencies would most surely be filtering on several criteria, and users of VPN's (I'd expect) would be one of them.
We are all marked and watched already!
Even if you only use the internet to read some news... now that I think about it, reading news and keeping oneself informed is an act of rebellion, that will get you marked for sure
Scratch that. Even if you only use the internet to see cute cat photos, you are being watched.
Has using crypto awarded us some kind of extra attention?
Can't know, but it seems plausible.
Would using a VPN get you even more attention?
Same thing.
However, the fact that the watchers don't like something makes me like that much more. That is why I sometimes send PGP encrypted emails when there is nothing to hide. That is why I use a VPN. And that is why I use DRK. If we use encryption/privacy only when we have something to hide, the fact of using it becomes a confession.
The one thing I don't like about the VPN is that I can't know for sure if they keep logs. I have to trust them about it and I hate trust. It makes sense for them to honour their promise because they are a private business and their life depend on that. But they could be a fake company operated by a government. Or a government could have hacked them without them knowing it... That is why it can't be your only layer of privacy, it is just one more in the toolbox. By the way, there are many open source standards for VPNs, a big part of what they do can be audited.
Same goes with Tor. There are rumours about many relays run by the NSA. Nobody can't know for sure. Even the same goes with Darkcoin! You don't have to prove that you are not the NSA to own a masternode
(for those who have not here for long, you would need most of the masternodes to catch a tiny percentage of the transactions, don't worry about this, just an example!)
Having said that, how a VPN works is that it forces all your traffic (or part of it if you configure it that way) through their server. The ISP can only see that you connect to the server and then nothing else. If they keep a record of VPN's IP addresses (the good ones have thousands and add new ones all the time) they will know you're using a VPN, but nothing else. If you prefer a VPN that is not US based, I have had very good results with CyberGhost (
http://www.cyberghostvpn.com) They are in Germany, but remember that NSA listened to German Chancellor mobile phone, they stop nowhere! The don't accept DRK, though
There are other good reasons to use a VPN besides privacy:
-Security of the connection. You can't always trust the internet connection you are using. With a VPN the connection becomes irrelevant because you are connecting from the VPN server and all traffic to and from it is encrypted between both machines. Many companies force their employees on the road to use a VPN for this reason.
-Access to certain secured resources. Some companies user their own VPNs and you can't connect to certain network resources unless you are routing your traffic through those servers. This way they can close those resources to all other IP addresses and secure them more effectively. This is less relevant for most of us, but if you need to do this some VPN vendors (including TorGuard) can also sell you a dedicated IP to configure something similar.
-Geolocated content. As someone has said before, with a VPN you can pretend to connect from anywhere. This is quite nice to access geolocated content. For this I have been using Unblock-us (
http://www.unblock-us.com/2775.html) for quite some time. They only do this, but they do it extremely well. You can cange the DNS server in your router and forget about it. They only mess with your traffic to geolocated sites.
-Torrenting. I won't go into what you are torrenting. Even if you are downloading perfectly legal things to torrent, this a behaviour that raises many alarms in ISPs. Hiding it from them can't hurt
