Can I stil be tracked if I use a vpn?

[smeek14]

Hey, so I was curious if I use a vpn... will people such as my ISP and others be able to see my activity?  Such as sites visited and things downloaded.  Also if I am connected to another wi-fi network such as in college would they still be able to see me?

 

If so how can I completely keep myself anonymous? 

 

I use this free VPN on my Android called Touch VPN.  Would that work?

[Oshino Shinobu]

For the most part, it will hide what you're doing. Unless they really want to find you, you'll be fine. 

 

Tor is probably one of the most secure options, but you can also put yourself under more chances of being looked into, as it's associated with illegal activity quite heavily now. 

[DudeWazap]

For the most part, it will hide what you're doing. Unless they really want to find you, you'll be fine. 

 

Tor is probably one of the most secure options, but you can also put yourself under more chances of being looked into, as it's associated with illegal activity quite heavily now. 

I actually heard tor is not secure.

[MegabassNote]

Hey, so I was curious if I use a vpn... will people such as my ISP and others be able to see my activity?  Such as sites visited and things downloaded.  Also if I am connected to another wi-fi network such as in college would they still be able to see me?

 

If so how can I completely keep myself anonymous? 

 

I use this free VPN on my Android called Touch VPN.  Would that work?

 

Yes, it's still possible to be tracked with a VPN, just much more difficult and a lot more hoops to jump through. Even with something like the TOR browser, you're never guaranteed 100% anonymity.

[smeek14]

For the most part, it will hide what you're doing. Unless they really want to find you, you'll be fine. 

 

Tor is probably one of the most secure options, but you can also put yourself under more chances of being looked into, as it's associated with illegal activity quite heavily no

What if I download tor through a VPN?

[PiGHamM3R]

As MegabassNote said, nothing is 100% anon, 100% safe, 100% secure...

 

With that said, every VPN provider is different and depending on their TOS/EULA, they can either jump on the Must-Tell-NSA-Like-Verizon-And-AT&T train, or require more from the law to act upon a single query.

 

Providers can keep logs on which IPs were routed to what and where at what times; some can use deep-packet scanning and see exactly what it is you're up to (even typing the word Tor gets you on a list somewhere in hush-land). Your connection may not be traced, but as the saying goes "There is always someone out there smarter than you"; and someone will put the pieces together through payment history, like-mined browsing history (browsing the same page at the same time on your routed and unrouted connection) or some other form of devious madness; an enemy with unlimited resources is a VERY dangerous one.

 

I suggest you (and anyone else interested) give this a read:
https://torrentfreak.com/anonymous-vpn-service-provider-review-2015-150228/

 

It's definitely worth the read and will give you some insight on the "paid vs free" debate

Edited August 19, 2015 by PiGHamM3R

[Geralt]

No VPN is really safe because there's DNS leaks even with the best one. Logs are also another factor too. Almost every VPN I use leaks my DNS one way or another and it's such a pain to find one that doesn't leak my DNS.

[smeek14]

Lets see if I can make this make sense... Say someone was logging ip's that access a website, would mine be logged too if I have a VPN?  (NOT saying I pirate but...) say they were looking at who was pirating, would I still be found?  I'm using this as an example...

[GoldSrc]

If someone wants to track you, they will, but for the most part you're ok.

[MaximusDecimus]

Laptop running on a high anonymity OS such as TAILS Double offshore VPN (preferably Russian or a country that will not comply with US LE) which keeps no logs + HA SOCKS 5 Proxy and you should be untraceable.

(Should be).

[smeek14]

what about paid vs free vpn's?  I use TouchVPN on my android.  Do those really work?

[cragger89]

Just don't do illegal stuff.

[LAwLz]

Assuming the VPN is a good one, no your ISP, schools sysadmin and other people won't be able to tell what you do. All they will see is that you are sending and receiving traffic from the VPN provider. They won't be able to tell what you are uploading and downloading though.
But the VPN provider will be able to see everything. The websites you are visiting will also be able to tell.


VPNs do not make you anonymous. For that you need a service like Tor, but that's usually very impractical.

[ThioJoe]

For the most part, it will hide what you're doing. Unless they really want to find you, you'll be fine. 

 

Tor is probably one of the most secure options, but you can also put yourself under more chances of being looked into, as it's associated with illegal activity quite heavily now. 

 

What if I told you the government has tons of TOR exit nodes they run themselves, and track all the data going through them.

[Guest]

Yes.

[Guest]

What if I told you the government has tons of TOR exit nodes they run themselves, and track all the data going through them.

What if I told you, that they where the ones that invented the Tor network, and there are literally millions more private nodes and government nodes.

[KemoKa]

They can track you, they just can't see what it is you're doing. Your internet traffic is encrypted, so even if they wanted to get something on you, they'd have nothing to go on.

Oh, and for those of you who have had the slightest thought of using Tor, I'll save you some time - DON'T. NO. BAD IDEA.

[LAwLz]

What if I told you the government has tons of TOR exit nodes they run themselves, and track all the data going through them.

I would tell you that exit nodes do not know the whole circuit (especially not the beginning), and simply using HTTPS (and I believe .onion domainds too) uses end-to-end encryption so exit nodes can't really see anything useful.

[ThioJoe]

I would tell you that exit nodes do not know the whole circuit (especially not the beginning), and simply using HTTPS (and I believe .onion domainds too) uses end-to-end encryption so exit nodes can't really see anything useful.

Maybe not now, but they're still recording it all. In a few years when computing power multiplies, especially for government supercomputers, they'll be able to get whatever they want.  Not to mention if they have enough nodes they can do all sorts of analysis to figure out who's who.  TOR is not secure.

[LAwLz]

Maybe not now, but they're still recording it all. In a few years when computing power multiplies, especially for government supercomputers, they'll be able to get whatever they want.  Not to mention if they have enough nodes they can do all sorts of analysis to figure out who's who.  TOR is not secure.

Well if you're going to involve hypothetical supercomputers from the future then maybe you're right, but the same could be said about anything. And sure, with enough nodes in the chain it is possible to with decent accuracy determine who is sending what data. That's pretty unlikely to happen though, especially if you are very serious about it and pick which nodes to use manually.

You also have to remember that the virtual circuit is not static. It is recreated after some time and that will throw off a lot of different types of attacks.

 

If you are going to stay on .onion sites, then you won't actually send any data to exit nodes at all. I think most people will want to use regular sites too but it's something to keep in mind when discussing the security of Tor.

 

But yes, there are some weaknesses in Tor. It is by no means 100% secure, but nothing is. What matters is minimizing the risks and that's handled very well by Tor.

[byalexandr]

You're fine, unless the NSA really wants to find you, then you're not. The NSA can even track people on Tor, despite what you might think.

[PiGHamM3R]

So apparently we've come to a conclusion?
> Can you still be tracked by using a VPN?

 

Two answers exist:
1. Yes: If you're doing small stuff trying to hide your identity from the prying eyes of society.

2. No: If you're out to do illegal activity or are an interest in the Government's eye.

[Blake]

Hey, so I was curious if I use a vpn... will people such as my ISP and others be able to see my activity?  Such as sites visited and things downloaded.  Also if I am connected to another wi-fi network such as in college would they still be able to see me?

 

If so how can I completely keep myself anonymous? 

 

I use this free VPN on my Android called Touch VPN.  Would that work?

Yes you can still be tracked. Most VPN's are trivial to circumvent the encryption. That being said most ISPs wont bother as it would cost money, in terms of processing power and the electricity to run them servers.

 

To others in this thread VPN =|= encryption, heck most of them transmit passwords and data in plain text.

[LAwLz]

Yes you can still be tracked. Most VPN's are trivial to circumvent the encryption. That being said most ISPs wont bother as it would cost money, in terms of processing power and the electricity to run them servers.

To others in this thread VPN =|= encryption, heck most of them transmit passwords and data in plain text.

But... That's just wrong.

Sure VPNs don't have to have encryption, but 99.9% of the VPN services you rent do, and they got good encryption. Most I've found uses 256 bit There is no way anyone on Earth had enough processing power to break that, especially not some ISP or school sysadmin.

Where did you read that most don't use encryption and the ones that do use weak ones?

[MrStraightface]

Hey, so I was curious if I use a vpn... will people such as my ISP and others be able to see my activity?  Such as sites visited and things downloaded.  Also if I am connected to another wi-fi network such as in college would they still be able to see me?

 

If so how can I completely keep myself anonymous? 

 

I use this free VPN on my Android called Touch VPN.  Would that work?

 

If your name is Jared Fogle it's too late for this.  Just saying.