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First of all, there's no such thing as own server. The trust you are putting into the ISP your "own server" is connected to is exactly the same as the trust you
by austerity 11y ago
First of all, there's no such thing as own server. The trust you are putting into the ISP your "own server" is connected to is exactly the same as the trust you are putting into a VPN provider.
Second, for a lot of people in this world it's a given that their ISP/government is monitoring their traffic. It's vastly better to be potentially spied on by someone abroad then to be certainly spied on by someone who has direct authority over you.
To answer your first question, the most popular use cases for VPN are:
1. Circumventing censorship
2. Circumventing regional content restrictions
3. Hiding your IP while torrenting (note that this is relevant only in the US)
4. Avoiding government surveillance (again, note that US is not the only country in the world, but likely the only one with any meaningful reach outside its borders)
5. Avoiding private surveillance (public wi-fi, etc.)
6. Hiding your IP while engaging in illegal online activities (#3 is a special case of this but it's a vastly larger group so I made it separate)
Note that "weird jurisdictions" can be a significant advantage for cases #3 and #6 (because they are harder to subpoena) as well as #3 (because they don't have retention laws).
- noinsight 11y ago> 3. Hiding your IP while torrenting (note that this is relevant only in the US) It's not, actually. The same BS is happening in at least Finland too these days. Legal companies get the rights to some media (in the Nordics or whatever) and monitor some torrents and take screenshots(!) of the IP's in the torrent swarm and can then petition the market court for the subscriber details of the IP addresses in the swarm then send a threatening letter asking for a 500€ settlement. Some idiots are even caving in and paying. I don't think anyone has actually been sued yet for establishing some precedent (though the Finnish legal system isn't based on precedents).
- austerity 11y agoWelp, it was only a matter of time... Thanks for the info!
- divbyzer0 11y agoAs an example: I set up a VPN in the Netherlands, hosted on a VPS. I was connecting from another European country (where ISPs block torrent sites). Within minutes of attempting download of recent movie release, a Cease and Desist was emailed by ip-echelon.com.
- mirimir 11y agoThat's the thing. With a VPN service, you don't have to read those ;)
- thepangolino 11y ago> 3. Hiding your IP while torrenting (note that this is relevant only in the US) The entire German nation would like a word with you, kind sir.
- patrickk 11y agoFurther reading: https://www.reddit.com/r/germany/comments/2hxy4j/help_me_german_pirates_torrent/ https://www.reddit.com/r/germany/comments/2hxy4j/help_me_ger... Between this and GEMA, using the internet in Germany is quite restricted.
- yAnonymous 11y ago>3. Hiding your IP while torrenting (note that this is relevant only in the US) This is relevant in most of Europe and unlike in the U.S., a C/D letter can easily cost you somewhere between 300 and 1000€.
- appleflaxen 11y agowhy is there a cost associated with it?
- tP5n 11y agobecause they can and a lawyer will cost you more. actually, i know a lawyer who paid upfront to avoid the threat of a lawsuit.
- yAnonymous 10y agoThey threaten to take it to court and that would cost much more. You'll also have to deal with a lot of bureaucratic crap along the way that has very short deadlines and can cause a lot of trouble if you don't meet them, so they kindly allow you to pay to make it all go away...