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by colesantiago·5y ago·view on hn ↗
This is good if you're experienced with this sort of stuff, but I like to save time with the "set it and forget it" approach.

Relatives of mine got setup with a VPN in under 5 minutes just by:

1. download (vpn client)

2. pay (for a month or two)

3. switch it on and forget it.

In terms of on-boarding new users to use secure and recommended tools, I find this a massive achievement.

1 comments
Trusting a VPN provider is an entirely different thing than trusting AWS et al though.

VPN providers are far more likely than AWS to do the kind of shady things that might matter to your relatives, like selling their personal data.

> VPN providers are far more likely than AWS to do the kind of shady things that might matter to your relatives, like selling their personal data.

How do you know that AWS isn't spying on your systems? Are they transparent? Do AWS release detailed transparency reports on their servers? You are identified when you pay for AWS no?

I'd rather trust a specialist privacy VPN provider like Mullvad, than me rolling my own VPN on a provider that isn't even transparent and that is hard to use for consumers other than myself.

my 2c.

Even though you trust VPN provider, anyway you should also trust VPS (or colo but it has limited ability to spy) provider that used by VPN.
Saying "Trusting a vpn provider ..." is like saying "Trusting a person ..."

It's meaningless. VPN providers come in the same full spectrum of integrity as people or companies.

But how do you verify?
How do you verify that AWS isn’t introspecting everything on your instance and stealing your data?

At some point you can’t, you can only make a best judgement based on what they’re telling you and what you’ve found elsewhere.