A Virtual Private Network (“VPN”) re-routes your Internet without revealing the details of your ISP. You will appear to originate from a different location. The VPN also blinds your ISP, preventing the ISP from seeing and tracking your online activity. When an ISP sees your activity, they may restrict access to sites or services, or give priority to certain services / protocols, while intentionally slowing down others. For example, giving favor to facebook or slowing down torrents.

Not all VPNs are the same, a VPN can be just as abusive as an ISP. When searching for a good VPN, keep in mind that the intended purpose of a VPN is to restore the Internet to something that is open and neutral.

A good VPN will typically have multiple servers in different countries, presenting customers as geographically local when they’re not. This is useful when banks, exchanges or streaming services try to block customers based on the country of their IP address.

VPNs are particularly useful when you’re out and about, and especially when traveling abroad.

1. Public Wi-Fi networks are notoriously insecure and frequently targeted by hackers to execute Man-in-the-Middle (MiTM) attacks, which allow them to steal people’s data. When connected to a VPN, the user’s data is encrypted and travels through a secure tunnel, making it practically impossible for hackers to intercept, even when connected to unsecured public networks.


2. Oddly, some flight and hotel booking sites will price the same items at different prices, depending on which country you are browsing from. Yes, a VPN could save you money!


3. Access to a variety of self-hosted services may actually be blocked by your ISP, such as self-hosted email; SMTP port 25 and IMAP port 143. A VPN can actually unblock this for you.


4. All countries are active in censorship and sanctions, some more aggressively than others. Banking, gambling, pornography and streaming services are classic examples, but it also extends to activism and journalism. Facebook, for example, is blocked in China and WhatsApp is not available in some Middle East countries. In some cases entire platforms, such as Google, are completely blocked.


5. Sometimes, websites from your home country present the same news and articles from a different perspective. The BBC is a prime example.

1. In which country / jurisdiction is the VPN headquartered? How easy is it for others to serve warrants? You can’t stop state level interference but you can slow them down.


2. Can you sign up with the minimal amount of personal info? Some services will accept a throwaway email and crypto for payment. Just keep in mind that your local ISP and some metadata will be visible to the VPN provider.


3. What data is the VPN logging? To be frank, despite claims of external audits, you really can’t know for sure. Law enforcement make hundreds of VPN enquiries every day and they probably have their fingers in all the pies. The function of a VPN is not to be anonymous but simply to slow down surveillance, such that those who are spying are focused on lower hanging fruit.

Telecom companies manage many millions of customers and are susceptible to censorship, blocking and tracking from both governments and private data brokers.

Your choice of ISP is typically limited to just a few providers and, while it may not be immediately obvious which specific pages or services you are engaging with, the telcos will see which sites and devices you are using. Even when your data is encrypted, metadata may leak and reveal your behaviors and beliefs, your likes and dislikes and your political views.

Network data can be cross-referenced with other data sources. And as data mining tools improve, and as Artificial Intelligence improves, the breadth and depth of this data becomes larger and more precise. It is a discovery process without limits.