A VPN isn't necessarily enough...

I just finished reading the book Permanent Record by Edward Snowden. I haven't followed the Edward Snowden case closely, but as I visited a friend and saw the book in the shelf, I decided to take a closer look at the story. I must admit that it has been a very interesting read, and I am glad I read it. If you want to learn more about Edward Snowden, what he did, the background for doing it, and what happened afterward, this is a great book to read.

The most amusing part of the book was reading about Edward Snowden's childhood and how he started to work with computers and play with computers. It was a nostalgic experience because it had a lot in common with how I first started to work with computers and he played the same games and there were a lot of similarities. But then it stops, as I haven't progressed at all in the same speed or direction as Mr. Snowden.

XKeyscore - what a tool.

One of the most interesting parts of the book was reading about the tool called XKeyscore. With this tool, analysts can enter a name or an IP address and get access to all sorts of activities, and nearly make it replay all the activities of this person or IP address in the same way as the end user sees it themselves. In other words, they get access to emails, chat logs, website history, and much more. That sounds kind of scary. Of course, who should be afraid of this, unless you have something to hide? Still, we are living in a world in which nothing is hidden.

At LAX airport people no longer has to show their passports, they simply do a facial scan, and they know who you are at once. In China, they have cameras that recognize your face, so if you break the law, they just send you the fine based on facial recognition. This was spiced up once as a politician received a fine for something she hadn't done. Later it was discovered that her photo was on an ad on a bus at the same location as the crime happened, and thus, she was recognized, and she received the fine instead of the actual person. That is the world we live in!

If you want to protect yourself against this, is a VPN enough?

It might be enough, and it might help a lot. But, if you are using a poor VPN seated in the USA, the government can at any time ask for insight in your activities and your IP address, and thus, you are no longer hidden. Another problem is if you don't take care of the device you are using. If you are using a VPN, but your computer is infected with spyware and keyloggers, people can still spy on your activities, log your passwords, and thus, you are not at all protected anymore.

It is also a fact that NSA and others sometimes try to hide backdoors in encryption tools. Even though you use an encryption method that is highly regarded, it will not help you much if someone has backdoor access through a hole to all traffic encrypted with the key.

Once again, a VPN isn't enough, but it will surely help. If you even use NordVPN which protects you with the VPN on the TOR network, it gets even better. But, it isn't enough if you don't watch out on all other levels.