What is he talking about, public WiFi can easily poison and monitor your DNS requests (most people don’t know or use encrypted DNS), and there’s still tons of non-https traffic leaks all over the place that are plain text. Even if encrypted, there’s still deep packet inspection. VPNs can mitigate DPI techniques and shift the trust from an easily snoopable public WiFi to the VPN’s more trustworthy exit servers.
This guy really needs to elaborate on what he’s trying to say when the cyber security field very much disagrees with this stance. I’m not a huge fan of Proton, but they aren’t doing anything wrong here. You should use it for public Wi-Fi.
Yup. You can grab any unencrypted data passed between the user’s browser and a server literally out of thin air when they’re connected to an open access point. You sit happily at the Starbucks with your laptop, sniffing them WiFi packets and grabbing things off of them.
Oh and you have no idea what the myriad of apps you’re using are connecting to and whether that endpoint is encrypted. Do not underestimate the ability of firms to produce software at the absolute lowest cost with corners and walls missing.
If I was someone who was to make money off of scamming people, one thing I’d have tried to do is to rig portable sniffers at public locations with large foot traffic and open WiFi like train stations, airports, etc. Throw em around then filter for interesting stuff. Oh here’s some personal info. Oh there’s a session token for some app. Let me see what else I can get from that app for that person.
I’m not even an expert in this stuff, but with a tool I found online I demonstrated that it was easy to snoop people’s passwords on my school’s wifi networks back in the day. It took minutes.
How is DPI a problem if it’s encrypted? That would only work if the attacker had installed their CA cert on your client machine, right?
I think it might be confusion between inspecting plaintext metadata like SNI vs actually inspecting encrypted contents (e.g. HTTPS content, headers, etc.).
I’m doing DPI on my own network and I can still view TLS certificate fingerprints and some metadata that provides a good educated guess as to what a traffic flow contains. It certainly better that it’s encrypted, but there is a little information that leaks in metadata. I think that’s what was meant.
True, but this is generally not useful information to anyone. They can see you’re visiting bank.com, but they still can’t see your bank details.
It might be useful if they’re trying to target you for phishing, but a targeted attack is extremely unlikely.
Also, any wireless equipment from the past 15 years or so supports client isolation.
Yeah, deep packet inspection really doesn’t work without breaking https security via man in the middling everything.
I’m not online enough to understand this.
Hailey “Hawk Tuah” Welch is an influencer that gained a lot of popularity from her nickname (the sound of spitting, with HEAVY implications of performing fellacio). She used her platform to voice a very reasonable and intelligent opinion, which surprised a lot of people because her nickname is essentially blowjob queen.
One of her opinions is that it’s important to spread cyber security and used her fame to try to educate the public (potentially a fake story from the image? Idk this drama). And some xit-head claiming to be a cyber security expert ate the onion and offered some shitty advice. Proton fact checked them, because there are a ton of fake news stories about her right now.
I’m pretty sure that Proton quoting her in the first place is fake. I know she’s milking her 15 minutes of fame for all she can, but this seems outside her experience.
Sorry, not just implication; she was straight up talking about that.
how do I reboot my computer?
Throw a brick at it.
That’s just turning it off with Style✨
This was nothing more than a poorly executed joke from Proton. Some people are massively overreacting.
Well with https enforced and secure dns not much to worry about.
"It’s a prank bro"😅 but seriously as an IT guy I’m tired of pushing VPNs down our (collective) throats, not saying the threat isn’t real but it’s really overblown by the ads
Considering how most of the Internet is encrypted with TLS, if you add DNSSEC+DoH/DoT on top, trying to MITM someone on a public WiFi is way harder than it was, unless you’re a state-level adversary and you’re able to craft valid certificate for a domain you don’t control from a globally trusted (root) certificate autority (which will lose its trusted status quite fast once discovered, ex: CNNIC)
Not all applications on your computer may be encrypting their packet traffic properly, though. That goes especially for the applications that might be trying to reach out for resources on your local home network (like printers, file shares, and other home servers) as well as DNS requests which are usually still made in the open. I would not recommend eschewing an entire security layer willy-nilly like that. On public Wi-Fi, I would definitely still suggest either a VPN or using your cell phone as a tether or secure hotspot instead if possible.
Sure, but it’s also like, if you’re stepping away from your laptop for a few minutes should you lock the screen or shut it down completely.
The most secure option is to shut it down completely, but also it’s fine to just lock your screen.
If you’ve already got a VPN and it’s as easy as locking your screen to enable, go for it, use it. But if you don’t, you don’t need to go out and get one. You’ll generally be ok without one.
The most secure option is bringing the laptop with you.
Yeah, the days of your local coffee shops Wi-Fi being a problem or mostly gone. Not the VPN doesn’t have a place anymore though. If you’re trying to hide your downloading of ISOs from your ISP it’s still a perfectly reasonable method. Or temporarily relocating yourself to another country to make a purchase or watch some streaming content both perfectly reasonable.
Of course some of the streaming providers are getting wise to this.
why would I need to hide my terabytes of Linux ISO downloads?
Because we see which distros you’re using, and we judge you for it.
Gentoo, in 2024? Really? You should be using Arch if that’s your thing. It’s not the 90s any more.
Bill Gates, man, Bill Gates
It’s all fun and games until a Microsoft Purity Enforcement squad is kicking in your door.
Nah, it’s all good I subscribe to Linus Torvalds protection services. When the Microsoft vans get within four blocks of my address, They’ll drop ship in dozens of fully-armed penguin paratroopers. After the incursion they even send in a penguin based cleaner team to help get rid of the remains.
I have a VPN so I can securely access my home network when I’m away
I use a VPN for the same reason I use the Internet. Porn.
Yeah, pptp will always have a strong purpose and home. I’m more speaking to the viability of commercial anonymization VPN.
I have a feeling you are using pptp as shorthand for Point to Point disregarding protocol and already knows what I’m about to say. To anyone else reading this - PPTP is obsolete and unsafe. Use an alternative such as OpenVPN, WireGuard or SSTP.
Or the tld is .mobi
Taking cybersecurity advice from someone called Hawk Tuah is modern day version of clicking banner that says find 40+ single women in your zip code
Hot MILFs wanna talk to YOU!
This was poorly executed. The National Park Service twitter account does jokes well.
The only effective antivirus program known to man is called a backup
The only real use case for VPNs is to bypass geo blocking on streaming sites, and the VPN providers know this. They also know that if they lean too hard into that, eventually someone will sue them and their business model will evaporate - so they add the “iT MaKEs yOu mORe SeCurE” nonsense as a fig leaf so they can say with a straight face that they operate a product with legitimate uses
Mulvad.
