I want to use a VPN, but I don’t really want to have a company have access to my data. Would I be able to create my own VPN server? Also, will the fact that there is only one server in one location affect the upload/download speed? Thanks.
You lose the advantage of plausible deniability when you own the servers you connect to.
Part of the reason that VPN services are private, is that your traffic is mixed with many other people, which makes your own traffic much harder to discern.
If that isn’t a concern for you, then rolling your own will work.
Pretty easy, but you need to throw some money at it: Get a server, place it in a data center, install openvpn on it. done(); And if you are scared that they can get your data physical (like taking your hard disks away) encrypted it with full encryption, like cryptsetup. https://www.linode.com/docs/security/full-disk-encryption
Is there an energy friendly way to setup a VPN? When i did it previously it ended up using more energy than just paying for a VPN.
If you have a ssh login anywhere that you are okay with having your packets come from, there is a super easy solution that sysadmins use rather than fucking around with setting up a VPN when we have to get to the web interface of something on an internal network:
ssh -D 8080 packetscomefromhere.boxihavealoginon.com
Now, go download foxyproxy, and configure it to always use localhost:8080
All packets now appear to be coming from the box you are ssh’d into.
Now, the other quesitons: will this effect speed? Yes, some, if you are on a gigabit or better link, this will make it way slower. But assuming you are on American-style shit DSL, and the server you are logging into is in a datacenter, it doesn’t matter. your dsl is so slow and shitty compared to anything else that this isn’t going to make a lot of difference.
(On the other hand, this runs over TCP, and that is going to exasterbate any packet loss issues you have. A UDP based vpn is better for lossy networks… well, no vpn at all is better, but a udp-based vpn is better than a tcp-based vpn if you are on a network with lots of packet loss.
packetscomefromhere.boxihavealoginon.com can be a work box, or it can be a cheap VPS or a dedicated server, anything really. Of course, at that point you have to worry about those people sniffing your shit, and I can’t really help you with that. Just sayin’ - this is the easiest way to setup a vpn.
Order a (virtual) server in a 3rd country using anonymous prepaid credit cards or Bitcoin, install OpenVPN. They give very little shit about most things in Romania or Moldavia.
Or you could use Tor or I2P.
That’s the main use, but keep in mind there are also lots of people (like me) who mostly need VPN to bypass ISP throttling, and for that purpose I think a server that’s dedicated to you (and thus provides you with full speed) might be a better choice.
a while back someone on reddit said they were using an amazon instance to do this.
Huh? You can get a VPS for as cheap as $12/year and set up a VPN on that. I never saw a VPN service for one buck a month.
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Absolutely yes. I 100% agree.
There are other small benefits to a VPN service even in this case:
You can have the security of the server managed by experts rather than yourself.
You also have the issue of being entirely responsible for the security of that server.
You don’t have to worry about vetting hosts or dealing with issues upstream.
In the case of the cheaper VPNs, the commercial VPN may be cheaper than a good VPS. (I am not talking about VikingVPN in this case)
Upvote for ramnode! Never had any issues so far.
Yeah, an Amazon instance works fine. I’ve set up a few running IPSec VPNs for work.
Where to? A $12 VPS provider?