Posting this on the behalf of a friend. He found out that his parents can look at the websites he visits on their router. He is not too happy, having occasionally visited some…shall we say unsavory sites. Will using a VPN app (such as Tunnelbear for iOS) prevent his parents from seeing the sites he visits? Or would I need to use a proxy?
I’m not exactly sure how VPNs work, so bear with me (ha).
A desktop VPN client (the most common type) will encrypt everything between you and the VPN gateway. This would include the router.
If your parents want to monitor you beyond the point where you have the means to understand and purchase VPNs, they’re going to have a bad time.
I know that a VPN will prevent your ISP from seeing what sites you’ve been on. It encrypts your traffic, so all it sees is that data is being sent and received, not what that data is. I’m unsure if it would prevent someone from using their router to see someone’s browsing history. Most programs to do that are installed client-side (programs like NetNanny or CyberSitter.)
Is he sure that his parents are getting his history through the router, or is it possible they can tell through a program installed on the computer?
A VPN encrypts everything going in and out of the device it’s running on, so the router logs would just show a connection to an IP address on whatever port the VPN runs on
There would be no way for the router to see the actual traffic like websites he visits
His parents could still find out he’s using a VPN if they are smart enough to understand what ports one runs on
Honestly the best thing your friend can do is look at a ton of porn, fetish porn would be best, when confronted about it tell them that if they don’t like it they can stop monitoring him, and just admit to them with extreme amounts of sarcasm that “you’ve caught me, seeing tied up women in leather gets my rocks off so hard” I guarantee if the parents are as conservative as you say they will be mortified and never mention his browsing history to him ever again.
There are spy apps for mobile phones, if it’s rooted his parents could easily see what he looks at. Be careful. Mobile Monitor is its name. Also what’s the model of the router at his house?
I think the easiest solution and cheapest would be to SSH tunnel into your computer/router and forward ports 80 and 443. pretty easy to do with Putty. Here is an easy tutorial
“on behalf of a friend” suuure buddy
Welll, we don’t understand them really, and my friend doesn’t have the means to purchase them. But I get the overall concept. Previously I was just using the VPN from Onavo Extend.
Thanks. He’s using his iPhone (wireless router) so he’s pretty sure that his parents are using the router.
This is if the device and server are configured properly. You can mess up and have DNS traffic unencrypted and http browsing traffic encrypted, for example.
I’m pretty sure his phone is unrooted. I’m assuming he has a Netgear router, since he sent me this article. He’s asleep right now (Florida) but I’ll ask him tomorrow.
If you have friends that are sympathetic to your cause, you could set up a VPN between you and your friend - using your friend’s network for your internet… and it’d be free. Your friend’s computer (or a virtual machine on his computer) would be the host - just remember anything you do would reflect on him at that point, so it’d be messed up to be downloading movies or something.
And yes - if you set it up between your desktop and his desktop it would be untraceable by your own router. It would simply look like a LOT of encrypted data was going between you and one specific IP.
You could set up a virtual PC on your desktop/laptop and have that be your browser… so even if your parents sniff around on your computer, they certainly won’t have access to your VPC which you’d have the VHD encrypted, then you could use bitlocker to encrypt the data ON the VHD, and have a password on the BIOS, and whatever security the OS you have on it would allow.
FYI - You’d still have to watch out for screen captures and keyloggers on the host.
As for phones, you can set up a VPN on your phone as well… but if they get ahold of your phone they can still see what you’ve been doing. So password that up and you should be fine.
A VPN, if properly configured, will definitely work in that case. I can’t comment on Tunnelbear specifically though, I’ve only used the integrated PPTP and IPsec clients (they’re in Settings).
As a parent, THANKS!
Hmm. How would I use these? I’d have to pay for a subscription somewhere, right?
What hath I wrought… My sincere apologies to your kids.
This is correct. The VPN provider you’d be running your traffic through has costs, and any quality provider will require a fee to pay for them. I wouldn’t trust any ad supported VPN.
Ha! Probably would have figured this out eventually, but have not seen a need to monitor web usage… yet. Oldest boy is 13, so getting closer.
Anyways, your friend should just use cellular data for his porn.
Lol I don’t know if he’s watching porn. His parents are super strict/conservative. And he doesn’t have a data plan.