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my people we've heard you we will no

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longer be promoting vpns all right let's go what that's it

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yes king lonus that's it but as short as

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the outrage cycle was that doesn't mean that people's concerns about the VPN

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industry were invalid Tom Scott did a great video Back Then covering a lot of

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them and we're going to touch on some of his more nuanced points later but the

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big one that really ignited the wave of distrust was his takedown of the

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inaccurate fear-mongering VPN talking points that your Nana's favorite

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podcaster was paring without the slightest understanding of them that was

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a big problem but the thing is none of

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that was ever part of our deal with private internet access and even Tom

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worked with a VPN provider recently before he went on Hiatus earlier this

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year so I think it's time for us to take another look at what vpn's do what they

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don't do and whether they're worth it in insert current year now to keep things

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clean this video will not be brought to you by a VPN but rather by our sponsor

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delete me delete me helps protect you against the risks of identity theft

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fishing and even rooc calls and other scams by removing your data from

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hundreds of data broker websites we'll talk more about them later a VPN or

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virtual private network does exactly what it says on the tin it establishes

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an encrypted tunnel between your computer and a remote server allowing

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some or all of your network traffic to be routed through that server before it

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goes to its destination that's about it

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but don't let the Simplicity fool you a VPN can be an incredibly powerful and

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versatile tool which is why virtual private networking has been built into

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Windows for almost 30 years now back in those days the server you were

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connecting to was probably run by your work it department and enabled you to do

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exciting things like connect to Shared drives and internal servers as though

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you were physically in the office when you were actually working from home or

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abroad and another big one at least for

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young me was gaming see in the early days many games supported land

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multiplayer but didn't necessarily Support internet multiplayer so virtual

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private networking was a way for me and my friend who were actually many miles

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apart to play land games together now

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both of those are still common use cases but they aren't the ones that get a lot

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of marketing so when the average consumer thinks of a VPN it's more

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likely that they're thinking about a commercial VPN provider who has servers

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all over the world to give your internet traffic let's say a British accent so

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you can watch your favorite baking program without getting burnt by a location check now most commercial VPN

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providers also offer extras like ad blocking antivirus password managers

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remote access and even dark web monitoring but none of that is the VPN

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it's just add-ons to entice you away from the competition in a very

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competitive Marketplace so at the end of of the day the VPN portion does two

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things it obscures your IP address helping hide your physical location from

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the sites and services that you use online and if it's properly configured

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and that's a major if it encrypts all your internet traffic including services

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like DNS concealing your browsing habits from your internet service provider and

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by extension any entity like a government or special interest group who

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might compel them to share that data what a VPN isn't though is some kind of

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all-in-one solution for Online safety security and privacy and this was and

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continues to be a major contributor to the backlash surrounding VPN marketing

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see a VPN doesn't prevent you from punching your credit card number into a

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sketchy website and it doesn't prevent you from giving your real personal

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information to that mysterious cutie that you met on a dating app for the

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personal data that's already out there you need something completely different

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like from our sponsor delete me data Brokers collect massive amounts of

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personal information from anywhere they can get it and they sell or rent it to

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anyone that pays their fee now you could go to each broker's website and follow

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their opt out process then go back and do it again every so often to make sure

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your info stays offline or delete me can do the work for you getting your data

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removed from hundreds of online data Brokers back to vpns though let's look

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at a scenario where it wouldn't help you one bit you sign into Netflix through a

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Japanese server in order to get access to your favorite anime that still hasn't

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made it to the US there's a couple small problems for one thing your IP address

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might be obscured but your vpn's IP address is visible to the service that

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you're using and they can tell that uh hey that's not a residential IP that's

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coming from a Data Center and you're watching Netflix you're probably using a

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VPN the other thing is that okay while

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your ISP might not be able to see what data you're downloading Netflix

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absolutely knows what you're up to because you signed in with your Netflix

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account that has your credit card info and your billing address attached which

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might not be a big concern with Netflix but let's be real here many of you are

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relying on vpns for media acquisition on

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other services and the truth is that a VPN can be an extremely powerful tool

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for such Endeavors but it still isn't a silver bullet and depending on the laws

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in your jurisdiction there are a number of other protections that you should

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absolutely have in place before sailing the high seas for one thing you should

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be using a throwaway email ideally from a provider with strong privacy

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protections like proton mail use a fake name or the real name of someone you

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hate and don't enter any payment information that can be traced back to

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you Pia for instance takes cryptocurrency for payment though that's

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probably not as untraceable as we once thought it was and finally choose a VPN

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that has a long history of not just refusing to Prov provide data logs to

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entities who demand them but being unable to cuz that's kind of An

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Inconvenient Truth of the VPN industry without additional layers of protection

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like torrent protocol encryption your VPN provider has a pretty good idea of

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where you go and what you're up to and all of that is only as secure as their

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willingness and ability to protect you which requires a lot of trust without

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much ability for the average person to verify so how do we choose a VPN to

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partner with I mean that VPN is owned by so and so and those guys own all these

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other VPN and those guys hired that sketchy dude you know the one but the

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fact of the matter is guys in the Cutthroat world of online security and

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privacy you're going to find sketchy characters who came over from the other

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side unscrupulous Crypt Bros and conspiracy theories Galore some of which

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turn out to be a lot more than just theories and depending on who's doing

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the spinning of the facts the same developer could be a nefarious former

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hacker with ties to the Middle Eastern intelligence Community or they could be

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a computer nerd that served the mandatory time in their country's Armed

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Forces when they were a teenager another concern is that according to VPN pro at

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least 105 VPN providers are owned by

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just 24 corporations and making it worse

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many VPN review sites and even giants

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like PC magaz azine and IGN are owned by

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Umbrella corporations that also own VPN

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companies so with so many conflicts of interest everywhere it's hard to trust

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pretty much anything that you read about this industry so for me what It

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ultimately comes down to is my personal experiences and who's got the provable

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track record which is why more than 6

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years after we first partnered with them I'm still happy to tell you guys that

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we're going to be sticking with private internet access who again is not the

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sponsor of this video but we do have an affiliate relationship with them I use

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them Luke uses them and a bunch of other folks here at LMG do too but lonus how

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can you trust them I hear you asking well they had me at bro too

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soon okay to start with Pia's no logs

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policy has been tested in court multiple times they have never produced logs in

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response to a government's demands for data I mean you can't hand over logs if

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they don't exist and depending on where you live in the 100 Acre Wood or beyond

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that can be the difference between freedom and imprisonment or Worse on top

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of that their RAM only server architecture their logging prevention

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architecture and even their Anonymous dedicated IP offering have all been

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independently audited by one of the big four Professional Services networks

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multiple times with the most recent audit results released just a few weeks

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before shooting this video the Android app has been independently reviewed with

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a mobile application security assessment something only a handful of VPN apps can

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boast and if all of that still isn't good enough for you all of their clients

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are open source and you can go over every line of code for yourself or you

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can even just not use them and connect to their servers with a generic openvpn

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client pia has also removed their physical servers from a number of

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countries in response to changes in legislation law enforcement action and

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other threats to customer privacy when they removed their servers from Hong

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Kong back in 2020 they stated that Pia will not operate servers in locations

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that have enacted anti-privacy internet laws or who have proven to not follow

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the rule of law they also publish quarterly reports detailing government

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requests for data bug Bounty submissions along with some company and industry

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news their blog archive goes back more than a decade and in between General

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Industry news and security tips you'll find explanations for controversial

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hiring and policy decisions and some excellent essays on digital privacy most

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importantly though while I have acknowledged in the past that VPN deals

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can be pretty lucrative and more subscriptions you drive the more money

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you can make Pia doesn't push us to say

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anything that is misleading whatsoever in fact they give us zero guidelines

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other than to say hey don't say the product does something that it can't do

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and don't drag us into any of your endless controversies they actually

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didn't even say that second part which leaves us free to keep the BS completely

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out of our talking points and stay focused on real world benefits for our

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audience like the aforementioned privateering for which uh

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Pia uh definitely works pretty well so

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if you guys evaluate things for yourself and decide Pia is for you we're going to

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have an affiliate link to Pia in the description but whatever you decide just

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remember that a VPN any VPN doesn't give

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you some kind of digital diplomatic immunity and they don't make illegal

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activities any more legal they're just one piece of your broader digital

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privacy toolkit just like our sponsor delete me your personal data is already

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out there getting gathered up by countless data Brokers and putting you

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at increased risk of identity theft online harassment and even good

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oldfashioned spam and Robo calls delete me saves you time while helping reduce

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the risk of your data getting into the wrong hands by removing your data from

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hundreds of data broker websites but they don't stop there delete me actively

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monitors data broker websites making sure that your personal info stays

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removed for 20% off all us consumer

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plans just follow the link in the video description if you guys liked this video

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maybe check out our how to browse the internet anonymously video from a few

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years ago it's got a few more things that you might want to add to your privacy toolkit and some of them are

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free so there's no reason not to do it