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18 Feb 2022 - Podcast #780 - (23:24)
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With many people working from home, the importance of a virtual private network (VPN) is being stressed by security experts. A VPN does offer increased security, but at a cost. Convenience and speed may both suffer. Maybe this is a good time to think about whether or not you need a VPN and, if so, whether you need it to be on all the time.
I've been a proponent of VPNs for quite a while. My wife and I have two quite different use cases. She works from home using a company-provided laptop computer that's encrypted and that connects to the corporate network via a VPN. The VPN is essential and her computer will not connect to the network without it. I also work from home, but no longer connect to a corporate system. A VPN application on my computer is disabled most of the time.
My cellular service provider is Google Fi and the phone has a built-in always-on VPN. I could turn it off if I wanted to, but I don't. Even though the pandemic has kept me at home much of the last two years, I keep the VPN enabled on the phone because it's unobtrusive and provides secure connections when I'm away from the house. Previously I had used Nord VPN on the phone, but it interfered with one of the banking applications I use. Ironically, the banking operation was incompatible with Nord VPN because the virtual private network made it impossible for the bank's system to confirm that my connection was coming from the United States.
Bank and other financial connections are exactly the reason many people use a VPN. Fortunately the Google-Fi VPN doesn't interfere with the bank's app. So now I've fully disabled Nord VPN on the phone, but I retain it on the desktop computer even though it's off most of the time. Before explaining why it's off most of the time, let's look at what VPNs can do.
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The VPN will hide your IP address and display a distant IP address instead. The IP address identifies your general location. With the VPN off, those who know how to examine my external IP address will know that I'm somewhere in or around Columbus. Columbus covers a big area though, and more than 1.6 million people live in the metro area. The VPN might make it appear that I'm in the Chicago area or somewhere around New York City, San Francisco, or Dallas. It could also make it appear that I am in Spain, Ireland, France, or Australia. This can be helpful for someone who is attempting to view a website that's not available in the United States, but some sites refuse connections from computers that use a VPN. On a one-to-ten scale, that would put this feature around two in terms of usefulness for most people.
By providing end-to-end encryption, a VPN keeps your internet service provider from seeing which websites you visit or inserting ads based on your browsing. My ISP doesn't insert ads into the general data stream, so this is unimportant to me. If you use and ISP that inserts ads or that collects information about your interests and sells that information, it might rank a bit higher for you. So on my one-to-ten scale, some might rank it two while others could rank it as eight or nine.
Although modern web browsers do a better job of protecting users from being tracked across the internet, a VPN is even more effective. By disguising your IP address, it limits (but doesn't remove) the ability of websites to associate your activities to a specific computer. On my one-to-ten scale, this is probably about a five for most people.
Encryption provided by a VPN protects data that could be viewed if you use public Wi-Fi access points in restaurants, coffee shops, and airports. This doesn't apply to Wi-Fi connections inside your house, so if you travel much and use public access points, this has to rank ten on my one-to-ten scale. But if you use only your password-protected Wi-Fi system and other protected Wi-Fi systems at the homes of friends and relatives or in offices, it's a zero.
While a VPN can provide useful security, there are some downsides. After all, just about everything in life has trade-offs. In dealing with computers, the trade-offs can sometimes come back to bite you in most uncomfortable places. The problem with the banking application is one issue. Although the VPN doesn't make it impossible to connect to the bank when I'm using the desktop computer, it does result in more challenges that require two-factor authentication. As annoyances go, that's minor because it delays logging in by just a few seconds.
A VPN will also reduce the speed of your internet connection under terms of the "There's No Such Thing As A Free Lunch" provision. The speed reduction may be minor, cutting a 500Mb/s connection to 435Mb/s. It might also be major, reducing the connection to 250Mb/s. Ping times may also increase. In one of my tests, ping increased from the 10ms or less that I'm used to seeing without a VPN to more than 230ms. That's slightly less than a quarter of a second just to get a response! Cutting download speed in half will be a significant downside for a lot of people. Fortunately, the more common speed reductions are in the 10-20% range — noticeable, but not a show stopper.
Ideally, a VPN would be added on the router for those who need security, but few consumer-grade routers have that capability. Now the VPN application must be installed on every device you use.
Also, a VPN won't protect your login credentials from social engineering ploys or eliminate malware threats. Presumably your computer's operating system has a built-in firewall or you've added one and you use a password manager to reduce some of these threats.
There are a few other points to consider before installing a VPN:
PC Magazine has an excellent review of their top ten picks for 2022 from the 19 services they looked at. I have used Private Internet Access and was generally pleased with the results, but I switched to Nord VPN about two years ago. This is one of PC Magazine's six recommended options. One new entry that might be worth looking at is the Mozilla VPN. PC Magazine rates it as excellent, but the cost is $10 per month, which is far higher than any competing service.
If you read last week's post, you know how to find out what Amazon knows about you. This week, let's consider what Google knows about you. There's no single form to fill out to ask for the information, but there are places you can look.
It's not just Google searches that reveal your information to the company, but that's a major source. Using Google Maps will tell the company about areas you've looked at. Google's calendar knows about your schedule. If you have an Android phone (more than 70% of phones in the US are Android), Google may know where you've been and when.
At its most basic Google attempts to classify you for sale to advertisers. As with Amazon, Google doesn't sell information about specific individuals. Instead it picks the ads it shows you on characteristics that are "based on personal info you've added to your Google Account, data from advertisers that partner with Google, and Google's estimation of your interests". My list of characteristics and interests contains 194 entries.
These start with demographic information: Older than 65, male, married, and English speaker. Then there are topics you might expect: Cats, Android OS, classic rock, classical music, computer hardware, consumer electronics, dictionaries and encyclopedias, Honda, jazz, politics, TV dramas, VPN, and Windows OS. The MacOS was omitted but IOS was included. Google also listed several inexplicable interests such as reality TV, cricket, BMW, extreme sports, hockey, motorcycles, and pickup trucks — all of which have zero or less appeal for me.
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If you'd like to see what characteristics and interests Google has for you, visit the ad personalization page.
While you're on the page, you can enable Google to use your activity and information from Google services to personalize ads on websites and apps that partner with Google to show ads. Google explains that this stores data from websites and apps that partner with Google in your Google account. By default, this is off. It's possible to turn ad personalization off. You won't see fewer ads, they'll just be more random.
Google knows what you've been watching on YouTube and if you want to review your activity, visit the YouTube activity page. YouTube history can be turned off using the Controls tab. On the Interactions tab, you can see a list of videos you've liked or disliked, your comments, chat messages, and and community posts.
Perhaps the most useful or most invasive Google feature is the ability to show where you've been and when if you have enabled location services on an Android phone. I have found this to be useful because I can use the Timeline feature to remind me where I've been and when. For example, I know that I was at a Giant Eagle supermarket around 1pm on 15 January, at United Dairy Farmers around 1:35, and back home by 1:46.
This information is available from the Google Maps Timeline where you'll also find a map that shows all of the places you've visited. Determining whether to disable location history on an Android phone involves deciding whether privacy concerns outweigh the benefits of being able to track your own movements. There's no right or wrong answer, just what's best for you.
Clearly Google knows your personal cellphone numbers, details of Google searches (including websites you've visited), and where you work and live. If you've used the Google Assistant, Google will know about your interactions. For example, on the day I was preparing this report, I had told the assistant to turn on the television light at 5:21. Nine minutes later, the assistant would have turned the light on automatically, but I was up a bit early. You can use the Activity page to view all of your interactions with Google Ads; Android; Assistant; Books; Calendar; Chrome; Developers; Discover; Gmail; Apps; Lens; News; Play Books, Games, Movies, TV, and Store; TV; Translate; Help; Image Search; Maps; Podcasts; Search; Shopping; Video Search; Voice and Audio; and YouTube.
The results from Google Books omits the name of the book and author, and reports only a URL and the time you started reading the book. Each URL I've followed leads to an error message. Visiting the Activity page could result in a lot of lost time. Still, it's interesting to examine what Google knows. Even more important, this is where you have some control over what Google collects and options to delete some existing data.
Although nearly all browsers are based on Chrome, only Google's version collects data for Google. The Vivaldi browser that's currently my default is invisible to Google.
The Google Dashboard provides another view of the various Google services you use. On this page, you can download a copy of your data to save locally or to use with another account. An option on this page also allows users to delete individual services.
One final stop in this journey could be to see which third-party apps have access to your data. That's on the Apps page. I didn't find anything surprising there. A Google Nest Mini has full access to my Google account; BlueMail, which I use on the phone, has access to Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Contacts; a Mac Powerbook has access to Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Contacts, and Google Hangouts; my primary Windows computer has access to Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Contacts; and the Vivaldi browser has access to the Google Calendar. Backup and Sync from Google, Google Drive for Desktop, and YouTube TV have the expected access permissions.
As we saw with Amazon, Google has a lot of information about you. The only way to eliminate Google's ability to access your information would be to stop using the internet. It's possible to limit what Google collects when you're using Google services, but so many internet-based operations depend on Google that Google will always have some access as long as you're online.
What do you think we'll see in 2022 other than more variants of covid? Several technologies that aren't exactly new are bubbling toward general acceptance.
Take electric cars and trucks, for example. Most people still don't own one, but just about every vehicle manufacturer is putting more emphasis on electric vehicles. You've doubtless heard of Tesla and maybe you've even seen some of the cars around your neighborhood. But what about Lucid and Rivian? Lucid's automobiles start at just under $78,000 and the company is headquartered in Silicon Valley. Rivian makes trucks and models start under $70,000. Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen are concentrating on electric vehicles, but prices will continue to be high. Ford and General Motors may be able to create electric vehicles that are within more people's price ranges.
I've had a Google Nest Speaker for a few years. I can tell it to play music, ask for the temperature or weather forecast, and even tell the assistant to wake me at a specific time. But now I've added a smart light bulb. Yeah, just one. I had a valid reason. Before going to sleep, I usually watch television shows or motion pictures on a streaming service. The cat likes to join me and lean on my ankles and, as anyone who is owned by cats knows, you don't disturb a sleeping cat. There's a lamp beside the television to provide a small amount of light in the room and, to avoid having to get up to turn it off, I just tell the Google assistant do to it. The assistant also turns the light on at 5:30, about half an hour before the clock radio comes on to mark the official start of my day. Perhaps a few more smart devices will make their way into the house.
Manufacturers such as Apple, Amazon, Google, and Samsung are working together on standards they call Matter. This used to be called the Zigbee Alliance. The objective is to ensure that smart devices, regardless of who manufactures them, will work together. That should increase acceptance, even from those who may have previously been frustrated by these devices. And we'll probably see more capable smart thermostats, doorbells, and other devices.
Eliminating cable television is becoming more mainstream. When we did it at home, we got faster internet service, more choices, and a lower price. Websites and Facebook groups dedicated to dealing with streaming video are busy as new users deal with the differences and prospective cable cutters investigate their options.
And then there's the metaverse, with or without Meta. We'll hear a lot of blather about how this company or that will bring you the metaverse it all its radiant glory, but the metaverse doesn't exist yet. There are bits and pieces that may be part of some future metaverse, but it's no more complete than the internet was complete in 1990. There were bits and pieces, some of which still exist, but most of which vanished as better options were invented. The metaverse will still be in the equivalent of the Model-T era for a while. But we'll sure hear a lot of talk about it this year.
The shortage of processors and other electronic bits will continue to cause problems for the manufacturers who make electronic devices and for auto manufacturers. It looks like the situation will improve a bit in the second half of the year and some chip manufacturers have decided to start fabricating chips in the United States, including a huge Intel plant northeast of Columbus. The plant will employ about 3300 people when it's fully operational. Intel employs more than 110,000 people worldwide and about 53,000 in the US.
Those are some of the trends and events that seem to be on the horizon for the rest of 2022.
In 2002, I wrote: If you have a Palm-OS organizer, I said, particularly one with a color screen, and you haven't yet seen Bejeweled, you should.
This is one of the most fascinating (yet easy to understand) games ever created. The idea is to get 3 identical jewels lined up either horizontally or vertically. When you do, the matching jewels vanish and you get points.
It's part luck, part observation skills, and part strategy. My early scores were below 1000, then several thousand. Now I have several 42,000 scores, some in the 30's and a few in the 20's. One of the best things about the game is that you can play for a minute or two and then suspend the game -- so if you're waiting for a bus (or even a train) you don't have to finish the game or abandon it.
Twenty years later, it's still a cool game that I remember.