IC Forums and the (over-)usage of VPN

[Engelbert]

I'd love to rp a hacker if we had something to play with. Of course as others said VPN will not help you if someone serious enough does their homework. 

[ThomasNoman]

5 hours ago, orca112 said:

showing at some pitty country in the middle of Africa

 

wait... that's racist.

 

But, VPN is common, so yeah.

[Halcyon]

I wonder if people we’re to walk through the hood or stop a sizeable number of random citizens and ask them if they know exactly what a VPN is and does, will they know?

 

the answer is probably no. Especially in the hood, I doubt most gangsters in real life own desktop PCs or what have you. Sure, they own phones and laptops, but are they technologically literate enough to know the difference between what’s a good VPN or a bad one? I once again doubt it. 
 

just because we as players have the knowledge OOCly it doesn’t mean that our characters must have the same knowledge ICly. This is something that I often see in-game and I am generalizing things here, if you think I’m talking about you, the reader, specifically, maybe you’re guilty of the above? Be honest with yourself at the very least. 

 

I know for the longest time I was, back in SA-MP. But things changed, I grew and learned when it comes to roleplay. 
 

my character knows fuck all about technology compared to me IRL and it’s a rather fun experience. I encourage people to eject themselves out of their characters. 
 

kinda trailed off there. Didn’t I?

 

 

[Benavides]

Instagram, TikTok, twitter and other social media platforms within gang and civilian/student culture have exposed people to technology to a ridiculous amount compared to five years ago. There are so many advertisements for VPN and "browsing safe" nowadays which makes it very probable for someone who wants to hide illegal activities, to look into it and eventually end up using it.

 

Just like people learned how to use burner phones and how to avoid tracing technology, they can put on a cheap VPN to protect themselves. Needless to say though, as others have mentioned, VPN doesn't fully protect you and you have to know more than that to actually protect yourself.

[Garras Up]

I reckon the point is that the whole VPN thing is most likely never rped ingame, and it's more of a thing that people copy & paste onto their IC comments to avoid any kind of consequences for what they're saying, it's very powergamer / play-2-win-ish.

 

Yes, there's advertisements everywhere for VPN's, doesn't need to be continualy repeated. That doesn't mean the VPN's aren't pieces of shit (Majority are and don't hide anything from anyone who REALLY wants to get you) not only that, but do you really think a court case for an online comment is gonna hold up in court? Yall must have never been to the real world or something.

Edited February 6, 2021 by Garras Up

[Tseard]

I have a VPN that I can easily just turn on whenever I wish to do it but that doesn't mean I use it regularly. The only times I use it is to avoid some kind of country block for certain websites or YouTube videos. 

 

It's absurd for people to turn on a VPN or use a VPN to comment on a blog or a news post in some kind of meme text. People are OOCly way to scared to receive some kind of IC response for what they post online and just use whatever resource there is to block their identity. 

 

Yes, VPN's are advertised a lot, especially by some gaming channels. But that doesn't mean that you get one just to comment ''The Sheriff is an asshole''. 

[Vash Baldeus]

10 hours ago, Xaleya said:

As a person who uses VPN, TOR Networks and knows how the piracy network moves around the world.

VPN's arent 100% effective, same with TOR networks and it can be a double edge sword, most of VPN's can be tracked with a Federal Orders if they are in the first world (they are, btw)... So its not an excuse for avoiding responsabilities. Also im aware of people going throught your VPN/Tor defenses and breaking into your PC, activating stuff such as the camera or microphone and/or geo-location the devices around you.

This only can be done by experts (not the regular gang weaboo from Davis/Idlewood) or the police (USA goverment is well known to caught hackers and use them for defending their networks when they are trustable)

This kind of shit will require  admin approval with an internal "not public" levels of not beingable to be tracked by cops

Those hackers the US employees, they keep them on payroll to defend the country instead of attacking it.

[verrevert]

A lot of forum "IC" VPN comments come from people trying to be funny OOC, the usage of a VPN gives them an excuse to not act like their character would.

[Xaleya]

8 hours ago, Engelbert said:

I'd love to rp a hacker if we had something to play with. Of course as others said VPN will not help you if someone serious enough does their homework. 

A person with the proper knowledge will make his signal bounce in different servers across the globe, even if you try to track that person... He will have enough time to react and go dark before they properly tracked him, by leaving the network and switching entirely to another grid.

 

4 hours ago, Tseard said:

I have a VPN that I can easily just turn on whenever I wish to do it but that doesn't mean I use it regularly. The only times I use it is to avoid some kind of country block for certain websites or YouTube videos. 

 

It's absurd for people to turn on a VPN or use a VPN to comment on a blog or a news post in some kind of meme text. People are OOCly way to scared to receive some kind of IC response for what they post online and just use whatever resource there is to block their identity. 

 

Yes, VPN's are advertised a lot, especially by some gaming channels. But that doesn't mean that you get one just to comment ''The Sheriff is an asshole''. 

The people "who actually knows" how to use VPN are crackers, piracy distributors and such, as they are always chased by the local authorities, they dont call enough attention so the police wont be chasing their asses

This person (which is a link so its why i removed it in first place) is a piracy-distributor/repacker, these people has the right contacts  and knows about the VPN pro and cons, for example mentioning this.

 

That means than some websites can actually know if you had a VPN, including the VPN provider info and enable countermeasures against it. VPN isnt 100% safe, a proper person with knowledge uses other means such as zombie networks

Edited February 6, 2021 by Xaleya

[Engelbert]

8 minutes ago, Xaleya said:

A person with the proper knowledge will make his signal bounce in different servers across the globe, even if you try to track that person... He will have enough time to react and go dark before they properly tracked him, by leaving the network and switching entirely to another grid.

 

The people "who actually knows" how to use VPN are crackers, piracy distributors and such, as they are always chased by the local authorities, they dont call enough attention so the police wont be chasing their asses

This person (which is a link so its why i removed it in first place) is a piracy-distributor/repacker, these people has the right contacts  and knows about the VPN pro and cons, for example mentioning this.

 

That means than some websites can actually know if you had a VPN, including the VPN provider info and enable countermeasures against it. VPN isnt 100% safe, a proper person with knowledge uses other means such as zombie networks

That is true of course, not arguing that. Just saying that people in LS usually don't have such knowledge.