Question regarding VPN and Second life

[Syan Bates]

Heya,

I'm not sure if this topic is in the right thread, so I'm just gonna try my luck.  Lately, I have been using my friend's wifi very often (He knows about it) and I'm pretty concerned about the aspect of privacy.  I have set up a VPN connection (Hotspot Shield) to "secure" my data transfer.  My question is, is it possible for the wifi provider (my friend) to be able to see my chats and instant messages on Second life?

 

[Perrie Juran]

Short answer:  It's the Internet

Long answer:   It's the Internet

[Sephy McCaw]

Technically it could be done by anyone if they wanted to know your data that badly (think normal people are safe there)  Your friend knowing how to do it would be the question you should ask him... My guess would be that he doesn't

[Jenni Darkwatch]

Don't know hotspot shield. VPN doesn't automatically mean secure. It depends on the encryption scheme used. For everyday use, any old encryption works, and is a good idea on any WiFi network that you don't own. Hotspots, friends' house, etc.pp.

With encryption in place, he shouldn't be able to see anything relevant. From the endpoint of your VPN to LLs servers is a different matter, though realistically the only people who could sniff there is law enforcement and ISP techs. Oh yeah and LL, but they can see the data anyway.

If you use third party VPN services you may also want to ask yourself how trustworthy that service is and who is running it for what reason.

[Bold Baddingham]

vpn like hospot wont in the long run be much good to you regardless of how secure it is,many ppl use is and all report the same ip address

sooner or later one of those ppl will do something to cause LL to block that IP and your back to waiting for the vpn IP to be reset to something new again.

[Jenni Darkwatch]

Most griefers are too dumb to use VPNs. Let alone pay for a good one. I've been using VPNs since I started SL - so far, never got blocked.

[Ormand Lionheart]

Is there a performance benefit using a VPN?

 

cheers

Ormond

 

[Jenni Darkwatch]

VPNs incur a performance penalty, not a benefit. If you think about it, it has to:

* Encrypt/decrypt traffic

* Route the traffic through a few extra hops to obfuscate the origin of the traffic

[Ormand Lionheart]

Thanks

That sucks...lol. MESH is killing me these days. The faster LL says SL runs the slower it runs for me. Maybe the NSA is using my bandwidth?

 

cheers

Ormand

[Ormand Lionheart]

What if I don't use encryption? Sites are saying VPN improves streaming video like Netflix and Youtube since the VPN uses different routes from the typical users hence no traffic jams.

[Jenni Darkwatch]

I'd call that a dubious claim, but just try it for yourself.

[Ormand Lionheart]

For your perusal should you choose to accept it. Interesting info but I'm only paranoid because everyone is watching me :-).