In May 2018, the European Law on Personal Data Protection (GDPR) came into effect and it’s time to discover yet another way of protecting: the VPN.
Before we start, however, let’s explain what the VPN all about. Let’s take things from the beginning…
In 2013, Edward Snowden, a (formerly) NSA employee, copied in a USB stick all the programs that the U.S. government and its services where using to monitor the rest of the world – with XKeyscore as the dominant program.
It was like a search base, where using keyword words or phrases, you could find information about anyone you wanted, their contacts, contacts of contacts, and so on. It was, perhaps, the most powerful wtf momentfor the ordinary citizen related to his privacy and the preservation of his personal life.
Other scandals have followed, with the latest being those of Facebook and Cambridge Analytica.
All the above, therefore, lead us to the VPN and its usefulness.
But what is a VPN?
Virtual Private Network (VPN) is a virtual, private, network. A network, that is, remote server-servers. It has the features of LAN [local Area network] namely “local” IP addresses, File Sharing feature, creation of local servers, Internet Connection Sharing. This network can be connected, with encrypted High-security connection, computers from around the world.
E.g. if we connect to a VPN in the US, our computer automatically acquires an American IP address and we can watch movies or videos on you Tube or buy things from USA ecommerce companies, which are provided exclusively to American citizens.
Now, that we learned what is a VPN… It’s time to find out why you must have one.
You can Access to restricted sites depending on the country, bypass local censorship in case we have blocked access, secure access to our network of work remotely, secure access to our home network remotely, Hide our activity from our local network or our ISP (Internet Service Provider: This company which gives us access to the Internet) and downloading files.
How to get a VPN
In this Microsoft link (https://support.microsoft.com/el-gr/help/20510/windows-10-connect-to-vpn), analyze the steps by which you can create a VPN profile on your computer and then connect.
The prerequisite is to have Windows 10 on your computer. There is a choice of free VPN with indicatively TunnelBear, proXPN, VPN Reactor and CactusVPN or you can buy a VPN service using your bitcoin for enhanced security.
Ultimately, with VPN or without, in today’s ‘ an Internet ‘ world, you need to be careful what you publish and who you share personal information with to keep your personal data safe as long as possible.
