Tagged “privacy”
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Why Your Device Has Several IPv6 Addresses at Once
A link-local one, a routable one, a rotating one, sometimes more. What each is for, which one a site sees, and why rotation hides less than it looks.
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What Your Device Announces to a Network Before You Open Anything
Joining a network makes your device introduce itself: a name, a request pattern, service advertisements. A tunnel covers none of it.
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What a Guest Network Actually Separates
A guest SSID either puts visitors on their own address range or merely stops them reaching each other. Which one you have is a question you can answer.
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What a VPN Hides About Your IP Address, and What It Leaves Alone
An IP address is a routing label, not an identity. Here is what yours reveals, what a VPN substitutes, and the signals it never touches.
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What MAC Address Randomization Hides, and What It Doesn't
A MAC address identifies your device to the local network only. Randomizing it helps against Wi-Fi tracking and does nothing online.
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What WebRTC Reveals About Your Local IP Address
Browser real-time communication needs to discover your addresses to connect peers directly. That discovery can expose more than a VPN intends.
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What Still Names the Sites You Visit: SNI Explained
Encrypted connections announce the hostname before encryption starts. That field is why private DNS alone does not hide your browsing.
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Who Runs Your DNS Resolver, and Why It Matters
Your resolver sees every hostname you look up. Knowing which one you use, and how it was chosen, is a basic privacy check.
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Privacy From Whom? The Five Observers a VPN Treats Differently
Privacy is not one dial. Split it into who sees traffic, who links an address to you, who keeps records, who can compel them, and who owns the company.
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How to Choose a VPN: Work Out Who You Are Hiding From First
Name the observer you actually care about and most VPN comparison criteria stop applying. The decision sequence, and where each branch leads.
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VPN vs Tor: How Many Parties Can Connect Both Ends?
Both substitute the address a site sees. The real difference is how many independent operators are involved, and what that design costs you.
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Do I Need a VPN at Home? What Changes on a Network You Run Yourself
On a network you administer, most of the usual case for a VPN does not apply. Here is what genuinely remains, and when it adds up to yes.
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Why Use a VPN? Name the Observer, Name What It Loses
Every reason to run a VPN should name a party and the exact visibility it gives up. Some reasons survive that; several popular ones do not.
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Does a VPN Protect Against Hackers? It Covers One Hop
Mostly no. A tunnel covers the stretch between your device and the exit machine, and almost nothing people call being hacked happens on that stretch.
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Where Your Browsing History Actually Lives
Your history exists in several places at once: the browser, a synced account, local caches, the resolver, and every site you visited. A tunnel touches one.
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What Your Internet Provider Still Sees While the Tunnel Is Up
A tunnel hides which sites you reach from your access network. It does not hide that you connected, to where, for how long, or how much moved.
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What a VPN Provider Can and Cannot Tell You About Legality
This page will not tell you what the law is, and neither can the company selling you a tunnel. How to separate law from terms of use, and where to look.
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VPN Jurisdiction, Five Eyes, and What You Can Actually Check
Jurisdiction is a property of companies, and a VPN is several companies in several places. Why alliance names in marketing are a weak signal.
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Which Words Do the Work in a VPN Logging Policy
A logging policy is a text, and most of it commits to nothing. The phrasings that constrain a company, the ones that only sound like they do.
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What a No-Logs VPN Claim Covers, and What Exists Anyway
A no-logs claim is about what gets kept, not what the operator can see. The exit machine has to know both ends of your connection to work at all.
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A Double VPN Splits Knowledge Between Two Servers
Two hops mean the entry server never learns your destination and the exit never learns your address. Whether that helps depends on who runs them.
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Using a VPN With a Smart TV: Covering a Device That Runs Nothing You Choose
Most smart TVs cannot run a VPN client at all, so coverage has to happen on the network — and the set may ignore the resolver you hand it anyway.
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A VPN on a Chromebook: Which of the Three Layers Gets Covered
A Chromebook runs the browser, an Android container and a Linux container. A VPN in one does not cover the others, so check which yours reaches.