Personal computing discussed

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blahsaysblah
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travel - secure internet recommendations

Wed Sep 07, 2016 9:54 am

Going to be out of state for a few months, anyone have any personal recommendations for what they use for VPN to safely browse email/bank/other secure services?

One laptop and one phone. I am not worried about personal attacks, just the usual unsuspecting malware infested 3rd party machines on same network.

I've setup an AWS EC2 for private OpenVPN access but this was all academic to me before today. Never had to directly setup and maintain it myself before.

Any tips with Win 10 and non-rooted Android phone in mind?

What do you use when you travel for work?
 
just brew it!
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Re: travel - secure internet recommendations

Wed Sep 07, 2016 10:02 am

I've been meaning to set up some sort of VPN, but I'm still using basically the same method I've been using for years: A SSH connection to a server I maintain, acting as a SOCKS proxy. Originally the server was a Linux system on my home DSL connection; currently it is a VPS at Linode.

Obviously this does not protect my phone; but I tend not to do banking, bill paying, etc. from the phone.
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alrey
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Re: travel - secure internet recommendations

Wed Sep 07, 2016 10:04 am

Its ok as long as the site where you are going to login is protected by SSL (https://).
 
bthylafh
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Re: travel - secure internet recommendations

Wed Sep 07, 2016 10:09 am

I've got OpenVPN set up on my router (in TLS mode) and use the official client for both Windows and Android. Works fine.
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cheesyking
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Re: travel - secure internet recommendations

Wed Sep 07, 2016 10:19 am

bthylafh wrote:
I've got OpenVPN set up on my router (in TLS mode) and use the official client for both Windows and Android.  Works fine.

This is what I do. If the router doesn't support it then I think there's a raspberry PI image for creating a VPN or just use the amazon ec2 method.
Openvpn on android has come a long way since I first looked at it, no need to be rooted anymore.
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blahsaysblah
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Re: travel - secure internet recommendations

Sat Sep 10, 2016 5:26 pm

Best option seemed to be to install pfSense inside a VM. Tried speed tests and saw no bandwidth/latency issues for my modest needs. (50mbps internet connection)

Using Win 10 Pro with Hyper-V on the laptop.
- Added one internal virtual switch that all VMs and Host are connected to.
- Created one external virtual switch per real network adapter(ethernet, wi-fi) with host not connected to them.
- Created pfSense VM with one external and internal switch adapters. (advanced configurations for some other time)

Everything running through the small VM (2GB VHD, 1GB RAM (no swap), gave full CPU access). Some CPU overhead for running the firewall,.. but now have easy access to monitor/control everything.
Impact is not really noticeable with almost plain out of box configuration.

I did try ipfire first but found it to be somewhat less polished than pfSense. That and fact that web site is lacking proper https.
 
druidcent
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Re: travel - secure internet recommendations

Sat Sep 10, 2016 5:42 pm

For an easy to use, no hassle VPN, I used VyprVPN. It worked great no matter where I was, including China.. If I had the time, I'd probably try and set up my own, but this was super easy and good speeds..
 
CScottG
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Re: travel - secure internet recommendations

Sat Sep 10, 2016 5:58 pm

Remote SSH into home computer.. (VNC).
 
Jhutton
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Re: travel - secure internet recommendations

Thu Feb 23, 2017 2:48 am

The HMA VPN is also great! it worked well for Netflix also when i was out of the country

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