The concept of cyber security should not be new to anyone reading this. There are numerous security measures thrown around in the media that carry the assumption of regular people like us knowing what they are. Unfortunately though, not many people actually understand why they need them or how to actually implement them.
The Average Home Network
I am guessing your house has a basic router operating off of some variation of whatever protocol is the latest and greatest. If your router is more than 5 years old, I have some bad news for you. Replace it or at the very least update that firmware!
The router is typically connected to a modem. The modem is often supplied by the Internet Service Provider (ISP). This is typically based off of your service bandwidth. If you are only paying for 500mb service, they will likely give you a modem limiting your speeds to 500mb or less. Consequently, if you are paying for a full 1gb service, if your router cannot handle the bandwidth, you are essentially wasting money.
The Average Scenario
You turn on your computer, phone, TV, or any other connected device in your home. You log in to some type of service or game or website through the browser function on the device. This transmit your information from your device, through your router, past the modem and off to the ISP. The ISP then logs your information and sends the information off to the website or service you initially requested and waits for the response. The response then comes back to your ISP, is logged, and then sent on to your device. Everyone is happy.
However, multiple things should be concerning here. If you value privacy, the ISP logging your information should stand out. The information they log can be sold to third parties for various reasons. Most of this is to profile you and sell you stuff with targeted advertising. Unfortunately, it can also be utilized for more nefarious reasons as well.
How do I Protect My Information?
The single best way to protect your information is to consider a Virtual Private Network (VPN). This encrypts the information traveling between you and the VPN service so your ISP never knows who or what is transmitting. This eliminates their ability to spy on you, log your info, and potentially sell it to other third parties.
Basically, you purchase a VPN service and install their software on your device. It reroutes all of your web traffic to go through their servers. Your device sends your information through an encrypted protocol the same way it always had before, but the ISP can only see that you are connecting to the VPN. The VPN then makes your traffic anonymous and redirects to your destination. The responding website sends information back to you through the same VPN and on to your device.
You are establishing a private connection between you and your destination. You can circumvent geographical restrictions and sometimes firewall restrictions as well.
Protect your Privacy
When you request a website or service through your device, you establish a direct connection between you and your ISP. Your ISP then establishes a direct connection to the desired website or service. It can see exactly what you are requesting. So all of your browsing habits, onlyfans videos, or other personal health information is potentially viewable by the ISP. They can essentially see that you are requesting a connection with onlyfans, and capture that data for logging.
When you make that same request through a VPN, the information is encrypted and sent to the VPN servers. Your ISP, or anyone else spying on your network can only see that you are establishing a connection to and from the VPN. The VPN then has a separate job of anonymously connecting to your onlyfans account and sending it directly to you through that private encrypted channel you just created. A good VPN has no logging ability and all traces of your browsing habits are then stored locally on your device. No ISP to track your habits or sell your information.
How to get Started?
check our NordVPN. They are one of our sponsors but I have personally used their service for a number of years and have been very happy with the service.
This does not constitute as any legal advice. Our website does not condone using any products or services for circumventing any legal requirements of anything. How you choose to utilize anything in life is directly related to the choices you make.
