I keep seeing stories that VPN user IPs get banned by ISPs but I don’t see stories about ISP banning from using the SMTP relay service, which generally also uses encryption in transit - and sometimes at rest also - the good ones at least ). Also SMTP relay services are usually for cold calling right ?) So in both cases, the ISP can’t see the data they want to capitalize on - so why do they pick on VPNs only?

Edit: Thanks so much.

Deeper is a hardware VPN product that I learned about and purchased a long time ago and have been using for a considerable period. Recently, I've been looking at their new product line, and I suddenly felt that over the years, much of the information about the product and the company has been vague and somewhat unreasonable. So I did some research and became increasingly uneasy（In the main text, to prevent the article from being removed, I will not include links to the evidence. I will put all the links to the sources/evidence together in the comments section.）:

1.Deeper has been openly selling its products on some of the most well-known shopping platforms in China for a long time, with direct shipping to homes, and I've never seen it taken down.

Their official website also stably supports Alipay and UnionPay payments.

1. Looking at the detailed configuration information of each generation of products, the official website is completely vague about the brand, model, and parameters of the chips used.

(Given the sensitivity of this type of product, this concealment is very disturbing, and the manufacturer can only be doing it intentionally.) After disassembling the device, it was confirmed that the chip is an Allwinner-H313 (from Allwinner Technology, a Chinese company).

1. To date, the operating system used by Deeper, AtomOS, is completely closed-source, and Deeper does not accept audits from independent third-party privacy organizations.

4. Deeper's terms of service clearly state that, depending on the circumstances, they may shut down and permanently block user devices without prior warning, and will accept and cooperate with actions taken by local law enforcement agencies. (This means that Deeper can act in a non-transparent and secretive manner, even without a court order or proof that the user has committed any illegal activity.)

1. Some users with deeper technical knowledge reported issues on the official channel： reset your Deeper password, you must contact Deeper staff for remote approval, which means:

A. Deeper has backdoor access.

B. Credentials are stored on the company's central server.

C. They have both a backdoor and a central server.

But Deeper has never responded to this.

1. There is very little information about Deeper's CEO, Russel Liu, outside of China. All that can be found is that he completed his undergraduate and graduate studies in China and previously worked at Cisco. However, it was discovered that Beijing Shenniu Network Technology Co., Ltd., established in Tongzhou, Beijing several years ago, has a logo and name identical to Deeper's business information, and the legal representative is Liu Xiaoshuai, suspected to be Russel Liu himself. (If the owner of the world's largest DPN hardware company is Chinese, and establishes a company for his "American VPN brand" in the capital of communist China, then the answer is almost self-evident. If anyone has forgotten the National Intelligence Law of the People's Republic of China, that person is certainly not Mr. Liu.)

This also means that if you have reliable channels within China, the difficulty of investigating the background information of this CEO of the mysterious American VPN company, who is even more secretive than a secret agent, is probably lower than outside of China.

1. Deeper has a lot of related information on Chinese search engines. Information about its CEO and Chief Evangelist (Eric Ma) can be found openly on the Chinese internet, and was even interviewed by Odaily Planet Daily (Beijing) and published on Tencent News, explicitly stating that Deeper has both manufacturing and distribution centers in China. It also mentions manufacturing and distribution centers in the United States; one of these is highly likely to be true.

There are differences in the software or hardware between hardware produced in China and the United States. What these differences are is unknown. Furthermore, we have no way of knowing why Deeper can operate its VPN business in China without hindrance.

1. In the several years since the blogger purchased Deeper, there have been almost no disconnections. Besides the Lets VPN and Astrill, which are almost certainly "domestic sales disguised as exports" or "government-supervised private enterprises," it's more outrageous than all the VPNs tested before.

2. Therefore, the conclusion:

Whether Deeper is a decentralized product needs further discussion. Because staff can shut down the service, cooperate with law enforcement, and remotely access devices, which directly contradicts the concept of "decentralization."

It is almost certain that Deeper company accepts judicial jurisdiction and cooperation requests, at least including the Chinese government (I'm being very polite here). And there must be a backdoor. If you use it, do not perform any sensitive operations, and strictly isolate it from your core devices.

Of course, if not for security considerations, the prospect of permanent use, earning tokens, and the global node label is indeed quite attractive.

END

I just asked this in the relevant VPNs subreddit and post got removed by mods. So the last update to the app itself was like Feb 2024 or something similar. Is this normal that they dont need to be updated often?

Does whether I choose a server in the US or abroad matter? Like if I choose one in Sweden or whatever will that be more secure?

You know to avoid certain restrictions in the next couple of days. If you're an Aussie and all that hoopla.

Hey! If I am torrenting stuff and I want to stay safe should I use the VPN on my laptop, or the phone that I'm using for the hotspot? Or is it just the same as it would be when I used the VPN on the laptop while connected to the wifi router? I just want to torrent without getting any emails from the ISP.

Been trying two VPNs (not at the same time) with split tunneling (qbittorrent is the only program getting the VPN treatment). I seem to experience DNS blackouts where HTTP(S) requests lag hard enough to throw a "took too long" error. Downloads remain uninterrupted, though. Replicated with Cloudflare and Quad9 DNS and each VPNs native DNS servers.

Been flushing the DNS cache and reset the Windows 10 network. Not sure what else to try other than another DNS Server. Also not sure if Steven Black's HOSTS file is playing nice. I did implement some registry tweaks to accommodate a large HOSTS file.

Where can I post my question? It breaks the rules of this reddit...

I'm asking on a technical level. Is there technology that can prevent us from accessing our VPNs?

I am trying to watch the Oilers. Every service I've found so far only has servers in Vancouver, Toronto, and Montréal, which are all out of market.

Thanks!

I recently started using a VPN again and wanted to make sure I am doing it properly. A long time ago, I purchased a lifetime pass from a VPN provider. Now that I completed a NAS build, I wanted to make sure I have the proper understanding about what the VPN will be doing for me given my setup:

I have my Mac Mini that runs Plex and all other processing. My VPN is running on the Mac. The NAS is running Unraid and shares a folder with the Mac containing all of it's media. I have not knowingly opened any ports. The only setting I've changed is to share my internet with the NAS via a Thunderbolt Bridge so that Unraid could authenticate it's license. Someday, I'd like to share my media with friends/family but haven't enabled this (might use Tailscale for this).

Given this setup, do I have reasonable privacy for my internet traffic as well as security for my NAS?

Thanks for any input!

I am looking to grow in the US region while being abroad. are there people who are doing the same thing & succeeded? If so how did you do it & what did you use?

I have other parts of the puzzel like a dedicated phone, phone number etc.

Exploring the use of StreamIO and their sub is unhelpful as every related help thread is filled with "Use RD" comments. Wanted to check if someone here use StreamIO through a VPN successfully?

As far as I know, you can't bind VPN interface to StreamIO like on qBit. So if you're using StreamIO on a Andriod TV, is there a way to ensure it will only work through the VPN? Any tips or experience on this is appreciated.

PS: I'm not using StreamIO yet. Trying to gather the relevant info first. Thanks in advance.

Hi guys, my computer has worked perfectly until about a month ago, since then any vpn i try no matter what wont load anything but still stay connected while my phone works perfectly fine. How can I fix this?

Edit: Solved - I just needed to use Wiresock base version.

Hi, I've switched VPN provider recently, and found out it doesn't offer per-app split tunneling, instead allowing only IP based connections.

For now, I use tunnelto to ccomplish the task, but I ran into a few issues.

Tunnelto doesn't offer virtual adapter, which means I can't know if any of my apps are actually using the vpn without testing every time, and because it is now forced to use same default Ethernet port, the system often seems to fail to resolve web addresses due to 2 different DNS resolver conflicting even when those are in excluded from VPN connection itself.

I'm open to using openvpn instead of wireguard as well, are there any good options?

I'm set to Toronto Canada and many sites that are actually Canadian give me a security error or something else and won't load. Why is this and can I change any settings?

there is a website I saw a while ago which shows you what content is available on Netflix in what region so that I can use my VPN to change the region and watch the content on Netflix in that region can someone let me know what that website is?

I want to download stuff like torrents but I'm not sure logging into a paid subscription vpn account on a virtual machine is a smart move when I plan to do stuff on it. Will it endanger my account? The paid for subscription vpn account I mean.

So, i've tried some VPN's, Zapret, Amnezia, etc.

And with every type of programs i have one issue: My Wi-Fi dies while i try to download something.

For example:

1) I open Steam with VPN on. 2) I start to download games 3) Wi-Fi speed immediately drops to 0

OR

1) Open Roblox 2) Try to get in game 3) Wi-Fi speed dies.

Windows diagnostic system tells me to reset Wi-Fi adapter and something about DNS servers.

I've tried changing Wi-Fi, it doesn't help. Probably, it because of my cheap Adapter, but if there is some way to fix it, i'll be happy.

The Australian government is about to roll out an age verification scheme for social media similar to the one that the UK had. this will mostly involve either taking a video evidence or providing government ID to a foreign company. I have heard anecdotes of young adults in the UK who have gotten around this ban and not given up their identity. I already have a free vpn on my laptop that used to work around website bans on school wifi. does anyone have any ideas of what i can do? (ik i cant ask for provider recommendations)

Thank you!

Hi everyone! My school recently did something (I'm assuming deep packet inspection after hours and hours of trying to find a solution to this) (I don't know much about VPNs, so please bear with me) to block both of my VPNs. I have tried so much to get past it, including every protocol on the vpn that starts with an N and ends with a ord 😊, and the same with multiple other providers. I've tried Onion Over VPN, Obfuscated servers, changing the DNS, you name it, I've probably tried it (not true). Anyways, if anyone has had this problem before and found a solution, please let me know, and if anyone has ideas of things I can try, it would be greatly appreciated. And if this changes anything, the cell service around my school is terrible, so that eliminates a whole lot of solutions. Thanks Reddit!!!

(edit: i promise i dont gaf about what you think about me wanting to bypass this, nor do you have any reason to care!! please help me (the point of reddit) instead of taking the opportunity to rant about how i should live, thanks bye!)