Privacy and Security on the Web and IRL?

[Stahlmann]

i don't get idea of VPN in the world of global NSA espionage net.

[slsdly]

Stalmann, the government could know you connected to a VPN, and could monitor traffic coming out of the VPN, but wouldn't be able to attribute traffic out of the VPN to you without cooperation from the VPN provider. Typically the providers have a zero logging policy, so once a session is terminated, they themselves wouldn't know who was allocated what session / public IP address. Obviously this only can work if you trust your provider. You can also cross national boundaries this way, and potentially cause the need for cooperation between multiple countries.

[slsdly]

There is also the Tor project as an option. Mind you, I've read claims that engaging in these practices attracts scrutiny .

[Stahlmann]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XKeyscore

Besides using soft selectors, analysts can also use the following other XKeyscore capabilities:[11][22]
Showing the usage of virtual private networks (VPNs) and machines that can potentially be hacked via TAO.

I'm rather average folk, so it isn't like "they're are coming for me".
But idea that every activity in internet is some "data" and somebody can have access to "this".

[slsdly]

Sure, any computer can be compromised, including those running VPN services. There have been vulnerabilities found in TLS over the years, but we continue to use/trust it (this forum uses it, online banking, anything Web based these days, etc) because unless you are targeted or unlucky, the odds are reasonably low these precautions will be compromised for you. I would not base my decision to use something or not based on the fact it could be compromised; it is software, it can *always* be compromised, best make peace with it. My only concern is the foundation sound (can this generally deliver on expectations).