OpenVPN with Hostizzle vs Tor - Which is the best for protecting your IP address.

Forums › New Zealand Broadband › OpenVPN with Hostizzle vs Tor - Which is the best for protecting your IP address.

cgreenwood

196 posts

Master Geek

#89796 8-Sep-2011 08:15

I have tried both of these methods for protecting my online identity.

As far as I can see the only thing that differentiates the two is that OpenVPN allows playback of regionally protected video streaming sites (like Hulu) where Tor does not.

Tor is a little more user friendly and easy to set up but file sharing through this network is frowned upon but not blocked.

Hostizzle free service requies a new key each month, a bit of a pain but I can live with that.

OpenVPN speeds seem a little better but not a huge improvement on Tor.

Which do you think does a better job at protecting ones IP address?

Is Hostizzle trustworthy? (after all, every bit of data that you send through the internet goes through their sever once you are conected).

I have read that some services like Hostizzle are set up by the very people we are trying to protect ourselves from in order to identify us, any truth to this?

Ta

vexxxboy

3266 posts

Uber Geek

#518385 8-Sep-2011 08:48

you can look into the i2p network, its similar to Tor, works well with torrents and the speed is good but it is not user friendly and the average person may get a bit confused.

http://www.i2p2.de/

Common sense is not as common as you think.

Oldhat

172 posts

Master Geek

#518825 8-Sep-2011 23:42

Using Tor for filesharing is frowned upon as it can compromise their security as per this article from Ars.....

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/04/not-anonymous-attack-reveals-bittorrent-users-on-tor...

Athlonite

1828 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#518832 9-Sep-2011 01:52

Is Hostizzle trustworthy? (after all, every bit of data that you send through the internet goes through their sever once you are conected).

considering everything you send and recive through hostizzle is heavily encrypted then I'd have to say Yes it's safe as for TOR I wouldn't trust anything going through it unless you've heavily encrypted it first

also re i2p if your on limited data caps as most of us here in NZ are then it's not a good alternative to tor or hostizzle as you beccome part of the network and will be routing not only your data but parts of other peples aswell potentially going through you data cap very quickly

back to hostizzle they also state they
a: don't keep logs for more than a few days
b: couldn't tell what/where you've been or done online as everything going through their servers is encrypted and
c: the only thing that is logged is when you connect and how much data you go through

cgreenwood

196 posts

Master Geek

#518873 9-Sep-2011 09:02

considering everything you send and receive through hostizzle is heavily encrypted then I'd have to say Yes it's safe as for TOR I wouldn't trust anything going through it unless you've heavily encrypted it first

I realise I am being quite paranoid here but: The data is only encrypted between your PC and the Hostizzle server, Hostizzle are the ones that generate the encryption key and therefore could potentially see everything you send over the connection if they so chose. My concern is that once OpenVPN is set up and connected ALL internet traffic is directed through the VPN including such things as internet banking. Not so with Tor though: you have to manually configure each application that you want to use the Tor network, maybe OpenVPN is capable of this also but that is beyond me at the moment.

I am not an expert on this, I am just making assumptions on what I have been able to find out about these services witha little research. If I am wrong please feel free to point this out :)

Athlonite

1828 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#518985 9-Sep-2011 13:11

They may generate the key but if you've read their FAQ it clearly states they don't have the time or the inclination to bother decrypting what ever your doing through their server and once openvpn is up and running on your PC everything that needs to go out on the net goes through it automatically without further need of messing round telling apps that this is how you need to go out.....

but TOR on the other hand has been known for interception of data packets a fare while back it was discovered that govt emails were being intercepted and read as they were going through tor it's apparently quite easy to set up an fake exit node for the sole purpose of sniffing packets so I wouldn't use TOR for anything other than anonymous web browsing as for anything else like internet banking you live in NZ why would you want to use a VPN to iBank in the first place

cgreenwood

196 posts

Master Geek

#518998 9-Sep-2011 13:42

OK thanks for that, seems like OpenVPN is the way to go.

as for anything else like internet banking you live in NZ why would you want to use a VPN to iBank in the first place

The point is that I don't want to use the VPN to iBank but once the VPN is connected it will automatically do so unless I manually disconnect first. Fine for me but other less savvy than myself use the computer.

Athlonite

1828 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#519444 11-Sep-2011 03:49

Ahh I see

I only see one draw back to openvpn / hostizzle and that is it's not good for gaming basically take your ping to the US and double it other than that I've had one prob with Hostizzle and that was it wouldn't connect at first until I manually added this to the config

remote 76.10.222.65 53 right after it says this :: client dev tunproto tcp#Change my.publicdomain.com to your public domain or IP address

you need to place it right at the end of the word > address without a space

so it looks like this

client dev tunproto tcp#Change my.publicdomain.com to your public domain or IP addressremote 76.10.222.65 53

lostangel

163 posts

Master Geek

#519452 11-Sep-2011 06:12

A little off topic but ... Why not just use a socks proxy over a ssh tunnel. You can then choose whichs progs to configure to use the proxy and for browsers have them not use the proxy for ssl sites.

cgreenwood

196 posts

Master Geek

#519537 11-Sep-2011 13:24

Some speed comparisons using a server in Palmerston North:

Through the VPN:

Without the VPN:

Using a server in the States (Rador, OH):

Though the VPN:

Without the VPN

So as expected it does make a significant dent in speeds, especially when comunicating with a server in NZ becuase as you say the data is routed half way round the world and back.

Why not just use a socks proxy over a ssh tunnel

Would be interested in learning more about this, will an ssh tunnel work with Hostizzle? Can you point me in the right direction? Thanks.

PassiveFever81

365 posts

Ultimate Geek

#519887 12-Sep-2011 12:08

I know this isn't OpenVPN or Hostizzle but I use Hotspot Shield, it's free, routes your traffic via the US, I use it for hulu and YT videos that are region locked, haven't tried torrents yet. Running Tracerts with CMD show that it by passes the ISP entirely since it's all routed via the US.

vexxxboy

3266 posts

Uber Geek

#519891 12-Sep-2011 12:17

brandonruscoe: I know this isn't OpenVPN or Hostizzle but I use Hotspot Shield, it's free, routes your traffic via the US, I use it for hulu and YT videos that are region locked, haven't tried torrents yet. Running Tracerts with CMD show that it by passes the ISP entirely since it's all routed via the US.

tried hotspot with utorrent and i couldnt get any trackers to work, just got errors and nothing worked

Common sense is not as common as you think.

Athlonite

1828 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#520256 13-Sep-2011 00:33

Running Tracerts with CMD show that it by passes the ISP entirely since it's all routed via the US.

You do realise that is physically impossible everything goes through your ISP it's just routed to the US