Google One VPN

[e-honda]

Google one VPN has now launched in the UK

It works really well on my chromebook, just installed google one from the play store, turned on the vpn and it sets itself up in the network settings as a proper vpn with all traffic going over it.

GeoIP lookups mostly come back as Google FI in UK although a couple of places still detect it as being US and the BBC website gives me the international version but everything else seem unaffected.

[eliot]

Using a VPN is a bit like everyone posting their letters to the same house - where someone can look at all the destination addresses(or perhaps steam the envelope open), make a note of them and the re-post those letters to the destination on your behalf.

Shifting your geo for whatever reason is about the only reason i would use one.

[paulrockliffe]

Even for me it's a bit of a stretch to think routing all your internet traffic via a Google server is a great idea. If you use someone else and the feds come knocking they'll say they don't keep records. Google will hand everything over and have it all indexed and searchable for them ready to go.

[Teddy Lop]

I thought the idea of VPNs was to hide what you do from the man.

[outnumbered]

One possible advantage is protection from hacking on unsecured public WiFi.

Personally, that’s not reason enough for me to send all my traffic through Google…

[anonymous-user]

Google spy enough as it is, they are nothing more than a data mining ad company. Sending all traffic via them? Not a chance!!

I wish Apple would launch a search engine & give them some competition.

[Funk]

From a privacy perspective, this seems fairly unequivocal:

Google said:

Google Fi doesn’t tie your online activity to who you are

Your VPN session is established with a one-time token that’s not linked to your Google Account or your phone number. When you turn on the VPN, Google Fi confirms with one of our servers that you’re a valid user.

The server sends back a one-time token, which has no information about you. The server just verifies if you can use the VPN. With this token, the VPN establishes a connection with our VPN server. Our VPN servers make sure that the token is valid, which allows you to use the VPN.

Because the server we use to make sure that you’re a valid user is separate from our VPN servers, our VPN servers only know if you can use the VPN. Our VPN servers can’t tell who you are.

Your online traffic travels through a strongly encrypted tunnel

Your online activity is encrypted between your phone and our VPN servers. Encryption keeps your data safe in transit, which means third parties and hackers can't see your data before your traffic reaches our VPN servers.

Your real IP address is hidden

Once your traffic reaches our VPN servers, we replace your real IP address with a Google server IP address that is not connected or linked to your Google account. This changes your IP-based location to that of the Google server instead of your real location. This prevents your IP address from being used to track your location when you go to websites. Google Fi retains traffic metadata, like connection speed, without your IP address for 14 days, but Google Fi doesn’t retain your online activity.

Tip: Your browser may have cookies that could be used to personalize your website experience. To prevent cookie-based tracking, you can clear your cookies.

Google Fi prevents abuse while you maintain your privacy

Google Fi may take actions to prevent abuse over the VPN, but we do so in a way that still maintains your privacy. Because we don’t tie your Google Account to your VPN connection, we can’t tie this traffic back to who you are.

With or without a VPN, Google Fi doesn’t sell your personal information to anyone.

I think making VPNs 'easy' for non-technical people is a good idea - the amount of sensitive data that must be sent unencrypted over things like public wifi hotspots is probably shocking.

[Captain_Morgan]

Funk said:

I think making VPNs 'easy' for non-technical people is a good idea - the amount of sensitive data that must be sent unencrypted over things like public wifi hotspots is probably shocking.

But most browser sessions are https these days and any app worth its salt also establishes a secure session, so what do you think is at risk that a vpn will protect?

[e-honda]

It's a paid product not something funded through advertising or data mining.

https://one.google.com/about/vpn/howitworks
They have a white paper detailing what they log.

Google said:

What does VPN log?
In order to provide peace of mind for our users that their activity is private from the VPN operator and from potential attackers, VPN by Google One does not log user activity on the network or other information that could reveal personally identifiable information about them.

The following data is NOT logged by the VPN for a given user:

Network traffic, including DNS
IP addresses of the devices connecting to the VPN
Bandwidth utilized by an individual user
Connection timestamps by user

Most isps cannot make similar claims.

But really the protection kicks in between your device and the internet.
There is no such thing as secure public WiFi, it is all insecure, and things don't get much better in the office or the home.

I don't care that much which evil billionaires mega corp is the one that may be able to collect my data even though they say they aren't and maybe share it with the government. If I had to choose though Rupert Murdoch is a long way down the list.

I do care that someone in my office could see what my phone has been accessing.

[e-honda]

Captain_Morgan said:

But most browser sessions are https these days and any app worth its salt also establishes a secure session, so what do you think is at risk that a vpn will protect?

Most but not all.
Pretty much all DNS traffic is however insecure and combined with the IP addresses of the https requests that can be seen a very good picture of what sites are being browsed by who can be built up, and the process is all automated and available in some fairly modestly priced networking equipment.

[Funk]

Captain_Morgan said:

Funk said:

I think making VPNs 'easy' for non-technical people is a good idea - the amount of sensitive data that must be sent unencrypted over things like public wifi hotspots is probably shocking.

But most browser sessions are https these days and any app worth its salt also establishes a secure session, so what do you think is at risk that a vpn will protect?

What about all the apps people use on their phones over wi-fi?

Reality is that most stuff these days isn't browser-based any more.

Edit: plus what e-honda said.

[Captain_Morgan]

Funk said:

Captain_Morgan said:

Funk said:

I think making VPNs 'easy' for non-technical people is a good idea - the amount of sensitive data that must be sent unencrypted over things like public wifi hotspots is probably shocking.

But most browser sessions are https these days and any app worth its salt also establishes a secure session, so what do you think is at risk that a vpn will protect?

What about all the apps people use on their phones over wi-fi?

Reality is that most stuff these days isn't browser-based any more.

Edit: plus what e-honda said.

That’s why I covered apps in my post.

[Captain_Morgan]

e-honda said:

Most but not all.
Pretty much all DNS traffic is however insecure and combined with the IP addresses of the https requests that can be seen a very good picture of what sites are being browsed by who can be built up, and the process is all automated and available in some fairly modestly priced networking equipment.

That’s fair, I don’t believe that dns data from a public wifi hotspot creates a significant attack point.

[Funk]

Captain_Morgan said:

Funk said:

Captain_Morgan said:

Funk said:

I think making VPNs 'easy' for non-technical people is a good idea - the amount of sensitive data that must be sent unencrypted over things like public wifi hotspots is probably shocking.

But most browser sessions are https these days and any app worth its salt also establishes a secure session, so what do you think is at risk that a vpn will protect?

What about all the apps people use on their phones over wi-fi?

Reality is that most stuff these days isn't browser-based any more.

Edit: plus what e-honda said.

That’s why I covered apps in my post.

Apologies, I missed that.

All that said, I think anything that encourages people to take their data security more seriously isn't a bad thing.

[eliot]

Funk said:

I think making VPNs 'easy' for non-technical people is a good idea - the amount of sensitive data that must be sent unencrypted over things like public wifi hotspots is probably shocking.

But you understand that the same traffic still exits the VPN provider un-encrypted right? - you are simply moving the exit point from YOUR machine to a strangers server - it doesn't make your un-encrypted traffic more secure. People fall for the marketing.

Lets say someone wanted to sniff *my* traffic as i traveled around the world, they would have to hack into all the data networks that i used - whereas if I used a VPN - all my data is sent to a single place regardless of my location in the world where someone can inspect it very easily.