Technology

37603 readers

513 users here now

A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.

Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.

Subcommunities on Beehaw:

This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

Does a VPN used on a smartphone with Wi-Fi disabled (mobile data only enabled) provide any sort of protection? (beehaw.org)

submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

65 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I've never completely understood this, but I think the answer would probably be "no," although I'm not sure. Usually when I leave the house I turn off wifi and just use mobile data (this is a habit from my pre-VPN days), although I guess I should probably just keep it on since using strange Wi-Fi with a VPN is ok (unless someone at Starbucks is using the evil twin router trick . . . ?). I was generally under the impression that mobile data is harder to interfere with than Wi-Fi, but I could well be wrong and my notions out of date. So, if need be, please set me straight. 🙂

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago (16 children)

What sort of protection are you after? Your VPN should encrypt your data to make it more difficult to snoop on your activity. I wouldn't trust any random WiFi hot-spot just because you got a VPN encrypting your traffic though.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (14 children)

Before answering your first question (I'm actually not sure how to answer! I'll have to think about it 🤔)--my laptop has wifi, which transmits and receives radio waves to/from my router; my router is connected to a cable (broadband cable? I guess? Not DSL at any rate), which is connected to the internet (and there's also a MODEM in there somewhere too). My laptop doesn't have the ability to connect by mobile data which uses, I guess?, cell phone towers, but my smartphone can use both. So they're two different systems is I guess what I'm getting at, and I was never clear on how or if a VPN provided any sort of basic privacy if it was only using cell towers. This is a potentially really dumb question (the head injury doesn't help 🤕), but remember, William Gibson used to think that computers were powered by these gleaming magical crystals (or so he claims), before he looked inside one and discovered that it was basically just a floppy plastic record spinning around really fast.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

Definitely not a stupid question! Networking infrastructure is complex. I've been working in IT for years and still find myself scratching my head at times going, "Wait, how does the OSI model work again?"

Connecting to a VPN on your phone while using mobile data basically means the cell phone tower handling your data only sees encrypted data. Whoever your VPN provider is will see your traffic instead of the cell tower.

However, in modern times it's fair to be wary of backdoors and exploits that can compromise your device and render the VPN encryption moot. There's not much that regular people can really do to mitigate that possibility other than not use a phone.

If you're interested in learning more networking fundamentals, I'd recommend starting with the OSI model and its layers.

A handy mnemonic I whipped up with ChatGPT last year for better remembering the order of the layers:

Precise Data Navigation Takes Some Planning Ahead

load more comments (13 replies)

load more comments (14 replies)