In the first season of Mr. Robot, when Elliot and his fellow fsociety hackers planned an attack on Steel Mountain, they began relying on a Raspberry Pi to access the storage facility’s climate control system. As Elliott explains, their plans include: “If we mount this circuit board behind the thermostat, we can install an asymmetrical back door [to] Create a VPN within the Steel Mountain intranet. “
For many of us, this may be the first time the term VPN comes into use. It stands for “virtual private network” and is like creating an encrypted tunnel between you and your VPN provider. This is a way to protect yourself from prying eyes, access geo-restricted content, or bypass censorship (with varying degrees of success depending on your VPN).
In the case of Mr. Robot, the Pi’s Ethernet port and wireless capabilities allow them to access every computer part of the Steel Mountain network located anywhere in the world. What’s more, it means no one knows what they’re doing, including the Steel Mountain technical team, whose job it is to monitor all data flows.
Why do I need a VPN?
While most of us don’t intend to engage in any criminal activity, as more of our lives take place online, it has become more important to understand what a VPN is, how it works, and where we can use one. Today, your identity, financial data, government access, and much of your job lives online. Keeping all of this content private and secure is crucial, especially when you’re connected to a public Wi-Fi network in a coffee shop, airport, hotel, or other public place; if you do, you should use a VPN unless you’re okay with strangers sifting through your data.
There are other reasons to use a VPN. From Netflix to YouTube, companies tend to region-lock their content, saying “This content is not available in your region.” This means that people living in different countries can access different content. If you use a VPN, you can hide your location – for example, if the VPN has servers in the United States, the service you use will think you’re in That The same goes for the country, not where you live. Essentially, you can make it look like you’re browsing from somewhere else so you can access the content available there.
A VPN can also be helpful if you want to hide your identity when using peer-to-peer services like BitTorrent. Your ISP can only see the data going in and out of the VPN, but not the data on the other end. This is useful because it increases privacy, but also because some ISPs will throttle BitTorrent traffic.
How do I get a VPN?
The easiest part of learning about VPNs is getting one. There are hundreds of free VPN services on the market, but how they handle your data or offer any protection is a big question mark. The thing is, if you’re really worried about cybersecurity, there’s something you shouldn’t rely on free.
That’s not to say there aren’t any good free options. But be aware that they have some caveats – either limited bandwidth or ads. Of the various free options, TunnelBear is the best-known and most highly recommended by people we know and online—it’s available on Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, and even as a Chrome/Opera extension. The free version gives you 500MB of data per month, which won’t please any video streaming enthusiast, but it’s enough to get you through something as simple as logging in to Spotify. Apart from this, you can also pay $7.99 (approximately Rs. 530) per month to get unlimited data if you want.
If you’re looking for a more integrated solution, the Opera browser now has its own built-in VPN solution. It doesn’t have too many countries to choose from, and its speeds are too slow for high-quality streaming, but it’s free. On mobile, Opera also offers free VPN apps for iOS and Android that use the same underlying technology.
Apart from these, there are many paid options. While it’s hard to say which one is best, we recommend staying away from the lesser-known VPNs and sticking to the big names like NordVPN, ExpressVPN, and Private Internet Access. All the above options cost between $40 and $100 per year, which is approximately Rs. 2,700 – 6,700. If you are worried about security, then a paid VPN should be mandatory. This is especially true if you travel frequently.
How to use a VPN?
Using a VPN is actually very simple. The first step is to decide which VPN provider you want to use. Almost every provider has detailed guides on their website, but the basics are pretty simple:
- Find the network settings on your device:
- Windows 10 – set up > Network and Internet on Windows 10
- macOS – System Preferences > network
- Android – set up > more
- iOS – set up > General
- Go to the options that show VPN and configure it using the settings provided to you by your VPN provider.
- Enter the authentication details you set up on your VPN provider’s website, including username and password.
That’s pretty much it. Apps on Android and iOS often make this easier and automatically set everything up for you. For example, with Opera VPN, you just click “Connect.” Most popular VPNs also have installers that save you the trouble of manually setting up your operating system.
Next time you’re on public Wi-Fi or need to watch region-locked content, remember to open the VPN app of your choice and leave it turned on. There may be some side effects from using it, which you should keep in mind. Since they change your browsing location, apps that rely on your internet location (such as Netflix or Google Search) will go haywire and show you results based on the location you selected in the VPN app.
Of course, if fsociety or a similar group is after you, a VPN will do little to protect you. But it’s still a good first step.
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