Hacker Culture

Then I was browsing YouTube at the end of the night to relax before bed  and came across a video talking about note-taking applications that are  both cross-platform and robust. This is where I heard about Notion  again. I can't remember where I first heard about it, but the first  time I chose not to give it a go. After that first video, I looked up  some others on Notion and saw how much this app can do and aims to achieve.

One day awhile back I chose to learn about a cryptocurrency that previously I knew nothing about. The pick was Monero, a coin (at the time) ranked thirteenth by market cap on coinmarketcap.com and eighth by price. What I found interesting about this coin was the mining algorithm, CryptoNight.

My mind has been on the Domain Name System (DNS) server for about a week now. I've been mulling over whether VPNs are necessary and what level of trust should be placed in a DNS provider. It's evident not to trust your ISP's DNS since some companies have been caught manipulating the data or using you DNS metadata to sell to other companies.

Both of which suck.

This collection of data via the DNS still happens even when a user connects to a VPN. The data between the user and the site is encrypted but the request to what IP address ties to the requested domain name, is not. Worst of all the user is almost always using their ISP's default servers which they control.

A VPN is an encrypted tunnel between your computer and the internet  at large. They exist to allow employees access to internal intranets of a  company to do work remotely.

That's it.

They are merely a tunnel and not a means to keep your data/metadata  private. Any VPN provider you use can see what you access, how often,  and for how long. It's not hard either; I do this in my own home from  time to time with a program called Wireshark; cause I'm a nerd.

Just being on a VPN does not make your data private.