The seal has been broken. VPNs have operated largely under the radar for years, but now governments are taking an interest. These anonymity masks promise to hide your online activity and access restricted content. They’re unlikely to survive unscathed.
While we have seen plenty of VPN warnings over the years — these have been contained and focused on personal user security. Do not install free apps or Chinese apps neatly sums up most of those warnings. We’re now somewhere very different.
Flushed out of quasi-hiding by the TikTok ban (where they did not work) and porn bans (where they do work), VPNs are now headline news. X’s decision to unmask the real locations of many politically viral accounts is just the latest move to expose how the new VPN-driven global internet actually works.
When Google warned many VPNs are spyware in disguise, it was a viral story because tens of millions of smartphone users have installed VPNs for the first time. Now that could be about to change, removing a critical, privacy tool.
As U.S. states and the U.K. government debate the merits of VPN bans or restrictions to underpin their porn bans, America’s cyber defense agency has added its own warning for Android and iPhone users: “Do not use a personal VPN.” This reissued advice first surfaced a year ago, now it will resonate given the VPN surge seen since.
Virtual Private Networks work by tunnelling data to and from a device via third-party servers. This masks location and specific activity (sites and platform visited) from the networks and ISPs carrying the traffic. Good VPNs also provide a layer of protection when connecting via public Wi-Fi networks, albeit they’re not strictly necessary.
CISA warns that “personal VPNs simply shift residual risks from the internet service provider (ISP) to the VPN provider, often increasing the attack surface. Many free and commercial VPN providers have questionable security and privacy policies.”
As a blanket warning its not unhelpful. An unsafe VPN from an unsafe developer is much worse than no VPN at all. And while hiding your location to bypass a porn ban is straightforward, most if not all the content to/from your device is encrypted anyway.
It’s highly likely that in some states and countries, further government warnings to stop using VPNs will come soon. And these will be laws and mandates not just advice. The VPN genie has broken free, there’s no turning back.
“Politicians have now discovered that people are using VPNs to protect their privacy and bypass these invasive laws,” EFF warns. “Their solution? Entirely ban the use of VPNs.”
