I’m not in Ukraine. My VPN is encouraging me to use a Ukrainian IP address. But I have no idea how this helps Ukraine. Does anybody have an idea how this helps? Obviously it shows up in analytics as traffic from Ukraine, but… So? Symbolic solidarity? Or does it do more?
This is basically the opposite of the advice being given to Russians and Ukrainians, which is to use a VPN so they can connect from non-Ukrainian UP address.
Stand With Ukraine with ClearVPN
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It can scatter IP traffic coming out on the clear net and make it hard for Russians to identify where web traffic is or geolocate specific people. That’s if your last hop is in Ukraine. From the outside in it can make it look like you’re in Ukraine, and to the untrained person, it could lead to hunting ghosts…
But, it’s pretty easy to work out what IPs are coming from VPNs and which ones aren’t especially if you’re a trained hacker which the Russian cyber teams almost certainly are. What I would recommend for all Ukrainians though is to turn any geolocation services off. It’s pretty easy to do on iPhones to just turn location services off, but I’m not sure on Android Phones.
Geolocating services (e.g. Strava) that pin point your location have been used by intelligence services and terrorists in all of the most recent modern conflicts to pin point strategic assets of significance. If you use anything like that right now DON’T. You’re walking around with a thing that could get you killed. Remove any location tagged photos you have on Facebook, Instagram, etc, as these can be used to find where your house is and where you generally travel. LEOs (law enforcement officers) will attest to this.
People are stupid, remember this… You share too much about yourself on the internet already. This is why two factor authentications were forced on everyone. The real reason why… HEY YOU, YEAH YOU, YOU’RE STOOPID! adding two factor authentications to common services you use may also stop you getting killed as it involves a challenge system that must be crossed protecting your data.
I’m just a Kevin Mitnick type hacker that is trained in how to breach people via social engineering and most of this stuff is common knowledge by now in the community. Most elite hackers these days are programmers. My skills as anything other than an analyst are not much use anymore. BUT, they may keep an average person alive.
VPN providers will go a long way trying to convince you that you’re helping someone or yourself. You’re just funneling all your traffic to their servers, who knows what they’re doing with it ?
No it doesnt help , infact it could literarily throw your data in the hands of russian hackers / military now right now cause they for sure target ukraine traffic.
Clear VPN is also probably a unsafe one and no name with their claims.
Very helpful. Thanks!
Manage your Android device’s location settings
I wouldn’t use Ukraine exit points. Their infrastructure is probably taking a right beating and they don’t need to clog up the available bandwidth with unnecessary traffic going in and out just for foreigners browsing. Do not think it will help hide the traffic for Ukrainians, because it won’t. Ukrainians should perhaps use VPNs out of Ukraine, not the other way around.
Humans are stupid, we also are very pattern based creatures without even knowing it most of the time. Some/All of these things may just keep you alive.
It’s probably best not to clog up bandwidth at the moment you’re right. I did say IPs are easily identifiable, because you can go to the source and generally work out what company is paying for them and therefore make it useless to do that. I can guarantee the Russians know which IPs are coming from VPNs.