Todays era of entertainment and the media has become completely digital. With every major cable TV provider now rushing to release its own streaming platform, the fight to gain customer confidence in choosing the new streaming service is becoming more aggressive both at home and abroad.
As a result, not all streaming opportunities are created equal. For those residing abroad, the ability to stream certain content is not the same as living in the United States. In addition, 2020 is the year of accountability for our tech giants who own the most valuable assets in the world.
In todays era of data breaches and security exploits, personal security and privacy is all the more necessary, especially when online content is streaming. For this reason, it is important for people living abroad and / or traveling frequently internationally to consider using a VPN provider or Virtual Private Network.
A VPN is a service that allows you to access the Internet as if you were connected to a private network anonymously and from any site. So, to bring the idea home if you live in an area where your internet content is restricted, a VPN essentially allows you to bypass that particular area-specific content (cough, china, cough) on the Internet. So yes, you can watch Schitts Creek all the way from India or Russia if you choose.
When you enable or disable your VPN, it creates an encrypted tunnel between your computer and a server operated by the VPN company. By streamlining all your internet traffic through this tunnel, it effectively hides your IP address (your computers social security number) and shows you that your traffic is coming from your VPN (geographically outdated) server and not your computer may be subject to restriction of content restriction. This essentially makes it more difficult for third party advertisers or others to monitor your online activities.
It also helps minimize and / or almost completely the ability of ISPs to sell your anonymous data for profit.
If you are one of these people who flows online through an Amazon Firestick, which is known to allow open source / third party option (assuming you understand that you accept the risk of anything that may happen or result from these downloads), you should probably use a VPN, no matter where you live.
Source: Surfshark
Just last week, CNET released its list of Best VPN Services in 2020, which includes well-known VPN networks such as ExpressVPN, IPVanish VPN, NordVPN and many more.
However, one VPN that we believe is up-and-coming and is completely new is Surfshark.
The most appealing about Surfshark is the ability to add an unlimited number of devices to an account while most of these other VPN networks are cut after a certain number of connections (usually five). But why is that?
The company offers over 1000 servers, while others such as ExpressVPN and NordVPN range from 3,000 to 5,200. However, it is important to note that most servers do not necessarily equal performance the number of servers simply reflects the number of subscribers serving a company.
Geographical location is an important factor to consider as Surfshark currently covers 61 countries exceeding the average in countries such as South America (often overlooked by other providers), Africa, Israel, Japan, Chile, and South Korea to name a few.
As mentioned, no matter where you are (at home or abroad), it is never a good idea in todays digital age to connect directly to the Internet. And the data breaches surrounding Avast and NordVPN antigen and security giant are proof of that.
Last year, antivirus and security giant Avast and NordVPN revealed monthly intrusions that shared a common cause, according to Brian Krebs forgotten or unknown user accounts that gave remote access to internal systems with little more than one password.
The NordVPN data breach, which occurred in March 2018, was unfortunately downgraded by the company, stating that while attackers could use private keys to track and track traffic for some of their customers traffic, monitoring communications routing through one of the companys more than 3,000 servers.
NordVPN blog report on data breach:
The server itself does not contain any user activity logs. None of our applications send user-created credentials for authentication, so usernames and passwords could not be withheld. With the same note, the only possible way to abuse site traffic was to perform a personalized and complex human attack in the middle to keep a single link trying to gain access. silver in NordVPN .
But why wait so long to report the invasion?
When we found out about the vulnerability the data center had a few months ago, we immediately terminated the contract with the server provider and broke all the servers we had rented from them, the company said. We did not disclose the exploitation right away because we needed to ensure that none of our infrastructure could be prone to such issues. This could not be done quickly because of the huge volume of servers and the complexity of our infrastructure.
This brings us back to the important issue of encryption and encryption. In cryptography, a code is an algorithm for performing encryption or decryption. For more information on cryptographers, you can read more here.
Surfshark uses AES-256-GCM, the fastest and most modern encryption method available today. For the unspecified, the AES-GCM over the AES-CBC concludes how secure its cryptography is.
AES is NIST-certified and used by the US government to protect secure data, and many have therefore adopted AES as the standard symmetrical selection cycle. It is an open standard that is free to use for any public, private, commercial or non-commercial use. AES is a symmetric key encryption key, the same key used to encrypt data is also used to decrypt it.
In cryptography, GCM or Galois / Counter Mode is a mode of operation for widely used cryptographic symmetric key cryptographic blocks. For more information on this, you can see an analysis of how encryption blocks work and how GCM plays here.
With Surfshark incorporating this level of encryption, it enables peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions, including BitTorrent, along with its own in-house ad blocker tool, called CleanWeb.
One feature we havent seen much with other providers, which many of our staff uses, is Multihop, a tunnel splitting tool that adds even more security to your connection. With this feature enabled, a VPN connection to one server and then your Internet traffic jumps to a second VPN server for even greater security.
At the end of the day, you want to make sure that you are always connected to the Internet safely and anonymously because black hackers are looking for new ways on your computer. So dont give them.
For more information about Surfshark, you can sign up for a free trial here.
Originally posted here:
With Streaming Becoming More Prevalent in 2020, it would be better to connect to the Internet with a VPN - gotech daily
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