As far as i'm concerned, we need VPNs so that when torrenting, people cant see our IP adress and other information that can be potentially used againt us. I've heard that there's people who log those IP adresses so that they can like "report" people doing piracy or sth like that. Correct me if i'm wrong.

So, with this purpose in mind, I understand that VPN services are useful because they can help hide our real information. But as I said, I dont like subscription services and I saw that there's the option to selfhost a VPN.

But I thought a bit about it, and, if I'm using a selfhosted VPN using, for example, a raspberry pi or a laptop, isn't the imformation of that laptop ALSO potentially dangerous? Because it is connected to your own ISP and it has the same location as you have (if you set it up at yout home).

I know this may sound dumb, but I don't know much about this. And I can't find information about this.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

You can think of a VPN as something where you take your traffic from one spot and spit it out in another spot before it takes the normal trip over the Internet to its final destination and back.

If you use a self-hosted VPN, then you're taking the traffic that comes from your ISP....and sending it out to your ISP.

Now, if you have a cool ISP, this can work. You could for example tunnel from somewhere that doesn't want you using their internet connection that way back to your houses. If you've got a standard ISP that's going to turn you in to the ESA, MPAA, and RIAA, then it isn't going to help you out at all because you're picking up your traffic and spitting it out in exactly the same spot it was going to go anyway.

Given what VPNs do, you also need to be careful because advertisers tend to overstate the benefits. "I got my email password taken over in a phishing scam! Good thing I had BoredVPN!" -- A VPN isn't going to help with that. "I clicked on a dodgy link and my computer got taken over! Good thing I had BoredVPN!" -- Nope, not gonna help. "Someone called me on the phone and said my windows was broken and then I followed their instructions to fix it! Good thing I had BoredVPN!" -- Definitely not going to help.

VPNs will help if you don't want your traffic leaving your ISP directly and you think there's a better place for the traffic to come from.