I have been reading about internet privacy for a long time. As time went on, I got a vpn subcription, a custom domain, a paid email hosting, etc. No regrets on the services themselves.

I recently had this conversation with a colleague of mine, complaining about the rising cost of everything including internet subscription services: netflix, spotify, youtube, you name it. I could simply disregard my colleague’s complaints as I didn’t have any of those and know the ways of obtaining materials. However, once I start adding up the privacy related services I’m willingly paying instead… they also add up into a considerable amount.

So, do you pay for anything privacy related, how much do you pay in total, and is it affordable for you? For example, many VPN providers offer yearly subscriptions around 40-50 USD.

  • randompepsi
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    2
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    What kind of privacy benefits does renting someone elses computer power have?

      • randompepsi
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        Like what? It’s not like your are more anonymous for doing that, and you lose complete ownership.

        • Oliver Lowe@lemmy.sdf.org
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          Something that people do is self-host software that respects its user’s privacy more than services some company provides to you for a monthly subscription. For example, you could host your own music streaming software on a server that you rent instead of using Spotify.

          • randompepsi
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            4
            ·
            1 year ago

            But what privacy do you have if you host on someone elses computer? That is what I am asking because I see a lot of people doing VPS but I don’t understand why from a privacy perspective you would do that.

            • ExLisper@linux.community
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              6
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              edit-2
              1 year ago

              Oh, so you simply don’t see any difference between VPS rented from a reputable company and just storing data in google’s DB. Well, I assure you those are different. VPS provider does not scan all servers, extract all the certificates from them, setup a MITM to intercept decrypt and analyse the incoming traffick, scan all your DBs to extract your emails and than sell all this data to advertisers. But if you believe they do than yes, renting VPS offers no benefits.

            • Oliver Lowe@lemmy.sdf.org
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              1 year ago

              That’s a good question. The hope is that the VPS provider is not reading the disk or sniffing the network traffic and using that information for commercial gains. For example, I could try to find a trustworthy VPS provider with a clear privacy policy for my music streaming server. To the provider, all they ideally see are encrypted bytes over the wire (probably using Wireguard or HTTPS for example).

              Spotify, on the other hand, rely on customer usage data for their business. They sell advertising and do things like suggestions based on listening history across many users.

              There is no guarantee that using someone else’s computer is 100% private. But it is probably more private than Spotify in this music streaming example.

        • ExLisper@linux.community
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          arrow-down
          3
          ·
          1 year ago

          You’re seriously asking what benefits hosting my own email and cloud has over using ‘free’ services like gmail? Not letting google scan my emails is not a benefit privacy wise?

          • randompepsi
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            3
            arrow-down
            2
            ·
            1 year ago

            No I am not, I am asking why you are hosting that on a rented VPS instead of your own server

              • randompepsi
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                4
                arrow-down
                2
                ·
                1 year ago

                This is a dead end, I am asking you of privacy benefits of a VPS and you say ”all of them” but you give me none. What’s the point?

                • magnus@feddit.de
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  2
                  ·
                  1 year ago

                  I think the answer you are looking for is less privacy oriented than OP understands it to be. The benefit of renting computational resources someplace outside your control is e.g. that it allows you to send mails to known providers which otherwise would refuse your mail if you would sent them originatig from a private IP address or e.g. having a always on cloud storage without running a computer in your basement 24/7 etc.

                • ExLisper@linux.community
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  3
                  arrow-down
                  4
                  ·
                  1 year ago

                  None? I explained that the benefit is I’m not using a ‘free’, public service that scans my data. If you didn’t get this very simple, clearly stated benefit than yes, this is a dead end.

                  • randompepsi
                    link
                    fedilink
                    arrow-up
                    2
                    arrow-down
                    2
                    ·
                    1 year ago

                    I get that, but that is not what I asked for. So yeah, dead end :P