work in a public place then you need to
retain your privacy with a VPN let's
talk about it Dave Taylor here and I
want to talk about Virtual Private
Networks or VPNs now you might not know
what this is this might be something you
think oh is that something like those
hacker types used but the fact is it's a
simple technology and boy you should
really be using it let's talk about the
places where it's important to retain
your privacy any public Wi-Fi so that
includes like Starbucks that includes
the public library any public network
for example a hotel anything like that
there's lots of other reasons but those
are one of the biggest reasons is that
when you use a network that other people
are also using you have no idea if
they're monitoring what you're doing now
you might say hey what kind of privacy
do I need I don't need to be obsessed
about this I'll just not go to my online
bank while I'm at Starbucks but that's
not a great solution because things like
Facebook and Gmail all the stuff you do
online all the stuff you do on your
computer it's all open and exposed and
you might be surprised how often your
account and password is being sent to
Rivera fie your identity even though you
think you're already logged in every
single time someone else could actually
snag that data and login as you now that
sounds pretty bad but there's more - so
what about things like your search
history what about your location you
might not realize it but the computer is
tracking your location you don't need to
be using a smartphone or anything like
that even just a regular computer like
this go to Google Maps go to Apple Maps
and say find me and then realize that if
you can do that and have it figure out
exactly where you are so can other
people me I don't really like that kind
of privacy so I'm a big fan of VPNs and
I use one all the time and so the
concepts really easy if you think of the
internet as this sort of big vague cloud
it's probably not a great metaphor but
imagine
said that it's a bunch of different
destinations and when you go to bing.com
to do a search or you go to facebook.com
you connect directly to that computer
now that means if someone's watching
that connection they can see what you're
doing but what if you had a central
computer that everything routed to and
then from there it expanded out and what
if the connection between your system
and that remote computer was all
encrypted that's exactly what a VPN is
and it gives you all sorts of
interesting side effects for example if
I go to Europe on a trip and I want to
stay up on my latest Netflix shows when
I go and log in on my hotel Wi-Fi
network Netflix will say you're not in
the US you don't have access to these
shows now for me that's gonna be really
frustrating because it's like I'm a paid
subscriber I would like to just watch
the next episode of my favorite show so
VPNs also give you the opportunity to
spoof your location which is really nice
now there's a more serious side to this
too because there are places where you
are being blocked because of where you
are obvious ones are at work or at
school they might block things like
social networks you might really want to
go onto Facebook while you're in your
school okay the VPN would give you the
ability to do that but even more serious
than that is there are countries where
they block access to specific stuff in
China for example it's not easy to get
onto Facebook at all and it's really not
easy to go and watch YouTube videos that
haven't already been screened by the
Chinese censors not super big fan of
that Twitter Linkedin watsapp a lot of
these programs are being filtered by
various countries and various
governments and if you live there you
might not want them telling you what you
can visit online a VPN solves that
perfectly now what else can we tell you
so Hulu again if you're out of the
country and you want to watch a
particular Hulu show you can actually
pretend that you're in the u.s. for
example by using your veep
and choosing which of the many many many
servers you want to actually connect to
so I often connect to a server in Dallas
Texas for example so if I'm using a
piece of software or if I'm going to
connect to a website that's checking
location it'll say oh you're in Texas
okay that's part of the u.s. you have
access to all this content very nice now
it's also the case that if you're using
a VPN it can really protect you if
you're visiting the dark web if you're
doing stuff that I probably don't want
to know about like BitTorrent or
something really don't break the law
don't violate copyrights and stuff but
if you are intrigued by that and you do
want to gain access to that a VPN
protects your privacy there too so
people in the tar community are huge
fans of VPNs finally here's another one
and this is a really modern one is that
when you do calls over VoIP or calls
over Wi-Fi that means that the public
Wi-Fi that you're using for that phone
call gives people the opportunity to tap
and potentially analyze and listen to
your call no bueno
so again a VPN can be a nice solution to
that and which VPN to use I'll come back
and talk about that in some other videos
but there's a lot of choices out there I
will say whatever you choose boy it's
gonna be better than having nothing and
just trusting all the people around you
I'm not hugely trusting of other people
but you know get a good VPN and you
could be in the middle of an internet
cafe and the most dangerous most likely
to be hacked community and you're gonna
be safe so this is Dave Taylor highly
encouraging you to do some more research
and find out about VPNs and I will catch
you in my next video
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