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Facebook is Pushing Its Data-tracking Onavo VPN Within Its Main Mobile App (techcrunch.com)
TechCrunch reports: Onavo Protect, the VPN client from the data-security app maker acquired by Facebook back in 2013, has now popped up in the Facebook app itself, under the banner "Protect" in the navigation menu. Clicking through on "Protect" will redirect Facebook users to the "Onavo Protect -- VPN Security" app's listing on the App Store. We're currently seeing this option on iOS only, which may indicate it's more of a test than a full rollout here in the U.S. Marketing Onavo within Facebook itself could lead to a boost in users for the VPN app, which promises to warn users of malicious websites and keep information secure as you browse. But Facebook didn't buy Onavo for its security protections. Instead, Onavo's VPN allow Facebook to monitor user activity across apps, giving Facebook a big advantage in terms of spotting new trends across the larger mobile ecosystem. For example, Facebook gets an early heads up about apps that are becoming breakout hits; it can tell which are seeing slowing user growth; it sees which apps' new features appear to be resonating with their users, and much more. Further reading: Do Not, I Repeat, Do Not Download Onavo, Facebook's Vampiric VPN Service (Gizmodo).
In other news, the NSA will now be offering software to keep your data hidden from the NSA.
Lighten up, Mark.
You'd have to be absolutely mental to VPN all your traffic through Facebook's servers. They have direct access to all your traffic as it leaves their VPN concentrator. Their wet dream.
People really need to educate themselves about how VPNs work, what they are and aren't good for.
Secure, encrypted traffic between two endpoints? GOOD!
Secure, encrypted traffic between yourself and an actor with unknown motives who by default has to decrypt it before sending it on it's way to the Internet? DOUBLE PLUS UNGOOD!
~Any apparent grammatical or typographic errors are caused by defects in your display device.
I don't know what would be worse. No VPN, or a "free" VPN from a place doing heavy package analyzing. On one hand, I've seen Wi-Fi machinations, be it HTTP intercepts, attempts to get the device to accept an untrusted key as a trusted root CA, and other stuff, so any VPN would be useful to deter that. On the other hand, FB isn't someone whom I would trust to be a privacy provider.
Personally, I'll stick with with my Digital Ocean droplet for my VPN needs. There are fewer parties that can have access to snarfing my network logs... just the DO admins and me.
The question really becomes, which do you distrust more, your local ISP, or the ISP of the location you're hosting your VPN. If you trust neither, then there's no point bothering.
VPN is useful for 2 things:
1) creating a secure link between 2 separate locations over the public internet where you can't afford dedicated transport (e.g. My home, and my office)
2) shifting your traffic from an ISP that's a known bad actor, to one that's only a suspected bad actor (because be honest, are there really any ISPs that are "known good"?)
Number 2 is still relevant for many people, but VPNs are far too commonly used by people who don't understand the technology to try to simply make everything safe, when all it really does in most cases is add complication, cost, and latency.