The pros and cons of using a VPN

[Brad the Impala]

Perhaps Moses could comment on the above and put some members out of their misery............

[cdnmatt]

Why all the hate on VPNs? I don't use one for generally browsing such as this, but use them daily for work.

If you have an administration panel you don't want accessible on the internet, put it on a separate server instance, and setup VPN on said instance. This way, admin panel can only be accessed at for example http://10.0.2.16/ or whatever, and only after you've successfully authenticated to the VPN with a SSH key.

IP restrictions to login to servers is another one. If you're travelling lots, and your IP is constantly changing, having a secure VPN that always has the same IP address is a necessity, so you can keep server access restricted by IP.

I have clients in China and due to the firewall a VPN is a necessity for their team. I even developed out a really cool system for this, so there's only one proxy / VPN users need to connect to, but all requests are evenly distributed across thousands of proxies managed by admin in round robin fashion. For example, if someone visits a site with say 50 assets (CSS, images, et al), the server logs will show 50 different IP addresses for that single page load. It's quite cool.

Quit hating on VPNs, they're very useful.

[Moses]

Perhaps Moses could comment on the above and put some members out of their misery............

Sorry guys, I will not comment how exactly board software checks accounts. Than more I will say - then more easy for bad guy will be to create additional accounts.

[Nirish guy]

Why all the hate on VPNs? .

If you mean from me you wont find any hate in my post, I already stated I use them when travelling for several security reasons. The post wasn't about hate, merely that they' can be used to avoid the Nasa super computer / the great firewall of China etc etc.

[StevieWonders]

Perhaps Moses could comment on the above and put some members out of their misery............

You will never convince conspiracy theorists by rational argument. That particular gang have little worthwhile to say so have to prove their self-importance some other way. If you look at their posting history for March an average of almost 20% of their posts are devoted to their conspiracy theory with Q himself easily surpassing that. Apparently they would rather wreck the Forum by their endless posts on the conspiracy they’ve “identified” than finding something relevant, topical or interesting to say.

[Brad the Impala]

Sorry guys, I will not comment how exactly board software checks accounts. Than more I will say - then more easy for bad guy will be to create additional accounts.

Thanks Moses, but I wasn't asking you to give the details of how the software works. However the repeated assertions by several posters that SW is using multiple identities simultaneously, in breach of the forum's rules, is worthy of response. Otherwise we are all just going to go round and round in circles indefinitely and the board is just going to become even more insular than it currently is!

As "the experts" allege that this multiple posting is facilitated by the use of VPNs it would clarify a little if you could just state whether, in the case in question, these are or are not being used? Or if the the same IP is used for the multiple posters referred to?

Presuming that the board software can detect this?

Of course it is possible that someone might want to use VPNs for another reason(like having previously been banned or needing to protect their identity for another reason), so the fact of their use does not necessarily lead to a conclusion of guilt. However the absence of their use(and of duplicate IPs) might help move the debate on to more productive topics.

[StevieWonders]

All a VPN does is provide a different IP address. No “duplicate-poster”-seeking software is going to rely on such a primitive mechanism. Neither Facebook nor Google rely on IP addresses to track people across the Internet and I don’t imagine what Moses deploys does so either.

[Dodger]

Prove it or Shut Up

No need to prove anything Stevie, because you've already done that for us.

"LIKES"
Stevieclueless, wingnut, mr. giggles, frequent, argosy.

[Moses]

Thanks Moses, but I wasn't asking you to give the details of how the software works. However the repeated assertions by several posters that SW is using multiple identities simultaneously, in breach of the forum's rules, is worthy of response. Otherwise we are all just going to go round and round in circles indefinitely and the board is just going to become even more insular than it currently is!

As "the experts" allege that this multiple posting is facilitated by the use of VPNs it would clarify a little if you could just state whether, in the case in question, these are or are not being used? Or if the the same IP is used for the multiple posters referred to?

Presuming that the board software can detect this?

Of course it is possible that someone might want to use VPNs for another reason(like having previously been banned or needing to protect their identity for another reason), so the fact of their use does not necessarily lead to a conclusion of guilt. However the absence of their use(and of duplicate IPs) might help move the debate on to more productive topics.

1. There are no users with the same IP on forum.
2. Forum's software will detect and ban users with the same IP unless it will be "instructed" to ignore specific users, for example I have 3 accounts here - my own and 2 for testing with different privileges.
3. Modern software don't use IPs for to detect clones. It may use for example motherboard's serial number, or license key of Windows/MacOS/Android or phone's/tab's memory's serial number and so on... mostly it based on "fingerprint" - set of serial numbers from motherboard + hard disk + memory + license key. Member who wishes to have clones will need different physical or virtual device for to create each clone then.

And word to all fans of conspiracy: please leave clone's detections to moderators and our software. It looks like a paranoia or bulling when some members runs by forums for to follow another one member and accuse him on cloning accounts after each his post. Please use red triangle instead and provide proof. Hint: "We know" isn't proof.

[mr giggles]

You'd wonder where someone gets the time never mind the energy or will to bother with such a pastime, but as my dear mother always says "there's nowt as queer as folk".

Loved, Queer as Folk. Preferred the British version to the US version.