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Senators Ask Tulsi Gabbard To Tell Americans That VPN Use Might Subject Them To Domestic Surveillance (www.techdirt.com)
submitted 5 months ago by [M] to c/technology@lemmy.zip
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This may not be an actual “Wyden siren,” but it still has his name attached to it. What’s being said here isn’t nearly as ominous as this single sentence he sent to CIA leadership earlier this year

Archived version: https://archive.is/newest/https://www.techdirt.com/2026/04/03/senators-ask-tulsi-gabbard-to-tell-americans-that-vpn-use-might-subject-them-to-domestic-surveillance/

Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.

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[–] 27 points 5 months ago (4 children)

As a Tor node operator, I have been yelling this message into the ether for years now:

Save your money! Accept one of our free tanks! It is invulnerable, and can drive across rocks and swamps at ninety miles an hour

Down sides:

  • you really should not stream or torrent over Tor. Both because it sucks others' bandwidth, and because it can deanonymize you. So no it is not good for YouTube or Netflix.

Plus sides:

  • is free as in beer for you
  • no payment trail to follow (though you can and should support Tor whether you use it or not because Internet Freedom)
  • no corporate entity to trust (why the hell do people still trust corporations?)
  • websites you connect to have no idea what your IP address is/where you are
  • if you use Tor Bridges like Snowflake, your own government doesn't know you are using Tor
  • people running Tor nodes can either see your IP address, or the address of the site you connect to, but not both
  • ... unlike your VPN, which knows both exactly who you are, and can inspect and watch the route of every packet you send and receive
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  • [–] 6 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    Downsides:

    • websites will entirely reject your connection in 80% of cases, the rest will throw a captcha at you at every single step
    • some websites that require a login will ban your account on creation with a Tor IP
    • regardless of whether or not you use bridges or obfuscated nodes your government does absolutely know you are using Tor, lol, you are connecting to Tor bridges, oppressive governments especially are monitoring them 24/7 and blocking new ones as they pop up
    • there's a risk that the node you connected to is literally ran by your government (or someone else malicious)

    I appreciate you running a node yourself and potentially helping some people at least get some connection when no other alternative works, but don't downplay the severity of proper state surveillance.

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  • [–] 5 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    You're right about clearnet websites often blocking Tor exit nodes. Not a problem for .onion sites obviously.

    But you should read the details of how bridges work. Despite your claim, no the packet traffic does not reveal that you are using Tor. Even if your ISP/government is watching the wire.

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    If your government knows that the IP belongs to a Tor bridge - how do they not know you connected to a Tor bridge?

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (1 child)

    You should read the Snowflake docs

    There are over 100,000 people providing access from their personal IP address. Even the US government would have a very hard time keeping track.

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  • [–] 5 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    So are VPNs not worth using other then to bypass location restrictions?

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  • [–] 12 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    VPNs are good for torrenting without getting nasty letters from your ISP. Self hosted VPNs are good for securely accessing your home network remotely.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    Yeah but tor will guarantee to put you into that list.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (1 child)

    You didn't read.

    The government doesn't know you are using Tor

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