Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
Privacy

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Best VPN service for Australia? (delimiter.com.au) 1

frrrp writes: Australia has proceeded on its merry way towards being an absolute nanny/surveillance state. Yesterday -

A controversial piece of legislation aiming to bolster the powers of law enforcement agencies has passed the Federal Senate, despite vehement protests from the Greens, who argued strongly that the bill was “yet another” unnecessary expansion of the Government’s surveillance powers in Australia. Entitled the Cybercrime Legislation Amendment Bill 2011, the legislation, amongst other things, introduces a requirements for ISPs to retain data on subscribers’ Internet activities in the context of a warrant being sought. It also broadly brings Australia into line with the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime.

The Australian public, and media, have been largely asleep on this issue and, by Parliament standards, the speed with which this legislation has been rushed through must be a new record — with both major political parties colluding to force it through and quash any thoughts of amendment to its draconian scope. So the time has come — VPN is no longer a luxury but a necessity. The question is, which VPN service providers are best for us poor folks on the arse end of the planet? I have more or less settled on probably going with Private Internet Access. Can any of the BigBrains on Slashdot enlighten me further on the subject of personal VPN — the kind that provides the full spectrum of service as a naked direct link does?

Comment Re:Traditional VPN? (Score 1) 198

Ok, I'm going to give you my complete and honest suggestion. I haven't really posted even a comment on slashdot in years, but I felt that I should provide my in-depth knowledge on this topic. I am an Android enthusiast and have been well versed in other smart phone backends including the Maemo (which is an amazing device. Great choice!)

To begin, on iOS, Android and Maemo you can access a PPTP VPN with no additional effort.

Additionally, on Android and Maemo you can also connect to an OpenVPN based VPN gateway in the event you need stronger encryption. It is often recommended by security experts to avoid encryption such as those implemented within the PPTP protocol like MPPE (mschapv32). On the other hand, however, OpenVPN uses SSL based security which is very much praised throughout the technical company as being secure.

However, on both Android and Maemo there will be some setup time which will have to take place to get OpenVPN working. On the Maemo, it is as simple as installing the OpenVPN application. On Android, however, you will need to ensure that your phone is rooted and that your kernel either has built in TUN support or you may compile your own custom kernel from sources.

If your security is of utmost importance, then go ahead and take the steps to setup OpenVPN on your device. However, if you are just worried about your privacy and nobody is trying to break your encryptions, then PPTP may be enough for your purpose. Personally, I use PPTP when OpenVPN is unavailable.

Now, I would strongly recommend using a provider such as Private Internet Access ( URL: https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/ ) for a VPN service provider since they do in fact offer both PPTP and OpenVPN and also have gateways in both the US and Sweden. Another option would be to setup your own VPN gateway on one of your servers. Personally, I opted for a managed VPN account to avoid the headache. ;)

Hope this helps you timothy!

Comment What happens when we eliminate malaria (Score 0, Troll) 178

Yes, it could be destroying malaria will do only positive things, but if we release this vaccine into the wild and it proliferates, and the virus is no more, do we really know what will happen? Of course, I've never heard of a negative fallout from the elimination of smallpox, but who knows. We gotta be careful when we go about systematically eradicating something.

Comment This is not news (Score 1) 882

One of the reasons lane splitting on motorcycles has not been outlawed in California is because it reduces traffic. I always have to smile, a little bitterly, when I think about it. You see, I've heard the only reason it was allowed in the first place was because motorcycle police officers drove big air cooled bikes in the 60's and 70's, and needed to keep moving in traffic. The bitter part being regular riders on the same bikes didn't warrant notice, but the police officers did. As for clumping, I am not sure why it happens, but I rarely get stuck in clumps. You gotta either travel slightly faster or slightly slower than the clumps, and if the road isn't full of people you'll spend most of the drive blessedly alone.

Comment New option for solar power!!! (Score 2, Interesting) 301

This is actually really interesting! Think about it. We've been limited to solar cells for a long time for producing electricity, and those have limitations we are constantly struggling against. But... Now, you can make a simple isolated enviroment consisting of water and salt. Design it such that fresh water runs down from a resivoir into a lower resivoir with salt. Expose the lower resivoir to sunlight, and use the greenhouse effect to speed up the evaporation of the water. Direct the vapors up to the upper reservoir, where they precipitate out, and flow back down! Thus, we generate electricity and use the sun to separate the two components to repeat the cycle. (plus if you want, you can capture the heat from the condenser, for even more energy) Not something you could put in your car, but on a large scale I bet this could work. Similar to large steam powered plants.

Comment Re:perhaps senses we don't realize we have? (Score 1) 290

I still am not sure about that cows having magnetic sense thing. Birds I can accept, but the very first thoughts to cross my mind when I heard about cows:

1: Grazing lands are usually lands people don't want to live in

2: The southern face is more livable and hospitable.

Those two facts suggest to me that it's possible on a global scale cows are mostly on a certain face of a hill. Supposing most cows are on the southern slope, could it not be possible they simply elect to face uphill?

I'm not saying my speculations are any kind of proof, that they are well supported, or anything else like that. Only reasons the scientists may not have found the true cause. As they say, correlation does not imply causation.

Slashdot Top Deals

Getting the job done is no excuse for not following the rules. Corollary: Following the rules will not get the job done.

Working...