…because VPNs obscure a user’s true location, and because intelligence agencies presume that communications of unknown origin are foreign, Americans may be inadvertently waiving the privacy protections they’re entitled to under the law…
…VPNs might protect you against garden-variety criminals, but the intentional commingling of origin/destination points by VPNs could turn purely domestic communications into “foreign” communications the NSA can legally intercept (and the FBI, somewhat less-legally can dip into at will)…
Certainly the NSA isn’t concerned about “incidental collection.” It’s never been too concerned about its consistent “incidental” collection of US persons’ communications and data in the past and this isn’t going to budge the needle, especially since it means the NSA would have to do more work to filter out domestic communications and the FBI would be less than thrilled with any efforts made to deny it access to communications it doesn’t have the legal right to obtain on its own.
Since the government won’t do this, it’s up to the general public, starting with everyone sharing the contents of this letter with others. VPNs can still offer considerable security benefits. But everyone needs to know that domestic surveillance is one of the possible side effects of utilizing this tech.
As a long time Charter/Spectrum customer (yay local monopolies) who’s toyed with my network a bit, I have heard about some of their network shenanigans, but they don’t seem to have hit my area. Guess I’m surprised it’d be defeated by something a simple as dns servers, and the MITM of it all if they’re redirecting traffic is terrifying, what with https and all.
Certainly you can change your dns server on nearly any phone.
I see where I can change DNS for WiFi in iOS settings, but cellular requires an app. It sounds like VPN without the security?
If Verizon is throttling, would that be circumvented by a VPN connection?