Sorry if this is not the high brow discussion this com is for.

I travel a lot between different countries in the Middle East which have restrictive laws, and I live in one that is slowly becoming more competent technologically. I have to stay for an extended time in different places, so I’ve been connecting through always-on VPN out of the same place and it’s been working fine for now. But Digital ID laws are quickly going to close things off from me.

My risks that I’m trying to avoid are as follows: Locally, I want to make sure my IPs aren’t connected to public accounts. I don’t say anything online that can put me in jail for the most part, but I don’t trust that this will always be the case. I also would appreciate being a bit separated from the local internet. Elsewhere, I also don’t want my traffic to be monitored or my accounts to be tied back to my personal identity. For example, I don’t want to land in Dubai and to have my Steam account permanently affected by having “Spec Ops the Line” (banned game there) in my account (silly thing to worry about, but this is one tiny example out of many small issues that pile up). Plus, a lot of the internet is not accessible from these places, and I don’t like that, regardless of whether or not I want to peruse inaccessible internet stuff from there.

This has come with some serious downsides (online services are more expensive in Europe, where I have historically exited from), but it was/is worth the cost for me. Ironic that many VPN users seem to be trying to connect in the opposite direction than me (out of rich countries rather than in).

I’ve just been permanently using a single reputable VPN and single exit city for all of my traffic for the past while. Digital ID laws in the UK and EU will make this increasingly infeasible and I will probably have to exit out of somewhere new like Switzerland. I don’t know if those servers might be more trouble due to increased abuse for example.

Just want to know how others are dealing with this. Is just stomaching the wave of verifications after logging into all my emails from a new country the only price to pay? Is the world going to shit and should I rethink “just” using a VPN? Is it VPS time now that more and more things are being blocked from VPN access? Do I give up on the internet a decade ahead of schedule and chop wood in the woods until Israel’s AI mistakes my shack for a children’s hospital and drops heavy munitions on me?

I’m really hesitant to start using two sets of devices, some for insecure local traffic and some for encrypted traffic. I don’t think carrying like four laptops through airport security would keep eyes off of me.

  • layzerjeyt@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    15 hours ago

    Digital ID laws in the UK and EU will make this increasingly infeasible

    Sorry I might have missed something… Is this Tony Blair’s little hobby horse for the past 30 years or is a more substantial plan in the works?

    TBH I am getting discouraged on the VPN thing. I have been using it 100% of the time for years. I used to get ads corresponding to the exit location. But now I occasionally get ads corresponding to my actual location (down to the neighborhood).

    But of course I do all sorts of online business where my address is provided, and when I do that I can easily be fingerprinted I assume. So somehow, it’s gotten linked up in the back end.

    • irotsoma@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      4 hours ago

      What kind of device are you using? There was recently there was a leak that Meta is using technology to have web browsers talk to the Facebook and Instagram apps on your phone without your permission and link your identity to every website you visit that has any Meta plugins. I’m sure other companies are doing the same or similar like Amazon and Google. I’ve been using GrapheneOS on my Android Pixel phone which isolates apps. There are other ways to do this as well if your phone is unlockable. And I use IronFox web browser wherever possible to reduce the capabilities of the browser to do things without my knowledge. And use ReThink and a pihole to reduce the cross site communication where possible. I also left all Meta platforms, but still am migrating away from Google, Amazon, and some other platforms. And make sure your advertising ID is disabled at the OS level.

      Those are where I’ve found most of the targeted ads were coming from. Not from the IP address alone.

    • scytale@lemmy.zip
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      11 hours ago

      Have you tried checking for leaks? You might be having IP or DNS leaks that’s contributing to it.

    • Joe@discuss.tchncs.de
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      14 hours ago

      Disable IPv6 on your router or primary interface, and enable it on your VPN. If anything can discover an Internet IP on your PC, the link can be formed. Worst case, you are not using the VPN for IPv6 at all.

    • ggtdbz@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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      14 hours ago

      As of right now, Nexus Mods and Reddit are enforcing these new laws. I don’t use either site very often (the latter not since the API exodus). My understanding is that it’s mandatory for platforms of a certain size in the UK after the 25th of July.

      The UK is kind of a perfect exit node country (everything is in English!)

      • layzerjeyt@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        5 hours ago

        I use reddit via the Firefox extension LibRedirect which sends you to a mirror instead. Between VPN, ublock and attempting to access dodgy mirrors, sometimes I have to reload a few times but it eventually works.

      • scytale@lemmy.zip
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        11 hours ago

        What about somewhere closer like Singapore? Stuff is mostly still in English and their network is fast.