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0 pointsjstanley8y ago0 comments

It's easy to move your VPN to an arbitrary VPS anywhere in the world, but there's only a handful of residential ISPs available in any given area, and they are almost univerally scummy.

0 comments

Tijdreiziger8y ago

> and they are almost univerally scummy

Source? I do not think most of the ISPs in my area are particularly scummy. They provide reliable plain internet service with no data caps (and also TV/phone service if you so desire) for a reasonable monthly fee, and in my experience, most of them hire enough customer service workers on their support phone. All of them also resisted internet filtering until the legal system forced them to do so. What more is there to ask of an ISP?

jstanleyOP8y ago

Good for you.

In my area none of them provide reliable internet service, most of them enforce some censorship and have poor customer service, and all of them perform the legally-mandated surveillance.

gspetr8y ago

> What more is there to ask?

Taking care of insecure IoT devices would be a start: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15946095

Aaargh203188y ago

> there's only a handful of residential ISPs available in any given area

Depends on where you live, I haven't exactly counted them but I have at least 20 options. Worst-case you can start your own ISP.

thinkMOAR8y ago

scummy often by law, if it was up to many ISPs, like in the early days of the internet, they only cared if you paid your monthly bill.

kalleboo8y ago

> there's only a handful of residential ISPs available

Where I live the nationwide fiber network has around 100 ISPs available of varying reputation.

Wikipedia says that PPPoE "offers encryption" but now I'm curious if this is effective, and actually used by anyone...

mseebach8y ago

Having the wire, especially if it's fibre, between your home and ISP encrypted is probably of extremely limited value. Your ISP has access to the (unencrypted) endpoint anyway, and any adversary with the resources to actually tap your fibre probably have higher value and more easily accessible means of spying on you anyway.

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