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Tobias
@businesstel.hu

Tobias

Anon

How to set encryption correctly for VPN for anonymus internet surfing?

Hello!

I signed up for a service at PureVPN. I read in their tutorials about how to set encryption, there are different levels, lower and higher. It seems to me from their manual that if the encryption level is set higher, there is less anonimity. Is this correct, or I misunderstood something?
HELLFIRE
MVM
join:2009-11-25

HELLFIRE

MVM

First of all, Encryption != Anonimity and vice versa

Short, nontechnical version is the stronger the encryption, the harder it is for someone who captured that data to
decrypt it later on and find out what it was originally.

Long technical version, feel free to find any webpages that explain the relative strengths of an encryption scheme
like DES versus AES, et al. Or read up on the whole NSA spying brouhaha.

My 00000010bits

Regards

eibgrad
join:2010-03-15
united state

eibgrad to Tobias

Member

to Tobias
In most cases, the negative effect of stronger encryption (to the extent there is any negative effect at all) is reflected in lesser performance. As Hellfire stated, it has nothing to do w/ anonymity. I would assume it’s generally the case that stronger encryption schemes consume more CPU cycles (in their attempt to obtain higher levels of obfuscation). In fact, some hardware devices uses chips dedicated to this purpose so as to increase performance. Of course, we’re talking about relatively minor differences here, esp. for the home user, so there’s no reason to not use strong encryption schemes when available. Perhaps the only issue you need to concern yourself w/ is whether both sides of the vpn connection are able to use any given encryption scheme (this is typically negotiated during connection setup phase). Your encryption options may ultimately be limited based on the technology you’re using (e.g., pptp vs openvpn).