Goodbye to VPNs?

ByMichal Peretz

Goodbye to VPNs? The EU has them in its sights and could end them forever

*It is a proposal from a report that points them out as a cover-up measure for cybercriminals

*They create a ChatGPT capable of answering any questions about the Tax Agency: it is free and works 24 hours a day

 

*The FBI’s urgent warning: If you see these words in an email, it’s a scam

All cybersecurity experts agree that the best way to protect yourself and stay safe from cyber scams is to have as little presence and trace as possible on the Internet, since behind each click, download or access we are generating a digital footprint that allows us to create a profile about us for both companies that want to sell us something and cybercriminals who want to steal from us.

 

A single private network, better known as a VPN, is a technology that allows you to connect to the Internet securely and anonymously by encrypting the data sent between the device and the remote server in addition to hiding the IP address of the user who is using it.

This tool, which is used for all types of actions and activities on the Internet, has gained a lot of popularity in recent years due to the increase in precautions that users take while browsing. VPNs are completely legal, or at least they were until now, because as stated in a European Union report, they are identified as a key challenge for effective law enforcement.

This is because the EU has been working for several years on ways to ensure access to data by authorities, but this is not easy with the rise of end-to-end encryption or VPNs. This is not because they want to violate your privacy, but because due to these cover-up measures, all kinds of crimes and illegal activities are occurring that the police cannot detect.

Drug trafficking, child pornography, money laundering, gun sales and many more crimes occur and are talked about over the Internet, and due to the existence of privacy tools such as VPNs, the perpetrators of these illegal activities cannot be traced.

For this reason, the EU has already tried to create a kind of backdoor to access messages sent through apps such as WhatsApp or Telegram, but finally this measure was overturned in the European Parliament. Now, according to the report by the High-Level Group (HLG) of the EU, it points to VPNs as another obstacle that authorities have to pursue and detect this type of activities.

Although this organization points out that it would be to guarantee the safety of citizens, and they assure that this measure should not go against fundamental rights or the security of systems, we only have to remember when in Russia, Vladimir Putin banned the use of VPN and everyone put their hands on their heads for being a modern censorship measure.

The most likely thing is that it remains an anecdote, and this is just a report, which although it is right that it complicates the persecution of bad guys on the Internet, cannot remove users from a tool that also serves for their protection and privacy against the thousands of threats that exist on the Internet.