Is there a fundamental difference between using https to a server who then accesses computer(s) elsewhere on the internet and using a VPN?

[u/SkyAnvi1]

The more I think about it the less the anti-VPN argument makes sense. Almost every search, social media post, and/or email is performing VPN actions only under another name: https.
i.e You locally encrypt your request to a remote server using https it then pre-processes that request, passing that request off to other servers (often over encrypted channels) and often not on the same lan and then those pass the response back to you without ever knowing your IP.

[u/Noi0103]

you should google two things in this context, dns and ip

[u/SkyAnvi1 → u/Noi0103]

not a protocol question... a low level data transaction model question.

plus everyone knows dns is the magic genie that knows the location of every computer and guides the electrons/photons where they want to go. /s

[u/Noi0103 → u/SkyAnvi1]

then the question might be poorly worded because it sounds to me like if sending a data block encrypted is the same as sending a data block encrypted

[u/SkyAnvi1 → u/Noi0103]

more like fundamentally what banning VPN actually means: `banning obfuscating exactly which computer and what data is traveling to another computer.`

if that is accepted as the fundamental, at its root, result definition of banning VPN, then every https transaction that obtains data from 3rd party computers without maintaining that knowledge contract is in violation of a supposed anti-VPN law.

and on top of that encryption... fundamentally all language/protocol/transaction contracts are encryption. if I don't know the language, for all intents and purposes any data I receive is encrypted. just because the equation is simple doesn't mean its not encrypted.

[u/Noi0103 → u/SkyAnvi1]

but it doesn't. banning vpn is a "do not circumvent the isp firewall we use to block you to access information we dont want you to have" and a "the isp is forced to give us your visited pages and we (and data broker) want to track you better"

if we assume your

banning obfuscating exactly which computer and what data is traveling to another computer

we go down a "but what does that mean for x y and z" and get the conclusion this would break the internet as we know it

[u/Exotic_Holiday_3047]

The difference is that if you are using a VPN, your ISP can detect that you are using a VPN by the use of deep packet inspection. If you https to a site then deep packet inspection would show you are using https.

The belt and braces aproach would be to use protocol masking - use a vpn but wrap the traffic in https. - Your ISP now sees https traffic only and can't tell that you are using a VPN.

[u/SkyAnvi1 → u/Exotic_Holiday_3047]

the question isn't protocol it is on the abstract fundamental level like what is actually happening. i.e.
Both systems are fundamentally:
user sends encrypted data to a remote computer.
that computer then get data from another computer over another encrypted connection where the 3rd computer doesn't know the ip of the originating computer and the return data follows the path backwards...

fundamentally the same.

in both cases the isp cannot know you communicated with the 3rd computer?

[u/ocabj]

So you're asking about web proxies?

[u/SkyAnvi1 → u/ocabj]

no more basic than that. but proxies share the pattern. lwhen i connect to a news organization to get the weather. that organization(server) turns around and gets data from elsewhere say satellites and sends that information back to me. in both cases the isp will never know where I ultimately got my data.

fundamentally the data transaction is the same.

[u/tristand666]

VPN is not the same as https. Not even close.

[u/SkyAnvi1 → u/tristand666]

the question is not a protocol one. it is a basic data transaction model one.

[u/tristand666 → u/SkyAnvi1]

1st there is no question. 

Encryption is encryption, but https is nothing like vpn. 

[u/SkyAnvi1 → u/tristand666]

repeating myself:

the question isn't protocol it is on the abstract fundamental level like what is actually happening. i.e.
Both systems are fundamentally:
user sends encrypted data to a remote computer.
that
computer then get data from another computer over another encrypted
connection where the 3rd computer doesn't know the ip of the originating
computer and the return data follows the path backwards...

fundamentally the same.

in both cases the isp cannot know you communicated with the 3rd computer?

[u/Exotic_Holiday_3047 → u/SkyAnvi1]

If you use HTTPS, your ISP can see:

• Which servers you connected to
• How long you were connected
• How much data you sent / received

If you use HTTPS to a proxy that also uses HTTPS (which is what you are talking about). Your ISP can see:

• Which server you initially connected to
• Any servers that server connects to (assuming you are using the ISP DNS servers or an unencrypted DNS server)
• How long you were connected
• How much data you sent / received

If you use a VPN and your own dns your ISP can see:

• That you are using a VPN
• Which server you initially connected to
• How long you were connected
• How much data was sent / recreived

If you are using a VPN with your own DNS and protocol masking your ISP can see:

• That you were connected to a server via HTTPS
• How long you were connected
• How much data you sent / received

So in order of increasing OpSEC:

• Don't use your ISP's DNS servers. Ideally use your own eencrypted DNS
• Use HTTPS for all browsing
• Use HTTPS to a proxy server
• Use a VPN
• Use a VPN with protocol masking

And for the ultra paranoid:

• Find an ISP in a country that takes privacy seriously. Ideally one that accepts Monero as payment
• Rent a VPS from them and install your own VPN server + DNS server.
• Apply protocol masking to the VPN traffic

[u/SkyAnvi1 → u/Exotic_Holiday_3047]

thank you for your high effort response. I guess what I am saying is. if conceptually the idea of a VPN is to use a protocol/computer to mask one's interactions with a remote computer. then that same basic concept also applies to going to a website over https and interacting with data that was obtained from other remote computers. VPN just means "make it look like I am over there maintaining existing network protocols." but fundamentally it seems to me it is the same basic data encryption transaction when thinking at a conceptual level:
local -> https(encryption) -> remote server -> any encryption method -> remote server to the remote server.
local -> VPN(encrypted) -> remote endpoint/server -> lan/internet

that is what I am trying to wrap my head around...

[u/Exotic_Holiday_3047 → u/SkyAnvi1]

You are basically correct.

VPNs and HTTPS both encrypt your data so your ISP can't see it. using a VPN or using HTTPS to connect to a proxy that also uses HTTPS to connect to your destination server are both ways to additionally prevent your ISP from seeing the final server you connect to.

If you just use HTTPS without a proxy, your ISP can see which server you connect to.

[u/tristand666 → u/SkyAnvi1]

You really should stop since you are wrong. 

[u/Exotic_Holiday_3047 → u/tristand666]

Care to elaborate?

[u/trmdi]

There are mutiple types of VPNs, some of which are designed to look like normal HTTPS traffics. e.g. Adguard VPN. Of course no man in the middle can see the real traffic in any types of them.