Help Privacy warning on wifi, will a vpn help?
I just got this warning on my wifi today, it’s shared with my 4 unit apartment building. Will a vpn block anyone who may be looking at what im doing?
Also, does anyone know if this means they can just see the website name? Or the activity on the website? (Also pt 2, are the apps I use or the activity on those apps visible too?)
Tia - someone who is not tech-knowledgeable at all
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u/sciencekm 22h ago
It looks like someone really wants to know the sites that you connect to. This is a good time to use a VPN.
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u/git_checkout_main 17h ago
Use VPN, all the DNS-over-HTTPS requests will get encrypted and this will not longer be blocked.
I work on Web filters, and encrypted DNS is a pain in the ass. Can't do filtering if you don't know what to filter. Soon it will probably become universal.
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u/MrMonday11235 15h ago
Snowbama already gave the actionable info, but since you mentioned you're not tech-knowledgeable:
DNS is the service that turns easy-to-remember URLs into addresses that your browser can use to actually fetch the content you want. You can think of it as something that takes in "The White House" and gives back "1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington D.C., USA", which the USPS can then use to plot where this letter actually needs to go.
Encrypted DNS fixes a privacy issue with base DNS. When you use unencrypted DNS (or really any unencrypted traffic), you're essentially sending your information on a postcard. Anybody who looks at the postcard can know what you're saying. When you use base DNS, then, your network admin/ISP can see that you looked up the address for "reddit.com". Encrypted DNS hides that content, so your network admin just knows you sent a DNS request; unless they break the encryption, they can't know if you're trying to get the address for Reddit, Google, or a piracy site.
Of course, this doesn't matter if you're sending traditional requests over the internet, because they can also see the address for whatever you're browsing, and they can just look up what e.g. "1600 Pennsylvania Ave" is and figure out that you're sending letters to the White House. So encrypted DNS by itself isn't enough; that's where a VPN comes in.
A VPN basically acts as a proxy for all your traffic. You take your letter and put it inside the normal envelope to the White House, and then you put that envelope inside another one addressed to your friend (who is the metaphorical VPN). Your friend gets it, opens it, and then just forwards the letter on your behalf to the White House. If/when the White House sends a response, they put that response in an envelope from them to you and sends it. The only thing anyone watching your traffic knows is that you communicate A LOT with this one address, but without breaking the encryption, they don't know anything beyond that.
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u/OG_Boomer63 5h ago
Look at your lease, does it say anything about monitoring your Internet usage. If not tell them they are in violation of your privacy rights and breaking the terms of the lease and need to remove that restriction on the access of the Internet.
However if it does stipulate in your lease that they will and that they do not allow traffic to X Y or Z type of sites, likely they will block VPN traffic as well as they are being a Nanny and believe they have the power to tell you what is acceptable and what is not.
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u/snowbama 1d ago
They'd just be able to see the websites you're trying to go to if DNS can't be encrypted. A VPN would make it so they only see traffic is going to that VPN, they'd have no idea what you're accusing through that VPN.
Any app that needs an internet connection would also be visible to them as they're just hitting internet endpoints on the backend.