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How the American war on porn could change the way you use the internet (www.bbc.com)

submitted 3 months ago by BuddyTheBeefalo@lemmy.ml to c/technology@lemmy.world

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[–] GladiusB@lemmy.world -1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

As someone who has had identity theft happen and hired lawyers to fix it, I'm going to trust those close to the case. My information was definitely compromised. And what won in court? The dumbasses put a location I have never been to. Which was why it was overturned.

I do hear what you say and agree with the fundamentals of your explanation. But my experience has shown that with even your location it can cost you thousands.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I don't use a VPN and had someone try to steal my bank account. When they tried to scam me, they also used an invalid location. They weren't trying to steal my identity, just my money, so it's not quite the same thing.

That said, identity thieves are just as lazy. They usually just buy some compromised credentials on the dark web and go to town opening credit cards and loans and whatnot. They don't compromise websites you visit to steal your location, it would be much easier to grab that from another breach (just cross-reference one breach with another).

So I'm standing by what I said, a VPN will do nothing to help here. Identity thieves and scammers don't coordinate with hackers that compromise websites to steal your IP. If they get far enough that they're pointing you toward a website they've created, a VPN isn't going to help, they're going after your login creds.

So again, get a VPN to hide your traffic from your ISP, limit tracking by advertisers (limited value, they can track through fingerprints), and appear to be in a different area for things like streaming services. But don't think that a VPN protects you from fraud, that's BS. Your best options are to freeze your credit, use secure passwords (password managers are great), enable MFA/2FA, and check your credit every so often (once or twice per year is fine).