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Does a VPN used on a smartphone with Wi-Fi disabled (mobile data only enabled) provide any sort of protection? (beehaw.org)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I've never completely understood this, but I think the answer would probably be "no," although I'm not sure. Usually when I leave the house I turn off wifi and just use mobile data (this is a habit from my pre-VPN days), although I guess I should probably just keep it on since using strange Wi-Fi with a VPN is ok (unless someone at Starbucks is using the evil twin router trick . . . ?). I was generally under the impression that mobile data is harder to interfere with than Wi-Fi, but I could well be wrong and my notions out of date. So, if need be, please set me straight. 🙂

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

Even though most data traffic is encrypted who you're talking to is not encrypted.

So a third party can observe, who you're talking to, how much data you're sending to them, how frequently you talk to them....

The classic example is if you start visiting a suicide prevention website, even though they don't know the content that you're being served, they can guess oh you're having mental issues. We should revoke your security clearance... Etc