TITAM - Technical issues that affected me

This was a quick test only, using a popular torrent client.   The Netgear is a recent (faster) example running the latest DD-WRT.  The pfsense box is an eBay i7-7500U special with the latest pfsense. Speeds are peak speeds through Private Internet Acccess (PIA) using AES-256 / SHA256 on their "Next Gen" network.  There were no changes to the rest of the setup between the two trials. Results: Netgear: 4 MiB/s  i7-7500U: 38 MiB/s That's almost a 10x improvement. Note I couldn't get these speeds using all torrents, as some of the sources are limited.  However, I know that the Netgear can't exceed 5 MiB/s no matter what, while the i7 definitely can do 38 MiB/s.  It's possible the i7 might be able to go even faster. From this, it does appear obvious that the Netgear is quite limited with respect to VPN crypto.  Obviously the i7 is vast overkill.  I got it since the price difference between the i3 and i5 was nominal and I really only feel like doin...

 TL;DR:  It's not good. Fed up with PIA , I decided to try another VPN.  I thought it might be easiest. I wanted Hotspot Shield, but the fact that they log personally identifiable information, don't support pfsense and have no live support were deal-breakers.  I wanted it set up immediately.   I decided to bite the bullet and go with ExpressVPN.   More expensive, but most said they were next fastest, they had 24/7 support and supported DD-WRT (for now) and pfsense (for future).   I ponied up and got a login.  I had to run their app momentarily to find the fastest server, then I set it all up. Any it worked!  All my smart devices reconnected, all my strange connectivity issues went away.    However, I couldn't find the nameservers for secure DNS protection.  I asked their chat, and they didn't know what I meant. Turns out, ExpressVPN doesn't support this.  They do allow manual configuration (on DD-WRT or whatever), bu...

  As of Nov 14, it appears PIA has stopped working again: Play Store not working (on some devices, OK on others) YouTube not working (on some devices, OK on others) Can't connect to BBC.com, CNN.com, but can connect to most other sites fine Smart home devices offline (ecobee, Honeywell, etc)  Honeywell Home: Endless loading Of course, nothing changed on my end, and everything works just fine outside of PIA.  Mobiles also work outside of router-based PIA with the PIA app. See here for the original saga.  Seems they can't keep their network stable for more than 3 months at a time now.  Awesome stuff, those Next-Gen servers - a real improvement! Strangely, the new problems are not as widespread or consistent as before.  One device has no YouTube, but others do.  One device can't access CNN or BBC, but others do.  A third device has no Play Store, but others do. One constant is the smart home devices.  As before, they are connected, but cannot re...

Problem: PIA stops connecting.  No changes on your side.  DD-WRT. Error: N VERIFY ERROR: depth=1 error=certificate has expired: C=US ST=OH L=Columbus O=Private Internet Access CN=Private Internet Access CA emailAddress=secure@privateinternetaccess.com 20200818 14:33:13 N TLS_ERROR: BIO read tls_read_plaintext error: error:14090086:lib(20):func(144):reason(134) Solutions: 1.  Your router time setting is wrong.  Try re-setting or selecting another NTP server, just to be sure. 2.  PIA changed something.  Seems they did so recently (August 18, 2020). If (2), your only real solution is to completely re-set up your DD-WRT router using the latest settings.  Instructions are here . Note: -  Specific protocols now need specific ports.  Be sure to get the right port/.crt combination. -  PIA added a line to "Additional Config": pull-filter ignore "auth-token" This line completely borked my ability to connect - DD-WRT wouldn't even try.  Taking...

VPNs are good but their connections are rarely perfect.  Usually, when they disconnect, your router fails over back to using the unencrypted WAN connection.  This is convenient but leaves your network connection exposed, which rather defeats the purposes.  Likely little point in being protected only 99% of the time, right? Worse, you don't even know if the VPN is off.  Everything just blithely continues on as usual.  You'll only know if you manually check.  Which is stupid. If you're like me, there are some devices on the network where you don't really care if they keep working or not.  Perhaps there are some where you actually want them to keep working, even if the VPN stops (Netflix?).  And there are probably a couple where you want them to stop working the second the VPN goes down. If you search you will find lots of VPN monitoring programs that purport to kill programs upon VPN disconnect.  However, not one of these will work if...

I expect a lot of people want to do what I want to do:  set up a VPN on my router.  This allows everything I do online to run through a VPN service first, and setting this up on a router automatically ensures that everything on my network (wired or wireless) is protected. Kewl though this is, there are lots of potential problems and pitfalls with setting up a VPN.  For example: -  Skype or VoIP devices not working properly -  Game consoles or online games not working properly -  Inability to remotely access web (http) and/or FTP servers within the protected network -  Inability to access remote web portals / management interfaces within the protected network These come down to two issues: -  Increased latency, which causes gaming, VoIP, Skype, streaming services etc. to fail -  Inability to "see" servers and remote interfaces living within the VPN from the outside world Finding answers to these issues is not easy.  Investig...