1082 – Keep yourself safe online: Tom talks VPNs

SUMMARY BY CHATGPT

Main Topic:
This episode explains what VPNs (Virtual Private Networks) are, how they work, when you should use them, and what they can and cannot protect you from.
________________________________________
What a VPN Is
• A VPN creates a secure, encrypted “tunnel” between your device and the internet.
• It scrambles your data so outsiders can’t read it.
• It hides your real IP address and location, making it appear you’re connecting from somewhere else.
________________________________________
Why VPNs Matter
They help protect you from:
• Hackers on public Wi-Fi (coffee shops, hotels, airports, shared offices)
• Eavesdropping on your internet traffic
• Session hijacking (someone taking over your login session)
• ISP tracking and data selling
• Some types of ad targeting and location tracking
They can also:
• Let you access region-restricted content
• Help businesses view ads or content as if they’re in another location
________________________________________
When You Should Use a VPN
Strongly recommended:
• Public Wi-Fi (most important use case)
• Hotels, Airbnbs, airports, airplanes
• Shared office networks
• While traveling
• When logging into banking, email, or financial sites on non-trusted networks
Optional / situational:
• At home (unless doing sensitive business, privacy-sensitive work, or location spoofing)
________________________________________
Free vs Paid VPNs
Free VPNs:
• May sell or track your data
• May inject ads
• Usually weaker security
Paid VPNs:
• Typically stronger encryption
• Often promise no-log policies
• Better server reliability and speed
• Usually cost about $3–$15/month
________________________________________
Performance Impact
• VPNs can slow connections slightly
• Modern VPNs are much faster than older ones
• Many users won’t notice slowdown during normal browsing
________________________________________
What VPNs Do NOT Protect You From
• Phishing emails
• Clicking malicious links
• Poor password practices
• Social engineering attacks
• Full anonymity (they improve privacy but don’t make you invisible)
________________________________________
Other Key Security Tips Mentioned
• Don’t click unknown links in emails or texts
• Go directly to known company websites instead
• Turn off auto-connect to unknown Wi-Fi when possible
• Avoid using public/shared computers for personal logins
• Use strong password management practices
________________________________________
Bottom Line
• VPNs are not required 24/7, but are extremely valuable for:
o Travel
o Public Wi-Fi
o Sensitive online activity
• The internet is not inherently private, so layered protection matters.

===

Episode 1082 - VPNs
[00:00:08] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.
[00:00:24] Hey everybody! It's Tom here with episode 1082 of Screw the Commute podcast. We're here with Larry. Larry the right hand, left hand upside downside guy that's got a million certifications. And my right hand guy. And what happened. To middle hand. Middle. Keep your middle hand to yourself please. And we're going to talk about VPNs virtual private networks today. And Larry I give him this kind of stuff because he's got more certifications than I have wallpaper in this big mansion of mine. So, we'll have him on in a minute. Okay, let's see. Episode 1081 was superlatives. That's a copywriting technique of when you talk about your business, when you position your business, when you write about it, that sets you apart from your competitors. That's 1081. Anytime you want to get to a back episode, you go to episode number superlatives was 1081. You'll hear some here in a minute, by the way. All right, pick up a copy of our automation book at screwthecommute.com/automatefree. Version 3.0 is the most current. And check out my mentor program. Greatinternetmarketingtraining.com and my school IMTCVA.org. I am the only, that's a superlative, licensed, dedicated internet and digital marketing school in the country. Probably the world certified to operate by SCHEV, the State Council on Higher Education in Virginia. But you don't have to be in Virginia because it's quality distance learning.
[00:02:02] Okey doke. So the superlative there was only and there's a whole bunch of them you can use, no matter whether you have a big or small business or you're just starting. So check that out at episode 181. All right. Let's talk about VPNs. Larry's going to come on and I'm going to turn him loose. And I'll jump in if we have any questions. So take it away, Larry.
[00:02:24] Okay. Superlatively speaking. We're speaking about VPNs. Okay? So every so often, Tom and I will get together and do a podcast episode like this to bring you up to speed as to what current technology is and how you can take advantage of it to protect yourself, make you more secure, and so on and so on. Because in case you didn't realize it, our entire lives are really tied up in all this digital stuff. You may, you may disagree with me on that. But think about it. If you have a smartphone anywhere near you, you are tied up in the digital world. So we need to make that as secure and as safe as possible for everyone. So let's start from the very beginning. What is a VPN? I'm sure you've heard this term because the ads are on the radio, the TV everywhere. You possibly go for all these different VPN companies telling you be more safe on the internet, this will make you secure, blah blah blah blah blah. So first thing is generally they are correct. This will make you more secure and safe on the internet. However, there are some caveats and there are things that you can do to make yourself more secure even beyond this. But we're going to start with VPNs. So what is a VPN? Vpn stands for Virtual Private Network, and it is exactly what it what it describes it is. You are creating a virtual private network that allows your computer to connect to the internet in a safe, secure manner that cannot be detected and eavesdropped on and everything else by other people.
[00:04:05] Let's just start there. So a little bit of technical information. What it does is it creates what's called a secure private tunnel. So imagine this. You're you're driving, you're traveling down the road in your car, and you're reaching the entrance to a tunnel, and you're going through this tunnel. This tunnel could be a mile long. Let's say, just for argument's sake, uh, driving through at the speed limit and all this other stuff. Right? You're inside a tunnel. Nobody on the outside of that tunnel can see what you're doing or how you're driving or what car you have. Unless they have cameras inside the tunnel. But I'm going to assume that they don't, because that's exactly how a VPN would be described. You're traveling through this tunnel. Nobody can see what's going on. Nobody can see who else is in your car. Nobody can even really tell anything about you. Well, that's exactly what a VPN does to your internet traffic. All the stuff you're doing on the internet. It creates a private tunnel for you to traverse the internet, reach websites, download and interact with your email and all that other stuff. So how does this do this? A VPN will do something very simple and yet very complicated. It will encrypt or scramble just like eggs. All of your data from one end.
[00:05:21] Meaning your computer to the other end. Which could be, as I mentioned, another website, your email client, your email service, other things that you connect to on the internet, shopping, banking, and all that other stuff. So what does it actually do for you? What a VPN will do is technically hide you from the internet. How does it do that? Well, it scrambles your data number one, but it also hides your real location and your IP address from everywhere else. So I am sure at this point, just about all of us have heard about people, people having their IP address duplicated or being hacked, all this other stuff. It's not necessarily just the IP address, it's all the other things that go along with that. But a VPN hides all that stuff. It changes your IP address to something completely different. Uh, an example, uh, for Super Bowl, there were plenty of people that wanted to watch it from around the world, and in many cases they were not able to do so because they were doing it via the open internet. However, with a VPN, you can pretend to be anywhere on the planet. So if you're in a country halfway around the world and you need it to be in the United States, for example, to be able to watch either a football game or a baseball game or or any other type of content, the the VPN will make it look like you are in the United States, and it allows you to do that.
[00:06:48] And the reverse occurs. There are plenty of TV shows in the UK, for example, that many people here in the United States would like to view, but they can't because BBC has restricted their access to it because they're not in the UK. A VPN, however, can make it look like you are in the UK and therefore give you access to the content. But what we're talking about here is keeping you protected on the internet. So by doing that, it hides where you are, your real location, by the way, not just some, uh, some virtual location. It hides your real location. It hides your real IP address. Anybody that's trying to sniff. Quote unquote sniff out who's using a particular router. I'll give you an example. Starbucks. Starbucks is always the example that's used when we're talking about technical stuff like this, and how to protect yourself on the internet. Starbucks is notorious for people sitting there with a laptop, using hacker software to try and sniff out connections. See if they can hack into other people's laptops. See what they're doing. And so on and so on. If you're using a VPN, with rare exception, I'm not going to say it's 100% because nothing is 100%. But with rare exception, you are completely invisible to these types of people because they won't know what they're reading. Your traffic is complete. It's like a big mash of scrambled eggs.
[00:08:12] There's no way to know what this stuff is, where you're going, where you're coming from, where you actually are. Like for example, yeah, you could be in a Starbucks coffee shop, but your real location and IP address is hidden. So you could be anywhere. You could be on the moon. Uh, and that's that's not a joke. You could be on the moon, because the delay time between the moon and Earth is only a second and a half. So you could be surfing. You could be checking websites, checking your email from the moon, and nobody would know that. Uh, how you got there? That's a totally different story, but they won't know where you are. So that's what makes it very, very important to do so. So why use this? Why? Very simple. Using the regular internet for banking, for sensitive transactions, for doing any type of stuff like that can be very risky, especially public Wi-Fi. Public Wi-Fi is still, even in 2026, is still considered the Wild West. And what are we talking about when we talk about public Wi-Fi? Coffee shops, airports, hotels, libraries, although libraries are pretty good about security to a certain extent, but still, it can be a bit risky anywhere. A mall has a Wi-Fi connection, waiting rooms in a doctor's office, and so on and so on. So anybody on that same network can potentially spy on your traffic. And if they can do that, they can steal your logins.
[00:09:41] If you're logging into a particular website, they could potentially inject malware into your device, whether it's an iPhone, Android phone, your laptop, and so on and so on. And even password protected Wi-Fi like when it comes up and you say you want to connect to this Wi-Fi. Uh, the Wi-Fi spot, you must enter a password. That doesn't mean you're secure. All it says is that you have the password to get in and use the Wi-Fi. That does not protect you at all. It protects the Wi-Fi hotspot from people just randomly logging in because it requires a password. But once you enter that password, everything I just said prior to this all applies. So then it comes down to this. And here's where if you ask 100 people, you get 1000 opinions. Honestly, who actually needs a VPN? Do you need one? Do you not need one? So let's start from home. If you're at home, You usually wouldn't need a VPN. However, if you are trying to do what I mentioned earlier, like trying to access some type of stream or assets in another country, you made it a VPN in order to allow you to do that. There could be other reasons why you need a VPN, because the particular resource you want, like another web server or a website, or a place where you have a sensitive file stored, may require you to use a VPN. For example.
[00:11:09] I got one.
[00:11:10] Yeah. Go ahead.
[00:11:11] Okay. Yeah. Remember what you were going to say there? Yeah. So let's say as a small business, you're going to travel to, um, you know, I'm in Virginia Beach, but maybe I have an event that I want to promote in Los Angeles for locals. Well, I want to see what kind of ads are running in Los Angeles. But the fact that I'm in Virginia Beach working on it, I'm going to only see local Virginia Beach stuff so I can tell the VPN. Pretend I'm in Los Angeles, and then I'll start getting the ads and things and even see my own ads. Uh, how they would appear in Los Angeles. So from a business standpoint, that's one way you could use this also to defeat bands like, I had, uh, people in, uh, students from China that are banned to go to do certain things. Well, the VPN helps them to defeat that, uh, so they could reach me and reach stuff that they were supposed to be working on while they were in China. And then, Larry, just just to clarify, it's okay to log on to Starbucks Wi-Fi, but then you use it to log on to your VPN, right?
[00:12:31] Yes, that is correct. So the way this works is, again, let's use Starbucks as the example, because it really is the Uber example not to talk about Uber, but that's that's how it's connected. Uh, yes. You would log into actually Starbucks, some Starbucks require a password to get on their WiFi. Others do not. But regardless of whether they do or not, what you would do is you would connect to their Wi-Fi. The very first thing you do is fire up your VPN app, client software, whatever you have on your laptop or your phone. And from that moment on, everything you do goes through the VPN. So you're protected that way once you get in there. But yeah, you have to connect to the Wi-Fi somehow. But once you connect, you start your VPN and from that point on, that's what you use.
[00:13:15] All right. Now there's another two things I want to mention. And then I'll let you roll. Okay. Avoid free VPNs because see the information you're using is still going somewhere. And so free VPNs are not reputable. Vpns Could still grab that information and make money somehow by selling it. So I'm really in favor of reputable, highly reviewed paid VPNs. Now, even if you have that highly reviewed paid VPN, it's going to be slower than normal. And Larry can address that.
[00:13:58] Yeah, it will be. But let me address what you just mentioned. Uh, free VPN. Let's let's start it from the hierarchy. An open access or a public Wi-Fi is the least secure, least protected connection. A public Wi-Fi with a password to get you in is maybe a fraction of a step higher than that, but that's about it. A free VPN is better than no VPN if you need it. However, Tom's point is well taken. Remember what a just think about what a VPN is. A VPN is between you and what you're trying to access. Which means they need to know, first of all, where you're coming from and where you're going. And if that information is captured, which it has to be for a VPN to operate, then they could potentially take that data and do something else with it that you're not aware of, or that you would be very much against, like selling that info for whatever purposes they have. So yes, reputable VPNs, which always charge something because you're not going to get this for free from some place that's very, very reputable and maintains a very high level of security. So a VPN like that will protect you in a variety of other ways that you are completely oblivious to, which is okay, because what you want to do is use this thing to accomplish what you need to accomplish. So what is a what would a paid VPN give you over something that's free? First of all, it would be far more secure in terms of your data flowing through. So that's one thing. Second thing is they pledge not to do anything with your data. It's just a pass through.
[00:15:37] We are just protecting you from end to end. If you see the term end to end encryption, this is what a VPN provides end to end encryption. One end is you. The other end is where you're going. So it's completely encrypted throughout the entire connection. So that's that's what that's another thing. The third thing is a VPN is a server or a bunch of servers that allow you to do this. Many servers keep logs of all the connections. They get the data that's transferred through it, where the beginning point is meaning where you are, let's say in a Starbucks coffee shop, and where the endpoint is, meaning where you're trying to get to. They all keep logs like that. Very reputable, highly regarded VPNs would not have this information. Their logs are kept. The only logs they keep are having to do with server performance, uptime and stuff like that. So they can do debugging and make sure the servers are up and running when you need them. They will not keep track of all of your connections. They will not be able to reverse all of that and find out it's you and so on and so on. So a really good VPN keeps you completely anonymous, is it? And again, like I said before, is it 100%. No it's 99.999999999%. But there's always a chance that there's some data, what we call leakage, meaning some of the stuff gets out and people can be either identified or if they're not, it can be found out where they were and where they were going. Just for all of us here, for the most part, unless we're into very big spycraft and stuff like that, that's not going to matter.
[00:17:23] What you want to do is protect yourself when you're using a public Wi-Fi out in the world. So what I was saying earlier, when you're home, the chances of you needing a VPN to do anything is very minimal because you've got your own stuff in here, you've got a WiFi router, you've got your internet service provider and all that stuff. However, if you are doing sensitive things, sensitive transactions, if you are running a business from your home and you need to make sure that nobody can see what you're doing or intercept orders or any type of contracts, anything like that, then you would definitely need to use a VPN. And Tom is correct when he says that it will slow things down. However, VPNs over time have gotten better and better and better at this. So unless you're doing a tremendous amount of data transfer, either uploading to the internet, downloading from the internet and all that stuff through a VPN, you may not even notice. There are times I've used VPNs, and I didn't even realize I was on a VPN because this thing was responding the way I normally would expect it to expected to respond. So there is a chance you will notice it's slower, but it's not going to be that slow, that it's unusable, which is really which is really the thing that, uh, that concerns a lot of people. It used to be that when you kicked in a VPN, everybody noticed because it slowed down everything. Not anymore. Vpn VPNs are much, much, much, much better now than they ever were. All right.
[00:18:50] So I gotta I gotta jump in again. So back to the your, uh, segment about keeping logs of all your connections. So now this isn't, again like 100% like Larry said, but let's say, uh, and there's a lot of stuff going on with what they call lawfare. You know, people are suing people just so they can do what's called discovery and learn things and subpoena things. So if they subpoenaed from a reputable VPN, the VPN in many cases could say, well, sorry, we don't have we don't keep the information. And so they're not violating any court orders. And it kind of protects you from competitors filing frivolous lawsuits just so they can subpoena information and get your, you know, your proprietary info. Right?
[00:19:44] Which is not hypothetical, by the way. That does happen.
[00:19:47] Yeah. So that's my that's what I wanted to throw in there.
[00:19:51] Okay. So let's extend that just a tiny bit to Apple. Many of you that are listening right now are on an iPhone. There are certain sections that you have passwords on your phone that Apple does not have. If you forget your password, like to iCloud or there's a there's another secure mode on your iPhone that you can engage. If you forget that password or lose it, Apple cannot help you. You cannot call the Apple helpline and say, oh my God, I forgot my password. Could you please get it for me? They cannot do that. It's not that they won't. It's not that they don't have the capability to do so. They don't have it. And if they don't have it, they can't recover. They can't help you recover from that. So there are certain responsibilities that are on you and me and Tom and everybody else that uses these things to make sure that we have our passwords and everything else in a protected space so we don't lose them. Because if you don't write it down, if you don't store it somewhere securely, if you're relying on your own memory. God help you. Because even though we all think we've got great memories, we're going to forget things every so often. And there are times when I have to think hard about a password that I use almost every day, because your brain gets all scrambled up with all these different passwords. So again, if you lose these passwords on your phone, you may not be able to recover it.
[00:21:18] So you have to be very, very careful about that. Now does a VPN help protect you from that? Absolutely not, because the VPN knows nothing about you. All it knows is that you're at one end of the connection, and you're going somewhere else at the other end of the connection. So let's put that aside just for a second. So why even use a VPN? What does it protect you from? Because that's really the bottom line. People will ask me on a regular basis. All right I understand about using a VPN, but so what? What is it protecting me from? What do I care? What do I have to worry about? All right, so here's what you have to think about. It will protect you from eavesdropping on a public Wi-Fi. Now you think, all right, eavesdropping. What are they possibly going to see? Well, here's how this works. Uh, not too long ago, Facebook had a real problem with eavesdropping on public Wi-Fi. Why? Because people were in, again, Starbucks on their laptops, going through, looking at Facebook, going through their accounts, responding to people posting stuff and all that stuff. There was a bug in Facebook that allowed somebody who eavesdropped on a public Wi-Fi to get your Facebook credentials without you typing them in, actually. It's because of all the stuff that flows back and forth between Facebook and you. And they were able to obtain those credentials, and they then were able to present themselves as you on Facebook.
[00:22:43] Now, I know a lot of people are really hooked on Facebook, and we use it a lot of times almost daily for many of us. Uh, imagine if one day you wake up and find out somebody hijacked your somebody hijacked you on Facebook. Uh, you would most likely wonder, what the heck is this? And then you might start to feel this big dread of panic because you realize that somebody got Ahold of your account and is now pretending to be you. You never gave them your username and password. You never posted it on a sticky note and stuck it to your monitor where somebody could see it. You didn't broadcast it across the across your neighborhood on a megaphone. But yet here is somebody who most likely was in that same Starbucks that picked up on your Facebook credentials and is now you. So a VPN would protect you from that. Uh, another thing is called session hijacking, which is very similar to what I described. What happens is somebody will take over your login as you're actually doing it. So if you're logging into your banking account, oh boy, that could be a real problem if somebody were to hijack your session as you're going to connect to your bank. You don't want to you don't even want to be in that situation that will cause you unbelievable nightmares and stomach and and headaches. Uh, that will take time to resolve.
[00:24:02] So you don't want to do that? Uh, the other thing is tracking, like your internet service provider can track and sell your browsing habits. This is this is well known. Any browser you use has all sorts of information on you. And as you transmit it across the internet. It goes through your internet service provider or your ISP. They can grab that data and do whatever they want with it. So if you use a VPN, though, it will stop that from happening because there is no way they can penetrate your VPN tunnel. Remember I mentioned the word tunnel? They can't see into the tunnel to see what's going on, so they won't be able to do that. This also goes to what Tom said earlier about pretending to be in Los Angeles, as opposed to Virginia Beach. It will protect you from forms of targeted ads and profiling. It can do that. Now, granted, the VPN is going to take you to a certain destination, but you might get targeted ads at that destination, not from where you are. So it will protect you from some forms of it. Not all, but at least it won't know where you are. And one of the last things that will protect you from, which is all part of this list, is location based tracking. What does that mean? When you're traveling, or even if you're going around in your local town, you can be getting notifications from local stores.
[00:25:21] Uh, I get this all the time from Google Maps. It still cracks me up when I see this. Uh, my wife and I will go out to a restaurant, and I'm going to say within 60s of a sitting down, Google Maps will pop up. Hey, we see you're at such and such a restaurant. Want to see what people are eating? And I'm looking at my phone thinking. Geez. Come on. Uh, you know, the least I could do is give me a recommendation. Like what's good or not, but it just says, here's what people are eating. So that's location based tracking. All right. So that's what a VPN protects you from. What does a VPN not protect you from. It will not make you anonymous. This is what I'm talking about is not anonymity. It will not make you anonymous. What it will do, though, is protect you from being identified, but it doesn't make you anonymous. It will not protect you from phishing emails. You know the kind of emails that say, hey, this is from your billing department. Uh, I need your password or I need your account ID information in order to fulfill this, this invoice or whatever it happens to be. That's a phishing email. It won't protect you from that. That's up to your email provider. And a VPN will not, will not stop you from clicking bad links. So what's my recommendation there? Don't click bad links. How do you know it's a bad link? Larry, how would I know it's a bad link.
[00:26:43] Well, you would know it's a bad link because if you got an email that said, hey, uh, I'm so and so from the billing department, and you have this outstanding invoice for $147.33, please click this link to resolve this issue and bring your account up to date. Now, if you have absolutely no idea where that email came from, if you have no idea what that amount is, and if you have no idea what the company is, you're about to click a bad link. Please don't do that. Don't. Because the amount of tears you will shed once you set that in motion, you'll be buying a lot more boxes of tissues and which will drive the stock price up of, like Kimberly-Clark and anybody else. That makes that and may make people money because you click the bad link. So don't do that. And if you are not sure if you are not sure if a link is bad, go to your browser, type in the web address of the company itself and go there directly. Do not click a bad link. Don't click a link you don't trust. Now, for those of you on Android and iPhones on an iPhone, this will work. I don't know if androids will do exactly the same thing, but I'm almost sure they have this this capability. If you press and hold the link that you're not sure of, what an iPhone will do is open up another window right in front of where your email is and try and show you where that link will go.
[00:28:10] And an android. I'm almost positive Android has the same same capability, but what this does is when it opens up that little window, that's a protected window. It's showing you where you're going to go if you actually click that bad link, and if it doesn't look at all familiar, or if it's got some weird stuff on it, get out of there as fast as you can. Delete that email. Don't ever look at it ever again. So that's bad links okay. So one of the other things that's always talked about is the privacy aspect of a VPN. So what happens if you log on to a public Wi-Fi? The expectation is privacy. And trust is all with you. Meaning you're trusting that that wife public Wi-Fi is okay to use. You are trusting that when I'm going to a different website, a website via the public Wi-Fi, that everything is safe and secure. So you're taking on that trust. That's your expectation of trust and privacy, right? You're trusting your ISP, your internet service provider, if you use a VPN. You are now shifting that trust to the VPN provider, which with a reputable enough VPN provider, you paid for it. It's got an excellent reputation. That is a good thing to do. You are shifting trust because no logs. As I mentioned earlier, many of these do not keep logs, so they have a no logs policy.
[00:29:33] It doesn't matter what type of subpoena or whatever else they get, they just don't have them. So if they don't have them, they can't provide it to law enforcement or anybody else that wants it for that matter. And that's why the company's reputation matters. It matters a great deal. So, as Tom mentioned earlier, free VPNs are great to think, wow, this is free. This is terrific. However, they will inject ads into your data stream, meaning you'll see ads pop up. What is this? Never saw this before. They will sell your data if they can get Ahold of it. And they're not going to be the best for security because remember, it's a free VPN. They're not getting any revenue from you to make sure their security is good. So they're going to give you the minimal amount of security. And I'll give you a real life example. Uh, in my area we have optimum, which is used to be Cablevision, which is now Altice. It's a huge, huge communications conglomerate up here in the northeast and actually along the whole eastern seaboard. And if you're an optimum customer for internet access, every so often you're going to see in your browser ads injected that seem to appear to come from nowhere. Well, it's not nowhere. It's actually from your ISP. Your internet service provider is injecting ads for you to see that you did not request, that you had no idea what they are.
[00:30:55] You didn't call for them. You didn't sign up and check a box, say, yeah, send me all these weird ads that I have nothing to do with. But that's what they do. So just be aware of that. This is why a VPN can be very, very helpful in things like that. Not only that, but these ads, they take up more of your bandwidth. You don't want that either. So that's those are the particular things that you need to keep in mind as you're going along and thinking, do I need a VPN? Do I not need a VPN? So here's a quick list when you should turn your VPN on. You ready? Here we go. Public Wi-Fi. That's absolutely 100% certain. That's the number one thing. Turn your VPN on if you're in a public Wi-Fi. Now, if if you feel you don't need to do that at a public Wi-Fi, there are some people that are extremely resistant to doing this. Do not do banking. Do not do anything sensitive. Do not access personal accounts. Email all that other stuff on a public Wi-Fi. If you're not willing to turn your VPN on, just don't do it because you're asking for trouble, and trouble will find you. Trouble always has a way of finding you. Okay, so that's one thing. So again, back to why and when you should turn it on public Wi-Fi anytime you go to hotel. Hotels are notorious for this. Please, please, please whenever you go to a hotel, do not try and surf the web and do stuff like that without having some kind of protection.
[00:32:21] And VPN is the protection I'm talking about. Hotels are notorious for having very leaky, quote unquote Wi-Fi systems. They're just not secure. They're not protected. They're there as a hotel guest convenience. And if you're a business person and you're traveling for business or you're doing sensitive stuff while you're away, uh, it's not a convenience for you. It's something you need to do. Vpns are necessary. So hotels and as an extension to that, Airbnb never, ever trust a Wi-Fi network at an Airbnb. Not to say there's anything wrong with it. Not to say the people that are renting you, the Airbnb, are not trustworthy. You just can't trust it because you have no idea what into what went into it. You have no idea what's on the other side of that, so don't trust it. Airports. Same thing. I would think airports would be a little bit more secure. But you can never tell. You can never tell. Same thing with airplanes. Um, airplanes that had Wi-Fi, let's say, a year ago. Two years ago. And going backwards in time, those weren't really secure either, and they were kind of spotty and that kind of thing. However, airlines now more and more of them are using Starlink or something equivalent to that for Wi-Fi access. That is a much more secure way of doing Wi-Fi on an airplane.
[00:33:42] Do you need a VPN on that? I would certainly use it anyway, because, again, unless you built it, unless you understand exactly how the Wi-Fi networks work on an airplane, there's not 100% trust, so always turn it on anyway. If you're in a shared office space, um, there's plenty of these around where you can rent office space. You can share it. You can do cost sharing with, uh, with other companies and stuff. And again, unless you've built that Wi-Fi system, you cannot 100% trust it. So a VPN would be a good thing to use in and into something like this now. So anytime you log into email, access your bank or financial sites, anything brokerage firms you're doing, stock trading, you're accessing your bank account or your checking account is all that stuff. Anytime those and also anytime you're entering passwords. To get to these sites, use a VPN. You are really testing fate. If you don't now, is it going to happen every time you do it? Are you going to be able to do this and get away with it? Yeah you can. So I want to be realistic here. You probably will get away with it and it won't be a big deal. However, there's plenty of stories of people out there that did take that risk and they got caught, and now their life was turned upside down because they had to do all sorts of crazy things to get their accounts back, to be able to get the money back.
[00:35:10] If money was taken and so on and so on. Don't don't get yourself in that situation. And one of the things to keep in mind, unless you've turned this setting off on your phones, on your tablets, on on your laptops, most times it's set to auto connect to an unknown Wi-Fi. If there are no other options available. So if you're home and you're using your laptop, your laptop will notice that that you are at home and will connect to your Wi-Fi automatically so you don't have to do anything, which is great. It's a great convenience. However, that setting also extends to when you travel. So the moment you get into a Starbucks, the moment you get into a hotel and all that stuff, you turn on your laptop, it will attempt to auto connect to the nearest Wi-Fi hotspot it can find. Which sounds very convenient, and it is, but it is not safe. It is not protected. It doesn't protect you. So you need to be aware of that and make sure it does not do that when you reach your destination. So whether it's a phone, a tablet, a laptop computer or and this is probably the worst thing you could do using a computer that's already at the hotel. A lot of rooms come with desktop computers that have open access and all this other stuff. If you're going to do that and you're going to browse like Yelp or you're going to do a Google Maps search for something, that's fine, that's not going to really matter because they already know you're at the hotel.
[00:36:36] Big deal. If you do anything else, you're asking for trouble. Don't ever use that type of computer at any place, hotel, Airbnb or whatever it is for your own personal stuff. You are asking for trouble and most likely in cases like that, you might get it because those are known targets for hackers and other nefarious individuals. So please protect yourself and make sure that you know that you know what you're what your tolerances for risk. And I hope it's very, very low because when you're on the internet, unless you understand everything that goes on on the internet and nobody really does, you're you're putting yourself at risk. You're putting your data at risk if you don't take precautions like having long passwords, like being careful what you connect to in terms of Wi-Fi, like having a VPN when you really need it, especially when you're traveling. Especially especially these are not expensive. Uh, anywhere from I'm going to say $3 to $15 a month in many cases. So it doesn't cost you a lot. In fact, 3 to $15, that's about the price of a range of Starbucks coffee. So for the price of a cup of coffee, you probably would pay would be able to pay for a monthly VPN usage every month. So you're really not losing anything and it's not costing you much.
[00:37:59] All right, so maybe you skip a Starbucks coffee, which may cause some internal strife in your in your memory, but other than that, it'll keep you protected online. They're easy to use. They work on multiple devices. They also have most of them have a kill switch feature, uh, which means the following. If you're in a Starbucks and your VPN system drops like something happens at the, uh, at the VPN site that one of their servers went down, or they lost their own internet connection. All that stuff. Your internet gets cut immediately. It does not fail over to an open or a public Wi-Fi. So it protects you that way also in the event of a failure. And if you are in a privacy friendly country, that is a term, by the way, a privacy friendly country. Uh, it will also be part of what the VPN will, uh, will allow you to access if you're in a privacy friendly country. A lot of this is automatic, meaning there are far more, uh, pieces in place to protect your privacy. However, if you're going to a non privacy friendly country, this is where a VPN is an absolute must. You've got to have it because there's no way you can trust anything. If you're in a country that does not allow you to have private conversations on the internet, and there are plenty of them, believe it or not. So you have to be careful for that. So let's review.
[00:39:24] Vpn is definitely worth it for many things, especially if you're traveling. It is absolutely worth it if you're doing any type of financial transactions or even something as simple as emailing. It's also extremely important when you're visiting other locations that have open and or public Wi-Fi. Hotels, Airbnbs, coffee shops, airports, airplanes and so on and so on. So this is not to scare you. This is not to think. You've got to be on a VPN all the time. However, I want you to think carefully about where you use your devices and how how you use them. So where as in location? How as in what are you using them for? Is it for financial stuff? Is it simply for browsing? Are you just shopping at uh, at some of the websites for, let's say, target, you're doing Amazon shopping and all that stuff you have to figure out on your own and for yourself where you feel you need it, where you think you don't need it, and what your privacy expectations are. Because for the most part, the internet is not private. In fact, the phrase is and always will be. Once it's on the internet, it's there forever. And if it's there forever, it could always be found. So what we want you to do is to be protected, to be safe, and to be able to use the internet for what it was intended for information sharing. And we want you to be safe while you're doing that.
[00:40:48] No, it's only intended for TikTok.
[00:40:51] Yeah.
[00:40:51] That's it.
[00:40:53] Ah, yes, indeed.
[00:40:56] All right, so wrap it up here. But just one thing I wanted to respond to is when you talked about going, you know, if you see a weird email or text to go directly to the, the site of the text instead of clicking on anything. Well, I wouldn't even unless it's a well-known entity like Chase Bank or CNN or.
[00:41:22] Yes, that's what I'm talking about. Something well known.
[00:41:24] Yeah. Don't even don't even just try to go to the A website that's totally unknown to you because they could dump some bad stuff on you just by going to the site.
[00:41:34] That's right. So let me let me offer another point. I'm glad you brought that up. So if you're on your desktop, for example, uh, and on laptops, this will work too. If you see a link that just doesn't look familiar to you, and you want to see what's underneath that without having to click or tap anything, just take your mouse cursor and hover over the link. Don't click anything, just hover. Depending on the browser, it will either show you in the lower right corner or the lower left corner what that link will take you to. Again, don't click on anything, just hover your mouse cursor over the link and if you. If so, let me use Tom's example of Chase. If it's not going to chase.com and it's going to some weird thing like uh, us dot dot, uh, etc. etc., don't even bother, just delete the email and move on. It is definitely a phishing attempt to get you to type in something into a website you know nothing about. Most likely your credentials, username and password and you don't want to do that. So just hover your mouse over the link and it will tell you the browser will tell you where this is going. Now if it doesn't look familiar, get out.
[00:42:52] It could say chase.com and then have an ungodly long string of crazy, crazy characters.
[00:43:00] Exactly right. Yes.
[00:43:01] But that's only a tracking thing from Chase.com to see where you came from. But it still may be legitimate. Chase.com. So. Right. Anyway, let's wrap it up here. So thanks, Larry, for that. That was, uh, in depth on VPNs. So we did an episode on VPNs a couple years ago, but this was way deeper. And there's more functions that VPNs will do now than Larry went much deeper. So thanks so much, Larry, for, uh, for giving him all that stuff.
[00:43:32] Oh, my pleasure. Just be safe out there.
[00:43:35] There you go. All right. And, uh, check out my mentor program if you'd like. One on one with Larry and myself and Mark and Travis and Jennifer and, um, you know, we're the only place on earth that'll talk to you. That is at our level. So, that's what my mentor program is all about. And of course, my school IMTCVA.org. If you are in the mentor program, you get a scholarship to my school, and I tell you, it's one, you can either use it yourself for extra training or you can gift it to somebody. And it would be one of the best legacy gifts you could ever give anybody, because they'd have a highly in demand skill and as little as six months, and wouldn't be paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to get it. So check it out and thanks, Larry, and I will catch you on the next episode. See you later.