So I went over quite a lot of topics here and on the internet.. but I still can\

Question

So I went over quite a lot of topics here and on the internet.. but I still can't seem to completely understand this issue. How secure really are services like proxies, VPN or VPS?

VPN is promoted everywhere as being safe. Proxies have different levels of anonymity.

But is there a possibility, that a VPN provider would have something like Wireshark running on the machine to track all the traffic? Would you be watchful using any of the above services for online payments (paypal, credit card) ?

I understand that (if configured correctly) the chances of a 'man in the middle' can be quite low. But as I said, what if the provider himself is interested in violating the user's privacy?

Explanation / Answer

You are absolutely correct there is no real way to know with certainty that the provider is not monitoring you. This could either be purposefully or due to an unnoticed compromise. A VPN service logging your traffic would not be able to necessarily break the encryption used for a web page. They can man in the middle your traffic, but unless they can exploit a weakness in the protocol or encryption, they are unable to see the encrypted data. They would know you went to the site, but not be able to see your password or any other details.

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