On Tue, 28 Nov 2023 08:45:39 +0800 jeremy ardley <jeremy.ard...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 28/11/23 05:59, Maureen L Thomas wrote: > > > > I would like some advice. I have been offered a dedicated IP > > through NORD. Is it worth it or is it not needed? Pros and cons > > would be very helpful. Thank you. > > > > Moe > > > For a home user the best use-case is to install a VPN - such as > openvpn > - and connect to that from a mobile device such as a smart phone. > > Having a fixed IP address definitely helps that, though it can be > done with a dynamic address and a fair bit more effort. > > If you have a VPN then you can access your LAN files from remote > locations. I also run a dovecot mail server in my LAN so I connect > using my smart phone and OpenVPN and read my emails without any > possibility bad guys can read them as well. > > The cons of a fixed IP address aren't any greater than a dynamic IP > address > That's one major use of a VPN, the other is to tunnel out of your home machine and appear to be somewhere else, often in a different country. This is the generally advertised use these days. A third use, now becoming more important, is that some services such as banks will not accept connections from ISPs other than the one you normally use, or won't accept connections from some particular institutions. During a hospital stay I found connection to a supermarket, of all things, would only be accepted from my own IP, which the supermarket had obviously seen to be static from previous occasions. Another site, I think a bank, refused a connection from this well-known London teaching hospital because 'too many people' were trying to connect from there. In both cases, going via my home VPN solved the problem. And no, I hadn't intended doing anything confidential on either occasion or I would have used the VPN to begin with. Doing anything confidential on a public wifi system absolutely requires the use of a VPN, and my phone also has the VPN client installed. -- Joe
