VPN question

[killabee]

Hello everyone I have browsed and cant really seem to find the answer to my question on the internet. I share a wireless router and internet with my roommate. I used the free VPN Hotspotshield to protect my browsing and personal information from them. Is there anyway he could hack through that and still read my personal information and history from the router even with the VPN, he keeps the wireless router in his room and I dont have alot of access to it. I have a feeling he is snooping on me and getting into my personal info. I was absentminded and put the computer name as my first name. Can they see that name or just the ip address from hotspot? Thank you for the help and if you need any other information for clarification just let me know, thank you all again.

 

[OS-Wiz]

Don't have a direct answer, but one option would be to password protect your sensitive folders.

 

[ClearSummersDay]

Is there anyway he could hack through that and still read my personal information and history from the router even with the VPN, he keeps the wireless router in his room and I dont have alot of access to it. I have a feeling he is snooping on me and getting into my personal info.

Hmmm. I've had similar concerns about this before. I'll ask this question for the both of us.

Question for the community: Would resetting the router erase all the data collected on it?

Can they see that name or just the ip address from hotspot? Thank you for the help and if you need any other information for clarification just let me know, thank you all again.

Some VPN providers keep log IPs and log times and Hotspot shield is one of them, though I think its for a short time period before it erased... not sure, but yes they keep logs. Not sure if they also take the name of your computer, but you shouldn't really have to worry about that. Its your roommate I'm concerned with.


This is coming form a noob so please don't take it as gospel. If you're on a wireless network, I'd recommend a paid VPN with tunneling access to encrypt data sent over the network.

 

[iPwn]

So this really depends on the level of skill.

If your PC is in a "Homegroup" or "Workgroup sharing" state, then yes, he can very easily get to your Data.

Router logs are useless with a VPN as all traffic is pointed to the VPN's listening port.

For the 'packet sniffing' part of that question: When you establish a VPN connection, it should be encrypted from source to destination. The type of encryption is going to largely determine the ability to read the data. Since you're communicating wirelessly, everything you do is being broadcast around the house. Encrypting that will help, but again comes in the level of skill. He COULD perform a "Man in middle" attack, or capture packets and then replay them, or simply capture data using a sniffer and read the data. Some VPN providers are still on MD5 packet encryption. BackTrack cracks MD5 hashing very quickly. The question you really need to ask is; are you sending banking data over the network? Are you rich? Is there any benefit to him seeing what you're doing?

When hackers get good enough, they typically don't waste time on trying to see the same news you did, they want money or to play tricks. If you're worried about him stealing from you, then I wonder why you share a house with him.

What you need to do:
Startup in safe mode and do a full Virus scan using two "On Demand" scanners.
Set a good password on your PC (both your account and administrator account) and disable the administrator account if you're not using it.
Disable any type of sharing and change your workgroup name to something non-default
Disable RDP connections and assistance
See what kind of encryption your VPN offers and keep the VPN on at all times.
Encrypt sensitive files (like a document that has passwords or financial data) with something like axcrypt.
Lock your door when you leave - Physical access trumps everything!
Look for a new place to stay if you're getting suspicious of your roomy.