But with the help of a VPN, you can accomplish a number of things on the web. If the term VPN is new to you, I will explain it shortly. But the Indian government is planning to put a ban on VPN service providers in India. If you use a VPN service in India, a ban on such services is definitely going to change the way you can use the internet. But there isn’t anything to worry about as such, right now.
So let's start the discussion.
What is a VPN service?
VPN or Virtual Private Network is a service that creates a secure tunnel between your device and the VPN service provider by encrypting all the traffic that leaves and enters your system.
To be more precise, the VPN client, primarily the VPN app on your system, encrypts all the outgoing traffic, and then sends it through your ISP's (Internet Service Provider) network, which is then decrypted at the VPN server, to finally send the data to the intended server for further activities.
In the case of incoming traffic, the data from the intended server on the web reaches the VPN server, which is again encrypted and sent to your system through the ISP's server. The VPN client on your system finally decrypts the data and finally, you can get the benefit.
Why a VPN is useful?
Besides encrypting your traffic by creating a virtual tunnel between your system and the VPN server, a VPN will also assign a fresh new IP address to your system by hiding, or better, masking your original IP address. This will make the web services believe that you are from a different country. This way, you can access content that is restricted in your country by different websites and web servers.
If there are certain sort of restrictions at the ISP level, those restrictions are also bypassed, as all the traffic is encrypted between your system and the VPN server. So, your ISP can’t even have an idea of what kind of services you use, or which websites you visit. Government and other agencies block different websites at the ISP level, which means, using a VPN you can easily get over any such restrictions imposed by the government.
A VPN service can also help you maintain some level of anonymity on the web, as it masks your IP address, and makes the website or other web server think, you are from a country, different from where you are physically located. However, if you are using the same web browser, and you have already signed in with your credentials, you are no longer anonymous. Additionally, browser cookies and modern fingerprinting techniques make VPN a weak tool to be anonymous on the internet. But still, you can make out a way to be anonymous if you are careful, and know the right tricks.
Nowadays, airports, major railway stations, coffee shops, and a lot of other such places have Wi-Fi, and most of them are open. In an open Wi-Fi, there are chances of eavesdropping, which means, other users on the network can see what you are doing online. But, with the help of a VPN, you can keep your browsing session safe while using such open but untrusted Wi-Fi networks.
In many cases, depending upon your activity on the internet, your bandwidth can be reduced for certain services to allow quality internet access to other users using the internet by your ISP. This is called bandwidth throttling. However, if you are using a VPN, your ISP can’t observe your activity on the internet, and hence, you won’t face issues related to bandwidth throttling. However, your ISP can see the volume of data consumed, and if you use a huge volume of data within a short span of time, your ISP could still throw restrictions.
So, those were some basic ways, a VPN can be useful to users.
What are the ill effects of VPN?
A VPN is like a two-edged sword. The use of a VPN totally depends on the user using it. It is like a kitchen knife that can be used to chop fruits, and also to hurt others. As a VPN hides the original IP address of the user, encrypts all the traffic, and draws out geo-restrictions, there are several bad sides to using a VPN service.
Firstly, a VPN service can be used by cyber-criminals to carry out all sorts of illegal tasks on the internet, and as the traffic is totally encrypted, the government, ISP, or other agencies can’t get a hold of what these criminals are doing on the internet.
Illegal tasks on the internet include child or prohibited pornography, sharing pirated content, accessing the dark web using additional tools like the TOR browser, and many more. As most VPN service providers have their servers outside India, and they are not regulated by the Indian government, they can’t see eye-to-eye, when it comes to sharing user’s information with the Indian government.
Why does the Indian government want to ban VPN services in India?
Well, even though VPN is a wonderful tool to maintain one’s privacy on the internet, using the same for illegal activities is simply misusing a great technology. That’s the reason, why the parliamentary standing committee on Home Affairs has given a proposal to the Indian government regarding blocking only those VPN services in India that allow criminal activities.
This might be a difficult exercise as each VPN service has several users, and if one user of a specific VPN service is involved in some illegal activity that particular VPN service should be blocked in India, if the Indian government honors the proposal by the parliamentary standing committee on Home Affairs.
Moreover, blocking a VPN service provider totally only for a handful of users misusing it, will not be fair too, neither for the users using the VPN service responsibly nor for the VPN service provider.
So. I think the government will go with a balanced approach. However, that is just my assumption, and in reality, things can be totally different. The problem with VPNs currently is that there are several VPN services that are available for free, and anybody can use those VPN services to get some level of anonymity on the internet. Maintaining a VPN service requires robust infrastructure, servers, and employees, and they also have to maintain their offices. Thus, enormous expenses are involved. So, if a VPN service is offering the service for free, they are obviously making money in some other way, and in most cases that is done by tracking user’s activities, maintaining a log of that, and eventually sending them to advertisers for money. So, using free VPN services is also not secure totally.
It might also happen only those VPN services, which are though not good, in terms of speed and data privacy, can be banned by the GoI. On the other hand, the paid VPN services might still offer service in India, and I think the companies will comply with the Indian government. India is a big IT market, and I don’t think the VPN services providers will overlook this opportunity to maintain their foothold in India.
Why the government might not ban VPN services in India
Different enterprises also use VPN services to secure their traffic, and the same is also offered to the employees to deliver secure access to the enterprise’s network. After the COVID-19 induced lockdown, people started working from home, and hence more people started using a VPN service. So, considering all these things, I don’t think, the Indian government will put a complete ban on VPN services.
There’s no doubt, users who use VPN services for illegal activities should be punished, and if the government of India is pondering on banning those VPN services that shelter criminals, I totally support it.
Furthermore, if some free, or even paid VPN services try to make some pennies, selling user data, those services should be banned.
That said, there is nothing to worry about right now if you are using a VPN service. However, if you are still in a dilemma about getting a paid VPN service, you can go for a reputed VPN service provider with the shortest possible subscription, say 1 month or 3 months. The reputed VPN services comply with the government’s guidelines, and at the same time, respect user’s privacy.
So, that was all. Do you have any questions regarding the VPN ban in India? Feel free to comment on the same below.
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