Have found this TER community of value for quite a while now. Of course, some may not share my viewpoint or be as aggressive as I am. But--just in case, I have made it a point to email, even some TER providers, out of my area. My notion is, the more people I contact and get back on TER, the more viable this platform is for me and everyone else. So here is what I have been doing.
Have been scanning reviews in my age range and viewing profiles, one by one. When I see a provider who I believe makes use of TER and has included an email address on her profile, I send her an initial email message, letting her know TER is now being blocked from U.S. users. I further explain she can contact me if she would like my help with a "workaround" (VPN). Of course the spectrum of computer literacy is broad, some of my messages may go to junk mail, and some recipients may think I am trying to hack their computer--such is life. Those who are as aggressive as I am, I then suggest they copy ad paste the email below and send it to their clients who may also be on TER.
May be feeble, but it is my attempt to make whatever dent into the list of people who do not know how to get back on. If you are interested, once they contact me asking for my help, I then send them this email message--yes, which I posted previously.
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Your computer connection has an i.d., called an I.P address. Just like a 212 area code is clearly New York, your I.P. address is geographically sequenced in the same way. TER has configured its server so computers with U.S. I.P. addresses are blocked and can not access their website because of the change in U.S. federal law. If you think TER is important to you then I would suggest subscribing to a VPN. I have been doing it for years and it not only allows me to hide my I.P. address and log into the Internet from a different state/country, it also prevents my user name and passwords from being compromised when I buy things online and do online banking.
Here is a "Google" list of the best VPNs;
https://www.top10vpn.com/best-vpn-for-usa/?v=2&bsid=c33se1kw011&gclid=Cj0KCQjw2KHWBRC2ARIsAJD_r3dsZZ2OCErVsEImcSTdaQAOSps9-uKdQ7V0VN48SfVzdXVA_cCkSKEaAj5yEALw_wcB
Once you choose and install a VPN (virtual private network), you will click on an icon the install creates on the desktop of your computer and that will activate the VPN. You will be given a choice of the city/country you want an I.P. address from. I choose the U.K. This way my computer generates an I.P. address outside of the U.S. and TER servers do not block my computer from accessing their website.
TER servers think my computer is in the U.K. NOT the U.S. Make sense? Last time I logged into TER there was all kinds of discussion about this very point.
Of course if you do not think TER is important to you then don't worry about it.
A computer's MAC hardware address is only exposed to your local network, not the internet at large.
Your ISP can see your modem's MAC address because that device is part of their network and it's part of how they do access control. That said, your modem's MAC address isn't exposed to the internet at large either.
On top of all of that, a VPN is encrypted, so while your ISP can see where you're connecting to, or at least where you're exiting their network, they can't see any details of what the traffic is.
I would like to encourage you to not give advice about security if you are unaware of how things work. Now more than ever we need to ensure that the information we share is accurate.
Those are probably cookies rather than Mac based.
Here is the response from a query to IpVanish (an excellent vpn)
"Hello,
Welcome to IPVanish. Thank you for contacting us.
Yes, we do have an IP cycling option for our Windows and Mac clients. You can set it up in the settings.
When using IPvanish all the data going through the network will be protected.
You can hide the IP and location of your device, but the details of the device cannot be hidden."
VPN or TOR are good enough. Nobody here should have to spoof their MAC address. Doing so won't help much either.
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Your MAC address can be leaked if you have spywares or the likes that can get all details of your device and send them to an external party. Neither VPN and MAC spoofing will save you there. Normally MAC address is not exposed to the Internet.
That is because you normally log in from a U.S. based I.P. address. Now when you log in with your VPN with an I.P. address from another country, Google sees something inconsistent with your login pattern. When I log into google from a VPN I.P. address outside the U.S. there is one additional step, I simply verify my alternate email address and I am right in.
As far as your bank goes, if you use an I.P. address from the U.S. (which I do for EVERYTHING other than TER) it is not a problem.
Hope this helps.
The host domain sees your I.P. address is "out of area" and has no idea which device/type of device you are accessing their website from. This inconsistency alone generates the preform message regardless.
All moot anyway, little by little, TER admin seems daily to be taking baby steps to distance their site from U.S. traffic.
Now the search query, no longer recognizes any U.S. geographical references. While one can still see; their TER "favorites," and query by a provider's TER I.D., telephone number, or email address, one must wonder when the ability to access these will be affected as well.
The point is, as ipvanish noted, VPNs provide no anonymity to devices. And, there are more than a few ways for MACs and devices to be detected.
https://superuser.com/questions/243669/how-to-avoid-exposing-my-mac-address-when-using-ipv6?noredirect=1&lq=1
"Of course this answer ignores the possibility of client-side scripts (embedded in the web page) that fetch the information locally and then upload it to the server. Getting a MAC address that way might not work on all browsers, but there's a lot of information that is available. – Ben Voigt Jan 29 '14 at 20:12"
User agent strings can also contain uniquely identifying information.
Unless the provided information can be proven not to have been spoofed, it has no evidentiary value. If you've seen spoofed Caller ID names, you know no one could be convicted of anything based on such evdence.
Every bit of info helps!
The info is much appreciated!
When choosing a VPN provider, you should also consider whether the company keeps logs of your internet activity. Depending on the country where your VPN provider is based, they may have regulations requiring that users logs be stored. US based companies have such regulations, unlike some (but not all) countries outside the US. For example, I'm using NordVPN which does not keep any logs of your internet activity, since they are based in Panama where there are no regulations requiring them to do so. It's just another layer of security to consider.
If they do not specifically state that they do not keep logs, and you can't verify this independently, you should look for another VPN provider.
Can anyone tell me about ExpressVPN? Is it good and safe and secure? I would like to know.
ExpressVPN should be safe assuming all their marketing is true. The key things to consider with all VPNs is whether they keep logs and what country’s privacy laws they are subject to.
You want to find one that doesn’t keep logs and that is located somewhere that has good privacy laws/isn’t likely to cooperate with the US LE (you want them to be outside the jurisdiction of the 14 Eyes).
For Express VPN, they don’t keep logs, and since they are based in the British Virgin Islands, they aren’t required to, so I think you can reasonably trust that claim. I don’t know about the privacy laws for the British Virgin Islands, but they aren’t in the 14 Eyes, so I would think you are good.