Any Tech Types? Let’s Talk Connectivity Options, VPN

[organizedhome]

With a world cruise up next, my traveling companion and I are considering high-tech connectivity issues incident to global travel.

 

Background: I am a web developer and author, and my partner is a professor of computer science. We will be aboard ship for four months, and need to address some pretty arcane connect issues, as both of us will be writing books during the trip.  I will also need to have backend access to my website network, on a variety of platforms.

 

Regent’s blacklists prevent me from reaching essential cloud-based servers, most notably , the entire Apple iCloud IP address block.  I have no problem bringing my own media, but must reach the Apple app servers regularly, in order to keep my system updated.

 

A check with the “Internet manager” aboard indicates that the entire IP block will be blacklisted.  In the past, I was able to obtain a temporary whitelist status for brief periods over a wired connection in the computer room to take care of business;  this option is no longer available, now that the ship is Wi-Fi based.  

 

Additionally, both my partner and I will need access to some specialty services not needed by most passengers. Specifically, I need to connect to my hosting provider, dns servers and back-end admin features.

 

The issue is not one of bandwidth; it’s access.  The amount of data I need is quite small, but the locations where it is stored and the servers I need to reach are currently unavailable to me.  Moreover, as I transit my web network to cloud-based servers, these kinds of bans become quite difficult.

 

The advice from the Internet manager was that we “do it in port”;  you may imagine the hackles that rose on the back of my neck that arose at the idea. (And honestly, I don’t think he understood what we were asking about. I think we intimidated him a little bit.)

 

But if that is what we must do, any suggestions?  

 

Anyone with experience using a VPN on board? Burner phones with Sim cards? A pricey global data plan with either of our current carriers? 

 

Somewhere in the hive mind, a solution must be lurking. We will be circling the globe for four months, while working on tech projects and will need to have this type of specialist access to an unfettered Internet.

 

Frankly, I wish Regent would simply move to a bandwidth usage-based plan. If the streamers want to stream big bloated files, let them pay for it. I am happy to pay a fair rate to get to my servers, and ensure the health of my web properties.

 

Having this ham-handed, “YouTube yes, iCloud no “policy in place is really going to be tough to work around, as someone who works in the tech industry.  I hope somebody smarter than me has figured this out.

 

Cynthia and Bob

[mikenbob]

We recently used Express VPN on Mariner throughout Asia and had no connectivity issues.  Speed, however, was another issue.

[Anchorbuoy]

1 hour ago, organizedhome said:

Anyone with experience using a VPN on board?

 

Private Internet Access (PIA) works fine on all 4 of the ships.  I have never been denied access to using this VPN.  However, the slow data speeds are even slower using the VPN.  But you can then access all of the blocked addresses onboard, including YouTube, the Apple Store, and the like. 

[CruisetheCs]

Apart from the connectivity issues you are asking about, please be aware that the internet connection is unreliable and often horribly slow.  My characterization of the internet on Regent is that "sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, and when it works, it works slowly."  

 

One never knows when the internet will stop working completely for minutes to hours.  And if you seek an answer to why it isn't working, it is usually some vague thing like "its the satellite" or "too many people online."  

 

 

 

[Jonoro7]

No problems using a commercial VPN.

But the integrity of the internet connection is poor or to be honest very poor.

Latency of a second or more drops many connections and some connectionless connections.

If you need to rely on the service, don't go!

If it's just important, use when many are ashore.

[Wendy The Wanderer]

I admit this all disheartens me.  I don't know about whitelisting myself, but wonder about cloud services--surely gmail is cloud-based, as is most other google services.   My main requirement is that I would like to be able to access my bank securely.  For that I'll install and use a VPN.  I used to use them all the time for work (software development), but haven't had to since I retired, so I'm hoping just that I can do secure transactions.  Sorry, when I retired my techie brain retired too I think.

 

But you guys, I can't imagine coming up with a solution.  Is this the 2020 WC?  Mine is 2021, and I'm hoping that something will improve by that time.  Surely, surely, you should be able to arrange this with the IT department?  Gheesh!

Edited May 25, 2019 by Wendy The Wanderer

[JMARINER]

Using any VPN on the will slow down the service to a crawl. As mention before the ship system has terriblly high latency (+700-900)  and jitter issues. So trying to use a VPN to backdoor into a blocked site, particularly if the idea it to access any video is problematic at best and usually  undoable because of the added VPN backend sites added latency.

 

I use an international Android phone from Google Project FI when I am out of the USA. It has excellent 4G/LTE service in most countries. No backlist issues and I don't feel the need to use a VPN on the phone either. Easy to tether to my laptop or Iphone. You need to buy a dedicated Google phone, like a nexus or Pixel. Service is $20 per month and on $10 per gig in 100mg increments and free after 7 gigs. Look it up here 

 

Email me if you have any questions. If you think you want to get the FI phone let me know and I can get you a referral credit.

 

J

Edited May 25, 2019 by JMARINER

[Gilly]

I'm finding this conversation very interesting indeed and though I don't have any information/advice to share, I support everything that previous posters have said re connection issues and patchy service in the most surprising of situations.  For example, I had no trouble whatsoever connecting and doing whatever I wanted/needed to do (except for opening any YouTube link, which appeared to be blocked) on Mariner recently as she sailed from Japan to the Aleutian Islands, and yet the minute we reached more mainstream Alaskan waters around Sitka/Juneau the service disappeared altogether at times and at others would dip in and out. My personal experience with the IT support on board was not good - dismissive and patronising at best.  

 

My dh needed to download a work-related 48mB pdf of some music which he had ordered before we left and which the library sent rather more swiftly than usual.  With a time limit on the dl window and realising the score had to be retrieved whilst we were away from home, he was frustrated by the speed of connection, regardless of the time of day (midnight used to be the key to such things).  Thankfully, the Aquarium in Kodiak had free public wifi and in 30 seconds it was there on his phone, ready to Bluetooth to his tablet later.  

 

We neither of us *need* internet connectivity for business purposes but are both involved in activities which make such a facility important enough to follow this thread closely.  Thank you for opening up the conversation @organizedhome !

[organizedhome]

Thank you all for the input; it is consistent with my own observations over many years of travel with Regent as an author and Web publisher, bringing my work with me.

 

Obviously, a VPN is the first solution that I'd reach for, but as noted, the ship's system has so many issues with latency/signal drops that it would become a "sure, I can get there, but can't get anything done" situation.  However, as also noted, even a glacially-slow VPN is a good idea for sensitive transactions like banking or finance.

 

It's been four years since I've been aboard, and like Wendy, I had hoped that some of these issues would have been resolved.  Lack of any progress in that time means I'm not really expecting improvement by January, 2021.

 

But with multiple devices per passenger now standard, and with growing reliance on cloud-based services, the line is in an unenviable position.  No matter how much capacity they add, the growth of data demand per person is always going to swamp them.  

 

On the other hand, the marketing spin creates an impression that the "Unlimited Wi-Fi" for actually means usable, reasonable access to the Internet.  Choosing to control capacity via blacklist, rather than bandwidth, is only going to become more problematic, as cloud storage/servers become standard for everyone--and if you choose to give it to everybody without some kind of bandwidth charge, you're never going to have an acceptable product.

 

The Mariner is pulling into port in Victoria, BC, as I write this--and my cellular data just became available.  After 9 days aboard, my devices are all updating like mad dogs, now that they can reach the necessary servers. 

 

Bob and I will be exploring Victoria on our own today, but we'll take some time to do a bit of testing.  I'll be installing a couple of commercial VPNs and doing some speed tests, while Bob wants to open command-line tools for a good look at signal quality.  

 

If I get time, I'm also going to do some testing of the "upgraded plan" that I purchased when I got onboard; my hunch is that all that $9.99 a day gets me is access to a few blacklisted domains like YouTube, NOT improved speeds or connectivity.  If that's the case, I'll take a pass, next time.  Will report in with results.

 

But the idea that if I can't be "just a tourist" I don't go?  Nah!  Since 1999, I've traveled on cruise ships while writing books, publishing Web sites, handling media and running a LAMP stack.  Only difference with the 2021 World Cruise will be the length of the trip.

 

As I told Bob, cruising is whatever you want it to be.  One way or another, I'll find the access I need--but I do wish RSSC would get their heads out of the AOL model and get with the century.  

 

Thanks!  It's a GLORIOUS day aboard the Mariner.

[wcsdkqh]

OrganizedHome--- Save your 10 bucks. The "upgraded" plan offers no additional speed, only the ability to access several streaming sites.  If the speed/latency is unsatisfactory with the "free"plan, it will only be slower when using VPN with the "upgraded" plan.

[Gilly]

@wcsdkqh  that was exactly the conclusion we reached and saved our $$$s too.

 

The connectivity is *better* than it was for sure.  I no longer needed to sit up till the wee small hours trying to post photos to my blog each day as I have in the past and we had no problems doing run-of-the-mill stuff when there was an internet connection, which made it all the more surprising that it went off altogether from time to time in what I assumed would be more accessible places.  But as @organizedhome observes and we've discussed in the past, as the bandwidth/speed improves, the more people are uploading photos to the cloud, streaming content and facetiming/What's Apping their family and friends.  Oh, and updating apps and websites automatically, because there are still no reminders/recommendations about how to control these things when faced with limited connection.

[organizedhome]

Gilly makes an excellent point, that I'd amplify:  we are ALL unaware of how much our digital lives now require cloud-based server support to do, well, anything!  

 

If you don't realize that modern operating systems are designed to be online ALL THE TIME, syncing to servers and moving data in the background, you'll be very, very surprised when a limited-access system like a cruise ship starts metering your usage.

 

For example, I am now testing a trial version of a VPN as we work on this issue.  I THOUGHT I wasn't doing more than grabbing email and Web browsing, but I watched my free 500GB in traffic sink like a stone.  Went rooting around, and there was Dropbox, trying to sync all my cruise photos.

 

For someone who isn't a tech nerd, this would be a shock--and given our passenger base, I can only imagine how difficult it would be for the "internet manager" to have to explain, "Yes, I know that YOU didn't do anything, but your operating system, apps and devices have been sucking up data for hours ...." to somebody holding a great big bill for bandwidth usage.

 

This is where the idea that "Unlimited Wi-Fi" fails:  it's presumed on an old-school model that connect doesn't happen until you tell it to.  Um, no--these days, a modern operating system is designed to be in touch with multiple servers in the background.

 

I do understand Regent's dilemma, I really do.  Telling someone who insists, "But I haven't even gotten online!" that they just accrued $15 in bandwidth charges due to cloud syncing would be difficult enough; the tech support challenges of explaining the issue and helping average users find and plug the bandwidth holes would be impossible.

 

Thanks, kids!  We're testing VPNs right now, and yes, Professor Bob has just verified that the upgraded plan gets you nothing but access to a few streaming sites with no performance improvement.  But we're roughing out a multi-faceted way to meet our connect needs, and will report in with any observations.

 

Just a couple of nerds having fun before breakfast.  Thanks for the great discussion.

 

C

[TagalongWell]

Organizedhome, I am the "other half" of travel well. I've kept quiet until I look at some technical specs. We are on the 2021 Regent Word Cruise as a post retirement present. I am a EE. Travel Well's dad was EE professor. I work in the communication industry (Until Jan 2021) I have several web sites and I intend to post photos and my trip diary on these web sites. (A link on Cruise Critic will be provided) I am a photographer and book author.  I have very little personal experience with the things I discuss but tons of industry experience.

Apple iCloud.... : Is constantly syncing things. Travel Well and I have 2 apple computers, 2 iPads, 2 iPhones and some other random devices. We had a vacation cabin with 3 Mbps down and 1 Mbps up. We could not watch a movie and we called our local technician at the cable company and he looked at our traffic profile. The question he asked was "Do you have Apple?"  With all the iCloud syncing going on, we were tapping out the 1 Mbps return. (Most video is delivered via HTTP which is based on TCP/IP which requires acknowledging the forward data packets. Typical ratio is 12:1.) So if the reverse pipe is filled then no joy.  You get terrible service down stream. (to your computer) Most Internet traffic is TCP/IP. Ask your partner. They will know this. 

At home, We have 1 Gbps bi-directional. Which is fine as long as we don't go off the AT&T network. BUT, the Internet has what is called a head wind. Today this is generally acknowledged as 70 Mbps.  So you may connect at a higher rate but if you go off your providers part of the Internet.... you slow down. 

When you are on the "ship", your connection to the rest of the world (ROW) is limited to Satellite. There are basically 3 Satellite providers today, Inmarsat, GlobalStar and Irridum.  To be honest I don't know much about GlobalStar. Immarsat uses geosynchronous Satellites (They orbit the earth every 24 hours so they remain in place above a single spot on the earth) Irridium uses lower earth satellites and wiz around faster than the earth turns. So there are more (66) and you switch off like using a cell phone on the move.  Irridium works every where including the poles.  Immarsat works most of the places we will be. You might have a problem south of New Zealand or in a fiord. (I had problems with Internet connection on a Crystal Cruise in Norway when in a Fiord.)  Satellites are line of site.  If you can not "see" the satellite as it sites above the Equator, you have no data. 

I don't know who Regent uses. I was unable to find the answer with a quick Google search. My guess, is that they have a higher bandwidth connection than your average individual. Part of this is reserved for them to run the ship, get news, updates. The rest is shared between all the people on board. And the good news is that this segment is 2x faster than before. (OK, Not enough but better.)

In port, you can connect to land based providers like a cellphone company. Prices vary. And there are land based Internet cafes.  Your milage may vary. 

We did a project in Japan and needed to ship hours of video back to Atlanta. We found it faster to record the data on a disk and ship it via FedEx back. 

The problem with Apple iCloud is that it really eats up the reverse path which is typically smaller to begin with. Therefore it earned a spot on the infamous Black list. (I was unable to find a list of these IP addresses during a quick Google search) Video conferencing is a data hog. So it is on the blacklist. Everyone the company is aware of.  I won't mention the more obscure apps.. In case I need one. Ha!.  When you pay the extra $10, you get an exemption from what appears to be part of the blacklist. But you don't get faster data or more data.  You get a license to fish. You are not guaranteed to catch anything. 😉

 

If you use a VPN, you hide your data and the IP address you are connecting too. So you avoid the blacklist. Shhhh.  Regent has no counter measures to this. China is trying to track VPNs and regularly shuts them down. So you may have to dodge over the 4.5 months on the cruise. This is what Chinese users do every day.  We call the game "Whack a mole".  Regent has no real defense against VPNs but your devices will clog up the Internet for everyone so please be kind.  I'd take an external disk and back up locally. The extra work a VPN does to encrypt your data will slow down the throughput and add latency. 

 

Let's talk Satellites and the infamous lately issues. My Crystal Cruise experience tells me that they are using GeoSynchronous Satellites. (There are 3 in high earth orbit) the cruise ship will switch as it travels around the globe. There are (working from memory here...) 22k miles from earth. for the signal to travel to the satellite and back to an earth station takes at least 250 mSec. (Limitation of the speed of light)  add some time for the equipment to process and ... You have high latency. Remember most traffic is TCP/IP and it needs the "ack" (Acknowledgement)  So stock traders don't use satellites today. They use fiber optics but these are not available on a cruise line.  There are also Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) and Low Earth Orbit(LEO).  I suspect that Irridium is MEO. The closer you are to the earth, the lower the latency. Physics. 

 

If you get your own Satellite phone, you have free incoming calls and pretty reasonable text costs.  However data is limited to 2400 baud. (Remember phone modems?) This is true for both Irridium and ImmarSat. The web is telling me ImmarSat is cheaper but... your milage may vary. Check it out. And yes there is a charge for data. But, there is no Blacklist. 

 

What am I going to do?  Well, this is the first I've heard of an Apple iCloud blacklist. This is understandable but it ... ahh, unfortunate. I was bringing my hard drive back up.. now I will depend on it. I knew about Video conferencing blacklist. and was not tempted to pay the $10 / day.  My kids (and grandkids will just need to remember what I look like.) 

 

I will buy a Sat phone. both for the cruise and for later. (Just this morning we were hiking in the N. Georgia Mountains and had no cell coverage. ) (5G will not help. to get more speeds they need more transceivers which will be found mainly in cities.) 

 

There are new Internet options on the horizon. Will they be there for 2021?  I have no clue. SpaceX just launched 60 LEO satellites this week. We don't know yet if they work They will need a thousand or more to make LEO work. There are 3 other companies racing to do similar things. The LEO satellites may need a few MEO satellites to provide connectivity and coordination. But with LEO your latency will be very low. Maybe better than TransOceanic Fiber.  So, I'm waiting until next year to make hard decisions.  Maybe they need a tester? 

 

For now. VPN gets you around the blacklist but sucks bandwidth from your fellow passengers. So please limit it. Your Web authoring and updating should be fairly low bandwidth as long as you don't upload big photos.  I'm planning to shrink the photo files I upload.  It makes it faster for my readers anyway. And take along extra hard drives and back up locally for now. The issue of bandwidth may be solved (for a price) in 20210 but for now, Plan to work in a low bandwidth mode.

 

Would love to meet and exchange more information in the fullness of time.

Regards,

Travel Along Well. 

[Wendy The Wanderer]

Wow, great post, Tag Along!  I am sure glad I don't have to work on this WC.  But again, I'd love to blog, and just be connected as usual, although I can live without youtube and streaming in general (I have to live without it at the cottage because my connectivity is cellular).  I will want to upload pictures, perhaps just to FB or a blog website if I choose to do that.  But I'm looking at it as an opportunity to extract myself from my technology, to "put down my phone and my keyboard", at least most of the time.  But I still need that secure connection to my bank...  And I don't envy you guys who need more.

[travelwell]

Our friends who are booked on this WC will probably still be working. Big challenge being able to check into office and might be a deal breaker. I am primarily trying to post our travelogue “Dear Family” to family and friends and communication makes it better leaving our elderly parents. We also will be banking on line.

Edited May 25, 2019 by travelwell

[Gilly]

The conversation becomes more interesting.  Thank you for that thought provoking (and challenging!) read, @TagalongWell !  We've carried an external hard drive for several cruises now, finding it impossible to back anything up online, though I discovered during our second day on board, that Google was automatically uploading any pictures it could find on my (Android) phone whenever it found a wifi signal.  I soon stopped that little trick and whilst doing so, turned off a few other automatic updates!   Judging from the conversations among our fellow cruisers, who were airdropping photographs here and there, I-things seem to predominate - so it's surprising I didn't hear anyone comment on the lack of access to iCloud.

 

I've always resized photographs for my blog/website and continue to do so - as long as I keep them no larger than 300 or 400kb they upload fine, occasionally stuttering a little if it's a busy time of day.  I'd really appreciate the old facility of creating the post update offline and uploading when I'm ready, but in these days of always-on internet, that seems to be no longer an option with my provider (Squarespace).  So I prepare all my photographs, write my text offline and put it all together as quickly as I can when it seems like an opportune moment.  I don't use video or upload anything to YouTube.

 

Secure connection to the bank proved difficult only because when we were ready to pay a couple of bills, we happened to be in a patchy internet area.  Frustrating but a couple of days later, we found it was fine.  During this time, I overheard the IT manager say to someone that he was trying to connect to a different....?...satellite?  (I don't know!!)  I got the impression that he was able to make adjustments to improve things without actually hearing the exact details.

 

Like you, @Wendy The Wanderer I am glad I don't *have* to battle with all of this and I have the utmost sympathy for those of you who do.  Thank you for sharing your expertise and your experience.    (We are also booked on part of the WC 2021 and I look forward to meeting you all!)

[TagalongWell]

Wendy,

You should have no problems uploading text and a few small photos to web sites. This is most of of what we plan to do. 

I'm sure Apple will let me turn off iCloud sync.  I hope I can still use my Apple Mail...?  Does anyone know?  If not, I can set up a new mail service on my web server. 

 

Organized home  is correct about modern OS and Software assuming constant web connectivity and perhaps the resulting bills if you are data rate based. Think of it like leaving your phone on and roaming.  You could get a nasty surprise in the bill. So you have to take control. 

 

We shall have to wait and see what the future brings on International internet. 

 

[ArtsyCraftsy]

Following this conversation carefully.  Although I spent 32 years in IT (retired in 2003), it was all software related (mostly logical and physical database design).  I know just enough about hardware to enable me to connect stuff to my laptop, change the ink cartridges in my printer, etc., but not enough to troubleshoot or delve deeply into the intricacies of global network operations.

 

I'm definitely learning a lot from this discussion.  I've always traveled with just my iPad and iPhone before; for the 2020 World Cruise on the Mariner, I'm planning to take my laptop, so this opens up a whole other can o' worms.  

 

Keep it coming -- ...

 

Lana in Bellingham, WA 

[Travelcat2]

I have posted about the poor connectivity in parts of Alaska in the past and some posters argued with me.  I'll check it out again (on Crystal this time) in a few months.

 

The computer guru's on Regent are basically excellent and easy to deal with (but they need to have a ton of patience as some of the issues brought up by many  passengers are beyond ridiculous ...... I have heard them first hand).  Sitting in the computer room and listening to passengers with questions at times is like watching a comedy show. 

 

While I do not understand most of what is on this thread, my question to the experts is whether or not whatever you will be doing when you are on the ship will affect the speed for other passengers.  Or, will you somehow have faster speeds and the rest of us will have what we typically get?  If so, I have no issue with it.  On the other hand, anything that passengers do that slows down the system for other people is not acceptable.

 

If there was something that I could do to prevent my iPhone (which is shut off while I am on the ship) from syncing with my iPad, I would certainly do it if it would help others.  

[TagalongWell]

Travelcat2,

The bandwidth allocation is pretty democratic. Even the experts will suffer along with the rest. So no one is disadvantaged. When everyone is trying to use the service, it gets divided up evenly, which means we all get an equally small pipe. So using a VPN to get to a black listed site will NOT get you more bandwidth. And if you are trying to do something data intensive, well, you are going to experience frustration. The less demands we make on the system, the more bandwidth will be available to share. 

 

I don't know if your iPhone syncs with your iPad using Bluetooth or WiFi. Good question for the Apple Genius Bar. As long as you are not syncing to the cloud, you will not impact Interest speeds. Even if you use Wi Fi on the boat to connect to another device on the boat, you will not impact connection to the larger internet. If you are using Bluetooth. Then no worries. I appreciate your team spirit. 

[Wendy The Wanderer]

I'm a Android and PC person.  Guess I'll have to figure out how to sync directly between my phone and PC without using the Cloud I guess.  Definitely turn off syncing my phone pix to Google, but will want to move them by my laptop for any fancy editing and backup. David has an iphone, Kindle Fire (android) and a Mac, but may not bring the latter.

 

I remember the old days of internet on Regent, where you had to constantly login and logout, even if you had unlimited minutes of time.  Is this still true?  Certainly is a pain, so hoping it's not, but guessing it's still true.  They certainly need to get on top of modern internet needs, but guess it's a moving target.

 

I keep mentioning security.  But no one has confirmed or denied whether a typical internet connection onboard is secure or not, i.e., is a VPN really necessary to do banking? I do have a hardened browser.

[Travelcat2]

57 minutes ago, Wendy The Wanderer said:

 

I keep mentioning security.  But no one has confirmed or denied whether a typical internet connection onboard is secure or not, i.e., is a VPN really necessary to do banking? I do have a hardened browser.

 

As I have repeatedly posted (on other threads), sometimes when I am online I get a message stating that the connection is not secure.  This is the same message that I get in some restaurants in town.  Typically, after being on a ship I have more spam that usual but not sure what this means.  Personally I would not do banking while on the ship but, admittedly, I am far from an expert in this area.  I simply get concerned about the messages that I receive while onboard.

 

If I were going on a world cruise (which we will never do), I would arrange to have things paid in advance so there would be no need to check with my bank or credit card companies.  Additionally, we always advise the credit card company (for the credit card that we use while abroad) of our itinerary.  Some people state that it is not necessary but Chase does not feel that way.  The more they know about our plans, the higher the odds that we can use this credit card without alerting Chase to a possible.

 

I have read on CC and other places that we need to be cautious around China as they are quite adept at stealing information.   

[Wendy The Wanderer]

50 minutes ago, Travelcat2 said:

 

As I have repeatedly posted (on other threads), sometimes when I am online I get a message stating that the connection is not secure.  This is the same message that I get in some restaurants in town.  Typically, after being on a ship I have more spam that usual but not sure what this means.  Personally I would not do banking while on the ship but, admittedly, I am far from an expert in this area.  I simply get concerned about the messages that I receive while onboard.

 

If I were going on a world cruise (which we will never do), I would arrange to have things paid in advance so there would be no need to check with my bank or credit card companies.  Additionally, we always advise the credit card company (for the credit card that we use while abroad) of our itinerary.  Some people state that it is not necessary but Chase does not feel that way.  The more they know about our plans, the higher the odds that we can use this credit card without alerting Chase to a possible.

 

I have read on CC and other places that we need to be cautious around China as they are quite adept at stealing information.   

 

Fortunately not going near China.

 

There are several reasons why one can get a 'not secure' message.  But it should be completely reasonable to find out what level of encryption the ship's internet uses, and not count on conjecture.  Perhaps someone onboard at some point can ask, and get answers.

 

The issue of autopay has been discussed elsewhere ad nauseum, and I myself don't really need advice on that subject. Even if 90% of my bills were on autopay, there would still be some I'd want to handle directly, plus I'd want to monitor my credit card statements and balances.

Edited May 26, 2019 by Wendy The Wanderer

[wcsdkqh]

The most effective change Regent could make to improve internet access and thru-put immediately would be to limit one login per suite. Of course some folks won't like that, just sayin'.

[JMARINER]

1 hour ago, Wendy The Wanderer said:

I'm a Android and PC person.  .....

I keep mentioning security.  But no one has confirmed or denied whether a typical internet connection onboard is secure or not, i.e., is a VPN really necessary to do banking? I do have a hardened browser.

I don't use ever a VPN for banking, credit cards ,etc.  Modernly bank and credit card security,  at least on the consumer end is very good. Once you are at their website they use very strong encryption for their transactions.  I would be far more concern if I were still doing any transactions on a public computer, like in the old days at internet cafes, where someone could use a "keylogger" type program to steal my password.  But on my own device or the ships computers, that does not happen.

 

 Another way to look at this; if the banks were worried about this issue why don't they disclose it to the customer and require VPNs? 

 

Now, I do use and recommend using a VPN for sending sensitive files or data over the internet because I can not easily do the same level of "end to end" encryption as the banks/credit cards. But my VPN is on maybe 1% of the time.

 

J