Is use of a VPN Advisable on Viking?

[rbslos18]

Do tech savvy Viking cruisers use a VPN (Virtual Private Network) when traveling on Viking or any cruise ship?

How secure do you find Viking's public Wi-Fi network? Any suggestions of a VPN compatible on Viking?

Thanks for your advice.

Edited June 27, 2023 by rbslos18

[longterm]

I've never felt the need for VPN on a cruise, but I'm sure it would work, but it'll take an already-slow network and make it even more sluggish. . 

 

On the last cruise I used my phone hotspot anytime we were in port, because wifi was really awful. I remote to my servers every morning, but was never concerned about fellow passengers on a Viking cruise.

 

 

[basenji56]

I always use VPN on cruise ships 

 

Safety first. 

[CCWineLover]

2 hours ago, basenji56 said:

I always use VPN on cruise ships 

 

Safety first. 

Likewise.  A year or more ago, one couldn't get logged in unless you turned off your VPN.  This last cruise however, that wasn't an issue.  Wifi was so slow that adding a VPN made no noticable difference in the already abyssmal performance.  Wifi was basically useless between 6:30 AM and 11:00 PM.  Too many people facetiming and streaming news and video.  A sign of our culture these days.  You could literally see when people got up and started streaming, and then when they finally retired.  We have become a society of constant streaming these days.

I didn't mind too much as this is for us a vacation away from everybody and everything, including news!  We want to enjoy the moments and adventures of traveling.  Each to his own.  I met several total news junkies on our last cruise who confided they just couldn't let go.

[Messybill]

Using a VPN on a cruise ship is useful for geolocation if you need it.   A VPN won't provide better security than the ship's WIFI which is connected via Starlink.    It's the same as being at home connected via Starlink or any other ISP.   When in port, it is simpler, and faster to connect through a cellphone. 

Edited June 28, 2023 by Messybill
typo

[longterm]

I've just not seen enough compelling reason to use VPN on a ship; the only reason I've ever used it was to make it appear that I'm in the US even when I'm not, so that I could log into the local newspaper's site (it won't allow me to login if I'm overseas).

 

I seriously doubt that anyone who is on a Viking cruise, either as a passenger or as an employee, is going to try to steal any of my data, especially since I just don't get much use out of at-sea wifi on cruises these days. Hopefully it'll be better on our next cruise in October, but we'll have to see.

[CDNPolar]

8 hours ago, longterm said:

I seriously doubt that anyone who is on a Viking cruise, either as a passenger or as an employee, is going to try to steal any of my data, especially since I just don't get much use out of at-sea wifi on cruises these days. Hopefully it'll be better on our next cruise in October, but we'll have to see.

 

Scams and scammers are everywhere and Viking passengers are not necessarily exempt from shady ways.

 

Personally I use Viking WiFi without a VPN, but I would never ever go to a banking site, or a credit card site on WiFi anywhere in the world.  I only access these sites on land when I am off WiFi and on data roaming.

 

It is just about being careful.  

 

You could be on the dock side of the ship and comfortably surfing the internet while in port on Viking WiFi.  It could be a dock worker that has hacked into Viking WiFi that is stealing your information.  Does not have to be a Viking guest or crew.

[WanderingBrit]

Using a VPN will allow you to circumvent any filters they have against streaming sites, though of course there still has to be sufficient bandwidth to support what you're trying to access. If you have an Internet VPN service, and even the hint of a concern, just use it to be safe?

[FlyerTalker]

FWIW.....I always use a VPN when traveling, be it on a ship, airplane, hotel, airport or any other location.

 

The overhead of the VPN appeared to be negligible.

 

 

[Messybill]

13 hours ago, CDNPolar said:

 

Scams and scammers are everywhere and Viking passengers are not necessarily exempt from shady ways.

 

Personally I use Viking WiFi without a VPN, but I would never ever go to a banking site, or a credit card site on WiFi anywhere in the world.  I only access these sites on land when I am off WiFi and on data roaming.

 

It is just about being careful.  

 

You could be on the dock side of the ship and comfortably surfing the internet while in port on Viking WiFi.  It could be a dock worker that has hacked into Viking WiFi that is stealing your information.  Does not have to be a Viking guest or crew.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but using a VPN provides exactly zero extra security in the case where some malicious actor has hacked the Viking WIFI.  What you need in that case is a firewall.  As to other Viking passengers being malicious, I suspect there is a better chance of being struck by lightning.

Edited June 28, 2023 by Messybill
typo

[Messybill]

7 hours ago, FlyerTalker said:

FWIW.....I always use a VPN when traveling, be it on a ship, airplane, hotel, airport or any other location.

 

The overhead of the VPN appeared to be negligible.

 

 

It's negligible because all it does is encapsulate and encrypt the first leg of the transmitted data.  The VPN endpoint decrypts it and sends it on its way from a different location.   This makes it appear to the other end of the connection that you are located at the VPN endpoint, and so this can be used to defeat some geographical location restrictions.  It does not protect the data beyond the endpoint.  However, that data is typically encrypted as well, so it is reasonably secure.  This is exactly the same for the data you send from a non-VPN connected device, so there is no security benefit to using the VPN.  It is only useful for obfuscating your location.

[FlyerTalker]

1 hour ago, Messybill said:

It's negligible because all it does is encapsulate and encrypt the first leg of the transmitted data.  The VPN endpoint decrypts it and sends it on its way from a different location.   This makes it appear to the other end of the connection that you are located at the VPN endpoint, and so this can be used to defeat some geographical location restrictions.  It does not protect the data beyond the endpoint.  However, that data is typically encrypted as well, so it is reasonably secure.  This is exactly the same for the data you send from a non-VPN connected device, so there is no security benefit to using the VPN.  It is only useful for obfuscating your location.

 

Beg to differ.

 

Using a VPN introduces at least one, and sometimes more, additional "legs" to the routing of your internet packets.  As such, it inherently has some additional overhead vs a straight routing to your end target.

 

If you believe that the only thing that a VPN does is to encrypt your packets, without any other considerations, I really don't want to waste my time on further discussions.  And as small evidence of my position, why does my VPN company a) provide the current latency for each of their servers and b) allow you to see the difference between them?  If there was no overhead, it wouldn't matter.  Except that it does.

 

And I won't even bother with your claim that a VPN provides no protection if someone has hacked into the Viking wifi.

 

 

[Messybill]

5 minutes ago, FlyerTalker said:

 

Beg to differ.

 

Using a VPN introduces at least one, and sometimes more, additional "legs" to the routing of your internet packets.  As such, it inherently has some additional overhead vs a straight routing to your end target.

 

If you believe that the only thing that a VPN does is to encrypt your packets, without any other considerations, I really don't want to waste my time on further discussions.  And as small evidence of my position, why does my VPN company a) provide the current latency for each of their servers and b) allow you to see the difference between them?  If there was no overhead, it wouldn't matter.  Except that it does.

 

And I won't even bother with your claim that a VPN provides no protection if someone has hacked into the Viking wifi.

 

 

That you might think that the latency of individual servers has to do with anything other than the response time of your basically useless VPN is bizarre.  Differ away.  Ignorance is bliss -- enjoy!

[CCWineLover]

OK my head is spinning!!!

[bison2013]

Like all protection, reliance on a single tool is foolhardy. VPN is another tool in what should be a robust basket of security-personal as well as information

 

For us- VPN:

• provides a level of control over our environment when all the usual security of info tools we use at home are not available
• encrypts our activity so we aren't the first/easy target
• allows our particular global village to function (ie we need to access certain location-specific tools regardless of our physical location)
• is a reminder that nothing is free- and that we need to be vigilant on using 'free' internet, 'free' transportation and the like.  Even the pop-ups of 'free' wifi available and the requirement to manually connect are a reminder to be careful- a minor but important function.

 

 

[RonWY]

A quick comment to add to what has already been said about using a VPN. There are pluses and minuses to using a VPN internationally just in terms of convenience. Many websites (including Viking and Google) are really stubborn about not routing you to their US portal, sometimes making it very difficult to accomplish something. We had the Viking website routing us to their UK portal making some things difficult. With a VPN you can usually make your location pretty much where you want. On a negative side, some few websites are equally stubborn in not letting you use a VPN.

Edited June 29, 2023 by RonWY

[Messybill]

5 hours ago, RonWY said:

With a VPN you can usually make your location pretty much where you want.

Absolutely correct -- a useful tool for geolocation.   There are some privacy benefits too, if you do not trust the websites that you are using.  However, a VPN does not provide any additional security.

[aungrl]

2 hours ago, Messybill said:

Absolutely correct -- a useful tool for geolocation.   There are some privacy benefits too, if you do not trust the websites that you are using.  However, a VPN does not provide any additional security.

This is a serious question, not sarcastic or a jab at all.  When you say "privacy benefits" vs. "security", what is the difference?  (Maybe also a dumb question, but I tend to conflate those two concepts in my head when it comes to online activity.)

[Messybill]

8 minutes ago, aungrl said:

This is a serious question, not sarcastic or a jab at all.  When you say "privacy benefits" vs. "security", what is the difference?  (Maybe also a dumb question, but I tend to conflate those two concepts in my head when it comes to online activity.)

Privacy is about not letting the website or whatever your are connecting to know where or who you are.  Obviously, if you log on to a website, for example a bank, or cruise-critic, or google, or amazon, it knows who you are, so privacy is not really relevant.    Whether you do this with a VPN or not is unimportant.  However if you want to search (for example) the symptoms of bubonic plague without anyone else knowing you are interested in that, then a VPN can help.  Because of the complexity of modern computer systems, privacy is extremely difficult to achieve in practice.

 

Security is about not allowing external access to your system or data.  Part of this is provided by a software "firewall" or antivirus, but security really means being able to do whatever transactions or interactions you want without someone else being able to read (or worse change) the data you are sending and receiving.  This involves encryption, and to be actually secure it needs to use a secure encryption algorithm (these tend to change over time), and it needs to be "end to end", meaning the data is scrambled from the moment it leaves your computer until the instant it reaches the server that you are interacting with (and vice versa).   

 

VPN's do not provide end-to-end encryption, but any modern browser does.

 

Whether privacy exists anymore is an interesting but complicated topic.

[Messybill]

One more thought:  Rather than VPNs, the thing that for most people enhances security online is 2FA or MFA (two factor / multi factor) authentication.  This significantly decreases (but does not eliminate)  the chance of someone else accessing one of your online accounts,

[CurlerRob]

28 minutes ago, Messybill said:

Whether privacy exists anymore is an interesting but complicated topic.

 

Well said. Unless you are off the grid, my opinion is that personal privacy has ceased to exist. Pretending otherwise is irrational.

 

C'est la vie. 🍺🥌

[Messybill]

Je pense que tu as raison.

 

Privacy might not be as complicated a topic as I suggested.   For example, I have little doubt that from my 87 posts on this board and various other much older (but not including FB) social media it would be reasonably straightforward for someone to identify me, my location, birthdate, occupation, spouse, and so on.  (Not very interesting, but easy enough).

 

[rmalbers]

18 hours ago, Messybill said:

Je pense que tu as raison.

 

Privacy might not be as complicated a topic as I suggested.   For example, I have little doubt that from my 87 posts on this board and various other much older (but not including FB) social media it would be reasonably straightforward for someone to identify me, my location, birthdate, occupation, spouse, and so on.  (Not very interesting, but easy enough).

 

For sure: that's how they decide what to try to sell to you.  I hope everyone knows who owns cruisecritic. 

[aungrl]

20 hours ago, Messybill said:

Privacy is about not letting the website or whatever your are connecting to know where or who you are.  Obviously, if you log on to a website, for example a bank, or cruise-critic, or google, or amazon, it knows who you are, so privacy is not really relevant.    Whether you do this with a VPN or not is unimportant.  However if you want to search (for example) the symptoms of bubonic plague without anyone else knowing you are interested in that, then a VPN can help.  Because of the complexity of modern computer systems, privacy is extremely difficult to achieve in practice.

 

Security is about not allowing external access to your system or data.  Part of this is provided by a software "firewall" or antivirus, but security really means being able to do whatever transactions or interactions you want without someone else being able to read (or worse change) the data you are sending and receiving.  This involves encryption, and to be actually secure it needs to use a secure encryption algorithm (these tend to change over time), and it needs to be "end to end", meaning the data is scrambled from the moment it leaves your computer until the instant it reaches the server that you are interacting with (and vice versa).   

 

VPN's do not provide end-to-end encryption, but any modern browser does.

 

Whether privacy exists anymore is an interesting but complicated topic.

Thank you!  Very clear, and makes complete sense.  

[Mike07]

With the exception of a few use cases, VPNs are unnecessary for the vast majority of users. Most of the YT and radio personalities that tout the need for VPNs are long on the sales pitch and short on the technical explanation. Effectively all internet traffic in 2023 is encrypted. Amazon, your mail server, and even these Cruise Critic web forums. If a hacker used tcpdump or wireshark to capture all of the traffic between my IP and Cruise Critics IP... I would not care. The same for Amazon, my bank, my investment accounts, etc.

 

Truth be told, VPNs are largely a waste of money for most users outside of a few use case scenarios.

 

If you really don't want Viking seeing what IP addresses you are connecting to, then use a VPN.