Discussion about VPN and ISP issues on the local network
Discussion about VPN and ISP issues on the local network
I dislike the thought of my ISP tracking what I browse. Whether it's watching Linus on my Smart TV (from my PC) or streaming homemade videos on my 4K TV (also from my PC). My main concern is whether my ISP can monitor my local network. For instance, I plan to upload videos soon, but I don’t want my ISP to find out details about my activities, because my personal life is private—even though those videos might end up on YouTube for others. I’m using Mezzmo so far. So far, I’ve posted a random clip and streamed it to my smart TV. I assume I’m safe from ISP monitoring, since it would be local traffic.
Your internet service provider can perform detailed packet analysis to collect metadata about your internet usage. Most online activity is encrypted, so they can't view the raw data, but they can form reasonable assumptions about it. In reality, no ISP typically tracks its customers this way. For the typical user, most collected information comes from DNS queries. Adjusting your DNS settings on the router can prevent this data collection. Concerning your local network, if you connect through the ISP gateway, it might report on connected devices, but it won't see details about individual machines behind it. If you have your own router set up behind the gateway, the gateway only sees the router itself and can't access devices on your network unless you configure it differently.
Traffic stays within your local devices via the router, not the WAN. An ISP gateway might theoretically gather some data about your local connections, such as byte transfers, but outside your network won’t see the actual packets—unless there’s a major security issue or malware is present. Using your own router removes any possibility of your ISP monitoring your local network activity.