VPN or DNS redirect (VPN or Smartstream)

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erol
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VPN or DNS redirect (VPN or Smartstream)

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Post by erol »

I have been asked via PM what the differences are between Streamvia's VPN service and their Smartstream service. Instead of replying privately I thought I would try and write something generic and public. Smartstream is streamvia's name for what I will generically refer to as a 'DNS redirect service'. I happen to use Streamvia myself but there are many companies offering similar services, both VPN and DNS redirect at a whole range of prices and levels of service.

Writing such a guide is not easy and trying to find the right balance between 'too much and too technical' descriptions and 'too short and simplified' is difficult. I will start with a 'summary' of differences between VPN based service and DNS redirect based service as 'bullet points' and then go on to a slightly more detailed description. I am aware that I may end up confusing some more than I help them understand and I apologise in advance if this is the case. I am just doing my best.

VPN based service
  • A VPN link affects all the traffic going from and to your machine whilst the VPN link is connected.

    Any service you connect to whilst first connected to a VPN service will only 'see' the VPN server you are connected to and not your machine itself.

    The encryption inherent with a VPN means when you send say a picture that is 1MB in size, the actual size of the data sent between you and the VPN server will be around 1.1MB in size

    Because access control is via a username and password a VPN service configured on say an iPad will work whatever internet connection you are using. So it will work from your home connection and it will work from a friends internet connection and it will work when on a 'free wifi' connection at say a cafe.

    VPN's can only be set up on devices that have or can have the necessary software to establish the VPN link on them.
DNS redirect service (what streamvia calls it's 'smartstream' service)
  • A DNS redirect based service will only affect traffic to and from your machine to the specific set of predefined destinations that the service 'supports' and traffic to and from any where else on the internet is unaffected.

    DNS redirect services can be configured on any device on which you can manually assign the DNS server that it should use. This, barring a few exceptions, is pretty much any device that can itself connect to the internet.

    There is no 'encryption' with DNS redirect services and thus no overhead associated with such.

    Access control of a DNS based service is done by attaching a given internet connection to a given service account and thus will only work with devices that are themselves connected to this singular internet connection. If and when connected to some other internet connection they will not work.

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Re: VPN or DNS redirect (VPN or Smartstream)

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Post by erol »

and for a more detailed version of the above that includes some 'why' as well as 'what' so to speak.

There are two main ways to access geographically restricited internet content when you are not in the relevant geographical area.

The first method is a 'tradtional' VPN (virtual private network).
  • What a VPN does is establish a link between your machine and a 'serving' machine located in a different geographical location. Once connected to the VPN service all your internet traffic is first passed to this server before going onward to the rest of the internet and visa versa for traffic coming back to you from a given internet destination. The link between you machine and the VPN server is virtual in that it does not represent a physical private 'wire' between you and the VPN server but actually uses the 'public' internet and the multiple physical 'wires' that make up the internet. It is private in that all traffic sent over this link between you and the VPN server is encrypted. This encryption creates an 'overhead' both in terms of the size of the data sent, of around 10%, and also in terms of some processing power at each end to do the encryption and decryption. Once connected to a VPN, when you the access say a website, your request is first encrypted and then sent to the VPN server. There it is decyrpted and passed on to the destination website you wish to access. This destination website 'sees' the VPN server machine as the originator of the request, rather than your machine. This is how a VPN makes traffic from (and to) your machine appear to be in a different geographical location. It is also why VPN's can be used to increase 'privacy'. When you connected to a website without a VPN that website knows it is 'you' who has connected to it. When you connect to the same website using a VPN the website only knows that the VPN server has connected to it and does not know who 'you' are.

    Establishing a VPN link on the user end requires some kind of client VPN software and configuration of such for use with a given VPN service. Most operating systems (windows, android, Mac OS, iOS etc) have such software built in to them that supports most of the major standards for such VPN connection. However devices like 'smart TV's' do not typically have the necessary software for VPN's built in to them nor can such software be typically added to such devices. Access control, that is how a VPN service company knows that only someone who has paid for their service can use it, is typically done via a username and password combination that verifies you have the 'right' to connect at the time you establish the VPN link. This means that such services will typically work from any internet connection
The second method is a DNS redirect service (what streamvia calls it's 'smartstream' service)
  • In order to understand how a DNS redirect service works it is necessary to explain what DNS (domain name system) is and does. The internet itself works on numerical addresses (called IP addresses). These can be thought of as the equivalent of 'phone numbers'. Any time you access something on the internet with a 'name' rather than a numerical address the first thing that happens is the name is converted in to the relevant numerical address. This is a bit like looking up someones phone number in a phone directory. This 'phone directory' is called a DNS server and typically it is provided by your ISP, though public DNS servers from the likes of google and others exist and can be used instead. So when I type in to my web browsers something like 'www.telegraph.co.uk' my machine first asks the DNS server what the IP address for 'www.telegraph.co.uk' is and the DNS server will reply with an answer like (95.101.85.174). This process of turning names in to numerical addresses is a fundamental part of the mechanics of how the internet works.

    DNS redirect services work by getting you to not use your ISP's DNS server (phone directory) but instead by getting you to use their own DNS server (phone directory). 99.99% of the time their DNS server will return the same IP address for a given name as any other DNS server (your ISP or Google's or anyone else's). However what they do for a small subset of predefined names / addresses is in essence 'lie' and do not return the IP address for that name but instead return an IP address that relates to a specific machine that they own and control. So when using a DNS redirect service when I type in 'www.telegraph.co.uk' I get the same result from their DNS server that I would have got from my ISPs or Googles and my traffic to and from my machine to that address travels exactly as it would if I had not used their DNS server. If however I type in 'itv.com' their DNS server does not give me the same IP address in reply that my IPS's or Googles server would give. It gives me an address not for itv's web server but in fact gives me an address for a machine that they themselves own and control. Thus my traffic does not travel directly to itv but actually goes to a machine owned by the DNS redirect company. This machine will then contact itv.com and itv.com will only 'see' this machine'. In turn this machine will then pass on and back data sent by your machine to it , to itv.com on 'your behalf' so to speak. Thus a DNS redirect based service will only affect traffic for those specific names / addresses that they have predefined as 'supporting' and will not affect all your other traffic. Also there is no 'encryption' in such a system and thus no 'overhead' associated with such encryption.

    Setting up a DNS redirect service typically only requires changing the DNS server that a given device uses from your IPS's DNS server to the DSN server provided by the DNS redirect provider. As DNS is such a fundamental and integral part of the mechanisms of how the internet works, pretty much any device that connect to the internet at all can be also manually be configured to use a specific DNS server. So such services can be used with things like 'smart TV's' and 'internet radios' that can not typically be configured to use a standard VPN service. Access control, that is how a DNS redirect service company knows that only someone who has paid for their service can use it, is typically done by 'attaching' a specific internet connection to a given service account. What this means is that when setting up such a service you tell the provider I am going to use this service from this specific internet connection (my home connection) only. Thus if you set up the service on say an iPad by changing that iPad's DNS server to the providers DNS server and then tell them that you are attaching your account to your home internet connection, this ipad will not redirect requests to say itv.com unless you are connected to your home internet connection as well. When connected to say a friends internet connection or a free one in a cafe it will not redirect your request to itv.com.

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Re: VPN or DNS redirect (VPN or Smartstream)

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Post by dippersgirl »

thank you Erol, that was the best explanation !!

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Re: VPN or DNS redirect (VPN or Smartstream)

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Post by alphamike »

Excellent explanation Erol. Thank you so much for taking the time to show the differences between VPN and DNS redirect in plain speaking terms.

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Re: VPN or DNS redirect (VPN or Smartstream)

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Post by erol »

Thank you aplhamike and dippersgirl for your kind words and feedback. I do find writing such 'guides' essentially in a 'vacuum' difficult and am never confident when I do so that they actually help others more than they may just confuse them further, so your feedback really does make a difference to me and is very much appreciated by me. Thanks.

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Re: VPN or DNS redirect (VPN or Smartstream)

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Post by Keithcaley »

Erol, I thought that you wrote an excellent explanation.

Thank you!

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Post by cyrob »

Thank you for this info Erol . Am currently in the UK , returning next week , have previously used MM VPN primarily for iplayer . Excuse what is probably a complete numpty question but when I went to sign up to streamvia it said 'searching for your ISP address ' . Does this mean there is no point on me getting ahead of myself and setting it up on my ipad and laptop before I return to the TRNC ?

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Post by erol »

cyrob wrote:Thank you for this info Erol . Am currently in the UK , returning next week , have previously used MM VPN primarily for iplayer . Excuse what is probably a complete numpty question but when I went to sign up to streamvia it said 'searching for your ISP address ' . Does this mean there is no point on me getting ahead of myself and setting it up on my ipad and laptop before I return to the TRNC ?
If you are using streamvia's standard VPN service then you can use it anywhere and on any internet connection so no problem setting it all up in uk and will work the same when you come to cyprus.

If you are using their smartstream service then this has to be attached to a specific internet connection. The process of 'attaching it' to a given internet connection is pretty easy and you can change. So you could set it all up in the UK and then when you come to cyprus all you need to do 'attach' your smartstream service from home (which will de attach it from your UK internet connection).

Hope this makes some kind of sense.

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Post by cyrob »

Excellent many thanks Erol

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Post by sylvester »

Hi Errol, thanks for this info which is very useful. I have just subscribed to Smartstream and as I travel from time to time it sounds to me that I should install the stream via and the Vpn. The stream via we wanted to do because we are blocked from downloading the UK programs, and from reading your write up if I attach an iPad to smart stream only then outside of my home I will not be able to use wi fi connections with that iPad as I do now. So am I right please in saying I should install both Vpn and stream via? Finally, stupid question - stream via overwrites my Multimax settings in the wi fi - what happens if I get it wrong, can I go back to MM and if so how please (always have a plan B!!). Thanks a lot, keith

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Re: VPN or DNS redirect (VPN or Smartstream)

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Post by erol »

sylvester wrote:Hi Errol, thanks for this info which is very useful. I have just subscribed to Smartstream and as I travel from time to time it sounds to me that I should install the stream via and the Vpn. The stream via we wanted to do because we are blocked from downloading the UK programs, and from reading your write up if I attach an iPad to smart stream only then outside of my home I will not be able to use wi fi connections with that iPad as I do now. So am I right please in saying I should install both Vpn and stream via? Finally, stupid question - stream via overwrites my Multimax settings in the wi fi - what happens if I get it wrong, can I go back to MM and if so how please (always have a plan B!!). Thanks a lot, keith
Yes I would do both on the iPad. Configure it for smartstream use (set manual dns settings) and also set up the normal VPN on it. When on your own internet connection that smartstream is attached to, bbc and other predefined sites should just work vis smartstream / dns redirect without you having to do anything else. When on any other connection, connect to the normal vpn as needed. To un-configure the ipad for smartstream use it is just a case of changing the dns setting back to 'automatic / via dhcp'. Hope that makes some kind of sense.

Just to be clear if you have set up smartstream on your ipad then when connected to internet connections other than your own everything will still work as normal, other than the 'defined' sites like bbc etc. With smartstream enabled and not on the singular smartstream connection attached to that smartstream account, if you go to bbc iplayer you will get a streamvia.com warning page saying something like the IP address is not set up for smartstream. However all other sites will work as normal (and for bbc etc you can just connect to the normal vpn)

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