How to Hide Your Location And Work or Watch TV from Anywhere using A VPN.

Are you a digital nomad that needs to work remotely and would like to do so from any place in the world? Or Are you an Expat that lives abroad but needs to pay bills in your local county in the United States but can’t access the website from your new country? Or, are you an expat who lives abroad and would like to watch the Super Bowl in English or USA TV Series on one of the streaming platforms but is not sure how?

Well, you will want to watch this VPN video as I break down what you need to know about How to Hide Your Location using VPN technology.

1: I will explain the VPN technology.

2: I will explain the difference between Hardware and Software VPNs.

3: I will give three use cases for using a VPN while living in Mexico.

And at the end of this article, I’m going to share essential information and give you a recommendation if you plan to use a VPN for remote working.

VPN technology has been around for a long time. It was designed to allow remote workers of a company to connect to company resources over the public internet securely. This is still one of the most popular and legitimate uses of the technology. However, in recent years, with the proliferation of malware and bad actors on the internet, VPN technology has been increasingly used by regular consumers outside of corporate america to provide protection on public wifi networks.

VPN stands for virtual private networks. VPN technology allows for a device on one end (the client) to set up a {virtual tunnel} to a device located in another physical location, say the United States (VPN server). The data that is transmitted between the VPN client and the VPN server is encrypted. Therefore, no one can see inside this Private Network or VPN a connection.

This is the closest thing we have in 2022 to the teleporter on the Star Trek Enterprise. If you are a trekky, let me know in the comments below.

It allows the VPN client to appear on the same network as the VPN server while literally being anywhere in the world.

VPN technology exists in two form factors, VPN software, and VPN hardware devices. Software VPNs allow you to install them on any device, be it an iPhone, android tv, Amazon firestick, android phone, computers, and routers. This flexibility allows users to connect and encrypt the traffic on a device-by-device basis.

Hardware VPNs typically run the OpenVPN or WireGuard communication protocols and allow the router to act on the client-side of the VPN connection. A hardware VPN allows for every device connected to it to be hidden by the VPN. A hardware VPN is an excellent solution for the digital nomad that needs to work remotely or an expat that needs all the devices in their house connected to the VPN. Using a VPN router to work abroad comes down to choosing the right router with both client and server capabilities.

Most routers will support VPN connections and allow clients to connect to the router, but not all allow the router to act as a client. Also, check out our article on VPN Setup Hack

What can you do with a VPN?

Once you have a secure VPN connection, you can watch shows only available in certain regions on streaming platforms. Some streaming platforms will only work while on a VPN server because as they are not available outside of the United States. Others have availability but offer only a regional catalog based on the country you are connecting from.

Another way I used VPN technology was to pay for my electric bill and water bills to my local EMC provider in Georgia that blocking access to their services from computers outside of the United States. This is a common policy among state and local governments because they provide services only to clients in particular regions or counties. Therefore, there is no need for computers from Russia to connect to the local servers. Blocking IP addresses from remote countries is also a standard policy in local school districts because most students will live geographically located in a close area in most cases.

The last use case is for digital nomads that work remotely. A VPN will hide your location by hiding the true IP address of the client device. VPN will allow the remote computer to connect to websites and potentially corporate intranet pages from abroad. *However, I must caution you on this last point.* I spent 20 years in the data security space. You should be aware deep packet technology exists on today's security devices and basic vpn services can be blocked by the signature of the VPN traffic by network administrators or nation-states (Think Regimes around the world that have an interest in censorship) and that do not want to allow encrypted traffic. Some VPN server providers like NORDVPN also provide for obfuscated servers that are specialized to block the traffic signatures that there servers provide to fool FW devices with Deep packet inspection. I recommend that you do not try to use VPN technology if you are an employee of a government agency or large corporation with sensitive data. Most of the Fortune 500 companies have Deep Packet Inspection Technology.

I will provide my affiliate link to NordVPN in the description below. Clicking that link will help me out financially should you decide to become a NordVPN custom. I have also provided the link to the VPN router that I use when I am on a foreign network. It offers the ability to encrypt all of the traffic behind the device.

Until Next Time,

MexitPlans Monte “I’m Out”