Sonic.net

Is there a policy statement anywhere about Sonic's free VPN offering, detailing things like whether it logs anything, how long logs are kept, etc?

I looked around a little but didn't find anything on that.

We haven't posted anything specific to the VPN, but this service falls under our broader Privacy Policies: https://www.sonic.com/privacy-policy

• Sonic never sells our member information or usage data, nor do we voluntarily provide government or law enforcement with access to any data about users for surveillance purposes.
  
  Sonic minimizes data retention, keeping data from 0 – 14 days for dynamic IP addresses and other logs and commits to EFF’s privacy-friendly Do Not Track policy. We believe that user data should not be retained longer than necessary, and that users deserve to have a clear understanding of personal data held by service providers.
  
  Sonic is also against the re-authorization of Section 702 (the law behind the PRISM and Upstream programs). Governments and other entities should not collect huge quantities of phone, email or other internet usage data directly from the physical infrastructure of any communications provider.

You can read more about our policies here: https://wiki.sonic.net/wiki/Category:Policies

dct wrote:We haven't posted anything specific to the VPN, but this service falls under our broader Privacy Policies: https://www.sonic.com/privacy-policy

• Sonic never sells our member information or usage data, nor do we voluntarily provide government or law enforcement with access to any data about users for surveillance purposes.
  
  Sonic minimizes data retention, keeping data from 0 – 14 days for dynamic IP addresses and other logs and commits to EFF’s privacy-friendly Do Not Track policy. We believe that user data should not be retained longer than necessary, and that users deserve to have a clear understanding of personal data held by service providers.
  
  Sonic is also against the re-authorization of Section 702 (the law behind the PRISM and Upstream programs). Governments and other entities should not collect huge quantities of phone, email or other internet usage data directly from the physical infrastructure of any communications provider.

You can read more about our policies here: https://wiki.sonic.net/wiki/Category:Policies

This sounds well and good for Sonic Fiber Customers; BUT, what about FTTN Customers where Sonic "piggybacks" off of the AT&T U-Verse Internet Backbone? Does AT&T monitor and keep Sonic Customers' data traffic and information??? (Something to think about...) :-O


TL

TimeLord04 wrote:

dct wrote:We haven't posted anything specific to the VPN, but this service falls under our broader Privacy Policies: https://www.sonic.com/privacy-policy

• Sonic never sells our member information or usage data, nor do we voluntarily provide government or law enforcement with access to any data about users for surveillance purposes.
  
  Sonic minimizes data retention, keeping data from 0 – 14 days for dynamic IP addresses and other logs and commits to EFF’s privacy-friendly Do Not Track policy. We believe that user data should not be retained longer than necessary, and that users deserve to have a clear understanding of personal data held by service providers.
  
  Sonic is also against the re-authorization of Section 702 (the law behind the PRISM and Upstream programs). Governments and other entities should not collect huge quantities of phone, email or other internet usage data directly from the physical infrastructure of any communications provider.

You can read more about our policies here: https://wiki.sonic.net/wiki/Category:Policies

This sounds well and good for Sonic Fiber Customers; BUT, what about FTTN Customers where Sonic "piggybacks" off of the AT&T U-Verse Internet Backbone? Does AT&T monitor and keep Sonic Customers' data traffic and information??? (Something to think about...) :-O


TL

As far as I know SONIC buys ATT bandwidth at wholesale and applies the same security measures to the traffic passing by ATT network ( which means no ATT doesn't keep your data traffic and info )

TimeLord04 wrote:This sounds well and good for Sonic Fiber Customers; BUT, what about FTTN Customers where Sonic "piggybacks" off of the AT&T U-Verse Internet Backbone? Does AT&T monitor and keep Sonic Customers' data traffic and information??? (Something to think about...) :-O

TL

Our wholesale bulk agreement doesn't allow traffic monitoring - but they log allocated IPs for much longer than we do, so we provide free VPN for those who want to avoid that.

miken wrote:

TimeLord04 wrote:This sounds well and good for Sonic Fiber Customers; BUT, what about FTTN Customers where Sonic "piggybacks" off of the AT&T U-Verse Internet Backbone? Does AT&T monitor and keep Sonic Customers' data traffic and information??? (Something to think about...) :-O

TL

Our wholesale bulk agreement doesn't allow traffic monitoring - but they log allocated IPs for much longer than we do, so we provide free VPN for those who want to avoid that.

What's an "allocated IP"? Would that just be the IP addresses of the devices in my LAN? Or, something else?

mediahound wrote: What's an "allocated IP"? Would that just be the IP addresses of the devices in my LAN? Or, something else?

It's the public IP address currently assigned to the WAN side of your router. It can change over time, but it has nothing to do with the IP addresses your router assigns to devices on your local LAN.

Bill

wa2ibm wrote:

mediahound wrote: What's an "allocated IP"? Would that just be the IP addresses of the devices in my LAN? Or, something else?

It's the public IP address currently assigned to the WAN side of your router. It can change over time, but it has nothing to do with the IP addresses your router assigns to devices on your local LAN.

Bill

Thanks. Could the Sonic VPN potentially be faster than not using it? I always thought a VPN could not ever be faster and I know ping times will be slower, but I've been reading conflicting information regarding streaming and downloads.

mediahound wrote:Could the Sonic VPN potentially be faster than not using it? I always thought a VPN could not ever be faster and I know ping times will be slower, but I've been reading conflicting information regarding streaming and downloads.

The VPN also implements compression which is unlike your normal (non-VPN) connection. Thus, speed tests done via VPN might possibly show a faster speed but, it's just smoke and mirrors. As you suspect, it's not really faster, it just seems like it.

Bill

wa2ibm wrote:

mediahound wrote:Could the Sonic VPN potentially be faster than not using it? I always thought a VPN could not ever be faster and I know ping times will be slower, but I've been reading conflicting information regarding streaming and downloads.

The VPN also implements compression which is unlike your normal (non-VPN) connection. Thus, speed tests done via VPN might possibly show a faster speed but, it's just smoke and mirrors. As you suspect, it's not really faster, it just seems like it.

Bill

Thanks.