Beware Free VPN Apps!
There is a game on the Meta virtual reality headset called Gorilla Tag, which you may or may not have heard of, but apparently it is very popular. What is also popular is using a VPN while playing the game to produce just enough lag to give you an advantage over your opponents. Why lag makes you better is not the interesting thing though, it is the free VPN being used to generate the lag which is. Big Mama VPN is a free Android app which happens to work with the Meta headset and it seems to be the go to app for fans of Gorilla Tag, however there is something about that app users may not be paying attention to.
When you sign up to use the app, buried in the terms and agreements, is that you consent to allow Big Mama VPN to sell access to your 4G and home Wi-Fi IP addresses for a price. The app does function as a VPN but the second use is to allow anyone who pays Big Mama to use your IP as a proxy address for whatever they want. The terms of that part of the business suggest the IP address could be used for “ad verification, buying online tickets, price comparison, web scraping, SEO, and a host of other use cases.” It can, and apparently has, be used for more nefarious purposes, it is perfectly build to use your IP address in DDoS attacks or to obfuscate a hacker’s actual IP address when they try to break into remote systems.
Remember, if the app is free it means you are the product and this is a perfect example of that truism.
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