Who can see me streaming videos?

[rikdegraaff]

Hello all,

 

First of all, I do not know if this question is posted here at the right spot, if not please move it to the right category.
I wanted to ask a specific use case while streaming videos on my Android phone.

 

So who can see me streaming data and is that data/video unencrypted or not.
When I am travelling outside of my home network, I have my Android phone on my mobile/cellular data plan.
When I open a video via my WireGuard tunnel to my Unraid box, on my Android phone, who can see me watching that video and who can see the data of the video?
Is that encrypted through WireGuard or not?

 

I am asking this because I cannot set up a PIA VPN connection AND a WireGuard tunnel to my home network (via Unraid)...
So am I in the clear or can justice or hackers see what I am streaming?

 

Thanks in advance for all the help.

Kind regards!

[apandey]

A wireguard VPN tunnel is encrypted. If it was not you would have much bigger problems than "who can see your streams". Problems like who else can reach your unraid server and home network and do whatever they wanted with it

Having said this, a VPN tunnel is as secure as how it's keys are managed and software is kept up to date, so if you are exposing unraid from outside your network, you should always be on the lookout for malicious activity

[rikdegraaff]

@apandey so If I interpret your answer correctly nobody including my mobile carrier can see what I stream to my Android phone.
That would be the best outcome for me as it is not possible on Android to connect and to PIA and to an other WireGuard tunnel...

 

Am I right stating this?

Edited January 27, 2023 by rikdegraaff

[MrGrey]

I find people misundterstanding VPN too often. PIA only matters if you want to spoof yourself. A VPN "tunnel" to your server is completely different (imho). One is a public VPN and the other is a private VPN. If you're worried about traffic to your "private" server then you need a "private" VPN and not a public one (like PIA).

 

Clear as mud?... I use PIA (not affiliated in any way), but NOT for access to my server (local/private VPN for that).

 

MrGrey

 

[rikdegraaff]

Me neither, but I wanted to know who can see when I connect to my server from outside my LAN, and then via WireGuard.

Because in some EU countries it is illegal to even stream from a illegal source, so I would be safe streaming my series to my phone.
I am not that acquainted with VPN's so thats why the question.

[ConnerVT]

1 hour ago, rikdegraaff said:

Me neither, but I wanted to know who can see when I connect to my server from outside my LAN,

 

OK, this makes your question/concern much clearer.

 

A VPN is an encrypted connection from one point (device) to another point (device).  Someone (ISP or one who gains access along the interconnected machines between these two points) can see which 2 points are connected and the data, but since the data is encrypted cannot easily tell what is being sent.

 

Using a public VPN service (such as PIA or NordVPN), you are connecting your phone to their device with the encrypted tunnel.  From there, they connect to your server over the Internet as any non-VPN connection would.

 

Using a private VPN tunnel, such as Wireguard set up on your server and corresponding Wireguard client on your phone, the encrypted tunnel covers the entire path between your server and your phone.

[rikdegraaff]

Okay, thanks for the very clear explanation. 

I understand that when I open a file on my mobile phone via WireGuard on my Unraid box the full stream is encrypted.

 

So am I correct to determine that no one can see what I am streaming. They only see that I am streaming some file to my phone but not the content. Am I right? 

 

Thanks again for the explanations. 

[ConnerVT]

Correct.