The Self-Sovereign Tunnel: Rolling Your Own VPN

Introduction: The Myth of the Silver Bullet

You’ve heard the ads. “Military-grade encryption.” “Protect yourself from hackers.” “Hide from the government.” Most commercial VPN marketing is snake oil designed to separate you from your money while centralizing your traffic data into a convenient honeypot.

Building your own VPN puts you in control of the infrastructure. It ensures there are no logs (unless you enable them), no shared IP usage with criminals (which gets IPs blacklisted), and no third-party “trust me bro” guarantees.

However, before we drop into the terminal, we need a reality check.

What a VPN DOES Protect You From

1. Local Network Snooping: When you’re on public WiFi at airport, coffee shop, or hotel, a VPN encrypts traffic between your device and your server. The guy running Wireshark at the next table sees nothing but encrypted noise.
2. ISP Surveillance (Partial): Your ISP (Comcast, AT&T, etc.) can no longer see what websites you visit, only that you are talking to a specific server (your VPN VPS).
3. Geo-Blocking: You can appear to access the internet from the country where your VPS is hosted.

What a VPN DOES NOT Protect You From

1. Browser Fingerprinting: Ad networks and trackers identify you by screen resolution, installed fonts, browser version, and canvas rendering. Your IP is just one data point.
2. Malware: A VPN does not stop you from downloading a virus.
3. Bad OpSec: Logging into Google/Facebook while on a VPN still tells Google/Facebook exactly who you are.

The Elephant in the Room: Nation-State Actors

If your threat model includes the NSA, GCHQ, MSS, or FSB, a VPN is not a cloak of invisibility.

If you conduct operations that attract the attention of a nation-state:

• Traffic Correlation: A global adversary can monitor traffic entering your VPN server and traffic leaving it. By correlating packet sizes and timing, they can mathematically prove that you are the one accessing the target resource, even with encryption.
• Server Compromise: They can legally compel the hosting provider (DigitalOcean, Linode, AWS, etc.) to snapshot your server’s memory or tap the physical line.
• Payment Trails: Did you pay for the VPS with a credit card? PayPal? Even non-anonymized crypto? They found you.

Conclusion: Use a VPN for privacy from corporations and local snoops. Do not rely on it if your life depends on anonymity. Use Tor (and even then, good luck).

The Setup: WireGuard using Algo

We will use Algo VPN, a set of Ansible scripts that simplifies the deployment of a hardened, secure-by-default WireGuard server. It is far superior to manually configuring OpenVPN, which is bloated and easy to mess up.

Prerequisites

• A terminal (Linux, macOS, or WSL on Windows).
• A cloud provider account (DigitalOcean, Vultr, Hetzner, AWS, etc.). I recommend Hetzner or Vultr for relaxed policies, though they are still subject to local laws.
• Python 3 installed.

Step 1: Clone the Repo

Get the Algo scripts from the official source.

git clone https://github.com/trailofbits/algo.git
cd algo
python3 -m venv env
source env/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

Step 2: Configure Your Deployment

You can define users in config.cfg. Open it and add the names of the people/devices who will use the VPN.

users:
  - wander_laptop
  - wander_phone
  - guest_user

Step 3: Run the Deploy Script

./algo

The script will ask you a series of questions:

1. Provider: Choose your cloud provider (e.g., DigitalOcean).
2. API Key: Paste the API key you generated in your cloud provider’s dashboard.
3. Region: Choose a region close to you for speed, or far away for geo-shifting.
4. DNS: Choose “Connect the VPN clients to a local DNS resolver” or specify a privacy-focused one (like Cloudflare 1.1.1.1 or Quad9 9.9.9.9). Do not use the local resolver if you want to bypass filtering.
5. Adblocking: Algo can set up adblocking at the DNS level. Highly recommended.

Step 4: sit back and wait

Algo will:

• Spin up a new VPS.
• Update the OS and install security patches.
• Install WireGuard.
• Configure firewall rules (only necessary ports open).
• Generate client configuration files.

Step 5: Connect

Once finished, look in the configs/ directory on your local machine.

• Mobile: Transfer the .png QR code to your phone and scan it with the WireGuard app.
• Desktop: Import the .conf file into the WireGuard desktop client.

Verification

Go to https://ipleak.net.

1. IP Address: Should match your VPS, not your home.
2. DNS Leak: Should show DNS servers belonging to your VPS provider or the public DNS you chose, not your home ISP (Comcast, etc.).

Maintenance

Your server is ephemeral. Treat it as cattle, not a pet.

• Don’t update it manually.
• Do destroy it and re-deploy a fresh one every few months. This clears any potential logs or compromises and rotates your IP rotation (if you get a new one).

Final Warning

In the world of cybersecurity, tools are not solutions. A VPN is a tool. Your operational security mindset is the solution. Stay paranoid.