So I’ve got one of those unlimited data plans that caps you after a certain amount anyway. I keep my phone off Wi-Fi at work for privacy reasons and so they can’t see when I’m watching YouTube and stuff while doing mindless stuff. I also stream music pretty much constantly at work, but I’m not worried about them knowing that.
It’s a small company with one IT guy, so I don’t think security is too sophisticated, and even if I was caught watching porn or something, I honestly don’t think I’d get more than a slap on the wrist. I don’t have to register my device to get on Wi-Fi. It’s a pretty chill place.
I know virtually nothing about VPNs, so my question is can I use a VPN to stream shows on my phone sometimes to save some data without them seeing what I’m doing? I know IT would be able to see internet traffic but it would be hidden, so he wouldn’t be able to see what exactly it is, right? I guess if the guy sees the hidden traffic and somehow cared enough to figure out it’s me using a VPN and confronts me, would I be able to explain it away as music streaming?
A VPN will encrypt your data so no one can see the contents of it. Though with that said don’t be that guy who makes IT life hard. I hardly imagine him caring about you being on YouTube during working hours as IT folks are busy with other responsibilities. By using a VPN that could be a signal for IT to investigate what is going on as even though they can’t see what the data is, they can see the encrypted data stream. I don’t like see encrypted data on my network especially if there isn’t suppose to be any. So I would devote time to figuring out what it is and if that is too much of a hassle, I would block it once I’m sure it isn’t important.
They’re going to know your phone is streaming a constant quantity of data through a VPN connection. They’re not stupid. They’ll know you’re dicking around on your phone.
This is exactly my VPN use. Connect to works wifi + VPN and save data. At most they will know how much data you’ve used and that you’re potentially connected to a VPN, that’s it. You could say it’s apps updating, media downloading etc.
Apps updating is barely any data but they are going to ask what you are downloading that is taking massive amounts of data.
They probably aren’t but they might.