Can anyone shed light on why the banner associated with safety dot won’t go away? (Stating it’s connected)
@Miki @TXRon @TP-Dracoo @Bigrich @everyone @TROYPOINT
***** MESSAGES WITH VPNSAFETYDOT *****
As posted above, I reached out to the Facebook support site for VPN Safety Dot and here is our conversation:
Dot: i guess they keep the VPN connection and just shut down the internet.
Me: Can you tell me the mechanics of how Dot works?
Dot: I can’t disclose all the methodologies here, but the focus in detection is to verify a secure and private Internet connection.
The verification combines several methods.
Verifying that traffic is routed over a secure VPN protocol is one method of doing this.
Me: I’m willing to share my SS with you if you’d like to test, just send me a DM.
Dot: hey thank you for your feedback. I already have the feeling that surfshark keeps the VPN connection up but only does not allow a connection to the Internet.
This would mean that the VPN is still active but only the Internet is cut off actively by surfshark. I will buy surfshark the next few days and test it then
Me: I wish I knew how I could contribute, buy you a coffee/beer, etc.!
***** Waiting for a response, will definitely send a couple bucks if I can find a way *****
Once again, 2 different services that conflick… surfshark handles its data independently becuase of the working kill switch. You are trying to get one service to support a separate action and app which probably wont happen.
Yup works exactly as I mentioned and you got the exact answer I suspected. 
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The ultimate end goal would be for SS to use the interest and information about Safety Dot to potentially develop their own feature within the App. And be able to function with kill switch somehow.
Hey, we’re cord cutters, we can dream right? 
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While I would actually prefer for a third party to do the Dot checking on SS for a “second set of eyes” type of verification, but that may or may not ever happen and I would 100% take SS implementing their own visual status dot over nothing 
My system is so powerful that I don’t have to worry at all about resource utilization, but if it wasn’t then I might even prefer SS adding their own dot just to save resources.
Apps from different vendors work in concert all the time. For instance I use MX Player within Syncler. In fact that’s often preferred. When I designed the infrastructure for an investment bank a while back I had the staff implement antivirus from one company and firewalls from another and web filtering from a third, etc. Some times they became in conflict and I had to reach out to their vendors for solutions. I didn’t just say “oh well guess I have to switch to a Norton all in one solution”.
Maybe this gets Dot to modify its code so it works with SS.
Maybe this gets SS to modify its code to work with Dot.
Maybe this gets SS to add its own dot feature.
Maybe it goes nowhere and nothing changes.
There’s nothing wrong with me trying to get two products from two vendors each working the way they were designed. There’s nothing wrong with asking the question and there’s nothing wrong with me reaching out to this forum for advice or to raise awareness. Clearly Troypoint Insiders care lol this thread is approaching 70 replies, which is exponentially more than most threads.
This is just regular IT security stuff to me. I enjoy it. I enjoy this forum and the banter this thread has created. To that end I really appreciate your comments and time spent as a forum monitor. I really appreciate the time and energy everyone in here put in responding to and helping me understand how this all works. It’s a sickness needing to know every little detail about how my tech works, but it’s my sickness! 
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Quote:
“Maybe this gets Dot to modify its code so it works with SS.”
The thing is it already works with Surfshark, exactly as it was coded to. Sorry I should modify that statement a bit, it works with SS perfectly on my AFTKA 4K Max, I haven’t wasted my time on other devices.
My expectation for the dot is that green means I’m currently protected and red means I’m not. Simple.
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That’s why I use the safety dot, although thumb up(or green dot) I’m safe, thumb down(or red dot) unsafe, for me. It does that one job without conflicts or problems. A simple tool.
This is where we see it differently. Why would SS’s killswitch engage? It only should engage if the vpn connection is dropped. What is Dot supposed to do if the vpn connection is dropped? It should turn red. It doesn’t.
If we can agree that the “way Dot is supposed to work” is that it’s supposed to turn red when there is no vpn connection; and if we can agree that “the way SS’s killswitch is supposed to work” is that it stops Internet traffic when it detects there is no longer a vpn connection; then I don’t know what’s left to take into consideration.
But I’m actually really glad you got me to think about it this way because if you look above when I posted the response from Dot’s coder, he said he suspects SS is keeping the VPN connection and killing the traffic, but that doesn’t make any sense at all. I literally open the SS GUI and click the “disconnect” button and the killswitch engages, but the Dot stays green. That is undeniable proof that SS is doing something wrong, or at least something so unexpected that it fools the Dot, because there simply is no vpn connection the moment I click the disconnect button.
Now, if “Dot is working correctly” is defined as “stays green so long as you are protected” then yes, I would have to agree with that, but if it’s defined as “ stays green so long as vpn is connected” then no, I wouldn’t say it’s working correctly.
I give up. The vpn works perfectly, as does safety dot, Killswitch engaged>vpn is active and you are protected, in fact safe as you are not sending or receiving data on an open IP connection. The safety dot remains green as you are safe. Disconnect SS by force stopping and the safety dot turns red, you are unsafe. Job done. I’m leaving it here as the definitive answer has been given and there is absolutely nothing to fix. I wish you luck. I do agree it would be nice if the VPN actually provided an icon, as it does on my phone, showing connected or disconnected on our streaming devices for their VPN.
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I certainly agree with you this thread has been answered!
At this point new people are jumping in posting the same stuff that has already been addressed (multiple times lol) and there’s nothing left I expect from here. I’ve contacted both the SS and Dot devs so it’s up to them now. If I hear back from them I’ll post an update or maybe you’ll see it in a future release.
Thank you all!
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Its because you are comparing 2 different programs and think they should work in unison… which is true but how @Miki discribbed it is how that works. Surfshark has the internet connection completely threw its network to encrypt it which is why the dev has said to what he thinks is happening. So this is why its hard to have to programs like this run.
People have grown to like seeing that little dot up there… but its not an end all, if the kill switch works you are protected. I guess the dot is just an assurance however as it stands the dot will still show green even if the kill switch is activated…pretty sure the movie etc will be a dead give away somethings up … as dracula said a vpn company could code this in to the product if they wanted to show that the switch is activated? I guess… but I digress…the Terminator list is on 
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I don’t have SS any more. But I thought I remembered that when the VPN went down the kill switch kicked in and when it did a notification popped up with a red haze, but don’t quote me. The safety dot has been a valuable tool for those VPNs that don’t have a kill switch, it’s why I got it in the first place. Still works exactly as it should even when a VPN does or doesn’t have a killswitch. I’ll always use it.
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Chicken or the egg?
Yes 
