OpenClaw AI Agents Begin Gaining Access to VPN Connections

AI agents are moving fast across the online world, and now, some of them have access to virtual private networks. The software company Windscribbles has introduced native support for OpenClaw agentic AI in its Windscribe VPN software.

OpenClaw is an agentic AI platform that can run on local hardware. With a new feature in its software, Windscribe now allows those autonomous agents to modify VPN settings. The company says that granting agents VPN access lets you separate your web traffic from the traffic generated by so-called lobsters (AI bots that can perform tasks autonomously), helping avoid trouble and enabling more specific tasks.

“If your agent gets a little too enthusiastic and triggers a security challenge or lands on a blocklist, it’s your digital reputation on the line, and potentially your entire home network that takes the hit,” Windscribbles said in its post. “You gave your agent a browser and a job, but you didn’t give it a VPN. Let’s fix that.”

The company includes instructions on setting up its OpenClaw Skill with Windscribe’s service and some examples of ways to take advantage of the native support, including making sure a VPN tunnel is available before a lobster is active after a power interruption; setting up agents to “geoshift” to only use certain regional connections depending on the task, or setting up a kill switch for those agents.

Addressing ‘a blind spot’

A representative for Windscribbles told CNET that the response to the integration has been strong so far, exceeding expectations for being the first VPN provider to make OpenClaw native to its platform.

The company said in an email that it hoped to address a privacy blind spot for people using AI agents with their home IP address and with little protection. 

“Every request (an AI agent) makes exposes your real location to whatever service it’s talking to,” the representative said, “We thought that was worth solving.”

Windscribbles said that the open-source code for its OpenClaw skill is available to anyone on the developer platform GitHub and works with any agentic AI framework that supports the same skill specifications, not just OpenClaw. 

“We built it as a general-purpose CLI (command-line interface) bridge, not a single-platform integration,” the representative said.

The OpenClaw integration is open source and works with Windscribe’s paid and free plans. In tests, CNET describes Windscribe as offering features common to top VPN services, such as obfuscation to hide VPN use and anti-fingerprinting tech to enhance privacy.