[HN Gopher] WireGuard multihop available in the Mullvad app
___________________________________________________________________
 
WireGuard multihop available in the Mullvad app
 
Author : qalter
Score  : 280 points
Date   : 2022-04-12 16:54 UTC (6 hours ago)
 
web link (mullvad.net)
w3m dump (mullvad.net)
 
| doubleorseven wrote:
| "The entry WireGuard server will be able to see your source IP
| and which exit server the traffic is headed for, but it can't see
| any of the traffic."
| 
| So server2 terminates the request twice? One for server1 and
| another time for the client who generated the request? I don't
| understand how it's possible for server1 to not be exposed to the
| data.
 
  | [deleted]
 
  | justsomehnguy wrote:
  | You probably missed
  | 
  | > It's a WireGuard tunnel being sent _inside another WireGuard
  | tunnel_
  | 
  | Edit: replaced with a better diagram (and again, now based on
  | example in [0]):                                  V    V
  | V    V                       YOU->NL1 tunnel           SE4->NL1
  | tunnel           PLAIN/TLS                      YOU
  | --------------------> SE4 -------------------> NL1
  | ---------------> CATPICS.COM              On the wire:
  | YOU->SE4 traffic          SE4->NL1 traffic
  | NL1->CATPICS.COM traffic
  | +----------------+        +----------------+
  | +------+         Inside:      |YOU->NL1 traffic|
  | |YOU->NL1 traffic|            | DATA |
  | +----------------+        +----------------+
  | +------+
  | 
  | [0] https://mullvad.net/en/help/wireguard-and-mullvad-vpn/
 
    | topdancing wrote:
    | This isn't how it works. If you actually pull down one of
    | their multihop configurations - you'll see:
    | 
    | - the WireGuard public key for server 2
    | 
    | - the IP address for server 1
    | 
    | - a unique port for server2 on server 1
    | 
    | So all they're doing is a standard iptables redirect to the
    | second host (which may or may not itself be under a WireGuard
    | tunnel).
 
      | justsomehnguy wrote:
      | Well, I stand corrected, because I relied on their promo
      | description. *shrug_emoji*
      | 
      | I replaced the diagram in the previous comment, take a
      | look.
 
| kingkawn wrote:
| Not available on their mobile app?
 
| BrightOne wrote:
| Seems similar to ProtonVPN's Secure Core, but using Wireguard
| directly. Nice.
 
  | mirceal wrote:
  | I see you like wireguard, so i put a wireguard connection in
  | your wireguard connection. jokes aside, huge fan of wireguard
  | and mullvad
 
| Trias11 wrote:
| +2 Mullvad
 
| cpressland wrote:
| This thread seems to be full of people that use a VPN, I
| personally don't as I find DoH + HTTPS to be enough.
| 
| Why do so many of you use VPNs?
 
  | trashburger wrote:
  | 1) To simply make it harder for my ISP to see which websites I
  | visit.
  | 
  | 2) SNI sniffing makes some websites unavailable to me, so DoH
  | isn't enough.
 
    | cpressland wrote:
    | I'd never considered SNI sniffing. Great point. I'm quite
    | fortunate in that the ISP I'm with (AAISP) is fairly privacy
    | first and don't _appear_ to be snooping on me in any
    | meaningful way.
    | 
    | That said, I can't say the same for my phone provider.
 
      | godelski wrote:
      | But do you also trust your phone carrier? (I don't trust
      | either my ISP nor my phone) Or when you're out on WiFi that
      | isn't yours? It's a cheap way to add a little extra bit of
      | security and privacy.
 
      | judge2020 wrote:
      | > don't _appear_ to be snooping on me in any meaningful
      | way.
      | 
      | SNI is cleartext enough to be passively logged, so you
      | never know. Maybe some government-mandated (or supplied)
      | switch is logging them to some short-lived log file in case
      | they ever need to pull your hostname history.
      | 
      | Note that SNI sniffing protection is in the works by
      | encrypting the client hello[0]. While it's been in draft
      | for some years now, Chrome has a lot of work being put into
      | it[1], so hopefully it'll be done sometime next year with
      | support within Cloudflare and browsers soon after.
      | 
      | 0: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-tls-
      | esni/?includ...
      | 
      | 1: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=10
      | 9140... (comment 20 onwards)
 
    | justsomehnguy wrote:
    | 3) Even without SNI sniffing and DoH some sites could be
    | outright banned by IP so you can't reach them anyway.
 
  | spmurrayzzz wrote:
  | I think DoH + HTTPS works well in concert with a VPN, they're
  | not mutually exclusive. VPN has a host of benefits, including
  | relative anonymity, that go beyond encrypted egress to the
  | public web.
 
  | otterley wrote:
  | I use it to watch my streaming service subscriptions while I'm
  | traveling abroad.
 
| dosshell wrote:
| 10 years ago i was working at in a shared office where companies
| could hire a room. We all had a common lunch place and shared
| microwaves.
| 
| There I met two security nerds. They never shutdown their
| computers and if it happened, they did a full format and
| reinstalled the os - because if security.
| 
| They spoke with passion about security fixes they made in the vpn
| client that no other had.
| 
| They got many requests regularly from others that they should add
| there server as an endpoint - and they sad always no. All
| endpoints must be 100% secure by their knowledge. Never trust
| anyone.
| 
| If they had to leave a laptop they used some old coffee paper
| trick so that one could not open the lid without visible marks.
| 
| I was super impressed by them and have never met any like them. I
| guess they have grown out of their tiny office now, Mullvad.
 
  | [deleted]
 
  | [deleted]
 
    | [deleted]
 
  | gavinray wrote:
  | > "They never shutdown their computers and if it happened, they
  | did a full format and reinstalled the os - because if
  | security."
  | 
  | I don't get it
 
    | [deleted]
 
    | dosshell wrote:
    | I don't recall why, it was so long time ago. But my best
    | guess is that they wanted to guarantee that they know what
    | has been booted?
 
    | justsomehnguy wrote:
    | Offline attack aka Evil Maid
 
  | Rastonbury wrote:
  | What is the coffee paper trick?
 
    | LanternLight83 wrote:
    | It must be attached such it tears when opened, tamper-
    | evident- similar techniques are common fro doors, either
    | across the frame or more stealthily near the hinge. You want
    | it to be a little stealth because an informed adversary could
    | break the seal, remove it, and be prepared to
    | replace/recreate it when they're done (like faking a new wax
    | seal)
 
      | cma wrote:
      | Maybe overspray some spraypaint on the paper first and take
      | a picture of the droplet pattern, so it can't be replaced
      | easily.
 
        | dosshell wrote:
        | spot on, but they used coffee to make a unique pattern.
 
  | oceanplexian wrote:
  | I would think you'd do the exact opposite.
  | 
  | If you leave a computer running anyone (Well "anyone" being a
  | skilled adversary) can simply pull out the RAM and grab
  | encryption keys in clear text. Law enforcement does this so
  | often, it's practically routine. The only "safe" system is one
  | that has been long powered off and is using tried and true
  | cryptography, ideally open-source FDE that's been fully
  | audited.
 
    | WhitneyLand wrote:
    | It's practically routine for law enforcement to extract
    | encryption keys from RAM, since when?
    | 
    | I've only heard of it being done by researchers and/or
    | special situations.
    | 
    | Is this just speculation?
 
    | goodpoint wrote:
    | > pull out the RAM
    | 
    | ...which could be soldered. Plus, there are methods to store
    | keys in RAM in encrypted form and decrypt them only on the
    | cache and CPU registers.
 
    | vladvasiliu wrote:
    | > can simply pull out the RAM and grab encryption keys in
    | clear text
    | 
    | Leaving aside the leg work "simply" does here, especially in
    | a coffee shop environment: would AMD's "encrypted memory"
    | help against these kinds of attacks?
    | 
    | I have a laptop with an AMD Zen 3 Pro CPU that has this
    | option in the BIOS and was wondering whether it actually did
    | any good, as opposed to being just some marketing shtick.
 
    | matheusmoreira wrote:
    | > pull out the RAM and grab encryption keys in clear text
    | 
    | How to defend against this?
 
      | goodpoint wrote:
      | there are methods to store keys in RAM in encrypted form
      | and decrypt them only on the cache and CPU registers
 
      | sodality2 wrote:
      | Shut down your device, don't leave it on at all times. I
      | don't know if there's a way to suspend and encrypt RAM
      | though. But other than that, there's no way to keep a
      | computer running without the miscellaneous data being kept
      | in RAM
 
        | deno wrote:
        | Besides memory encryption (AMD PRO & Epyc) you can zero-
        | out in-use memory keys before suspend & restore on
        | resume, preferably using sealed storage, like TPM. This
        | is 'the' reason to prefer home encryption vs. full disk.
        | The thing is if someone is prepared to attack your laptop
        | with liquid nitrogen they might as well just wait for you
        | to unlock your laptop and then steal it right there, or
        | watch you type in your password; better get your privacy
        | blanket ready ;) Not having physical security is a huge
        | disadvantage, and there's really no way around it--you
        | automatically start in the defeated position, and have to
        | stack gizmos just to break even.
 
    | codewiz wrote:
    | Full disk encryption won't prevent "evil maid" attacks where
    | keylogging hardware is interposed between the keyboard and
    | the main board, or the entire board is swapped with one with
    | firmware enabling remote "management".
 
    | hatware wrote:
    | > simply pull out the RAM
    | 
    | One does not simply pull out the RAM
 
    | gzer0 wrote:
    | Mullvad is fully open source, with the source code provided
    | here [1], which has also undergone multiple rounds of audits
    | with the reports available to the public [2][3].
    | 
    | [1] https://github.com/mullvad
    | 
    | [2] https://mullvad.net/en/blog/2021/1/20/no-pii-or-privacy-
    | leak...
    | 
    | [3] https://cure53.de/pentest-report_mullvad_2021_v1.pdf
 
    | tenebrisalietum wrote:
    | What if I have some sort of trigger (accelerometer attached
    | to a door connected to a serial port, for example) that makes
    | the system kexec to memtest86 before the system is taken?
 
    | Kototama wrote:
    | FDE is not enough against physical access, see the evil maid
    | attack.
 
      | oceanplexian wrote:
      | Well obviously, FDE also doesn't protect you if someone is
      | standing over your shoulder reading you type the password.
      | The point is that leaving a machine turned on, while not in
      | your physical possession puts all of your data at risk. My
      | company would freak if I did this and I don't even work in
      | the security space.
 
        | Kototama wrote:
        | As you know, the evil maid attack is something different.
        | It's better to be precise and not give a false-sense of
        | security to readers who may be less informed about this
        | subject.
 
| mft_ wrote:
| Tangential, but I recently discovered Mullvad. For years, I've
| used whichever mainstream VPN provider had a good deal on come
| renewal time, and cycled through a few of the usual suspects.
| Recently, I was with Surfshark, and was really struggling to get
| download rates above a few hundred K/sec - and sometimes even
| worse. I didn't even suspect the VPN at first, but ultimately
| tried a different provider as a diagnostic step.
| 
| I randomly came across a recommendation for Mullvad from reddit,
| and signed up for a month. Hot damn if my download rate didn't
| shoot up to 15-20 MB/sec (that's megabytes, not bits) -
| essentially close to maxxing out my fibre.
| 
| Turns out you really do get what you pay for - and I doubt I'll
| be leaving Mullvad any time soon.
| 
| (no affiliation - just a happy and surprised customer!)
 
  | sph wrote:
  | Mullvad is fantastic. I get full bandwidth when torrenting 24/7
  | from my NAS, and I don't get blocked when I need to stream
  | something unavailable in my country, and they have port
  | forwarding support. They also have an Android TV client so I
  | can watch on my couch.
  | 
  | All for EUR5 a month? Such a great company.
 
  | clsec wrote:
  | That's strange. I've had the opposite experience. I was with
  | Cyberghost and, after 3 yrs of good speeds, almost overnight it
  | basically became so slow that it was unusable. I then tried out
  | Surfshark and have been very happy with the speeds that I've
  | gotten for the past year+.
 
    | mft_ wrote:
    | I had been with Surfshark for nearly a year when everything
    | slowed down. They could have been having temporary technical
    | issues, of course, but it went on over a long enough period
    | that my troubleshooting made it through multiple steps to
    | trying a different VPN provider - so over a week, IIRC.
 
  | toomuchtodo wrote:
  | +1 for Mulvad, it Just Works and they are a great service
  | provider.
  | 
  | (also no affiliation, just a happy customer)
 
  | throwanem wrote:
  | Which exit point are you using? How close is it to you? I only
  | get about 5MBps no matter which node I use and have suspected
  | ISP throttling, but haven't tested too much since 5MBps is
  | enough to get by with; this might make a good way to gather
  | more info.
 
    | mft_ wrote:
    | With Surfshark, an assortment of (mostly) European locations
    | - e.g. Germany, Netherlands, Czech Republic, Switzerland.
    | When things were slow, the choice of exit location didn't
    | seem to make much difference - tho' sometimes I needed to
    | cycle through to find one that worked at all.
    | 
    | With Mullvad, a similar choice of locations - again, it
    | doesn't seem to matter, but in a good way.
 
  | netfortius wrote:
  | How are Mullvad apps across multiple platforms? I've been with
  | PIA for quite a while, and I got it to work they way I want it,
  | on macOS, windows and android, and I liked even more some of
  | their recent exit points marked "for streaming", as I watch
  | sports online, and there is a significant improvement when
  | using those, with some countries local free broadcasting, but
  | performance in the rest , sometimes, is really atrocious. I am
  | just concerned about trading performance gain for
  | tweaks/options/stability on multiple platforms (never found
  | OpenVPN to be better, at least when it comes to PIA apps).
 
    | mft_ wrote:
    | I use it on Mac, Windows, and iOS - they just work well.
 
    | mirceal wrote:
    | used it on macos, ios, linux. the app is solid. wireguard
    | rules.
 
      | seanw444 wrote:
      | I use the app frequently on Android and Arch Linux, and it
      | works equally well on both.
 
| ignoramous wrote:
| This isn't Tor-like multi-hop (but is similar to other multi-hop
| VPN providers out there). A proper multi-hop would happen across
| two different vendors in control of two different networks, as it
| were.
| 
| The _iCloud Relay_ paper outlined a pretty private and secure
| design [0] (and the intention to standardize it via IETF would
| probably make it simpler to self-host such a solution [1][2]).
| Among the VPNs, orchid.com 's _distributed VPN_ stands out as a
| cross-provider multi-hop solution whose privacy guarantees are
| closer to Tor 's.
| 
| Eventually the hope is _HTTP_ (www) itself bakes in desirable
| privacy properties, so regular users don 't have to pay the cost
| of multi-hops [3].
| 
| [0] Overview:
| https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/111/materials/slides-11...
| 
| [1] https://ietf-wg-masque.github.io/
| 
| [2] https://tfpauly.github.io/privacy-proxy/
| 
| [3] https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-ohai-ohttp/
 
  | sva_ wrote:
  | I think what people want in this case, is quick access to a
  | different exit IP to appear on the internet with.
 
  | INTPenis wrote:
  | Splitting hairs no? I mean you're comparing multi-hop with
  | onion routing.
  | 
  | I'm just speaking as a layman end user. When I see multi-hop
  | it's self-explanatory, it's literally in the name.
  | 
  | Onion routing is another type of multi-hop with the onion
  | routing algorithm.
 
    | teawrecks wrote:
    | The point of multihop, tor or otherwise, is for each node in
    | the route to not know what the other knows. The first node
    | sees packets coming from you, but not where they're going.
    | The second see's where they're going but doesn't know where
    | they're from (and vice versa). If the two nodes exchange this
    | info (ex. if same person runs both nodes) then there's no
    | point. Nothing is gained, you just incur the overhead of the
    | extra hop.
 
    | judge2020 wrote:
    | Since it's the same company with access to both the first and
    | second server, it wouldn't be too hard to log network on both
    | ends and sync it up.
    | 
    | With iCloud Private Relay, it'd be harder for a single actor
    | to de-anonymize requests; you'd either need collusion between
    | the companies or a government entity would need to ask both
    | companies to log network traffic at once, and this would
    | complicate the "exit node" server since it can't filter/only
    | record traffic from the target customer's connection without
    | company 1 setting up a single server dedicated to being the
    | proxy for that customer.
 
| daqhris wrote:
| I'm a happy Mullvad user. But I have one concern.
| 
| Recently, Instagram "tagged" my account as either based in Russia
| or using Russian currency. I'm based in Western EU and set up the
| VPN to connect to the same country or neighboring ones.
| 
| I'm trying to figure out if some endpoints belonging to Mullvad
| have been shadowbanned by Meta/Instagram. Is there someone else
| who uses Mullvad to surf on Meta products whose account has been
| impacted by sanctions directed at Russia?
| 
| My first guess is that it's a mislabelling problem or bots going
| rogue for an unkown reason. And, IG support is taking too long to
| clarify what's the culprit. So, I'm making all kind of hypotheses
| to reach a logical explanation before getting an official answer.
 
  | tomxor wrote:
  | I use wireguard directly so I'm more aware of exactly which
  | server I'm connected to. I've noticed the IPs on their
  | relatively newer servers using "xTom" as a provider are being
  | incorrectly identified as Russian by some IP based geolocation
  | services... it's a bit hit or miss.
  | 
  | I'm guessing xTom acquired an IP block from someone in Russia a
  | while ago and IP geolation databases are just very slow to
  | update.
  | 
  | You wouldn't believe the amount of grief I received from some
  | online multiplayer games due to IP geolocation being miss-
  | labelled as Russia... Opened my eyes to ridiculous people are
  | in blaming Russian citizens for what is happening - they aren't
  | enlightened, it's not "banality of evil" level of accusation,
  | it's much closer to xenophobia, then again the internet and
  | multiplayer games are full of the worst humans so maybe it's
  | just the "worst humans" affect.
  | 
  | Anyway, yes, random sites may block you on xTom because of
  | this, but to be honest this will occasionally happen on any VPN
  | server regardless of bad IP geolocation due to abuse of a
  | shared IP causing per-service blacklisting (which will not be
  | apparent from the "blacklisted" status on the mullvad page).
  | When this happens you simply need to switch server.
 
  | Thorentis wrote:
  | I suspect that "Russian" will be the new pejorative that Big
  | Tech is able to throw at anything they feel like banning. Want
  | to ban a user for using a VPN because it's harder to track
  | them? Accuse them of being "Russian linked" and bam, no further
  | justification needed.
 
| saurik wrote:
| The UI we have is somewhat awkward, but this has also been
| supported for a while in our Orchid app (to the point where I
| have been actually working on another app designed to surface
| this one feature better, but that isn't out yet), supporting
| arbitrarily deep tunnels across multiple WireGuard (or OpenVPN,
| even going back/forth between them) providers (unlike this, which
| seems to just be "two hops, both from Mullvad").
 
| throwanem wrote:
| I use (and really like!) Mullvad, but have never tried the app,
| preferring to use my existing OpenVPN clients with the profiles
| Mullvad provides.
| 
| This isn't because I have any reason to mistrust their app, but
| just because if I've already got a perfectly serviceable client
| on my device, why add another binary to do the same thing?
| 
| But I would be interested to hear, from folks who _have_ used the
| app, what you like and don 't like about it. In particular, I've
| had some headaches setting up split tunneling/proxying via
| OpenVPN - I was never all that good at its config language - and
| I'm wondering if the Mullvad app might make those easier to
| achieve.
 
  | DenseComet wrote:
  | If you don't want to switch to the Mullvad app, it's still
  | worthwhile to switch to their wireguard profiles. Connections
  | seem more stable and wireguard is far easier to configure.
 
    | postingposts wrote:
    | Hey I'm curious about the terminology you guys are using
    | here. Is there a manual or a page which I can read to learn
    | more about wireguard profiles and what mullvad has done for
    | them perhaps?
 
      | dempedempe wrote:
      | Wireguard is the latest VPN protocol. Check out the
      | Wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WireGuard) or
      | it's homepage (https://www.wireguard.com/). Not all VPN
      | providers support it yet (notably Proton VPN), but it is
      | generally faster and more secure than OpenVPN.
      | 
      | It was made by Jason A. Donenfeld.
 
  | uneekname wrote:
  | The app is great in my opinion, giving less-technical users a
  | simple interface to toggle their VPN connection and see at a
  | glance where their chosen server is on a map.
  | 
  | If you're comfortable setting up OpenVPN profiles, the Mullvad
  | app doesn't have much to offer you as far as I can tell. I
  | don't recall seeing split tunneling options, though that would
  | be cool to see
 
    | [deleted]
 
  | lighttower wrote:
  | Split tunneling an app to NOT GO THROUGH the tunnel is easy
  | 
  | Setting split tunneling to ONLY TUNNEL A SPECIFIC APP is hard
 
    | [deleted]
 
  | twojacobtwo wrote:
  | I've been using the app for a couple of years now and I have
  | mostly enjoyed the experience relative to the few other VPN
  | solutions I've tried (OpenVPN, Nord (old version), ProtonVPN).
  | 
  | Things I mostly like:
  | 
  | - The relative simplicity of the app interface (though
  | 'advanced' settings should just be a sub-section of
  | 'preferences')
  | 
  | - How quickly/easily I can get connected (download, paste in
  | account #, click connect - or change location.
  | 
  | - Relatively easy split-tunneling
  | 
  | - Easy switch between OpenVPN and Wireguard protocols
  | 
  | - Easy local network sharing (preference toggle)
  | 
  | - Tracker and ad block options (have not tested efficacy,
  | appears to be DNS-based)
  | 
  | - Internet kill switch (will not fall back to non-vpn
  | connections if set)
  | 
  | Things I don't like:
  | 
  | - Can cause issues on boot/reboot if kill switch is enabled
  | (Windows - disable kill switch, restart app, re-enable kill
  | switch)
  | 
  | - Limited options for mobile apps (and some unexpected
  | disconnections on android)
  | 
  | - No configuration of app layout or color scheme
  | 
  | - Somewhat annoying upgrade (not bad, just no in-place upgrade
  | solution)
 
    | CPAhem wrote:
    | The Mullvad app is huge ~100MB which is odd for what it needs
    | to do.
 
      | throwanem wrote:
      | I believe it's Electron-based, which is another reason I've
      | hesitated to try it out. I _like_ Electron - from the
      | developer 's perspective, it's great! - but I do still try
      | to avoid its resource impact until there's a compelling
      | reason to take the hit.
 
      | twojacobtwo wrote:
      | That is one of the nitpicks that I missed, along with their
      | downloads being excruciatingly slow when already connected
      | to the service, for whatever reason (I may just be doing
      | something wrong).
 
      | silizium wrote:
      | My mullvad installation on Windows has 258MB but memory
      | footprint is low. I find 5 entries in the task manager with
      | a total of 14.6MB with active connection.
 
        | throwanem wrote:
        | Maybe not Electron, then. Perhaps I'm confusing it with
        | ExpressVPN's first-party app, which definitely was
        | Electron when I tried them a few years back.
 
        | Foxboron wrote:
        | It does use electron. The source code is available on
        | github.
        | 
        | https://github.com/mullvad/mullvadvpn-app
 
  | _rend wrote:
  | I've found their apps to be (subjectively) higher quality than
  | most OpenVPN clients on platforms I care about (macOS, iOS,
  | Windows). It's nice to have a consistent UI, and not have to
  | think or care about specific profiles -- it's easy for me to
  | jump between servers much more easily (I typically connect
  | relatively locally, but occasionally find that certain out IP
  | addresses have been blacklisted from specific sites; it's
  | trivial to "refresh" the connection to hop over to a different
  | server and not have to think about it).
  | 
  | And, of course, easier (for me) to set up and configure. Maybe
  | no _huge_ incentive to switch over to it if your setup works,
  | but might be worth trying out if you're curious.
 
    | seanw444 wrote:
    | I'll +1 your anecdote with mine: that Mullvad's app is pretty
    | great. It's very simple, isn't buggy, has just what's needed,
    | and has a good UI. I'm pleased with it. Better than the
    | others I've used.
 
    | windexh8er wrote:
    | I would agree with a couple additional points. The first is
    | that the app has a nice GUI that works across all platforms
    | I'm interested in (mainly Linux) - but it also has a very
    | handy CLI.
    | 
    | I've also found that the client devs respond to issues. This
    | is great as well as I feel as though I'm getting a complete
    | solution with Mullvad.
    | 
    | While I have no doubt Mullvad is great as a vanilla VPN
    | without their client - I feel as though I'd be missing out on
    | a few features and convenience items if I were forced to
    | bring my own.
    | 
    | And to be clear - while Multihop is new, it's not new as in
    | today. It's been out for a while in beta (if I'm remembering
    | right) and landed in GA about a month ago. I don't see much
    | need for it in my use case, but it's nice they're continually
    | enhancing the overall product.
 
    | anakaine wrote:
    | I'll also +1 your anecdote that the Mullvad app is simple,
    | convenient and stable.
 
| UberFly wrote:
| Lots of bumps here in support of Mullvad and it's warranted. OVPN
| is another that is top-rung as far as quality, no-logging, speed,
| etc. They even went to court to prove they didn't have any logs.
| Not affiliated, just a happy subscriber. Support Wireguard too.
 
| [deleted]
 
| _joel wrote:
| Tested this a bit when it was announced, works well albeit with
| an expected hit on latency and throughput.
| 
| Absolutely love Mullvad.
 
| Exuma wrote:
| Are we required to force it to use Wireguard instead of
| "Automatic" for this to work?
 
| gzer0 wrote:
| Tangentially related:
| 
| Users can use Mullvad's TOR address:
| http://o54hon2e2vj6c7m3aqqu6uyece65by3vgoxxhlqlsvkmacw6a7m7k...
| to generate their account ID and make their payment with Bitcoin
| seamlessly.
| 
| I have never experienced such a smooth way to purchase from a
| provider, this was brilliant.
| 
| +1 to Mullvad
 
  | pydry wrote:
  | The ease with which you can pay anonymously makes me feel that
  | its more likely a genuine privacy provider rather than a CIA
  | run honeypot like Crypto AG.
 
    | AlexandrB wrote:
    | You can also mail them an envelope with your user ID # and
    | some cash. It's pretty great.
 
      | daqhris wrote:
      | I started by using the cash-in-an-envelope option. For my
      | most recent subscription, I paid in Bitcoin. All methods
      | were pretty easy, neat and fast.
 
  | [deleted]
 
  | vinay_ys wrote:
  | How does it matter that your payment is anonymous when all your
  | traffic is going through them?
 
    | capableweb wrote:
    | If mullvad gets compromised, you can still remain anonymous
    | if the payment method is anonymous as long as the traffic
    | you've sent to mullvad been anonymous as well. Obviously, if
    | you log into your normal Facebook account, it isn't, but
    | there are plenty of other uses.
 
      | vinay_ys wrote:
      | If mullvad is compromised, then all my traffic is also
      | compromised and potentially my client machine is also
      | compromised (since I'm running mullvad client).
      | Alternately, to begin with, if my traffic wasn't sensitive
      | or personally identifiable, then I don't actually need this
      | multi-hop setup.
 
        | capableweb wrote:
        | Yes, if mullvad + your machine is compromised, then
        | indeed there is not much you can do. But first, not
        | everyone uses mullvads client, but instead the provided
        | configuration files for wireguard/openvpn. Secondly, not
        | all traffic is indeed personally identifiable, especially
        | if you're using something like mullvad with for anonymous
        | traffic to begin with. Imagine you have another account
        | than vinay_ys that you only use via mullvad (and
        | potentially other accounts). Using something like cash
        | (or bitcoin for that matter) as a payment method makes it
        | less likely the real person you will be connected to this
        | other account.
        | 
        | Security and privacy is not a true/false thing, it's a
        | thing you do at layers. Making payments anonymously is
        | obviously adding another layer. Maybe it's not worth it
        | for you, but for some it is.
 
        | vinay_ys wrote:
        | With a Wireguard VPN to reach Internet, all traffic from
        | this machine meant for Internet is going via the tunnel,
        | including the OS generated background traffic, and
        | application generated background traffic (like update
        | servers, analytics beacons/telemetry, license
        | verification servers etc). These can contain tracking
        | identifiers that can be tied back to app purchases, and
        | even laptop purchase itself.
        | 
        | If you really have only limited sensitive traffic (even
        | with fake identity), you are better off using just tor
        | browser than using a full machine vpn.
 
        | capableweb wrote:
        | Yes, indeed, if there is identifiable traffic coming from
        | the OS, you're screwed. This is why I said "not all
        | traffic is indeed personally identifiable". If you are
        | doing things where you have to be anonymous, there are
        | plenty of OSes you can run to not have all those things
        | giving away your identity. If you think just adding a VPN
        | on top of the OS you use for other things, you're
        | screwed.
        | 
        | I think you're missing the point here. Even if you use
        | Tor browser or a completely new OS installation of Tails
        | or whatever, if your payment method can be tied to you,
        | you're once again screwed. Being able to anonymously pay,
        | removes that vector, it's as simple as that.
 
        | mhitza wrote:
        | No idea how mullvad setup is done, but in theory I think
        | you could use Tor -> mullvad wireguard configured VPN ->
        | target site.
        | 
        | That way your traffic would be "legitimized" (no infernal
        | Captcha loops), and if the sites you visit have
        | certificate pinning mullvad network compromise wouldn't
        | matter.
        | 
        | A bunch of ifs, but that's the state of things.
        | 
        | edit: written before thinking out all the details,
        | probably can't tunnel udp connections over Tor.
 
| johnwayne666 wrote:
| I'm wondering how this compares to Apple's iCloud Private Relay.
| 
| Mullvad is trying to increase their transparency and make sure
| users can trust them which is great. But would there be a way for
| them to make it so that users do not have to trust them? What if
| the second server was hosted by another entity?
 
  | E4YomzYIN5YEBKe wrote:
  | I believe that with iCloud Private Relay, the second hop is a
  | different company (Cloudflare/Akamai/Fastly). Whereas multihop
  | offered by Mullvad and other VPN companies they own both hops
  | which would make correlation easy for them.
 
  | mikece wrote:
  | "I'm wondering how this compares to Apple's iCloud Private
  | Relay."
  | 
  | Simple answer: Apple doesn't get your info. Mullvad is one of
  | the non-logging VPN providers so unless you're compromised in
  | some other way (like logging into Google, Facebook, etc) then
  | running a make on your is far more difficult than just serving
  | a warrant to Apple.
 
    | matthews2 wrote:
    | > Mullvad is one of the non-logging VPN providers
    | 
    | How do you know that they're not logging? Or that their ISPs
    | are not logging?
 
      | clsec wrote:
      | Here's the latest Mullvad security audit (June 2020).
      | 
      | https://cure53.de/pentest-report_mullvad_2020_v2.pdf
 
        | odensc wrote:
        | Unless I'm mistaken that's just a security audit of their
        | client applications, which would not in any way prove
        | that they aren't logging.
 
  | encryptluks2 wrote:
  | Then the user would just go find a second VPN provider.
 
| wiseguy317 wrote:
| Been using Mullvad for years, this is pretty nice. I actually get
| great throughput with multi-hop on.
 
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