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Mullvad VPN now accepts Monero payments

mullvad.net

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Re: Mullvad VPN now accepts Monero payments

#181

Post by phatfish »

neither_color wrote: post #167
judge2020 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Online stores are more likely to flag your purchase as suspicious on the admin side(e.g the Shopify console) I'm not sure a VPN provides much utility when you're already punching your (billing|shipping) address and CC number into a website - that is, unless you're using a drop site for your packages, which definitely will make you look like someone who has stolen CC digits and is trying to cash in on them.

Well, to give one use case example, when I'm traveling I want to access websites from a US IP address so that l18n settings on websites don't serve me in another language or metric units by default. That's one way I use VPNs that have nothing to do with trying to hide from the NSA or whatever people think they're doing.

Encountering a foreign language AND the metric system. The stuff of nightmares!

Re: Mullvad VPN now accepts Monero payments

#182

Post by __turbobrew__ »

0daystock wrote: post #178
kfreds wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for the compliment! We are indeed for real, but I don't expect this comment will convince you. I'd love to know what we could do that would change your mind. The same goes for anyone else reading this. Are you worried that we are too good to be true? What could we do to become more trustworthy in your eyes? Cheers, Fredrik Stromberg (cofounder of Mullvad)

Paradoxically, the most trustworthy thing you could do as a VPN provider is explain why most people don't need and won't actually benefit from a VPN. Outside of a few limited use cases (accessing location-restricted content, connecting to legacy services) and with almost-ubiquitous end-to-end TLS encryption deployed on the Internet, there's really not a lot of good reasons to use a VPN (and many good reasons not to).…

DNS queries are still leaked (from most users) regardless of end-to-end TLS. There is of course DNSSEC and DNS over HTTPS, but those are not used by the majority.

Another use case you missed is downloading/uploading pirated/copywrited content. Good VPNs receive DMCA notices and throw them in the garbage.

You are right that VPNs are not useful for many use cases and they can give users a false sense of security.

Re: Mullvad VPN now accepts Monero payments

#183

Post by 0daystock »

topdancing wrote: post #120
nuclx wrote: post #72

What are people using VPNs for mostly, if they're living in a country without internet censorship? It's either your ISP or the VPN provider, which can log the websites you have visited, so there isn't a clear advantage of using a VPN. Sure the VPN provider may claim to log nothing, but that's hard to confirm and not proven to be true in some cases (related thread regarding Protonmail: https://news.ycombinator.com/ite…

> What are people using VPNs for mostly, if they're living in a country without internet censorship? I find it's a convenient way to prevent services beyond my ISP from knowing where am I based on IP address. All of those apps you have on your devices presumably have permanent connections back to their servers and they can very easily tell if you're at home, out on mobile data, in an office, or in a cafe/public libra…

Many apps on your phone are entitled to read WiFi SSID's, mapping your location as accurately as GPS - and indoors, too! Go ahead and google "where am I" with a native Android/iOS search app with your VPN enabled, you may be surprised by the results. Not to mention accelerometers and other sensors can reliably predict your movement and location, too.

Re: Mullvad VPN now accepts Monero payments

#184

Post by vortext »

handsclean wrote: post #179
tomxor wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really like mullvad's service too (wiregaurd)... My only issue is that is seems to have become increasingly difficult to access many websites through their servers. I suppose this is inevitable to some degree with any VPN service, it's part of the deal for more privacy, you have to share an IP with potential sources of abuse. But it seems to have gotten really bad recently to the point that I end up server hoping t…

The way I see it, websites like that are saying they’ll only do it without a condom. You want it real bad, so it’s tempting to try to bargain about it, or maybe just take it off for now - it’s just a little while, what’re the chances it goes wrong? - but we all know that the smart move is to keep it on or back out entirely. Reasonable partners, of which there are many, understand and cooperate. And ones that don’t ar…

Username checks out.

Re: Mullvad VPN now accepts Monero payments

#185

Post by topdancing »

0daystock wrote: post #183
topdancing wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What are people using VPNs for mostly, if they're living in a country without internet censorship? I find it's a convenient way to prevent services beyond my ISP from knowing where am I based on IP address. All of those apps you have on your devices presumably have permanent connections back to their servers and they can very easily tell if you're at home, out on mobile data, in an office, or in a cafe/public libra…

Many apps on your phone are entitled to read WiFi SSID's, mapping your location as accurately as GPS - and indoors, too! Go ahead and google "where am I" with a native Android/iOS search app with your VPN enabled, you may be surprised by the results. Not to mention accelerometers and other sensors can reliably predict your movement and location, too.

They do not have such an entitlement: https://grapheneos.org/faq#hardware-identifiers (edit: and also: https://grapheneos.org/usage#wifi-privacy )

And the only app that has access to GPS on my device is: https://organicmaps.app/

And Googling "where am I" indeed shows me at my VPN exit [with my always-on and enforced VPN].

Re: Mullvad VPN now accepts Monero payments

#186

Post by mirceal »

tomxor wrote: post #54
seanw444 wrote: post #41

Thank you, Mullvad team! This is quite literally the only feature I've been wanting. Everything else works well. Bandwidth? Excellent. Apps? Excellent. WireGuard? Excellent. No form of KYC required, period? Excellent. Payment options? Excellent. I hope I don't live to see you turn into every other shady VPN service.

I really like mullvad's service too (wiregaurd)... My only issue is that is seems to have become increasingly difficult to access many websites through their servers. I suppose this is inevitable to some degree with any VPN service, it's part of the deal for more privacy, you have to share an IP with potential sources of abuse. But it seems to have gotten really bad recently to the point that I end up server hoping t…

2 thoughts:

1) if you do this for unauthenticated websites you are bad and I will not use you

2) if you do this for authenticated websites (especially if I pay you) I will stop using you and you will lose my money.

The most I will accept is a captcha (because it's 2022 and this is where we are)

Re: Mullvad VPN now accepts Monero payments

#187

Post by mirceal »

throwaway4good wrote: post #137
tomxor wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really like mullvad's service too (wiregaurd)... My only issue is that is seems to have become increasingly difficult to access many websites through their servers. I suppose this is inevitable to some degree with any VPN service, it's part of the deal for more privacy, you have to share an IP with potential sources of abuse. But it seems to have gotten really bad recently to the point that I end up server hoping t…

"I'm not blaming Mullvad" - you should - this is a direct consequence of accepting customers that pay cash and wants to be completely anonymous. In the end they are going to drive their honest non-abusive customers elsewhere.

I'm sorry... WHAT? people that value their privacy should be banned, right?

Re: Mullvad VPN now accepts Monero payments

#188

Post by mirceal »

usednet wrote: post #2

I’m curious as to what HN’s VPNs of choice are. I personally use IVPN and Mullvad.

Mullvad FTW! I've tried basically all VPNs out there and Mullvad and Proton were (at the time I did the experiment) the only ones that were 1) trustworthy 2) just worked

Re: Mullvad VPN now accepts Monero payments

#189

Post by tiluha »

hereme888 wrote: post #112
0des wrote: post #14

Its too bad monero research lab seems to be slowing down and disbanding. Devs have to eat and all, but I wonder sometimes if a longer and slower emission curve would have helped here. Monero is mostly emitted at this point. For a project that means so much to the world and still has much work to do, its a shame how things turned out with MRL.

Monero is about to go through a hard fork and significant upgrades, like trading XMR to BTC and back without a centralized exchange. The mining rewards was recently voted to a specific amount for perpetuity, to guarantee it never going to zero. I think the project is going quite well.

The mining reward schedule has not been changed since monero was started. The tail emission was alays part of the protocol.

Re: Mullvad VPN now accepts Monero payments

#190

Post by easrng »

trompetenaccoun wrote: post #123
vmception wrote: post #33

Just as a reminder, you can bridge from EVMs to Monero via the SECRET bridges, which seems to have the Monero community's blessings on consensus models. There is ample liquidity as well. So there is bi-directional access to and from the broader crypto ecosystem without centralized exchanges and without the selectively scamming shapeshift-style sites, and for the pros: without OTC desks either.

Well Secret isn't exactly the broader ecosystem, it uses the EVM (as most smart contract platforms do these days) but isn't Ethereum Mainnet. So you'd have to bridge more from there. Of course you could bridge into Ethereum or other chains directly with something like WXMR as well. Everything is getting bridged these days, there's going to be 1000 bridges soon. Users should be aware of the risks! That said Secret is…

WXMR is not real bridge, it's effectively a pegged token. Secret Network bridges are custodial. Atomic swaps would be better.
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