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We are removing the option to create new subscriptions

mullvad.net

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Re: We are removing the option to create new subscriptions

#201

Post by kadoban »

dcow wrote: post #159
kadoban wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [...] it seems kinda disingenuous to me to tell users that they're more private because they use a VPN. Private from your ISP, sure [...] Bit of a contradiction there. It adds friction to at least some attacks against your privacy. That's better privacy. Nothing will ever be perfect, and VPNs can easily be oversold in terms of their benefits (especially since https became the norm). But they have benefits in some c…

> They accept cash and at least some other privacy preserving payment methods already. So why even allow "traditional" KYC-ridden payments at all? > Bit of a contradiction there. It adds friction to at least some attacks against your privacy. That's better privacy. The nuance is that you're just moving the problem. You're not private from Mullvad. You're just trading one ISP for a different one. I could have phrased…

> The nuance is that you're just moving the problem. You're not private from Mullvad. You're just trading one ISP for a different one.

Another way of saying that is that you've gained a choice. Most people have essentially one option for an ISP, but _many_ for VPNs.

> So why even allow "traditional" KYC-ridden payments at all?

To allow user choice. Many probably don't really care about that aspect and just want to bypass region-locks.

Re: We are removing the option to create new subscriptions

#202

Post by [deleted] »

dcow wrote: post #159
kadoban wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [...] it seems kinda disingenuous to me to tell users that they're more private because they use a VPN. Private from your ISP, sure [...] Bit of a contradiction there. It adds friction to at least some attacks against your privacy. That's better privacy. Nothing will ever be perfect, and VPNs can easily be oversold in terms of their benefits (especially since https became the norm). But they have benefits in some c…

> They accept cash and at least some other privacy preserving payment methods already. So why even allow "traditional" KYC-ridden payments at all? > Bit of a contradiction there. It adds friction to at least some attacks against your privacy. That's better privacy. The nuance is that you're just moving the problem. You're not private from Mullvad. You're just trading one ISP for a different one. I could have phrased…

[deleted]

Re: We are removing the option to create new subscriptions

#203

Post by banana_giraffe »

simias wrote: post #106
rglover wrote: post #27

Wow. Hadn't heard of Mullvad before reading this, figured I'd give it a try. That is hands down the BEST onboarding experience for an app (let alone a VPN) I've had in I don't know how long. Took me maybe 2 minutes to go from no account to a working VPN connection. I love that everything is anonymous (down to the account credentials just being a randomly generated token).

I also like that they let you download the raw wireguard config files so that you can connect without having to use their client. You can just plop them onto your filesystem and use wg-quick to get going. Since I'm also a ProtonMail user and I considered switching to them for VPN as well but their python client doesn't seem to work correctly on my Arch Linux install and it doesn't give me anything useful to debug it…

Be aware, at least Nord clearly does something different with their client than with the OpenVPN files they provide ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21664692 ). When I dug into this, I found similar cases with other major VPN providers, but my notes are sufficiently out of date, they shouldn't be trusted anymore.

Sometimes the differences are subtle, sometimes they're rather complex like this case. Personally, sketchy stuff like this is why I've moved all of my VPN use to a personal cloud instance running WireGuard.

Re: We are removing the option to create new subscriptions

#204

Post by k8sToGo »

ouid wrote: post #190

This is PR and the comments are astroturfed to absolute hell. VPN is the most heavily advertised business I am aware of. There are a lot of reasons to mistrust this behavior. 1) it doesn't cost mullvad very much to not autorenew subscriptions. People dont forget to renew their subscriptions to a service that breaks your connection to youtube when you forget to pay. It's closer to the world of warcraft model. 2) Custo…

You forgot the last conspiracy reason which I always read in comments like this:

4) It is probably state funded and run by the CIA.

Re: We are removing the option to create new subscriptions

#205

Post by exyi »

ouid wrote: post #200
colonwqbang wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In which state is it legal to lie about the service you are delivering? I.e. in your marketing say that you will deliver something and then instead deliver something less valuable.

Its possible you dont know what state means. But the US has plenty of mass warrants that require companies to keep logs even in the presence of promises that they dont. In fact, they are obligated not to reveal that they are now keeping logs. Warrants supercede contract.

Mullvad is based in Sweden, they seem to be privacy friendlier in general (even allowing sites like sci-hub on their TLD)

Re: We are removing the option to create new subscriptions

#206

Post by ouid »

sixhobbits wrote: post #196
ouid wrote: post #190

This is PR and the comments are astroturfed to absolute hell. VPN is the most heavily advertised business I am aware of. There are a lot of reasons to mistrust this behavior. 1) it doesn't cost mullvad very much to not autorenew subscriptions. People dont forget to renew their subscriptions to a service that breaks your connection to youtube when you forget to pay. It's closer to the world of warcraft model. 2) Custo…

"Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, bots, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data. "

i flagged the post, but VPNs are not "unlikely" sources of astroturfing. I do not particularly trust the startup incubator that launched many of these VPNs to take a particularly critical view of astroturfing, so i have chosen to ignore this forum rule

Re: We are removing the option to create new subscriptions

#207

Post by ouid »

k8sToGo wrote: post #204
ouid wrote: post #190

This is PR and the comments are astroturfed to absolute hell. VPN is the most heavily advertised business I am aware of. There are a lot of reasons to mistrust this behavior. 1) it doesn't cost mullvad very much to not autorenew subscriptions. People dont forget to renew their subscriptions to a service that breaks your connection to youtube when you forget to pay. It's closer to the world of warcraft model. 2) Custo…

You forgot the last conspiracy reason which I always read in comments like this: 4) It is probably state funded and run by the CIA.

this is a weird double standard. The only reason to use a vpn is because of fears of the CIA or whatever in the first place.

Re: We are removing the option to create new subscriptions

#208

Post by k8sToGo »

wfhordie wrote: post #72
causality0 wrote: post #16

Have Mullvad's privacy guarantees been tested by subpoena?

If your threat model includes nation state intervention, a 5 Euro VPN isn't going to help you. In fact, no VPN is going to help you. The best you can get is probably Tor + Tails, but even then you better be looking over your shoulder.

or be in a state that is not an ally.

Re: We are removing the option to create new subscriptions

#209

Post by lolc »

ryanbrunner wrote: post #133
meltedcapacitor wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are these benefits not eroding? Pressure on subscription models comes from both the public getting herd immunity against the underlying dark pattern and competitors chasing a diminishing supply of people to trick as world + dog has adopted the tactic. In this particular case, with a privacy tailwind, it will be unsurprising if it ends up increasing their sales.

I think saying subscriptions are a dark pattern is going a bit far. In the case where you're offering an ongoing service that requires a cost to service, a subscription model is completely appropriate and in the best interest of both the subscriber and the issuer. For sure there's some abuse of the model where you're selling something that should be a one-time item, but that's not the case here, and Mullvad is provid…

To me, a dark pattern is when the service doesn't announce in advance when the subscription is going to renew.

Re: We are removing the option to create new subscriptions

#210

Post by slavak »

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #145
sdfhdhjdw3 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hadn't heard of Mullvad before reading this Just the only vpn with any integrity left remaining, no biggie.

Absolutely no way to know they are good and other is bad. The entire VPN industry is “trust us bro”. Which works until it doesn’t.

Would a 3rd party audit work?

https://mullvad.net/en/blog/2021/1/20/no-pii-or-privacy-leak...

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