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We are removing the option to create new subscriptions

mullvad.net

421–430 of 453 posts

Re: We are removing the option to create new subscriptions

#421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is also much faster and allows p2p networks

What does "allow p2p networks" mean exactly?

It's not hub and spoke. Any existing network topology can be mirrored essentially 1:1 with wireguard. With hub and spoke VPNs the model constrains your deployment somewhat. Now I'm not saying key distribution with wireguard is easy, that's a different problem. But wireguard is literally like "let's take your existing network interface and give it modern fast impossible to fuck up encryption".

Re: We are removing the option to create new subscriptions

#422
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I've read some articles online, but I still haven't managed to understand the hype around wireguard. It's lighter than OpenVPN, but has more obscure primitives? Doesn't seem like a great trade off...

Wireguard is your plumbing layer. OpenVPN is an entire application stack. Wireguard is super simple because it's low level. If you wanted to compare something (as a user in terms of feature parity, etc.) to OpenVPN a more accurate comparison would probably be nebula or tailscale (private/mesh network management tools that are built atop wireguard). I'm a wireguard fan and it's true that its crypto is much simpler, smaller, and harder to fuck up than OpenVPN but that is really only something that matters to the security hats.

Re: We are removing the option to create new subscriptions

#423
Sweden is part of 14-eyes. I realize this may be naive or already answered, but I don't see why I should trust any service in one of those 14 countries. When things are down to the wire, can anything in Sweden really guarantee any greater level of privacy?

Re: We are removing the option to create new subscriptions

#424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>People who take money without providing value are at best economic parasites, but quite a lot of them are just scammers, grifters, and frauds. Which is exactly why a law would be especially valuable here, so that their time and attention were devoted to some socially positive activity. Does that also apply to your car/home/health insurance as well? If you don't have an accident/get robbed/go to the doctor, are you b…

It of course does not apply, because you're getting risk-mitigation value every month. (If you don't think so, feel free to drop the insurance.) That said, those are prime opportunities for parasitism and exploitation, because it's hard to measure risk reduction until actual harm comes along. That's why those sectors need heavy regulation.

And so how does that not apply to Netflix or The New York Times?

You said[0]:

"But that entirely vanishes with most internet-based subscriptions. If I stop watching Netflix, they stop experiencing marginal costs for me. If I get excited about a NYT subscription but then stop reading, it's the same deal. Nobody went out and bought another server just because I signed up. I could cancel at any time and they'd have to let me go. If they keep charging me when I'm not getting any value, then it's not a mutually beneficial relationship; they're just exploiting me. And indeed, maybe they were exploiting me from the get-go if their intent was to just get my money in without regard for whether I was going to get anything out of it."

A subscription with them provides access to the services they sell all the time as long as your subscription is current, in exactly the same way as as insurance provides risk mitigation.

You appear to be arguing that it's the subscription model that's the problem and not those who use it in an exploitative manner.

I'm not a fan of subscription models myself, which can be used in exploitative ways, but the fault isn't in the model, but in those who implement/administer it.

N.B.: I do have insurance, but not Netflix or NYT subscriptions.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31818397

Edit: Fixed formatting, typo.

Re: We are removing the option to create new subscriptions

#425
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I've read some articles online, but I still haven't managed to understand the hype around wireguard. It's lighter than OpenVPN, but has more obscure primitives? Doesn't seem like a great trade off...

[deleted]

Re: We are removing the option to create new subscriptions

#426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh man I thought Private Internet Access was still one of the independent VPNs. I feel duped. :/

PIA continues to prove in court over and over again that they do not keep traffic logs. The extreme fear mongering over Kape has never been backed up by any evidence other than "they used to do bad things under their previous management." As I always say in these threads, all the people who shill Mullvad over everything probably just use them for web-browsing or adjacent activities, and not anything that requires a s…

Anecdotally PIA performance seemed to drop around then, port forwarding was frequently broken and Wireguard wasn't making much progress (looks like maybe they've finally rolled it out now)

Maybe things were already bad before Kape but it was around the same time

Re: We are removing the option to create new subscriptions

#427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin Cash does currently scale up to Paypal's daily number of transactions while keeping transaction fees below $0.01. [0] Scalability tests are underway [1] to detect bottlenecks for increasing the block size further, which should take it closer to Visa's transaction capacity. The scalability roadmap aims for eventually supporting 50 daily transactions for each human in the planet, again keeping fees low, which i…

> Bitcoin Cash does currently scale up to Paypal's daily number of transactions while keeping transaction fees below $0.01. On this here website there was a talk a couple months ago that led me to believe that paying $150 worth of bitcoin costs ... $150 if you want it done at credit card speed. Have things changed?

Credit cards take days to complete the transaction. Much like BTC, there are near-instant checks to make sure the desired transaction _will eventually and most likely_ be valid.

Re: We are removing the option to create new subscriptions

#428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

audits are only valid for that one instant in time when it was performed. anything could have changed after the fact.

You could say the same about all auditing. A restaurant could have changed its food hygiene standards since it was audited. But a company with a history of periodic and successful audits is certainly a good trust marker for me.

Restaurants routinely can't uphold their standards and often get wildly different results on every inspection. But yes I do say the same about all audits.

Re: We are removing the option to create new subscriptions

#429
post #373
post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...in exchange for knowing who you are. (If they couldn't de-dup you via some kind of identity verification, they wouldn't be able to offer a free promo, as some asshole could then just come and generate a million free accounts and lash them together to run a botnet/crypto-mining-farm/etc on.) I believe the GP's question is "is there any public-web hosting platform that I can use entirely anonymously ; where they all…

The moment a service allows anonymous signup it inevitably gets abused the shit out of itself for spam, botnet C&C, DoS attacks and worse.

This is why I don't see how services like Mullvad can stay afloat forever.

Re: We are removing the option to create new subscriptions

#430
post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does "allow p2p networks" mean exactly?

It's not hub and spoke. Any existing network topology can be mirrored essentially 1:1 with wireguard. With hub and spoke VPNs the model constrains your deployment somewhat. Now I'm not saying key distribution with wireguard is easy , that's a different problem. But wireguard is literally like "let's take your existing network interface and give it modern fast impossible to fuck up encryption".

I have no idea what you just said.

Can you dumb it down maybe?

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