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Mullvad exit IPs are surprisingly identifying

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Re: Mullvad exit IPs are surprisingly identifying

#21
> Surprisingly, the exit IP you are given is not randomized each time you connect to the server, but deterministically picked based on your WireGuard key, which rotates every 1 to 30 days (unless you use a third-party client, in which case it never rotates).

I'm a little confused on this... what is stopping third parties from doing key rotations like the main app clients if it is detailed in the repo how to do it?

Re: Mullvad exit IPs are surprisingly identifying

#22
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VPNs are not snake oil. They transfer the trust of your internet activity from a place of low-trust, your ISP, to a place of high-trust, ideally a trustworthy VPN like Mullvad, IVPN, or Proton. Among other benefits. If you don't like your ISP creating a profile of you and selling it to target ads to you, you should use a VPN. >Should I use a VPN? Yes, almost certainly. A VPN has many advantages, including: 1. Hiding…

Unfortunately, the largest and most well-marketed VPNs are, in fact, less trustworthy than your average ISP.

Exactly. Most ISP are subject to local laws at least; where a lot of these ISP are overseas in shady jurisdictions.

Re: Mullvad exit IPs are surprisingly identifying

#24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VPNs are not snake oil. They transfer the trust of your internet activity from a place of low-trust, your ISP, to a place of high-trust, ideally a trustworthy VPN like Mullvad, IVPN, or Proton. Among other benefits. If you don't like your ISP creating a profile of you and selling it to target ads to you, you should use a VPN. >Should I use a VPN? Yes, almost certainly. A VPN has many advantages, including: 1. Hiding…

> place of low-trust, your ISP, to a place of high-trust, ideally a trustworthy VPN like Mullvad This is highly subjective statement. Almost all commercial VPN services farm and sell your data. Just by that, my ISP is definitely high trust point while any commercial VPN is a low trust.

Now try saying that wearing some Russian or Chinese shoes.

Re: Mullvad exit IPs are surprisingly identifying

#26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> place of low-trust, your ISP, to a place of high-trust, ideally a trustworthy VPN like Mullvad This is highly subjective statement. Almost all commercial VPN services farm and sell your data. Just by that, my ISP is definitely high trust point while any commercial VPN is a low trust.

I can easily pay for a VPN service with crypto anonymously. I can also use a VPN run by a company outside my country of residence and jurisdiction. Neither of those is possible with my ISP.

prepaid 5g sim cards and 5g modem.

Re: Mullvad exit IPs are surprisingly identifying

#27
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VPNs are not snake oil. They transfer the trust of your internet activity from a place of low-trust, your ISP, to a place of high-trust, ideally a trustworthy VPN like Mullvad, IVPN, or Proton. Among other benefits. If you don't like your ISP creating a profile of you and selling it to target ads to you, you should use a VPN. >Should I use a VPN? Yes, almost certainly. A VPN has many advantages, including: 1. Hiding…

Unfortunately, the largest and most well-marketed VPNs are, in fact, less trustworthy than your average ISP.

This depends on your treat model. If what you worry about is massive collection of Linux ISOs that you download and distribute over P2P then probably shady VPN ISP is what you need.

Re: Mullvad exit IPs are surprisingly identifying

#28
post #2

>Surprisingly, the exit IP you are given is not randomized each time you connect to the server, but deterministically picked based on your WireGuard key What's the point of this? This seems more complicated to implement than mapping exit ips at the server level, so surely they must be doing this for a good reason?

It's simpler to implement because it's more stateless, and it's a better user experience.

If you get a new exit IP each time you connect, you need something like a NAT table to look up "key 0xabc exits ip 1.2.3.4", and that grows to be the size of the number of users you have active, and you need to save it forever so that when the NSA asks who used the IP for what duration you can tell them.

With a static mapping derived from the key, you don't need a table like that.

It's also better UX since it means reconnecting your VPN software (say you switch wifi hotspots) doesn't give you a different IP address, so things like SSH sessions can resume, which wouldn't be possible if it were a different public IP each time.

Re: Mullvad exit IPs are surprisingly identifying

#30
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can easily pay for a VPN service with crypto anonymously. I can also use a VPN run by a company outside my country of residence and jurisdiction. Neither of those is possible with my ISP.

prepaid 5g sim cards and 5g modem.

Yes and 5G provider knows your exact location while VPNs can be easily chained.
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