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Mullvad VPN was subject to a search warrant – customer data not compromised

mullvad.net

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Re: Mullvad VPN was subject to a search warrant – customer data not compromised

#201

Post by tricolon »

pc86 wrote: post #101
Ensorceled wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because the whole point of the article is that there was no data to be compromised. AND they were able to convince the police and prosecutor of that!

I have to wonder what would have happened had the same thing occurred in the US. I'm really struggling to think of a scenario where the police have a warrant that says "$THING is on computers at this company, go get them" and you have literally any chance of convincing them that $THING is not anywhere. I could see them taking all the computers then six months later saying "here you can have them back now, come pick t…

I would half expect them to sue the computers for obstruction of justice... and then just keep them.

Re: Mullvad VPN was subject to a search warrant – customer data not compromised

#202

Post by stametseater »

TJSomething wrote: post #195
vorpalhex wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's possible you're in a coma and everything you're experiencing is a terribly detailed dream. It's not very likely though.

That one's pretty easy to disprove though. Just have a computer solve a random NP-complete problem and then verify it by hand.

Read a page of text, then read it again to see if it changed. This test never seems to fail, at least in the sort of dreams I can remember having after waking up. Usually I can't read at all in dreams, and when I can, the text is different every time I read it.

Re: Mullvad VPN was subject to a search warrant – customer data not compromised

#203

Post by jorblumesea »

pedro_hab wrote: post #71

I don't understand why go after the VPN, I think most people don't use a VPN correctly. What good is a VPN when multiple apps on your computer are phoning home? If the law has a suspect IP, couldn't they just ask google, microsoft and facebook what accounts were accessed with that IP? To use a VPN correctly wouldn't have to use a fresh OS and absolutely not login to any accounts connected to the IP you are trying to…

IP != user. You'd only narrow it down to 10k suspects or something.

Re: Mullvad VPN was subject to a search warrant – customer data not compromised

#204

Post by Darthy »

ementally wrote: post #126
pedro_hab wrote: post #71

I don't understand why go after the VPN, I think most people don't use a VPN correctly. What good is a VPN when multiple apps on your computer are phoning home? If the law has a suspect IP, couldn't they just ask google, microsoft and facebook what accounts were accessed with that IP? To use a VPN correctly wouldn't have to use a fresh OS and absolutely not login to any accounts connected to the IP you are trying to…

If your ISP suspects your IP address (can see your are connected to specific VPN server) they can just contact top websites, example: twitter, facebook or google and ask them if there are any users connected with the same IP at given specific time.

I assume you mean "If any opponent suspects your IP address..."

You can counter that easily. That's why you should use a multihop VPN.

Re: Mullvad VPN was subject to a search warrant – customer data not compromised

#205

Post by kleene_op »

troad wrote: post #192
pedro_hab wrote: post #71

I don't understand why go after the VPN, I think most people don't use a VPN correctly. What good is a VPN when multiple apps on your computer are phoning home? If the law has a suspect IP, couldn't they just ask google, microsoft and facebook what accounts were accessed with that IP? To use a VPN correctly wouldn't have to use a fresh OS and absolutely not login to any accounts connected to the IP you are trying to…

> don't use a VPN correctly People have different use cases for a VPN. I use one because I travel a lot, and spend a lot of time on dodgy public Wi-Fi. Not because I’m living some Jason Bourne fantasy.

That's what Jason Bourne would say.

Re: Mullvad VPN was subject to a search warrant – customer data not compromised

#206

Post by nextaccountic »

pedro_hab wrote: post #71

I don't understand why go after the VPN, I think most people don't use a VPN correctly. What good is a VPN when multiple apps on your computer are phoning home? If the law has a suspect IP, couldn't they just ask google, microsoft and facebook what accounts were accessed with that IP? To use a VPN correctly wouldn't have to use a fresh OS and absolutely not login to any accounts connected to the IP you are trying to…

> What good is a VPN when multiple apps on your computer are phoning home?

The point of a VPN is that whenever an app phone home, they will do so through the VPN. Standard VPN configuration (which I supose the Mullvad client performs?) is to entirely disallow any traffic that doesn't go through the VPN

Re: Mullvad VPN was subject to a search warrant – customer data not compromised

#207

Post by kkielhofner »

hnarn wrote: post #184
kkielhofner wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm an American (keep that in mind) but I have been to Sweden many many times throughout my entire life (my dad worked there). It's a great place and somewhat famously the "Swedish Subway Cops"[0] highlighted the difference between US and Swedish policing seven years ago. All of that said I find it highly, highly implausible that law enforcement anywhere in the world would show up with a warrant and just walk out wit…

The people that attend when these warrants are executed are highly technically skilled, and obviously Swedish surveillance agencies know Mullvad very well, probably intimately (ie it wouldn’t surprise me if they even have an understanding of their infrastructure). It’s not at all “highly implausible” that they showed up for a technical discussion to see if the data they wanted but were almost certain did not exist co…

The first line of the post:

"On April 18 at least six police officers from the National Operations Department (NOA) of the Swedish Police visited the Mullvad VPN office in Gothenburg with a search warrant."

1) The government put together the cause/case for a warrant.

2) They got it issued.

3) They showed up with six cops from the national police.

That doesn't sound like the setting for a "technical discussion" between two old friends to me...

Have you ever seen a search warrant involving anything technical/electronic executed? They're looking for data and there's no way to know for sure where that data is/might be from anywhere from a single cell phone to a server farm. They show up and take anything/everything electronic (usually enumerated in the search warrant like "storage media, computing devices, etc, etc"). They walk out with it, take it back to a certified technician of some sort to clone/image it for evidentiary purposes, and then maybe give it back at some point (depending on the situation).

Re: Mullvad VPN was subject to a search warrant – customer data not compromised

#208

Post by causi »

troad wrote: post #192
pedro_hab wrote: post #71

I don't understand why go after the VPN, I think most people don't use a VPN correctly. What good is a VPN when multiple apps on your computer are phoning home? If the law has a suspect IP, couldn't they just ask google, microsoft and facebook what accounts were accessed with that IP? To use a VPN correctly wouldn't have to use a fresh OS and absolutely not login to any accounts connected to the IP you are trying to…

> don't use a VPN correctly People have different use cases for a VPN. I use one because I travel a lot, and spend a lot of time on dodgy public Wi-Fi. Not because I’m living some Jason Bourne fantasy.

Yeah. A commercial VPN that's demonstrated its record-keeping policy under subpoena is reasonably safe if your objective is pirating media. HN commentators act like the VPN target market is Sino-Iranian freedom fighters who split their time between rescuing Uyghurs and searching for a way to cure their magical curse that makes them dissolve into dust if Google can tell they did a search for good restaurants in the area.

Most people are just trying not to get a scary letter from HBO.

Re: Mullvad VPN was subject to a search warrant – customer data not compromised

#209

Post by stametseater »

Etheryte wrote: post #132
tsukikage wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did notice that phrase doing a lot of work there. I'm actually super curious: when a bunch of goons turn up on your doorstep fully expecting to cart away boxes of electronics, /how on earth/ do you "demonstrate that this is indeed how our service works", there and then on the spot, in a sufficiently convincing manner that they leave again empty-handed?

I'm wondering this as well and I haven't seen a sufficiently good explanation yet. I know they've done audits of different kinds over the years, I've read up about their infrastructure and the way they run their services, but I don't realistically see any of that being enough of an argument, right there on the spot, when the police turn up with a warrant. What could they possibly have demonstrated and how?

> What could they possibly have demonstrated and how?

Affiliation with an intelligence agency, who tell the petty beat cops to turn around and mind their own business. Probably more or less the same way that BATFE agents pretending to coyly sell illegal machine guns turn away any regular cop who might wander into the fishing expedition. With phone calls to police chiefs I imagine.

Re: Mullvad VPN was subject to a search warrant – customer data not compromised

#210

Post by Dylan16807 »

gala8y wrote: post #197
TJSomething wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That one's pretty easy to disprove though. Just have a computer solve a random NP-complete problem and then verify it by hand.

Can you, please, explain?

We're assuming in this scenario that your memory is still basically functional, so the math on a sheet of paper won't be replaced suddenly without you noticing.

If you can't even remember things in the medium term that's a level beyond "trapped in a dream" that's much more hopeless.

So, with that assumption, you make a computer solve a problem that's impossible for a human to work through in a practical amount of time. And then you verify it got the right answer. This proves the math wasn't done by your dreaming brain. (At least it proves it to a pretty good certainty, and you can repeat the test.)

Many NP-complete problems are good candidates here for slow solutions and fast verifications.

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