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

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

#271

Post by hnarn »

kkielhofner wrote: post #207
hnarn wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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" betwee…

The fact that you call NOA "the national police" tells me everything I need to know.

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

#272

Post by hnarn »

nisegami wrote: post #263
hnarn wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>If they are confident that this data does not exist, why would they start seizing hardware? As retaliation or as a punitive measure. Basically, just to spite them.

I understand that. So why would they want to spite them?

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

#273

Post by hnarn »

vkou wrote: post #251
hnarn wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Technically they could have been logging your traffic Of course they “could have” but their entire business depends on them not doing it.

> their entire business depends on them not doing it... ... in a way that you, as a customer, can detect. 1. You can't have any hard guarantees about what information is retained by third parties about you. 2. As other comments here have pointed out, something smells a bit weird with this.

How profound. So what is your alternate theory of what is happening here?

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

#274

Post by coconut08 »

EGreg wrote: post #163
coconut08 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

pretending you don't need trust when you actually do is a vulnerability. of course you need to trust that mullvad is doing what they actually say they are doing. there is literally no way for you to verify everything they claim.

And yet you trust WhatsApp and Facebook and Signal with their claims of end-to-end encryption. Why?

i never said you shouldn't ever trust anything. I personally do trust mullvad. I've been using it for over a decade. I'm just not in denial over the fact that there is trust required. Second of all, aside from signal which I have superficially played around with, I don't and have never used any of those services you mentioned and they have absolutely nothing to do with the topic at hand so maybe you can tell me why you brought them into this conversation?

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

#276

Post by hnarn »

kkielhofner wrote: post #259
semanticist wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This feels like a very American-centric perspective, this happened in Sweden. For a bunch of reasons policing outside the US is very different to policing in the US.

I realize this happened in Sweden. My dad was a professor at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm; I practically grew up there. My first name is spelled "Kristian" for this reason. Yes Sweden is very different from the US. In fact, seven years ago some Swedish cops on vacation in NYC became somewhat famous and drew significant attention (at the time) to policing issues in the US[0]. People in the US were literally…

> I find it very, very, very hard to believe

Well I guess that settles it

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

#277

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

justsomehnguy wrote: post #70
jrootabega wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also usually another disconnect: between tech industry publicity and tech industry reality. Mullvad could have been, and maybe even still is, lying about how they operate, because it's good for business.

> Mullvad could have been, and maybe even still is, lying about how they operate Could they? Sure. Do they have anything on me? * One BTC transfer * IPs where I'm connecting from (if they are lying and storing them) * My traffic (if they are lying and storing it) * My unencrypted traffic (if they are lying and storing it) Do they have ... on me? * Email? - nope * Phone number? - nope * Credit card? - nope * My first…

Unless you're using another VPN/proxy/Tor/... to connect to the VPN, the IP where you're connecting from (respectively the full 4-tuple including source/destination port) likely does identify your address.

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

#278

Post by kkielhofner »

hnarn wrote: post #271
kkielhofner wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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" betwee…

The fact that you call NOA "the national police" tells me everything I need to know.

Outright dismissal without any substance says a lot too.

"The National Operations Department (Nationella operativa avdelningen) is tasked with assisting the local police regions and is in charge of international police cooperation and all national operations."[0]

So yes, this was above and beyond a few local cops.

Do you have a better way to summarize this other than saying "the national police"?

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_Police_Authority#Natio...

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

#279

Post by blargpls »

hnarn wrote: post #179
bragr wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a specious argument, because the choice could be between logging your traffic and being forced to shutdown under some kind of Swedish NSL, or forced to keep operating and logging even if they want to shut down. Not saying this is what happened, just that your reasoning doesn't really hold. Hell it's entirely possible Mullvad is a honeypot operated by some foreign intelligence service.

> it's entirely possible Mullvad is a honeypot operated by some foreign intelligence service. “Entirely” possible? Sure, I guess it’s “entirely” possible that the NSA is actually controlled by a reptilian, illuminati cabal of extraterrestrials, while we’re just making stuff up without any factual basis whatsoever.

See Crypto AG (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_AG) for a company in the cryptography / privacy industry that was owned by intelligence services.

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

#280

Post by kkielhofner »

RoyGBivCap wrote: post #246
hammock wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many cases the police don’t let you watch, they make you wait outside. Reason to have cameras in your place (pros and cons)

In America maybe. This was in Sweden.

Yes it was. I don't understand how you could have a functioning legal system anywhere if a search warrant can be neutralized by saying "I don't have that" without any kind of search taking place.
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