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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

#91

Post by Ensorceled »

pc86 wrote: post #52
colesantiago wrote: post #7

That is a shame. Is there an alternative VPN provider that wouldn't be subject to this? Huh? Why all the downvotes all of a sudden? this is a genuine question.

> Huh? Why all the downvotes all of a sudden? Because the whole point of the article is that there was no data to be compromised. If anything this should make you more likely to go with Mullvad if you're looking for VPN services. Reading no more than the title, making up the article content in your mind, and writing a comment based on that made up content is a pretty good recipe for downvotes.

> 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!

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

#92

Post by ursuscamp »

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…

Might I suggest for the future: https://vpn.sovereign.engineering

You can pay a Bitcoin lightning invoice on this site and get a redeemable Mullvad voucher instantly. Extremely convenient. Since you've only done 1 BTC transaction, I assume it was a large one for lots of time. However, when your time runs out, this option is great. It's an extra layer of privacy and you don't have to wait for the transaction to settle on chain.

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

#93

Post by formerly_proven »

pdpi wrote: post #69
hubraumhugo wrote: post #11

Once again this shows the huge disconnect between the government authorities and the tech industry. Basic knowledge and a quick investigation would make clear that Mullvad is not storing any customer data.

Police got a warrant and went to service it, Mullvad explained why it was pointless, police agreed and left without further incident. It's not "a huge disconnect", it's the system working exactly as I'd hope for.

Police doesn't (can't) make these kinds of decisions, they communicated with the prosecutor and the prosecutor withdrew his warrant. Which actually does seem very out of the ordinary to me. Might've been the warrant was acquired on autopilot with no one actually checking the targeted entity (e.g. crime committed, IP traced, get warrant for IP "end-user", police show up, "oh we've gotten a warrant for an ISP oops").

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

#94

Post by Kuinox »

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…

To watch movies that are not licensed in your country, on legals platforms.

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

#95

Post by bragr »

hnarn wrote: post #75
wepple wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically they could have been logging your traffic, which is “customer data” even if it doesn’t identify you by name

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

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.

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

#96

Post by formerly_proven »

sdrinf wrote: post #86
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…

Briefly, law requires establishing probable cause, that _one_ specific person has done specific things, to underwrite search warrant. VPN IPs are shared between users, meaning any one of the ~X00 users sharing a single ip could be doing any number of things at the same time.

Briefly, non-US jurisdictions are not US jurisdictions and have different standards and procedures.

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

#97

Post by asoneth »

> After demonstrating that this is indeed how our service works and them consulting the prosecutor they left without taking anything

Setting aside impacts on customers, I wonder how common seizures would need to be to support a purely financial case that businesses that are known to not store identifying information are therefore less likely to incur the cost and effort of scrambling to replace seized hardware.

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

#98

Post by coconut08 »

hnarn wrote: post #75
wepple wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically they could have been logging your traffic, which is “customer data” even if it doesn’t identify you by name

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

mullvad has time and again shown itself to be one of if not the best actors in the entire vpn space, but you still have no real way of knowing if they are being honest.

also their business definitely doesn't depend on being honest or standing for their values. there are plenty of vpn's who run on fake marketing that give the impression that they have certain values and do certain things while actually not doing it and they are way more successful than mullvad.

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

#99

Post by [deleted] »

KyeRussell wrote: post #84
qikInNdOutReply wrote: post #25

Its funny, how the VPN providers basically become the avatars of the old anarchic web and the constant buisness and government overreach makes them ever stronger. Its basically a old "freedom" tax.

That’s incredibly generous. The VPN industry is deserving of its bad reputation. Collecting user data in clear contravention of their TOS. Using hacked boxes as VPN endpoints to get people onto residential IP ranges. And whatever else. I’m very confident in my completely baseless assertion that most people that use a “public” VPN are either bypassing geographical restrictions on a streaming service, or doing somethin…

[deleted]

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

#100

Post by terhechte »

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…

Use the VPN from a VM. You can also configure Mullvad to use socks so that it can only be accessed from Firefox (which has OS independent socks settings)
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