5 ms·

This seems like a silly extra step to add when you can just purchase Mullvad service directly with monero for a 10% discount. It might even be more likely to d

This seems like a silly extra step to add when you can just purchase Mullvad service directly with monero for a 10% discount. It might even be more likely to deanonymize you since you're forced to interact with a physical thing. It's an extra step in the obfuscation chain that adds personal information (mailing address at least) that wouldn't be added otherwise. I suppose if you were forced to use a non anonymous crypto like bitcoin that can be easily tracked, there might be some value to this extra step.

prophesi 4y ago
Yeah I would say mailing in cash without a return address or using Monero are the best options. Shipping would be the most difficult to preserve privacy; even a P.O. box will at least indicate your locality. I'd definitely like to hear how the voucher cards work and if that leaves a trail on a Mullvad account.
- jandrese 4y ago
  You can have them shipped to an Amazon locker presumably. Mailing cash has the downside of having your postmark on the envelope.
  - prophesi 4y ago
    Or any virtual mailbox, except Amazon lockers can only be used for Amazon packages (unless your place happens to have Amazon Hub). And I do admit postage stamps will add some bits of entropy in terms of datetime and country (couldn't find a list of countries Amazon lockers are located), though much less accurate than a monero or amazon transaction.
timmytokyo 4y ago
It's also kind of silly when you're not anonymous to Mullvad or to the data centers Mullvad pays to run its services out of. They have your IP address, and it's not that hard to go from an IP address to an ISP to an identity. Don't get me wrong. I think Mullvad is a great VPN service. But if people think it's a bullet-proof solution to the problem of anonymity, they're fooling themselves.
- abliefern 4y ago
  The point is that typically privacy-first VPN providers promise not to store your IP but have to store your payment details for practical reasons.
  - POPOSYS 4y ago
    The VPN provider does not, but the owner of the data center still can store whatever she likes or some entity asks her to store.
  - pnt12 4y ago
    They actually removed subscriptions just because of that: they were required to keep some info to process payments, but this was incompatible with their vision for privacy. With single payments they don't need to keep it for so long.
- zucker42 4y ago
  Here's the threat model that justifies uses a public VPN: 1. The VPN provider and its infrastructure is trusted. 2. Attackers (private or government) can access data the VPN stores some period of time after you use it, but not while you are using the VPN. 3. Given assumptions (1) and (2) are true, attackers should not be able to determine which websites you visited. A VPN does nothing if you don't trust the VPN provider (since they can always be lying about keeping logs) or if the government can access the VPN's servers/data while you're using it. But it does protect against one of the most common ways a government/private party could gain access to your browsing history: the government/private party subpoenas the websites you visited or your ISP for all pages visited by a given IP. In this case, providing an alternate way to pay protects against storing data that an attacker can use to connect your account to your identity.

prophesi 4y ago

Yeah I would say mailing in cash without a return address or using Monero are the best options. Shipping would be the most difficult to preserve privacy; even a P.O. box will at least indicate your locality. I'd definitely like to hear how the voucher cards work and if that leaves a trail on a Mullvad account.

jandrese 4y ago
You can have them shipped to an Amazon locker presumably. Mailing cash has the downside of having your postmark on the envelope.
- prophesi 4y ago
  Or any virtual mailbox, except Amazon lockers can only be used for Amazon packages (unless your place happens to have Amazon Hub). And I do admit postage stamps will add some bits of entropy in terms of datetime and country (couldn't find a list of countries Amazon lockers are located), though much less accurate than a monero or amazon transaction.

timmytokyo 4y ago

It's also kind of silly when you're not anonymous to Mullvad or to the data centers Mullvad pays to run its services out of. They have your IP address, and it's not that hard to go from an IP address to an ISP to an identity. Don't get me wrong. I think Mullvad is a great VPN service. But if people think it's a bullet-proof solution to the problem of anonymity, they're fooling themselves.

abliefern 4y ago
The point is that typically privacy-first VPN providers promise not to store your IP but have to store your payment details for practical reasons.
- POPOSYS 4y ago
  The VPN provider does not, but the owner of the data center still can store whatever she likes or some entity asks her to store.
- pnt12 4y ago
  They actually removed subscriptions just because of that: they were required to keep some info to process payments, but this was incompatible with their vision for privacy. With single payments they don't need to keep it for so long.
zucker42 4y ago
Here's the threat model that justifies uses a public VPN: 1. The VPN provider and its infrastructure is trusted. 2. Attackers (private or government) can access data the VPN stores some period of time after you use it, but not while you are using the VPN. 3. Given assumptions (1) and (2) are true, attackers should not be able to determine which websites you visited. A VPN does nothing if you don't trust the VPN provider (since they can always be lying about keeping logs) or if the government can access the VPN's servers/data while you're using it. But it does protect against one of the most common ways a government/private party could gain access to your browsing history: the government/private party subpoenas the websites you visited or your ISP for all pages visited by a given IP. In this case, providing an alternate way to pay protects against storing data that an attacker can use to connect your account to your identity.