3 ms·

Amazon, but that kind of defeats the point.

buildbot 10mo ago
Buy amazon gift card in cash, setup new account, ship scratch card to locker? (Idk if they’d let you do that). I think you can still mail them cash?
- phantom784 10mo ago
  Can an Amazon account be made anonymously? (I've never tried).
  - buildbot 10mo ago
    I assume if all the inputs are anonymous you could? Like phone/email. Never tried either haha.
flumpcakes 10mo ago
It doesn't defeat the point in my threat model. No one in the position to log my traffic knows who I am other than my source IP address (which is already enough to link it back to me anyway). So let's take Mullvad at their word that they don't log anything, what's the threat now? Maybe Amazon are x-raying the card numbers before shipping them out to customers, but that would require Mullvad giving up the card number -> account number -> account number traffic logs. Not much of a threat there. Maybe all amazon orders are funnelled somewhere and they correlate the fact I bought a VPN card with my home address, and then correlate my bandwidth into Mullvad IPs (gained from my ISP logs) with data leaving Mullvad but that's all very unlikely and very circumstantial. I'm also not doing anything illegal so perhaps my threat model/level is lower than the 'average' VPN user. Anyway, not to be a shill but honestly I am just completely won over with how Mullvad do business. I know that a VPN does not make you automatically 'private'/'anonymous' but just the way they do business makes me happy.
- phantom784 10mo ago
  But then how is that more secure than just paying Mullvad directly? Either way, there's a record of "this person gave money to Mullvad".
  - flumpcakes 10mo ago
    Because the people who know who I am, and the people who know what I browse are different. If I paid directly to Mullvad they would know both. The simple fact they go out of their way to buy their services in this way makes me believe them even more when they say they don't log user traffic, unlike other VPNs.

Buy amazon gift card in cash, setup new account, ship scratch card to locker? (Idk if they’d let you do that). I think you can still mail them cash?

phantom784 10mo ago
Can an Amazon account be made anonymously? (I've never tried).
- buildbot 10mo ago
  I assume if all the inputs are anonymous you could? Like phone/email. Never tried either haha.

flumpcakes 10mo ago

It doesn't defeat the point in my threat model. No one in the position to log my traffic knows who I am other than my source IP address (which is already enough to link it back to me anyway). So let's take Mullvad at their word that they don't log anything, what's the threat now? Maybe Amazon are x-raying the card numbers before shipping them out to customers, but that would require Mullvad giving up the card number -> account number -> account number traffic logs. Not much of a threat there. Maybe all amazon orders are funnelled somewhere and they correlate the fact I bought a VPN card with my home address, and then correlate my bandwidth into Mullvad IPs (gained from my ISP logs) with data leaving Mullvad but that's all very unlikely and very circumstantial. I'm also not doing anything illegal so perhaps my threat model/level is lower than the 'average' VPN user. Anyway, not to be a shill but honestly I am just completely won over with how Mullvad do business. I know that a VPN does not make you automatically 'private'/'anonymous' but just the way they do business makes me happy.

phantom784 10mo ago
But then how is that more secure than just paying Mullvad directly? Either way, there's a record of "this person gave money to Mullvad".
- flumpcakes 10mo ago
  Because the people who know who I am, and the people who know what I browse are different. If I paid directly to Mullvad they would know both. The simple fact they go out of their way to buy their services in this way makes me believe them even more when they say they don't log user traffic, unlike other VPNs.