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Exit IP VPN servers mitigation rollout
- john_strinlai 5mo agoit should probably link to this: https://mullvad.net/en/blog/exit-ip-fingerprinting-between-vpn-servers https://mullvad.net/en/blog/exit-ip-fingerprinting-between-v... which is the blog post, rather than a list of exit servers related to this post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48143880 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48143880
- opem 5mo agoThe page already contains link to both of these resources
- john_strinlai 5mo agoright. but one of those resources contains much more context than the other, making it much more suitable for the submission link.
- Arrowmaster 5mo agoThat blog post is a perfect example of when RFC5737 should be used. https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/rfc5737/ https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/rfc5737/
- Insimwytim 5mo agoOn a side note, buttons icons on this page won't load without javascript. I cannot comprehend what would justify such decision.
- jermaustin1 5mo agoWithout justifying it, the reason is simple. They are using a front end framework (bootstrap) that many developers use/understand that also supports 99.9% of browsers. Running a browser without javascript that you still want graphics to display (so not a screenreader or text-based-browser), is part of the .1% they are willing to disappoint. Do I think it is overkill? Sure. Do I still use jQuery at work even though the vast majority of its once handy features are now baked into JS in the browser by default? Of course.
- fc417fc802 5mo agoHow do you jump straight from JS to screen reader or text based browser? What happened to HTML+CSS viewer? Isn't reading an RFC the perfect poster child for an activity that ought to consist of viewing a noninteractive document?
- hulitu 5mo ago> What happened to HTML+CSS viewer? S in https stands for "script". /s
- UqWBcuFx6NV4r 5mo agoIt’ll be a run-on effect of whatever framework they are using, and they very justifiably don’t want to bother catering to you. Having JS disabled in 2026 and complaining about sites not behaving is simply a performative act.
- sroussey 5mo ago[flagged]
- lazide 5mo agoIt’s basic self defense. Who runs around the web in 2026 allowing random JS? Might as well be licking seats on the subway.
- lmm 5mo agoIf you trust your browser it's fine, and if you don't then both CSS and SVG are significantly more risky.
- sysguest 5mo ago> then both CSS and SVG are significantly more risky. how???
- margalabargala 5mo agoThis isn't true at all. Anything SVG does maliciously, it does by containing JavaScript, so SVG's worst case is a subset of JS's.
- fc417fc802 5mo agoRemind me again what the ratio of browser sandbox escapes coupled with full RCE is between JS, CSS, and SVG?
- Telaneo 5mo ago> Who runs around the web in 2026 allowing random JS? Within a rounding error, 100% of people on the internet.
- ernsheong 5mo agoAre you in 2006 or 2026?
- simoncion 5mo agoWhat "buttons icons"? When I set the "javascript.enabled" preference in Firefox 151 to "false" and reload the page for RFC 5737, I get a "Javascript disabled? Blah blah blah blah." complaint near the top of the page. I do not get * the useless-to-me "document history" bar graph at the top * the automatic switch to Dark Mode(TM) that I don't care about * functional pull down menus at the very tippy top of the page that are entirely unrelated to RFCs that I give zero shits about The "without javascript" version of the page seems to me to be otherwise identical. Amusingly, the "Email authors", "IPR", & etc buttons switch to the pages they reference notably faster with Javascript disabled. What broken things were you seeing that I haven't mentioned? Were you using Chrom(e|ium)? Safari?
- Insimwytim 5mo ago> I set the "javascript.enabled" preference in Firefox 151 to "false" and reload the page Do it the other way around - disable javascript first, clear cache/open incognito (maybe close/open browser after that just for good measure), then go to the page. If you load it with javascript first - buttons icons stay loaded after you disable it.
- simoncion 5mo agoThe only thing that I don't do in Firefox's "Private Browsing" mode is play a handful of stupid little in-browser games that save progress in a cookie or whatever. I even have Firefox set up to open in "Private Browsing" by default. Here's what I did just now: 1) Quit Firefox 2) Opened Firefox 3) Visited 'about:config' 4) Set 'javascript.enabled' to 'false' 5) Quit Firefox 6) Opened Firefox 7) Re-visited 'about:config' and verified that 'javascript.enabled' is still set to 'false' 8) Visited <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/rfc5737/ https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/rfc5737/> It's still exactly like I reported it was. The "Manage browsing data" thing accessed through Firefox's regular settings dialog doesn't indicate that there is any data saved by any ietf.org subdomain, and when I watch the Network pane, a ctrl+shift+f5 reload of the RFC5737 page indicates that the page loads everything from an ietf.org subdomain... so the saved resources from one of the like eight domains in that list aren't relevant.
- usr1106 5mo agoNice. But unfortunately these addresses are hard to remember and "nobody" recognizes them when reading examples. One of those "standards" that have been a great idea, but lack practical relevance.
- simoncion 5mo ago> But unfortunately these addresses are hard to remember and "nobody" recognizes them when reading examples. Mmm. It's pretty easy to put three IPv4 /24s on a sticky note on your monitor. I think it's not unfair to say that if one can remember every fact related to one's job, then one has a job with a very, very small scope. Also, this is another great reason to use IPv6. The v6 documentation prefix is '2001:db8::/32'... plenty of space for example subnets and easy to remember.
- drdaeman 5mo agoAnyone who writes technical documentation about networking knows the key ranges, and at least TEST-NET-1 (192.0.2/24) is pretty easy to remember. You only gotta look it up a few times, instead of being sloppy and justifying so with “no one cares anyway”. It partly because attitudes like that is why software is a mess. Too few people care about correct semantics, everyone is satisfied with whatever sticks. From lists for sets, to tag soup instead of markup, and so on - all the way to modern code slop. </rant>
- lxgr 5mo agoFor me it's the opposite: I usually misremember 192.0.0.0/8 as being entirely private, so for 192.0.2.0/32, I usually assume that the example given is supposed to be a private v4 address/network.
- scbrg 5mo ago> But unfortunately these addresses are hard to remember and "nobody" recognizes them when reading examples. How does that matter? The point isn't that the reader should know that "oh, this is a reserved address". The point is that there should be no room for the address that's actually being used by someone to end up being used incorrectly just because it showed up in some random documentation. Much like how you probably wouldn't be thrilled if your phone number was used as an example in some random documentation somewhere.
- pseudalopex 5mo agoThe post you preferred was submitted before. And had not much new information. The rollout was the news. The link was correct.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- andrewstuart 5mo agoDo VPNs pay retail ISPs for exit points?
- TkTech 5mo agoNo, not usually. Few ISPs are willing to risk blacklisting. Just like scrapers (and a lot of VPNs are quietly using their custom VPN clients to sell your own IP [and data] to scrapers) it's mostly a "don't ask don't tell" situation for IP sourcing. You use a multitude of IP providers and if a scandal happens you just say "We didn't know!" and move on to the next. Almost always grey-market, very rarely through legitimate providers.
- r_lee 5mo agowhy is this downvoted? I'm not aware of a single ISP that would willingly let VPN providers use their ip blocks for their exit nodes
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- tiffanyh 5mo agoI see DataPacket.com have VPN clients. Does anyone know if this is any issue for non-vpn users of datapacket.com? https://www.datapacket.com/case-study/nordvpn https://www.datapacket.com/case-study/nordvpn
- gruez 5mo ago>Does anyone know if this is any issue for non-vpn users of datapacket.com? Probably not that much worse than other VPS providers with trashed IP reputations, eg. digital ocean, vultr, ovh. If you're blocking bots, the first thing to block is any datacenter ip ranges, not just known VPN servers.
- dtech 5mo agoNot retail ISPs, but many extensions and free VPNs route VPN traffic through the connections of those who use them.
- mjevans 5mo agoI'd really like some version of E.G. Librewolf configured to spoof the exact SAME information no matter who's using it. Like standard resolution for a 1080p monitor, the same GPU profile, Allow device timing stuff to work but with a fixed profile etc. Effectively, stop spoofing random data, start spoofing still useful but not for finger printing data.
- okso 5mo agoThe Mullbad Browser? https://mullvad.net/en/browser https://mullvad.net/en/browser
- gruez 5mo agoOr tor browser, where all the features came from. You can also enable it on firefox with privacy.resistFingerprinting enabled.
- traceroute66 5mo ago> You can also enable it on firefox with privacy.resistFingerprinting enabled. Not the same thing. I use both Firefox and Mulllvad Browser side-by-side on a regular basis and in practice Mullvad Browser is far more aggressive in its privacy preserving measures to the extent that you do sometimes stumble across websites that are "broken" in Mullvad Browser but work fine in Firefox, for example the animated map features on the Ventusky website (which, IIRC, breaks because Mullvad is more aggressive at blocking JS graphics functions).
- whilenot-dev 5mo agoFYI here are the listed differences between Firefox-/Tor-/Mullvad Browser: https://mullvad.net/en/browser/hard-facts https://mullvad.net/en/browser/hard-facts
- kqp 5mo agoThis is already what LibreWolf does for most of its fingerprinting protection, including resolution, which you call out. It already works, LibreWolf is the only browser besides Tor I’ve found that actually defeated fingerprinters in some of my testing. Is there something that’s currently randomized that you think should be binned or homogenous?
- StackExpress 5mo ago[flagged]
- willis936 5mo agoIs this at all related to Wyden's recent congressional warning? Are any other VPN providers speaking up on this? https://www.wyden.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/wyden_letter_to_gabbard_on_commercial_vpn.pdf https://www.wyden.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/wyden_letter_to_g...
- john_strinlai 5mo agoit is a direct response to this disclosure: https://tmctmt.com/posts/mullvad-exit-ips-as-a-fingerprinting-vector/ https://tmctmt.com/posts/mullvad-exit-ips-as-a-fingerprintin... and nothing to do with american politics
- willis936 5mo agoAnd what evidence do you have that this May 14th disclosure has nothing to do with Wyden's March warning? If you remember your history you'll know Wyden tried to shake the Snowden revelations out before the Snowden revelations. Dismissing Wyden's remarks as "american politics" is near equivalent to dismissing the entire notion of VPN security. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/after-years-of-obscure-warnings-wyden-gets-sought-after-privacy-debate-in-wake-of-nsa-revelations/2013/07/28/267efd1a-f573-11e2-861b-70461cc1cd24_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/after-years-of-obscu...
- john_strinlai 5mo ago>Dismissing Wyden's remarks as "american politics" its a letter signed by american politicians, addressed to an american agency, about american citizens. no scare quotes are needed around american politics. (mullvad is swedish)
- willis936 5mo agoAnd would you classify Snowden's revelations the same? The pattern is "Wyden rings the bell about a dragnet and then we learn the details about it". It just seems like an extraordinary claim with no extraordinary evidence to say that "person warning about VPN compromises has not motivated any of Mullvad's recent security work". Just provide that evidence for your claim.
- rjhy2020 5mo ago[dead]
- akszt 5mo ago[flagged]
- Cider9986 5mo agoIf you us Mullvad browser, which has built in Mullvad proxies, this isn't an issue because it doesn't use wireguard. The browser also has a cool feature in the browser extension called Random mode. This gives you a different IP for each site, improving your privacy.
- Cider9986 5mo agoYou can probably also use it on regular Firefox.
- stefan_ 5mo agoWhich you absolutely shouldn't use, because just like Tor Browser before, a vulnerability in the browser can be immediately escalated into decloaking your real IP. Ideally the proxying doesn't even happen on the same machine.
- ranger_danger 5mo agoOne possible mitigation might be to run your system (or just the browser/certain apps) sandboxed to only communicate with the IP/ports mullvad uses for VPNs.
- fc417fc802 5mo agoYou absolutely shouldn't do that because a vulnerability in the kernel can be immediately escalated into decloaking your real IP. /s (TBF this is presumably why parent specified that proxying ought to happen on separate hardware.)
- ranger_danger 5mo ago> a vulnerability in the kernel can be immediately escalated into decloaking your real IP Not necessarily IMO... if you create a network namespace that can only communicate with mullvad, and then run the VM inside that... even owning the entire VM and escaping it doesn't help you... you would now have to exploit the host kernel as well, which to me is basically just as good as it being separate hardware in the first place.
- m132 5mo agoMaybe it's just me, but I'm incredibly surprised by their prompt reaction to this. As a user, I was already preparing to deal with this myself. Wow, is this how things were before bureaucratic behemoths took over the tech industry?
- stingraycharles 5mo agoThis is just how things work when there’s much less overhead. Which is typically the case for smaller companies.
- Predaxia 5mo ago[flagged]
- dannyw 5mo agoWhen you have tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands of employees, your organisational culture and policies inevitably change to limit the impact -- good or bad -- of one individual or a small team.
- dartharva 5mo ago[flagged]
- immanuwell 5mo ago[dead]
- halapro 5mo agoWhen news broke I was really confused how IPs with thousands of users would suddenly be more identifying than your home IP with one user. I'm happy that Mullvad actually explains the issue very clearly in https://mullvad.net/en/blog/exit-ip-fingerprinting-between-vpn-servers https://mullvad.net/en/blog/exit-ip-fingerprinting-between-v...
- trymas 5mo agoOriginal source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48143880 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48143880
- Schlagbohrer 5mo agoI've always assumed that when I am logged in to a website like Hacker News and I switch VPN endpoints, Hacker News now gets to see that I am a VPN user and track me between the IPs. I mean being logged in to something obviously negates a large amount of anonymity but switching servers while logged in really gives away the VPN usage, right? Or do large web services already keep up to date indecies of all common VPN IPs?
- buttscicles 5mo agoIt's very common for people to switch networks many times a day anyway so it's not obviously a VPN user - even when switching countries to some extent.
- Capricorn2481 5mo agoCan you elaborate? I assume they're talking about switching networks while using the same site, when you have a user fingerprint from cookies or request paths. That does make VPN usage obvious. I have been confused by this mitigation because switching networks while using the same service is pretty much always a VPN. But maybe I'm not aware of another case where that would happen?
- miki_mq 5mo agofor example: getting into your house and your phone starts using your wi-fi instead of a mobile network (or the other way around)
- fckgw 5mo agoUsing your phone on a train would be hopping from tower to tower. Going to be swapping IPs endlessly.
- Capricorn2481 5mo agoI'm very desktop minded so I didn't think of this. I forget people are using VPNs on their phone.
- Anonyneko 5mo agoI wish Mullvad would focus on censorship breaking. These days anything that doesn't implement something along the lines of AmneziaWG/Xray/Shadowsocks/Outline feels like a waste of time, sadly.
- gib444 5mo agoThey do have Shadowsocks https://mullvad.net/en/help/connecting-to-mullvad-vpn-from-restrictive-locations https://mullvad.net/en/help/connecting-to-mullvad-vpn-from-r... They've worked quite a bit the past year or two on censorship breaking. But I guess there's always more to be done in a cat and mouse game
- dannyw 5mo agoWhat makes it a waste of time? A reputable VPN provider that offers a pretty reliable service and has every indication of having a competent security team is worth something in itself; not everyone using Mulled wants to set up / debug potentially complicated systems either.
- blfr 5mo agoDoes this affect people using the socks proxy feature? I generally connect to the same Mullvad server over wireguard (not their client) and then use different servers for socks proxy as exits. My clanker says no because socks proxies have all one IP per server but I don't know whether to trust it.
- Cider9986 5mo agoNo it doesn't affect people using the proxies. You can even see it in the demo, which I really don't understand how it knows that you are using wireguard vs a proxy. When I use a proxy it says like 99% of mullvad users,and when I use wireguard it's between 0.5 and 5%. (https://tmctmt.github.io/mullvad-seed-estimator/ https://tmctmt.github.io/mullvad-seed-estimator/)