dongcarl

7 ms·

31.
by dongcarl 2y ago
(Carl from Obscura here) 1) Here's what [one of our FAQ entries]( https://obscura.net/#faq-trust ) say: > Additionally, our app displays your current exit hop’s WireGuard public key on its “Location” page. You can che
32.
by dongcarl 2y ago
(Carl from Obscura here) > Does Mullvad have the budget and expertise to protect itself against determined, highly-resourced attackers? I think Mullvad is actively working on [System Transparency]( https://www.system-transparen
33.
by dongcarl 2y ago
I can understand that concern, and I think in the future some version of [Privacy Pass]( https://privacypass.github.io/ ) will allow for site operators to differentiate between normal vs. abusive users without relying on IP r
34.
by dongcarl 2y ago
(Carl from Obscura here) Here's what [one of our FAQ entries]( https://obscura.net/#faq-trust ) say: > Additionally, our app displays your current exit hop’s WireGuard public key on its “Location” page. You can check
35.
by dongcarl 2y ago
(Carl from Obscura here) Totally! Mullvad is _the_ pioneer in this space, and we look up to them. This is why they were our top pick for being an exit hop provider!
36.
by dongcarl 2y ago
(Carl from Obscura here) This is actually quite an interesting point that we’ve been discussing internally. Right now Obscura rotates your WireGuard key on every “Connect”, but in a future release we will start caching (persist) your WireGu
37.
by dongcarl 2y ago
(Carl from Obscura here) Woah I didn’t know about the specific term “VPN cascading”… And it seems like my GLiNet travel router can do it too? Well in any case, it seems like with cascading you’d have to register with 2 different providers,
38.
by dongcarl 2y ago
(Carl from Obscura here) Tor still offers more privacy benefits than Obscura for sure, but you want a shorthand, “Tor with 2 hops” works :-)
39.
by dongcarl 2y ago
(Carl from Obscura here) You’re absolutely right, we fixed it and forgot to push to prod XP
40.
by dongcarl 2y ago
(Carl from Obscura here) Ah we added payment and pricing to our navbar in staging but forgot to push to prod. Doing so now!
41.
by dongcarl 2y ago
Carl from Obscura here Happy to answer any questions y’all might have!
42.
by dongcarl 2y ago
You're absolutely right, Privacy Pass would definitely be helpful to consumer VPN users! :-) We haven't implemented Privacy Pass yet as it would require a browser extension, but it is one of the technologies we keep an eye on!
43.
by dongcarl 2y ago
Perhaps my answer [here]( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43017681 ) addresses your concerns! > The client software is here: https://github.com/Sovereign-Engineering/obscuravpn-client , we also pl
44.
by dongcarl 2y ago
The trilemma reminds me of [Performance-Enhancing Proxies]( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performance-enhancing_proxy ). With PEPs, strategically placed _extra hops_ actually _help_ with performance for flaky links by te
45.
by dongcarl 2y ago
Hey! Let me know if this answers some of your questions :-) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43017755
46.
by dongcarl 2y ago
In the extreme case that Obscura and Mullvad are forced to cooperate, you're right that this is the case. However, this is strictly (and much) less likely than a _single_ party being pressured or even a single party's infrastructu
47.
by dongcarl 2y ago
Ah interesting, I didn't know Waterfox used DNS over Oblivious HTTP! (I used to run an Oblivious HTTP proxy) > Unless I’m mistaken, you’re both controlling the client software (closed source) and the first relay? The client software
48.
by dongcarl 2y ago
Hey Saurik, long time fan! (since the jailbreaking days) I actually talked to some of the Tor folks about this, and it seems like it mostly boils down to their chosen trust model and the fact that anyone can be a Tor node. Most of the two-h
49.
by dongcarl 2y ago
Carl from Obscura here! Happy to answer any and all questions you may have
50.
by dongcarl 2y ago
(Carl from Obscura here) Oh very cool! I met Chris Wood at the IETF a while back, he's working on a bunch of cool things including Privacy Pass!
51.
by dongcarl 2y ago
AFAIK you can't select a location using Cloudflare WARP. One good thing about WARP is that most sites block VPN services by using Cloudflare, but Cloudflare is unlikely to block itself. Privacy-wise, it depends on your threat model but
52.
by dongcarl 2y ago
I believe Tailscale has 2FA? Headscale is an open source implementation: https://github.com/juanfont/headscale
53.
by dongcarl 2y ago
To add to u/ibash's comment, mitmproxy correctly implements a macOS network extension: https://mitmproxy.org/posts/local-redirect/macos/ I assume you'll have to install a root cert in order to
54.
by dongcarl 3y ago
It's mostly bash scripts (I know I have stockholm syndrome there) and nixos-rebuild: https://www.haskellforall.com/2023/01/announcing-nixos-rebui... All the nix deployment tools had too much magic and broke,
55.
by dongcarl 3y ago
Absolutely! Fun fact: all of the current website's infra is NixOS-based Fun fact #2: I overhauled Bitcoin Core's reproducible build system to use Guix (a Nix-inspired functional package manager)
56.
by dongcarl 3y ago
/me was pleasantly surprised to scroll my RSS feed and see that someone posted :-) I'm the maker of Obscura. Happy to answer questions folks have. Also, what thinkmassive dug up is accurate: https://news.ycombinator.com
57.
by dongcarl 3y ago
Disclaimer: I'm making Obscura True. This is why all client side source code will be released and reproducible builds offered on platforms that support it. If you don't know what code you're running, yeah you're screwed
58.
by dongcarl 3y ago
Exactly right. Will be open sourcing the client so people can ensure that this is implemented correctly.
59.
by dongcarl 3y ago
Nope, AFAIK iCloud Private Relay only relays TCP/UDP traffic. Obscura will tunnel all IP traffic.
60.
by dongcarl 3y ago
Huh... Why are they using QUIC instead of just UDP? I know that iCloud Relay also uses QUIC but never dug into the benefits over just UDP.

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