kfreds

21 ms·

1. 241.▲
   by kfreds 5y ago

   > I stopped heeding their recommendations after I discovered that they were aggressively persuing kickbacks and refusing to review products that do not pay. Let me offer a counterexample - VPN services. They didn’t get a cent from Mullva
2. 242.▲
   by kfreds 5y ago

   Oh, a fellow fan of transparency logs! I'd love to hear what you think about a log a few colleagues and I have designed. We've tried to get to the essence of transparency logging. It's a minimalistic design, and it doesn&#x27
3. 243.▲
   by kfreds 5y ago

   Hi! Yes, it is legal. Your average corner shop has no requirements to do KYC when selling chocolate bars, and neither do we. :) Cheers, Fredrik Strömberg, cofounder of Mullvad.
4. 244.▲
   by kfreds 5y ago

   For anyone else wondering how their clients verify the authenticity of timestamps; It seems they use the NTP server software Chrony, which has support for NTS (Network Time Security, RFC 8915).
5. 245.▲
   by kfreds 5y ago

   From the article: "More accurate time keeping enables more advanced infrastructure management across our data centers, as well as faster performance of distributed databases."
6. 246.▲
   by kfreds 5y ago

   > Yet I don't come across a lot of people asking about how this is done. Please elaborate! How do you handle complexity?
7. 247.▲
   by kfreds 5y ago

   First of all, I enjoyed reading this article. Second, it inspired me to write the following, with curious beginners as the target audience. It was meant to be about the importance of reducing the computing power of recognizers / parser
8. 248.▲
   by kfreds 6y ago

   Hi! Thank you. I’m pretty sure it’s on the roadmap.
9. 249.▲
   by kfreds 6y ago

   Hi! I'm glad to hear that! Regarding PPA etc I can't say for sure since I don't lead the app team and don't want to interrupt their work day. I'll relay your comment though. I hope that's OK.
10. 250.▲
    by kfreds 6y ago

    I hear what you're saying but that generalization isn't fair. Check out IVPN for instance. They do a lot of things right: https://www.ivpn.net/ethics/
11. 251.▲
    by kfreds 6y ago

    > As far as I know, in a lot of country (like France) it is a legal obligation to keep logs and be able to identify one of your customer if the police demands it. Not for all types of services. ISPs are sometimes under obligation to log,
12. 252.▲
    by kfreds 6y ago

    https://mullvad.net/en/blog/tag/audits/
13. 253.▲
    by kfreds 6y ago

    Hi! No, our app uses WireGuard by default. https://mullvad.net/en/help/wireguard-macos-app/
14. 254.▲
    by kfreds 6y ago

    Thanks! Yes, I completely recognize that many users prefer to download a generic configuration file for WireGuard or OpenVPN. In our case we want to support that use case. At the same time encouraging use of our own app allows us to invent
15. 255.▲
    by kfreds 6y ago

    Hi! I'm one of Mullvad's founders. I can't speak for Mozilla, but we have our own desktop and mobile apps because it enables us to do more privacy-preserving things with a higher assurance. Consider for instance DNS leaks, Te
16. 256.▲
    by kfreds 6y ago

    As for our current hardest challenge: Good question. As an organization probably helping each other ensure we stay focused on what needs to be done and what is right for the organization, weighing Time/Cost/Quality, and so on. I&#
17. 257.▲
    by kfreds 6y ago

    Yes. Well, capital used correctly gives you leverage. Sort of the same. That can be used for a social net good or bad. Related, I definitely agree with others in the thread that profit can be a measure of social impact. Whether your impact
18. 258.▲
    by kfreds 6y ago

    We started Mullvad VPN in 2009 for political reasons. My cofounder Daniel and I viewed it as direct political action through entrepreneurship. In particular we wanted to protest Swedish surveillance legislation (FRA), which is partly why we
19. 259.▲
    by kfreds 6y ago

    Wow, that does sound fun. I don't keep a daily journal but I have kept track of my goals, visions, main priorities and associated strategic plans for over 10 years. It is by no means a complete anthology, but it is fun to reflect that
20. 260.▲
    by kfreds 6y ago

    Managing resources is key. Personally I use the triad Time-Money-Attention, but I think I like yours better. Attention presumes the requisite mood or motivation. Time, money, and mood seems to me like the three most important limited resour
21. 261.▲
    by kfreds 6y ago

    Having tools to process our thoughts and emotions, well integrated both intellectually and emotionally. We can’t affect where we are, but we can affect in which direction we go. There is a space between stimulus and response, as Viktor Fran
22. 262.▲
    by kfreds 6y ago

    Hi! Thanks for the feedback. That’s great to hear. Audits are good and definitely have a place. There’s much more that can be done. I agree open source is also an important one. We’ve tried to identify strong signals of trustworthiness toge
23. 263.▲
    by kfreds 6y ago

    Thank you. To quote https://fpn.firefox.com/vpn - “The VPN is built by Firefox and runs on a global network of servers powered by our partner Mullvad using the WireGuard® protocol.“ Regarding using us directly or through Mo
24. 264.▲
    by kfreds 6y ago

    Every time the VPN service industry is discussed on HN there is a barrage of comments that use keywords like “honeypot”, “snake oil”, and “shady”. I’m not denying that the industry has problems, but in this thread I’d like to focus on how w
25. 265.▲
    by kfreds 7y ago

    Hi Patrick! I unfortunately don’t recall the details. If you’re interested reach out to Philipp at 9eSec.
26. 266.▲
    by kfreds 7y ago

    Good point. Or even without a specific language: https://mullvad.net/blog/2019/8/7/open-source-firmware-futur... Could the submitter or a moderator also change the title to "Open-source firmware is
27. 267.▲
    by kfreds 7y ago

    Well worth considering. Thanks! The best I can offer at the moment are our yearly review posts, but those are obviously written after the fact: https://mullvad.net/en/blog/2018/12/19/final-glance-yea
28. 268.▲
    by kfreds 7y ago

    Hi! Thanks for the question. It's an important one. Both the security of WireGuard as a protocol as well as its Linux kernel implementation are most likely superior to all alternatives. Code audits and age of the project function as si
29. 269.▲
    by kfreds 7y ago

    Sure! coreboot + LinuxBoot (with u-root) in the integrity-protected SPI flash memory, which then netboots (download and kexec) a Linux system. All artifacts need to be reproducible. For the CT Log probably trillian. As for choosing this boa
30. 270.▲
    by kfreds 7y ago

    This port took roughly two-three weeks of full time work by an experienced firmware developer. I'm not a firmware expert so take the following with a grain of salt. In general the more your target platform has in common with currently