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Mullvad has partnered with Obscura VPN (www.mullvad.net)

submitted 13 hours ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

22 comments fedilink hide all child comments

First I'm hearing of ObscuraVPN at least, but it does seem to be a very new player in the market. However from reading through their website and Github. This service does look very promising! Though it is slightly more expensive than Mullvad.

Anyone had the chance to test their service yet? Does it seem interesting to you? Let's discuss.

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 12 hours ago (4 children)

It does seem interesting,
but I remain skeptical.

This means putting your trust in Obscura, since they're the 1st hop, receiving your data without additional encryption, a new player, who yet has to prove that they're trustworthy.

Sure their Github may show great software, but that doesn't mean we can see which software they might additionally install on their servers.

Meanwhile Mullvad has already been proven to be trustworthy through the best possible review any VPN company can receive, being: Server seized by the feds, but zero useful info retrieved by them.

Which proves they back up their claim of being a No-Log VPN.

Due to this I trust Mullvad,
and don't have any issues with sending them my data.

But I can't put the same faith in Obscura yet, not before they receive a similar "review".

[–] [email protected] 24 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Server seized by the feds, but zero useful info retrieved by them.

The gold standard.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (1 children)

Assuming they don't log your perfectly trackable payments.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

They don't take xmr or cash?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 hours ago

They seem good, but they're new and we can't know just yet whether we can trust them or not.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 hours ago

As I understand it, the "first hop" in Obscura's case would give them access to your IP address, but the identity of the destination server would be obscured until it was accepted by the second hop, Mullvad's server. In contrast, Mullvad's server would not see your IP address. (And, hoping you are visiting an HTTPS secured website, they would see the domain you are visiting but not the page contents.)

A helpful diagram is halfway down this page. I feel comfortable providing it, as this company is no longer in business AFAIK.

https://invisv.com/articles/decoupling-principle.html

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 hours ago

This means putting your trust in Obscura, since they’re the 1st hop, receiving your data without additional encryption, a new player, who yet has to prove that they’re trustworthy.

I've not checked but the whole claim is to use additional encryption, between you and the 2nd hop.

With our 2-party setup, Obscura operates the 1st hop, and we’re proud to partner with Mullvad who operates the 2nd (exit) hop. As the WireGuard packets are end-to-end encrypted to Mullvad’s servers, we never see any parts of your packet in plaintext (not even SNI). In fact, you can check your connected server’s public key in the Obscura App against those listed on Mullvad’s server page!

https://obscura.net/blog/bootstrapping-trust/#obscura