ELI5 please, why not just use Mullvad? They accept Lightning now. Isn't all they see just an IP, too? Is it that they *can* log it? You *can* log the IP and relay it to them, can't you?
Today is the day: Obscura VPN is NOW AVAILABLE!
Obscura is the first VPN that:
- CAN'T log your activity by design
- Outsmarts network filters
We believe Obscura sets the standard for a new generation of VPNs, and hope you’ll check it out!
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Contrary to popular belief, traditional VPNs (even “no-log” ones) can track you – they see both who you are and what you do, just like your ISP.
Your ISP is no better. Since 2017, they've been able to legally sell your sensitive data.
Obscura is different – we never see your decrypted internet packets in the first place.
It’s simply impossible for us to log your internet activity, even if we were compelled to, or if our servers were compromised.
We achieve this by using a fully-independent exit hop run by @mullvadvpn. Ensuring that our servers never see your traffic, and the exit hop never sees your identity.
In fact, you can check your connected server’s public key against those listed on Mullvad’s server page!
But that’s not all…
You may have had the frustrating experience of trying to use your VPN on a restrictive WiFi: in an airport, a hotel, or certain jurisdictions.
Other VPNs will often fail to connect, as their off-the-shelf protocol is easily detected and blocked.
With Obscura, we built our own custom stealth protocol that is much harder to block.
Our protocol blends in with regular internet traffic using the same technology that powers HTTP/3 – QUIC – making it much harder for censors or network filters to detect or block.
To celebrate our launch, Obscura is just $6/month.
Our team has put in the hours to make this all a seamless experience, and I hope you’ll take Obscura for a spin.
Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you on the free and open internet. 🏄
P.S. For those looking for an exploration of our technical choices, here's our blog post! https://obscura.net/blog/bootstrapping-trust/
Discussion
It is basically two points of failure instead of one. Neither of them has the full picture on their own so they would have to collude to link you with your web traffic.
I don't see it as having two points of failure. You're just shifting it, from Mullvad to Obscura.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought in this scenario obscura has your IP, but not the web traffic/public IP. Mullvad knows web traffic/public IP, but not yours. Neither knows both so neither can individually link an individual to their web traffic.
But Obscura can in principle relay my IP to Mullvad and then Mullvad has the full picture. So it is like a condom on Mullvad’s offering? 😁 Is that the idea?
Thats what I meant about collusion. In principle, they could do that. But the incentives don't really line up. Once that happens, business dries up.