Obscura: VPN that can't log your activity
obscura.com
obscura.com
We wrote a research paper on the general principle a few years ago: https://conferences.sigcomm.org/hotnets/2022/papers/hotnets2...
I didn't realize Chris Wood was also an author!
The Decoupling Principle: A Practical Privacy Framework [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33897450 - Dec 2022 (3 comments)
Perhaps we should arrange a new thread about this?
Many (if not all) of the benefits on the landing page are available in Mullvad too, which is a more mature and reputable product, has all clients fully open-source, and powers the exit servers for Obscura.
Why should I choose this over Mullvad?
According to Obscura's legal page, it is a New York-based company [0]. Under US law, a secretive court order could compel a US company to update software or implement targeted logging on a specific user without notifying that user.
The only scenario where Obscura would be useful is if Mullvad were compromised. Why would I trust a New York company to shield me from a more reputable Swedish company?
[0]: "(2) your written notification must be mailed to 169 Madison Ave.; Ste. 11185 PMB 63183; New York, NY 10016..." https://obscura.com/legal/
https://codamail.com/articles/privacy-law-directory/internat...
"EU surveillance co-operation"
In other news, it has been demonstrated in a court of law that Mullvad "no logs" means no logs.
TL;DR: Six police officers turned up at Mullvad offices with a search warrant for logs and data. Mullvad said "take a look for yourself". They went home with nothing.
Lots of people on HN and elsewhere are spreading a lot of FUD about the EU and what the EU MIGHT do – remember MIGHT .... politicians discuss a lot of stuff, and a lot of it never gets implemented.
It is the job of politicians to discuss issues of the day and potential ways to deal with them.
One thing that is clear. The EU is not a dicatorship. They have a long history of listening and acting on what industry experts tell them. Even if it means "watering down" ideas being discussed by the politicians.
I have a lot of faith that Mullvad (and, frankly, all the other VPN providers) would make a lot of noise if any of this EU FUD people are spreading actually ever became reality.
Until then, I suggest people put the EU FUD tin-foil hat to one side.
[1] https://mullvad.net/en/blog/2023/4/20/mullvad-vpn-was-subjec... [2] https://mullvad.net/en/blog/update-the-swedish-authorities-a...
[1] - lobbying by leather industry to exempt them from EU Deforestation Regulation - https://news.mongabay.com/2026/09/now-exempt-from-eu-defores...
[2] - lobbying to remove due diligence on human rights violation in supply chain in certain industry sectors - https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/eu-csddd...
> They have a long history of listening and acting on what industry experts tell them
Yes, most famously the diesel gate, european automakers cheating emission tests, [3] because EU invited companies to self regulate their lab tests.
[3] - https://corporateeurope.org/sites/default/files/driving_into...
World used to believe companies used to care for them, before snowden showed up. Even now people are still surprised, when companies like LG get caught doing illegal stuff. How long before there is a scandal in EU? Fool me once...
As much as i like to believe EU "cares" about the consumer, its really stupid for someone to blindly put their faith in Mullvad. Zero trust. When you are online, you are on your own.
I love folks who are also reasoning through security models! A few things to note here:
- We believe that all software running on a user's computer should be open source, so you can audit and build your own client: https://github.com/Sovereign-Engineering/obscuravpn-client
- With traditional Single-Party VPNs, even if you trust them fully and they're honest, they can still be compromised or hacked. With Obscura, even if we're hacked there's nothing to leak (other than WireGuard packets fully encrypted to Mullvad's servers).
- The change in trust is that instead of trusting a single company (Mullvad), you're trusting that not both Obscura AND Mullvad have been compromised, which is strictly less likely.
Another question: How does the Obscura client get the Mullvad exit server’s public key? Are they hardcoded at compile time, fetched from Mullvad's server, or fetched from Obscura's server?
The latter seems to be dangerous if there isn't some kind of signature verification done on the client side before using the key.
We do currently show it in the app and there's an easily clickable link so you can verify against Mullvad's website for the pubkey
Its just very, very, very unfortunate that they chose the US for Obscura.
Of all the jurisdictions in the world you chose the one that has become exponentially untrustworthy in the eyes of non-US users ....
1.5k comments discussion for context: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48717469
For example, every big tech company supports the current US administration in some capacity, either with funds, their surveillance stack or both.
Almost noone has stopped using big tech products and services because of that. (Unfortunately!)
But beware! There is someone in one tiny, privacy-preserving company who is doing something that not everyone agrees with!
That is a big problem, right? I think this is a big problem, everyone!
You see those comments in every Mullvad thread, but not necessarily in every thread about big tech products or services.
As you wrote yourself, this is not the majority. Quite the understatement.
However, this is only a tangential notion in my comment. What do you think of my (probably not unique or novel) observation that calls for ethical purity seem to be very selective in a way that (in effect!) benefits big tech?
For example: The other person in this very thread who pointed out that Mullvad is not perfectly pure recommended iCloud in their previous HN comment three days ago. Did their attitude change in this three days? Unlikely.
iCloud is a service from a company that deplatforms ICE transparency apps, among many other things. Its then CEO, Tim Cook, personally gifted one million USD to Donald Trump for his inauguration. (The very thing they criticized: "... their CEO is directly funding a far-right ...")
Humans are rarely pure or heavenly. Double standards help incumbents.
There is a difference, also, between saying, "I am not morally okay with this, so I am going to do X", vs. "If you don't also do X, you are a Bad Person."
To me, after reading up on the platform of the right-wing party in question and Mullvad's CEO's level of involvement with it, the situation with Mullvad is worse. And because it is a much smaller company, a much greater percentage of my money would go to that CEO in particular. And my choice to pay or not has much more influence on Mullvad than it ever could have on Apple.
Others are free to feel otherwise, and to use their money as they please.
Besides, there are plenty of small company alternatives, like IVPN, which was recommended widely around the time this news broke. And I think that people who found out about Mullvad are likely often the sort to put thought and research into their choice of VPN, rather than just buying NordVPN or whatever based on name recognition only.
A single data point is pretty meaningless. If there were actually data to be found on how the customer base numbers or growth rates of the various VPN companies have or haven't shifted since the news broke, that would be interesting.
Ultimately though, what other people do or don't choose to do is irrelevant to my own choice. Moral purity, as you call it, is impossible. The world is not simple. I am going to do my best to make ethical choices anyway.
And to reply to the parent of this comment: I also wouldn't judge others just because they are a Mullvad customer or whatever.
In case of Mullvad it's a niche product with many alternatives. Using something else is viable and it is interesting to many in the niche because their ties to far right was secret up until recently.
It might be harder with something like Basecamp or Figma if your job requires it.
It is almost impossible with things like Google.
Yes we should have these comments in every thread about big tech. It doesn't mean we shouldn't do something about Mullvad.
As for what's different: We're a Multi-*Party* Relays (vs. traditional VPNs which are Single-Party Relays): https://www.privacyguides.org/articles/2024/11/17/where-are-...
With Multi-Party Relays you no longer have a trust a single entity not being malicious or compromised. More on this here: https://obscura.com/#how
Also, all our apps are open-source as well: https://github.com/Sovereign-Engineering/obscuravpn-client
Disclaimer: I'm the creator of Obscura.
The differences are:
- We allow you to choose an exit location (I believe iCloud Private Relay restricts you to the same location)
- Our exit hop is Mullvad instead of Cloudflare+Fastly+Akamai
- We use QUIC for transport instead of HTTP/3 (which is built on QUIC and has a bit more overhead)
“1: Maintain general location
2: Use country and time zone
Maintain your general location to receive localized content, or enhance your privacy by using a broader IP address based on your country and time zone.
Safari Private Browsing always uses an IP location from your country and time zone.”
As they should, IMHO.
Besides being reprehensible, that kind of mass trafficking requires mass surveillance. It simply can't be done without it.
This kind of surveillance is antithetical to what Mullvad promises.
There of course could be a "privacy for me and my customers, but not for thee" thing in their minds.
But I don't trust that CEO whatsoever, and I don't trust the rest of Mullvad's leadership either because their response to the backlash was mealy mouthed "everyone is entitled to their opinion, let's all be civil" minimization schlock. They didn't give a fuck; they just wanted the PR problem to go away.
Mullvad's VPN service might continue to be trustworthy, but... I have other options. And it could be enshittified over time, just like so many other things. At least one CEO has a motivation to enable mass surveillance.
I'm also just not going to knowingly put money into the hands of someone I know will use it for evil, if and when I have a choice, which in this case I do.
I can't see how this has any bearing on the functioning of Mullvad, if they were campaigning on circumventing privacy rights it'd be a different story.
It's not related to the product at all, not even privacy policy proposal associated with the party.
Imagine feeling emboldened to share your two cents every single time because some company founder was a douche to you once and most importantly, the implied take, that everyone else should also boycott them because of this.
Very true, but if even 1 of (Obscura, Mullvad) is honest, there's no de-anonymization.
For traditional Single-Party VPNs, you just need to compromise 1 party, with Two-Party Relays, you need to compromise both.
Just Obscura's compromise is enough, as pointed out previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43016574
Unless something has changed in Obscura's architecture, the interface with Mullvad is under Obscura's control, and thus it can compromise client's credentials. This is unlike iCloud Private Relay where the guarantees are cryptographic in nature and not merely based on promises.
Yup, exactly!
Yup! Mostly less changes on Mullvad's side. Also QUIC has less overhead than MASQUE by definition.
side note: i really wish more companies did the no email + randomized account number flow. there is a certain popular "pro-privacy" product beloved by many here that requires an email address and refuses to offer a similar account number method, which has turned me off the product.
Please don’t speak in riddles. Just say what you mean.
although i guess people's curiosity is also dragging my comment in an unrelated direction anyways. lose-lose situation.
my main point is that the account number method is really nice, and a great selling point for such privacy-conscious products. not offering it in a privacy-conscious product is enough signal that it has made me choose not to purchase the product. that's the important bit, and where i was hoping to drive the conversation.
next time i will just keep my thoughts to myself and we'll all be happy.
> side note: i really wish more companies did the no email + randomized account number flow.
Everything you said after that added confusion and this tangent instead of the conversation you wanted to have.
I also have no idea what company/service you're talking about
this isn't some hidden feature you get caught with your pants down over. if you try to sign up to something and it doesn't offer an account number, you know that it doesn't offer an account number instantly.
no time wasted for you. it's not some nefarious plot by the company.
it's just a business decision. i was hoping to talk about the business decision of that particular sign up flow.
If you're talking about Proton VPN, they do support "credential-less accounts" through their official apps, I believe? At least, on Android since 2024: https://www.androidpolice.com/proton-vpn-works-without-accou...
Proton VPN ensures privacy.
Yeah we thought the randomized account number flow was an ingenious idea, so we did that and made the last digit a Verhoeff checksum to check for mistypes!
Though sometimes people forget to write the number down and... There's not much we can do.
Seems like you guys have two distinct ideas of a visual identity completely at odds there. Shape contrast is nice and can be rather fun to play with, but it has to be handled with care. Right now it feels like the designer had a bunch of ideas and didn’t know how to bring them together in a cohesive identity.
Bonus point for the TRON reference at the end! “I fight for the users!”
I'm a sucker for retro 8-bit graphics and fun mascots, so we went with that, but when we experimented with 8-bit for actual UI and long text we immediately found it to be super unusable and unreadable :-(
> Bonus point for the TRON reference at the end! “I fight for the users!”
Ah ofc the HN poster knows the reference :-) I've had it as my email signature since high school I think.
https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/articles/harvard-bo... is a good example: because the person making the threat was one of the few people on the campus network using Tor at the time the threatening emails were sent, he was identified as a suspect.
If an activity is traced to the Obscura network, and your network activity shows you as one of few people using it at the time - or, if you’re using it for completely unrelated things and are unlucky enough to have accessed at the same time someone else used the network for illegal activity - you could be at risk.
I guess they never heard of Zero Knowledge Systems: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_Knowledge_Systems
The single point of failure for this product is Mullvad and its leadership's changing opinions.
Why not buy a Low End Box and run one of the WG Setup scripts to get you going? You'll lose the anonymity, but its your box, a clean IP, significantly cheaper than a commercial vpn.
They are careful to not exactly claim the same anonymity properties of Tor, though I think a lay reader will read that differently (ie, that they do have the same anonymity property as Tor).
That said being able to verify the inner wireguard conn to mullvad is nice. Of course you have to trust them that they aren't colluding with mullvad to share your identity/ip. But same goes for OHTTP.
Actually it's WireGuard over QUIC Unreliable Datagrams!
You would go with this solution if you don't trust Tailscale or NordVPN, I guess.
I could be wrong but in Tailscale if you use Mullvad as an exit node, the traffic flows directly from your device to Mullvad's servers.
Whereas with Obscura, your traffic flows to the Obscura relay, then the Mullvad exit.
I'm under the impression that my personal device isn't the WireGuard endpoint for the Mullvad connection, Tailscale is.
Obviously seems to be an industry-wide problem, but I hope both you and Tailscale can consider alternative endpoints for those who don't want to rely on the Mullvad infrastructure.
Diversification of endpoint providers will help insolate your company from a collapse if Mullvad decides to sell out, and make you more attractive to former Mullvad customers turned off by their Co-Founder's investment of their privacy dollars into extreme right-wing politics.
As far as I know, they don't plan to part ways with the "great replacement theory" executive staff being paid enough to be the highest contributor to the Swedish far-right party Örebropartiet. You have to question whether their highest-paid staff's loyalty to far-right politics influences Mullvad decisions and future partnerships.
Cross the Örebropartiet, and you might be issuing refunds a year from now.
Other than the obvious hassle? XP
If you connect to Mullvad over NordVPN:
- You're giving both Mullvad and Nord some payment information (with Obscura you only give that to us, Mullvad has no idea)
- You don't get our QUIC-based obfuscation (see more here: https://obscura.com/blog/bootstrapping-trust/)
This doesn't prove it. However, Obscura makes it so that there's no *single party* that if hacked or otherwise compromised would hurt your internet privacy.
Happy to answer any questions y’all might have!
Also, the technical folks may be more interested in our original post: https://obscura.com/blog/bootstrapping-trust/
Some of them rely on people having a helpful third party in ("free") country to set up a private relay in something like Azure IP space that isn't used by any other VPN users, so it doesn't attract a level of attention (or attention by multiples of different peoples' encrypted flows) that publicly published commercial VPN services do. It's a hard problem to solve on a scale of more than a couple of people.
The multi party relay concept is great, my concerns are more with traffic detection/DPI in between the end user and the first hop in the relay.
I believe QUIC has been harder to block for censors, esp with Chaos Protection on by default in Chrome. See: https://gfw.report/publications/usenixsecurity25/en/
Packet padding but no docs about this?
We don't actually, try visiting it with Mullvad turned on!
> Packet padding but no docs about this?
Yeah it's an experimental feature, we're not 100% happy about how we implemented it so we've left it experimental and are working on a v2.
This is where part of your money flows to (I have opinions about this).
Not sure if you are also aware of it.
Many src-dst connections but as a single logical connection. There's no way any middlebox could easy capture full data even metadata.
http2/QUIC can do something similar with frames (and hopefully multipath)
Don't place your whole stream inside a single src-dst IP connection. Demux them into many paths over the Internet. We need more variety of "traffic shapes" to combat Internet surveillance.
I'd argue it's even more effective than encryption. Split your activity and mix them, monitor traffic over a single transport is useless.
Yeah it'd be a cool addition to combat internet surveillance but in practicality it may have a lot of problems:
1. Deteriorated performance if it's across unequal links (3G vs. Fibre WiFi)
2. Many countries have single exits to the global internet so they'd be able to assemble everything there
3. The most important plaintext data is probably in the TLS SNI which usually sits in a single packet for TLS in HTTP/3
Hmm, maybe consider MPTCP-like design? It tackles exactly the problem you descrbed.
> Many countries have single exits to the global internet
Well it's f'ed anyway. But multipath makes content restoring much, much more complicated.
How is this possible? If the exit server doesn't know your IP, how does it know where to send the traffic?
Basically:
Your device <-> Obscura Relay <-> Mullvad Exit <-> Internet
So the exit server knows the IP of the Obscura Relay, but never sees your device's IP, lmk if that's clear!
Secondly, Mullvad did what Obscura does now years ago.
Furthermore who needs a gamified VPN tool?
But the claim in Obscura's FAQ that paying with Bitcoin or Monero offers more privacy than paying with a credit card is sadly misguided. No-KYC cryptocurrency is largely a thing of the past, and outfits like Chainanalysis can associate a Lightning or Monero address to a human with near-perfect accuracy. The fact that Obscura's FAQ doesn't acknowledge this makes me feel like its author was either pretending this is not the case, or is unaware of it. Either of those is pretty bad.
Mullvad lets customers sign up for an account and pay in cash, which is a good, privacy-preserving choice. In the US, payment by postal money order or by gift card, either of which can be purchased with cash, would also be good choices. Users, and Obscura, should not be fooled by some vague association of cryptocurrency and privacy. In the age of ubiquitous KYC that ship has sailed with the possible exception of ZCash. And I wouldn't bet my life on ZCash, either.
citation needed.
that said, the anonymity set in monero for the moment is 16 per transaction and isn't zero knowledge (a quantum adversary can view the transaction graph but not the amounts) which isn't ideal. they are apparently working on changing this.
Lately Bisq's been going through some bullshit, a few months ago they had a security issue and they shut the whole network down by setting it to require a version of the software that didn't exist for weeks, and lately they've been requiring mandatory updates every week or so. It does work by having you make money transfers to total strangers, revealing your full details, but it's the best I've found.
IIRC, Bisq 2 is for buying your very first BTC in small amounts at a premium (a Matrix chatroom still also exists for this), Bisq 1 is for buying larger amounts at closer to cost but requires a security deposit first.
I totally agree for traditional Single-Party VPNs, which is why we are a Two-Party Relay. More here: https://obscura.com/blog/bootstrapping-trust/
Really? XD