[HN Gopher] Obscura: The VPN that can't track your activity
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       Obscura: The VPN that can't track your activity
        
       Author : coldblues
       Score  : 16 points
       Date   : 2023-09-29 21:41 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (obscuravpn.io)
 (TXT) w3m dump (obscuravpn.io)
        
       | potamic wrote:
       | How does this compare to Mullvad who also use randomized account
       | numbers? Beyond that, whether account number activity is logged
       | is a matter of trust.
        
       | RockRobotRock wrote:
       | >How is Obscura's design different from Tor?
       | 
       | >We have immense respect for the Tor project (please donate to
       | the foundation if you can), but its slow speed and frequent
       | network-wide DDoS attacks make it infeasible for everyday use.
       | 
       | >Obscura has most of the benefits of connecting via Tor but is
       | optimized for everyday use by being much faster and more
       | reliable.
       | 
       | Curious about the details on this.
        
       | thinkmassive wrote:
       | Best attempt at an explanation of how it works that I've seen so
       | far:
       | 
       | > My understanding is it's CONNECT-IP / MASQUE where the
       | encrypted & HTTP encapsulated IP request is sent to Obscura and
       | the details of the request are forwarded to what they're calling
       | a "Blind Relay" which only knows Obsucra's IP. 2-hop onion
       | routing with pre-defined routes. No Tor consensus. Very simple.
       | https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-masque-connect-i...
       | 
       | - bitgould from https://stacker.news/items/268728/r/031ef7d322
       | 
       | Impossible to say without seeing the source code though.
        
         | lxgr wrote:
         | So essentially the same thing as iCloud Private Relay, then?
         | Does it also use blind signatures for authentication to the
         | first relay?
        
       | lxgr wrote:
       | Looks nice, but it's barely the first VPN or proxy service trying
       | to make itself oblivious of the traffic it serves (plausible or
       | not).
       | 
       | There's Google One VPN (which uses blind signatures for access
       | tokens) as well as iCloud Private Relay (which leverages nested
       | encrypted channels terminated by a different entity than the one
       | that receives user-side traffic, as well as blind signatures for
       | authentication if I remember correctly).
       | 
       | That said, it's definitely nice to have alternatives, but as with
       | all VPN services, I'd be cautious - the proposition of "perfectly
       | anonymous network access" attracts a lot of attention, not all of
       | it beneficial to the product/project.
        
       | pricci wrote:
       | > Pay anonymously with Bitcoin. Or use Lightning for instant
       | payments and lower fees.
       | 
       | Bitcoin is not anonymous. This makes me doubt of all their
       | privacy claims
        
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       (page generated 2023-09-29 23:00 UTC)