I don’t understand. The proposed legislation would force ID verification for Mullvad users. You’re still a Mullvad user, regardless of whether you connect through your VPS.
The first hop would go from “my UK client machine” -> “my VPN server elsewhere” which would impede Mullvad from automatically recognize you as a UK customer because that “server elsewhere” wouldn’t have a UK IP address.
The second, Mullvad, hop would go from “my VPN server elsewhere” -> “some other IP maybe in yet another country”
As long as you didn’t pay with a UK payment system (so, use a crypto currency or send them money in an envelope), due to that first hop Mullvad would have no way to know you are British and thus no legal obligation to treat you as such.
However a “my server elsewhere” also needs to be paid for. Further, all connections from that server would always be yours since you would be the single user of that server. Adding a Mullvad hop after that adds the anonymization of, for the rest of the Internet, your stuff being just one amongst many connections from many Mullvad clients coming from that server, plus Mullvad is probably much better at anonymizing stuff that “random techie setting up their own a VPN server on a VPS”, plus if you pay Mullvad using an anonymous payment system, they themselves have no idea who you are if they were ever legally forced to disclose it.
That first hop gives Mullvad plausible deniability about serving a UK customer without ID, whilst the second hop gives you a stronger anonymity than you would get if your entrance point into the internet was a single-user server you owner or rented.
VPS control is a much bigger pandora’s box to open than VPN control because there are way more VPS providers than VPN providers and there are constantly new ones popping up, plus there are millions of uses for a VPS which are wholly unrelated to VPNs.
How exactly would the UK Government enforce a law to “identify all VPN users just in case they’re British ones trying to run a VPN server abroad” on tens of thousands of VPS providers worldwide whose business is just proving open-ended server infrastructure to anybody anywhere for any technological use?
Govts don’t just not make legislation because they don’t know how to enforce it. They make the law, and they figure out the enforcement later. VPS providers will comply because they don’t give a single shit about your privacy and aren’t going to take the risk.
Mullvad also accepts anonymous cash payments, good luck with identifying me as a mullvad user with only an envelope, a target address,an account id which isn’t tied to a name and 10 bucks in it.
Roll up your own vpn? Where the server is in your name? Or your home IP?
yeah, it’s not even close to being anonymous, but at least you will get out of the OSA bullshit
Just use your server to connect to Mullvad
Why not just connect directly?
No need for age verification to connect to your own server + mullvad obfuscating your identity afterwards
I don’t understand. The proposed legislation would force ID verification for Mullvad users. You’re still a Mullvad user, regardless of whether you connect through your VPS.
The first hop would go from “my UK client machine” -> “my VPN server elsewhere” which would impede Mullvad from automatically recognize you as a UK customer because that “server elsewhere” wouldn’t have a UK IP address.
The second, Mullvad, hop would go from “my VPN server elsewhere” -> “some other IP maybe in yet another country”
As long as you didn’t pay with a UK payment system (so, use a crypto currency or send them money in an envelope), due to that first hop Mullvad would have no way to know you are British and thus no legal obligation to treat you as such.
However a “my server elsewhere” also needs to be paid for. Further, all connections from that server would always be yours since you would be the single user of that server. Adding a Mullvad hop after that adds the anonymization of, for the rest of the Internet, your stuff being just one amongst many connections from many Mullvad clients coming from that server, plus Mullvad is probably much better at anonymizing stuff that “random techie setting up their own a VPN server on a VPS”, plus if you pay Mullvad using an anonymous payment system, they themselves have no idea who you are if they were ever legally forced to disclose it.
That first hop gives Mullvad plausible deniability about serving a UK customer without ID, whilst the second hop gives you a stronger anonymity than you would get if your entrance point into the internet was a single-user server you owner or rented.
And you think VPSs would be omitted from this legislation?
VPS control is a much bigger pandora’s box to open than VPN control because there are way more VPS providers than VPN providers and there are constantly new ones popping up, plus there are millions of uses for a VPS which are wholly unrelated to VPNs.
How exactly would the UK Government enforce a law to “identify all VPN users just in case they’re British ones trying to run a VPN server abroad” on tens of thousands of VPS providers worldwide whose business is just proving open-ended server infrastructure to anybody anywhere for any technological use?
Govts don’t just not make legislation because they don’t know how to enforce it. They make the law, and they figure out the enforcement later. VPS providers will comply because they don’t give a single shit about your privacy and aren’t going to take the risk.
Mullvad also accepts anonymous cash payments, good luck with identifying me as a mullvad user with only an envelope, a target address,an account id which isn’t tied to a name and 10 bucks in it.