Yeah Mullvad looks good (as does Obscura). I think both operate in-memory only. You can even send in cash to Mullvad for less traceability.
My AI kept pushing me toward Mullvad (as well as paying via crypto for more privacy) but when you think about it, unless you are using someone else’s ISP (or maybe even computer) to connect to it there will still be a link to you and the VPN, because if someone has access to your ISP and the VPN, they’ll know you/your IP connected to the VPN so that VPN account will be tied to you. So most govts could probably get that info since most (esp in the West) now have snooping laws that can demand such access.
One thing I forgot to say in the OP was for those who use a VPN, what do you think of it?
In a rare twist, I’ll be more optimistic. I know that my ISP here in Bulgaria is extremely customer-oriented and is also fighting for its users. They have argued in court that the snooping that the government wants them to install makes their operations much more expensive and as such it would drive them out of business. They asked for pretty hefty governmental subsidies to that effect.
Amusingly, this won them the court case and to my knowledge the government left them alone.
Furthermore, if you are even half-serious about privacy then you’ll visit a country like my Bulgaria or Romania (that has even better connectivity than us, and trust me that’s an achievement!) and colocate your own server + get a 10Gbps link right there in the datacenter, for some meagre 150-200 EUR a month maximum. You can then torrent via an SSH session in that remote machine and then stream from it via encrypted traffic.
If somebody comes knocking, you will just ¯_(ツ)_/¯ and say that it is your employer’s policy to work on remote machines and stream data from them, for security reasons. They cannot do anything unless you are a suspect of international terrorism. And in 99% of the cases nobody will come knocking. As much as UK is relentlessly marching towards the “V for Vendetta” movie’s reality, having encrypted internet traffic is still not a crime.
I am not saying we should become cybercriminals. Meh. I am too tired for that. But I will also not stand idly and watch my freedoms be taken away from me. These governments are completely clueless how quickly we the technologists can make an alternative Internet. Or maybe some of them know it and are trying to slowly boil us like the proverbial frog.
Well, it does not work on me.
Back on topic, there is still plenty we can do and we can have 99% plausible deniability.
I only skimmed the list, but haven’t really seen something that as a primary selling point provides a VPN, everything seems to be “just” anonymizers that happen to provide a VPN as an implementation detail…
Tailscale has been my work horse for a few years; haven’t gotten to try out many others because they’ll all conflict with tailscale (and i like it too much :D)
