[wfhordie]

If your threat model includes nation state intervention, a 5 Euro VPN isn't going to help you. In fact, no VPN is going to help you. The best you can get is probably Tor + Tails, but even then you better be looking over your shoulder.

[spupe]

That's not necessarily true. A lot of state surveillance comes through having backdoor or legal access to lots of services. Many VPNs have been tested in court on whether they actually have information on you to disclose, and some even have independent audits to verify that such information is not even kept.

[wfhordie]

At best, you can hope to make surveilling you more expensive or more inconvenient. But if Snowden taught us anything, it's that whatever you needed to do to get yourself tangled up in the 5/14 eyes trip-wire, you've already done, long ago, and continue to do.

VPNs don't mean shit. You're leaking data everywhere you go. Browser fingerprinting, WiFi/BT signals, cell tower signals, GPS. If you own a smart phone and a credit card you're already fucked.

Let's not confuse things for people by making them think if they plop a 5 Euro VPN between them and their yahoo! email account that this does anything at all to deter state level actors.

VPNs are good for a few things:

(1) Evading state-sponsored censorship (which uses technology minted in good old Silicon Valley) -- where the state doesn't really care unless you're really bothering them

(2) Marginally disrupting the pan-opticon that is surveillance capitalism by mixing the signals a bit, where your ISP can't sell you out to data brokers. But even then... DNS leaks, etc still happen and still fuck with the plan.

(3) Maybe not getting scooped up as badly in the state dragnet, and maybe not being accused of something you actually didn't have anything to do with.

But brother, if you think you're gonna be the next Ross Ulbrich with your Mullvad VPN, then you better be memorizing your recipe for toilet wine because you're gonna land in a fed pen.

[spupe]

Mate, I don't know if you realize this, but most people here just want to hide due to minor privacy concerns, not a plan to overthrow the government or some shit. Of course if the FBI is after you, no, Mullvad won't protect you. But in the more realistic scenario that Disney might be after you, would Mullvad be a liability or not, that is the question.

[nl]

There's a big difference between getting caught up in a 5-eyes dragnet vs some local police investigation vs a copyright subpoena.

A VPN headquarted offshore that will only respond to local subpoenas with local legal representation is pretty good protection against the second two.

[anjel]

There's a difference for now, anyhow

[causality0]

That is true but not relevant to my question of whether Mullvad's data retention policies have been tested in court. One uses a commercial VPN to pirate HBO, not dodge the alphabet boys.

[k8sToGo]

or be in a state that is not an ally.