| > is not a hurdle for your local LEA you think it might be Everything is possible, of course, but in no world is it <= difficult to get information out of an entity outside your borders. A police officer can go to my local ISP's office and ask to see my logs. If he gets lucky, he gets them, otherwise his escalation path is smaller. If he wants to do that to Mullvad he has to start some process that goes through multiple people and takes a lot more time. Additionally, by the time he reaches Mullvad he probably has my ISP logs. > That's your assumption, not an assertion Mullvad makes? IDK what they have to say about it, but the ISP has a hardware line to my home, my name on a contract and recurring card payments. Mullvad has some money with no clear source and an ID with 3-4 people on it that jump ID every other month. I can't change my ISP every other month so one has a single big ass log for my home in a folder with my name on it and my payments while the other has multiple logs they have to bring together and no name on the payments. They can absolutely parse things and follow me across IDs to put me in a big log and maybe do some data magic to tie it to my person but: 1- It's extra work for them to get to the ISP starting point 2- That starting point is actually still worse since possible mistakes in that process can be argued in court. |
So, VPNs do not protect against surveillance. Both of us agree.
> some data magic
The EU e-Evidence Regulation requires this of EU & EFTA based providers. Make what you will.